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).
Because several hundred million lemmings can't possibly be wrong, no matter how far the fall.
They’re like Atlas Shrugged— poorly written novels that make even worse movies.
And for a movie about The End, you’d think they’d get to it already!
Israel plays a central role in the end times. Israel wasn’t reconstituted until 1948, so any generation prior to that who thought the end was nigh, didn’t know the scriptures very well.
The important thing to remember is that Jesus Christ died on the cross to save us from God's wrath. So why would God send those for whom he already died and paid the price through his wrath from which they are saved?
In the flood while Noah is the type of the Jews 144,000 who are sealed and protected through the judgment. Enoch was the type of Christ he had a close relationship with God and was taken up before the judgment.
The best scripture on the rapture, is found in I Thessalonians 4:13-18: “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
It would not be very comforting to remind each other that we have to go through 7 years of God's wrath. As far as the attitude this should create in us. As we see the prophecies being fulfilled and the stage set for the end times we should be presented with a renewed urgency to spread our faith. We cannot count on the foretold happens of Revelation to convince people the devil has been preparing for this time well (Matthew 24: 24) and Jesus could come back at any time (Matthew 25:13).
Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus.
אָסַף
'acaph
to gather, receive, remove, gather in
to gather, collect
to gather (an individual into company of others)
to bring up the rear
to gather and take away, remove, withdraw
(Niphal)
to assemble, be gathered
to be gathered to one's fathers
to be brought in or into (association with others)
to be taken away, removed, perish
(Piel)
to gather (harvest)
to take in, receive into
rearguard, rearward (subst)
(Pual) to be gathered
(Hithpael) to gather oneself or themselves
The Sar Shalom
Hebrew-English Bible!
http://www.sarshalom.us/resources/scripture/asv/bible.html
And yes the Brit HaHadashah was written in Hebrew and then dumbed-down into Greek.
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.
Nuf said.
This sounds silly but I first heard of the Rapture reading a Jack Chick comic tract called “The Beast”.
In one scene a distraught husband is in the living room clutching the telephone while in the kitchen unattended pots are boiling over. The shaking man cries out,
“Oh, my God, WHERE’S MY WIFE!!?” The Rapture came, just like she said it would!”
Do I believe in the events of the End Times? Yes!
Cage has had some stinkers, but he’s had some good ones too. I really liked the first “National Treasure”.
Furthermore to my first point:
Revelation 19:14-16 “And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King Of Kings, And Lord Of Lords.”
Whoever is coming back with Jesus is are in heaven. Not the heavens and they are already there, not waiting for him to come back. So it would seem that I Thessalonians 4:13-18 takes place before Jesus comes back to kick but and take names.
Lest we think that the army is angels Jude clarifies for us. Jude v.14 “And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,”
Enoch
Book 1: Watchers
Chapter 1
1 The words of the blessing of Enoch, wherewith he blessed the elect and righteous, who will be 2 living in the day of tribulation, when all the wicked and godless are to be removed. And he took up his parable and said -Enoch a righteous man, whose eyes were opened by God, saw the vision of the Holy One in the heavens, which the angels showed me, and from them I heard everything, and from them I understood as I saw, but not for this generation, but for a remote one which is for to come.
3 Concerning the elect I said, and took up my parable concerning them: The Holy Great One will come forth from His dwelling, 4 And the eternal God will tread upon the earth, (even) on Mount Sinai, [And appear from His camp] And appear in the strength of His might from the heaven of heavens.
5 And all shall be smitten with fear And the Watchers shall quake, And great fear and trembling shall seize them unto the ends of the earth. 6 And the high mountains shall be shaken, And the high hills shall be made low, And shall melt like wax before the flame
7 And the earth shall be wholly rent in sunder, And all that is upon the earth shall perish, And there shall be a judgement upon all (men).
8 But with the righteous He will make peace. And will protect the elect, And mercy shall be upon them. And they shall all belong to God, And they shall be prospered, And they shall all be blessed. And He will help them all, And light shall appear unto them, And He will make peace with them'.
