Posted on 09/23/2014 12:58:09 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
"Left Behind" comes out this week, an apocalyptic thriller starring Nicolas Cage. Based on the best-selling book series, the movie revolves around "the rapture": a belief that one day all Christians will suddenly vanish, disappearing from the earth to go be with God, while the world they "left behind" plunges into apocalyptic destruction.
Americans may find "Left Behind" to be best-selling entertainment, but is it biblical? I say no. In fact, as a follower of Jesus I find the rapture to be not just a little bit off, but actually upside-down and backwards.
When Jesus comes, here are a few reasons why I want to be left behind.
A Recent Invention
The rapture is new to the Christian scene. It arose in the late 1800's, when Margaret MacDonald, a fifteen-year-old Scottish girl, claimed to have it revealed to her in a vision. Her vision was then picked up and popularized by the famous British preacher J.N. Darby, during his extensive travels in America.
All love to the high school prom queen and traveling street preacher, but this is a suspiciously short track record for nearly 2000 years of Christian theology.
Okay, so it's new. But does it have any biblical support? Let's take a look at the two passages most frequently cited and see if they hold any weight.
Don't Get Taken
The name "Left Behind" comes from the words of Jesus, when he says:
"As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man . . . Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left." (Matthew 24:37-41)
Pretty straightforward, right? Son of Man shows up. Some are taken. Some are left behind.
The problem is this: taken means killed.
If you lived "in the days of Noah," getting taken by the flood wasn't a good thing. It didn't mean being rescued, it meant getting taken out. Dead. Gone. Killed. Knocked over by the judgment of God. Wiped out by the flood.
Jesus confirms this when he says, smack-dab in the heart of this passage, that before the flood came people were partying it up in the empire: eating sushi and drinking wine, throwing glitzy wedding bashes, rockin' out and living high off the hog.
"They knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away."
If you lived in Noah's day, you didn't want to get taken. You wanted to be left behind.
So when rapture enthusiasts say they can't wait to get "taken," I can't help but think of Inigo Montoya's penetrating slogan from "The Princess Bride": "You keep on using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means."
Jesus tells us that taken means judged; left behind means salvation.
I, for one, want to be left behind.
The King's Arrival
The second passage most often used to support the rapture comes when Paul comforts people who've lost loved ones with the hope of resurrection. When Jesus returns, we're told, the trumpet will sound and:
The dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)
At first glance, this could look like "the rapture." But if the rapture is such a recent theological invention, how was this passage historically understood?
N. T. Wright gives some helpful context. In the ancient Roman Empire, when the emperor came to visit a city, upon word of his arrival those loyal to the emperor would leave the city to go out and meet him, in order to join the triumphant procession back in.1
So the picture here is similar: the earth is under siege, under the corrupt power of sin, destruction and death. But Jesus, the "good emperor," is returning to "liberate his city," to deliver God's world from the dark and disastrous powers that now hold sway.
When Jesus comes "down from heaven" in verse 16, his loyal followers go out to meet him "in the air" – not to stay floating in some ethereal sky-space like mutant birds, but to join his victorious procession to liberate the world.
Jesus comes not to whisk us out of earth and into heaven, but to establish God's just and righteous kingdom on earth as in heaven.
Once again, "Left Behind" gets it upside-down: our redemptive hope is oriented not "away from" this world, but "towards" it.
Conclusion
Don't get "taken" by rapture theology; you want to be "left behind." The irony is that "Left Behind" is not just a little bit off, it is completely backwards. Our hope is not "in the air," it is in Jesus' redemptive kingdom "for the world."
The danger of "Left Behind's" impact is this: it uses fear to set up an "us vs. them," "save yourself," escapist hope of "beam me up Scotty and get me out of this world." But as I show in my new book, The Skeletons in God's Closet (shameless plug ), God's mission is not to get us out of earth and into heaven or hell, but rather to redeem earth from the destructive power of sin, death and hell.
Our hope is not escapist or fear-based for our own self-preservation. It is courageously loving, sacrificially suffering, redemptively hopeful for the world
When Jesus comes to establish God's kingdom, I for one want to be here.
I want to be left behind.
1. N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 217-218.
Joshua Ryan Butler is the author of The Skeletons in God's Closet: The Mercy of Hell, The Surprise of Judgment, The Hope of Holy War (Thomas Nelson, October 2014), and pastor of local and global outreach at Imago Dei Community (Portland, OR).
Does that mean you'll be available to feed my dog?
