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).
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.
i agree. God doesn’t pull his people out of harms way, ever. we are the leaven that keeps the message here while we are here. All over the world Christians are slaughtered. we here in america invent the escape part.
I agree that the secret rapture is nonsense.
The entire world will see the first resurrection, at the last trump, and no one would want to be left behind, as that is when the Wrath of Yehova’s bowl judgments begin.
Joshua Ryan Butler has some really bizarre ideas!
He needs to buy a Bible to read.
I’m a little confused. Haven’t there already been several “Left Behind” movies?
'Tis a reboot.
>> “Good luck getting this little bit of common sense through the dense noggin of any idiot religious fruitcake.” <<
.
But it’s not common sense; its insanity.
He needs to read a Bible. He is the fruitcake for sure.
They’re like Atlas Shrugged— poorly written novels that make even worse movies.
I actually tried to read them 2 or 3 years ago. I read the first paragraph, and thought "It was a dark and stormy night....". Dire stuff.
I persevered, but stalled out about halfway through the first novel, as our intrepid hero is visiting the First Generic Evangelical Church of Mt. Prospect, IL.
>> “After this point, the Church is not mentioned on earth during the book of Revelation” <<
.
Not so!
The tribulation of Yehova’s saints by Satan is right there to read about, until the last trump, the end of the trib, when the elect are resurrected. Then the wrath of Yehova begins, after Satan’s last hurrah, the trib, is over.
My take? What take would that be? I responded to the common claim that belief in the "rapture" is a late 19th century novelty of Darby, which it clearly is not.
I suggest you do some "reading" into what I've written on this thread before jumping to awkward, incorrect conclusions.
There are a billion plus so being taught that there is no such thing as the “rapture” when clearly it’s written in scripture, has been discussed by several early church fathers, and so is not merely a late 19th century novelty attributable to Darby. Does this bother you? I suspect not, since you appear to be among their number.
Whatever you do, don't read the red letter stuff. It'll mess up the whole context of the other stuff.
Everything considered, it is safer to not believe in the rapture theory and put on the full armor of God on as we are instructed to do anyways, just in case they are wrong.
>> “My take? What take would that be? I responded to the common claim that belief in the “rapture” is a late 19th century novelty of Darby, which it clearly is not.” <<
.
The rapture is not “pre-trib!
The pre-trib rapture belongs to Darby and Satan. The first and only resurrection unto life is at the end of Satan’s trib.
Scares you, huh?
I agree with you, belief in the “rapture” is NOT a late 19th century innovation. Belief in a secret pre-trib, or mid-trib rapture, yes, but not the rapture per se.
Darby did not claim his secret pretrib rapture belief came from the ante-Nicene Fathers, re: the quotes in your post, it seems obvious enough to me that the Irvingites of England, and the Scottish lass McDonald, both concurrent with Darby, did have had much to do with the doctrine he formulated.
I think we both agree that the “rapture IS set forth in plain language, 1 Thess. 4, as a “catching up” to meet Christ in the air at his coming. We both believe there will be a rapture, it is whether it is secret, and whether it occurs before, in the middle, at the end of the trib, the issue we disagree on.
My take? What take would that be? I responded to the common claim that belief in the "rapture" is a late 19th century novelty of Darby, which it clearly is not.
No, you're right. It's an early 19th century novelty of Darby.
On what the Ante-Nicene Fathers believed on this issue, here’s something from Robert Gundry, professor of theology in California. He says: “Irenaeus, who claims to hold that which was handed down from the apostles, was as forthright a posttribulationist as could be found.” He quotes Irenaeus: “And they [the ten kings] shall give their kingdom to the beast, and put the Church to flight.” Against Heresies, 5,26,1.
He has many more quotes from the Fathers, Cyprian among them, saying basically the same thing, he concludes:
“We can conclude from the survey of Ante-Nicene writings that the early church was explicitly posttribulational. We discover not even a passing reference to, much less a refutation of, any who believed otherwise. Every Ante-Nicene writer who touches in any detail upon the tribulation, resurrection, rapture, or second coming displays posttribulation.”
Gundry also brings premillennial into this, noting that Irenaeus, etc., were also premillennial (Chiliast), but that is not at issue here between us.
Not saying Gundry is the last word on the subject, just saying his conclusions matches what I see in the Fathers.
Because his uncle is Francis Ford Coppola.
Lots of other actors who were selected at auditions have later been passed aside only to have their roles given to Cage. Many are fairly bitter about it.
Being taken to be with the Lord is a promotion, not a demotion.
WRONG! The word translated "taken" does NOT mean killed. The Greek word is paralambanó which means I take from, receive from, or: I take to, receive (apparently not used of money), admit, acknowledge; I take with me. [http://biblehub.com/greek/3880.htm]
No way can that be made to mean kill. As can be seen by the real meaning would fit with Christ taking us with Him.
As an example the word is used in Matthew 1:24
Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife:
Let's see the writer of the article insert "kill" into that verse.
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