9 And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of His holy ones To execute judgement upon all, And to destroy all the ungodly: And to convict all flesh Of all the works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly committed, And of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.
Reference this to The Parable of the Tares...
Matthew 13
24 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. 26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. 27 So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’
28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”
You've got to hand it to Jezebel, the rapture is one of her greatest works, the trinity is the other...
There is no scripture supporting pre-trib rapture.
Who are all these believers in the great tribulation (Jacob’s trouble) if they have all been removed from earth?
Pre-trib rapture would mean Jesus returns a second time, yet there is no scripture that says Jesus returns more than once.
There’s two different stories here...
We know that the Lord when he comes, is going to pluck the tares off the earth and leave the wheat...
We also know that the Christians are going to be caught up in the air to meet the Lord...
I think your author ended up wrong because he started out wrong...He doesn’t realize that ‘things that are different are not the same’...`
In part 4 of chapter 30, he warned that we should not come to rash premature conclusions about the number of the name of antichrist (666). We are given the number of his name that when he does come, WE may avoid him, he said (comment in brackets are mine):
But he [John in Revelation] indicates the number of his name now, that when this man comes [the antichrist] we may avoid him, being aware who he is.
Now, why would Irenaeus say that the reason the number of the antichrist’s name is given in the Bible, is so that when antichrist does come WE may be identify him, if we are supposed to have been raptured out before this?
This, and a host of other very plain statements in “Irenaeus Against Heresies,” indicates that your take on what he said in chapter 30 is just a case of reading into Ireneeus your pretribism.
Likewise, Cyprian, your quotation from his Treatises a strained interpretation. In the selfsame treatises, Cyprian quotes scores of prophetic passages from the New Testament having to do with the time of antichrist, for the express purpose of “preparing and strengthening the minds of the brethren” for those days:
In the ending and completion of the world the hateful time of Antichrist is already beginning to draw near, I would collect from the sacred Scriptures some exhortations for preparing and strengthening the minds of the brethren, whereby I might animate the soldiers of Christ for the heavenly and spiritual contest. His Treatise XL, 1.
As to Pseudo-Ephraim, his stuff is not held in such high esteem by most expositors, “pseudo” means false.
No actor has ever portrayed pure confusion better than Nicolas Cage - just look at him, he’s bewilderment personified in that poster. When you see Nicolas Cage on a movie poster, you know you’re in for an exciting mystery even if that isn’t the movie’s intent - first because neither Cage nor his character seem to know what’s going on and second because the sounds that come out of his mouth have only a nodding relationship with English or any other known human language.
Here’s the thing about Irenaeus, he lived 200 years after Christ. His writing about what Jesus message is about like me writing about Andrew Jacksons words.
RE: first because neither Cage nor his character seem to know what’s going on and second because the sounds that come out of his mouth have only a nodding relationship with English or any other known human language.
Is that why they gave him an Oscar? :)
There is no MAY about it. They will whore after the fake Christ when he gets kicked out of heaven onto Earth. It is written.
You have a good imagination. No, I take that back. You are good at parroting.
After this point, the Church is not mentioned on earth during the book of Revelation. I suspect when we hear the sound of the trumpet it will say to us come up hither.
I Thessalonians 4:16 “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first”
The coming of Christ for His Body was being taught and written down in the first century by Paul, and even mentioned earlier, albeit quite briefly since they were not yet ready for the revelation, by Jesus himself. The author undermines his work by perpetuating this myth that it is an invention of man. I wonder if he thinks justification by faith was a recent invention as well? He should spend more time with God and an open Bible, and less time watching movies.
Any Spirit-filled Believer who reads Paul's letters, especially the two written to the Thessalonians (to Believers), will see quite clearly God's plan for the Body of Christ. However, without first understanding the Truth found in Romans through Colossians, really knowing the depth of God's love and what Jesus has done for the Body of Christ, you will struggle understanding why Jesus would save The Church from the wrath to come.
Watch whatever films you want, or think whatever religion tells you to think. But for the Love of God, read HIS Word and see what HE says about it! Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the Truth to you. Believers are not to be in darkness.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.