>>> If “apostasy” is supposed to mean a departure from earth (in a pretrib rapture), instead of a departure from the the faith, why is it nobody in church history interpreted the way you do until the rise of pretribulationism in the early 19th century?
Well... maybe because there weren’t many bibles around???
Check your history on that.
Pre-trib rapture is taught best I think through the tradition of Jewish courtship, engagement, and the marriage ceremony.
There are several scriptures which give evidence that when Jesus returns to earth for everyone to see, He does so with the saints. All born again Christians fall into that category.
I said >
If “apostasy” is supposed to mean a departure from earth (in a pretrib rapture), instead of a departure from the the faith, why is it nobody in church history interpreted the way you do until the rise of pretribulationism in the early 19th century?
Your reply >
Well... maybe because there weren’t many bibles around??? Check your history on that.
My reply >
John Darby and the Plymouth Brethren of England in early 19th century Great Britain was “the rise of pretribulationism” I was speaking about. You seem to be thinking of the middle ages - when Europe, including England, was under the power of the Papacy, when indeed “there weren’t many bibles around.” The common man did not have access to the bible then, only the Catholic priesthood.
After the Protestant Reformation, and by the 19th century, this was no longer the case. You would never know it from today’s British, but the British Empire was at one time very biblical. This was Victorian England, the days of great preachers like Charles Haddon Spurgeon.
Having examined their Bibles, most British Protestants abandoned Roman Catholic Amillennialism, and had became Premillennialists. With Darby’s new theory of the pretrib rapture, a new kind of Premillennialism came on the scene, Dispensationalsm, the pretrib rapture being its main feature.
This caused a major split among Premillennialists between Darby’s new pretrib form of Premillennialism, called “Dispensationalism,” and the “Historic Premillennialists,” “Historic” meaning they held to the “historic” post-tribulation rapture - “historic” as opposed to Darby’s new pretrib view - which has continued to this day. As you might guess, I am the latter.
But not even John Darby nor any of his followers had the temerity to interpret the falling away of 2 Thess. 2 as a pretrib rapture. That notion arose about a century later in America. Most Dispensationalists do not interpret it as you.