The author re-interprets 'meeting the lord in the air' but conveniently ignores the "caught up" part of the pssages. Modernists are slowing eliminating aspects of the ressurrection until they can bury it entirely.
Defense is completely justified, we’re talking about national/criminal leaders who are so bloodthirsty that they expend their own nations’ human lives for their own selfish purposes, as in World War II on steroids, pretty much a modernized war of imperialism.
Thanks so much for posting this. My father was a theologian. Could read Greek/Hebrew. He’d tell me the modern day church skewed much of the Bible because they didn’t understand the original meaning of a word or set of words....or didn’t understand the implication of an example used. Sort of like a camel through the needle. The needle was an opening so small it was difficult to get a camel through with it’s big load of goods to enter the city. So a sewing needle is not what was being spoken of. Plus Christ did tell his disciples some of the current generation would be alive when “these things come to pass’. Yet folks try to say it’s for this generation and have been for quite a few generations!
Can you please give us the reference for your Irenaeus and Cyprian quotes? I mean, which books of theirs, which chapter, etc. As to Ephraim, is it Pseudo-Ephraim you are referring to?
you WISH you were the judge
Cyprian, Treatises of Cyprian.
Ephraim the Syrian, Pseudo Ephraim, On The Last Times 2
The Greek word for taken is παραλαμβάνεται in both verses 40 and 41. It is in the present indicative middle/passive tense.
The root word is παραλαμβάνω.
HELPS Word-studies
3880 paralambánō (from 3844 /pará, "from close-alongside" and 2983 /lambánō, "aggressively take") – to take (receive) by showing strong personal initiative.
The greek for left is ἀφίεται.
The root word is ἀφίημι
863 aphíēmi (from 575 /apó, "away from" and hiēmi, "send") – properly, send away; release (discharge).
It is understood that you are leaving someone and not taking them as a companion.
The greek contradicts what you are saying.
In this case you do want to be taken. Who is doing the taking? Christ is. You want to be taken by Him and not left behind by Him as this would mean you are not His companion.
Does it really matter if you believe in the Rapture or not if you believe that Jesus was the living Son of God, lived without sin so that He could become the scapegoat for us all?
I could not find a single reference where being “taken” was translated to mean killed and judged.
No, it doesn’t. My only concern is that fervent believers in the rapture will fail to prepare themselves and may be bereft if they’re wrong. As I said before, I hope they’re right but mid-Trib seems correct in my estimation.
Another know-nothing who feels compelled to broadcast his weak point of view.
Darby was the ultimate fruitcake. His Plymouth Bretheran spawned a cabal of demonic influences that continue to curse the world.
There are generational curses instigated by his followers in which their families have suffered horrors for 3 and 4 generations.
I have done intervention on behalf of some of these sufferers for over 40 years with very limited success. They have all turned away from a God they perceive as hate filled and vengeful.
Rest assured those who are taken will suffer the loss of their greatest hope. They will not be left behind to reign with Christ.
“As long as I can be in the company of Jesus forever I don’t care how I get there I just want to be there.”
Amen. I trust His plan.
Condemning an interpretation of scripture on the basis of novelty with a novel interpretation oneself does seem rather conflicted and ill-informed, doesn’t it?
LOL!!! Post of the Day!
And in fact it does not matter who is right. Believe in Him, behave accordingly, and then when He comes, end up in His presence. At that point, I could care less if that means in Heaven or on a redeemed Earth (which with Him here will be Heaven-like).
Interesting post. This passage indicates we should consider it a gift to suffer for Christ:
Php 1:29 For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;
So does this one:
Act 5:41 And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.
And this one:
Luk 6:22 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.
Luk 6:23 Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.
In Jesus’ High Priestly prayer in John 17 there’s also these tidbits:
Joh 17:9 I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.
Joh 17:15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
Joh 17:20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
So Christ is praying for believers at that time in verse 9, then He prayed for all who would ever believe in verse 20. In between, in verse 15, He specifically prayed that the Father (absolutely) not take them out of the world, but to guard them from the evil.
So I see insufficient evidence for a pretrib rapture. On the contrary, I see that Christians are supposed to be prepared to suffer for Christ’s sake, and consider it a gift, because of the eternal rewards involved.
You could try reading the article; the part that quotes Jesus himself:
Jesus confirms this when he says, smack-dab in the heart of this passage, that before the flood came people were partying it up in the empire ...
"They knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away."
If you lived in Noah's day, you didn't want to get taken. You wanted to be left behind.
I’m a little confused. Haven’t there already been several “Left Behind” movies?
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