Posted on 03/13/2015 7:43:01 AM PDT by amessenger4god
Will there be a rapture? Is it pre-tribulational? I believe the answer is an emphatic 'yes' to both questions. Here are some key points:
1. For starters, I want to address the small, but growing minority of Christians who emphatically state that the rapture isn't even in the Bible. Now I believe it is one thing to hold to various views as to the timing of the rapture event, but no rapture at all? I believe that this belief is thoroughly nonsensical. The argument often takes shape the same way that Jehovah's Witnesses will say that the Bible doesn't teach the doctrine of the "Trinity" since the word "Trinity" is not in the Bible... yet the doctrine of the Trinity is found all throughout the Bible, from Genesis 1:1-3 to Revelation. The word "rapture" is not in the Bible, end-of-story.
This argument doesn't even make sense--of course the English word "rapture" is not in the Bible. So too the Latin word that we derive "rapture" from is also not in the Bible. The New Testament was written in Greek! The Greek word for "rapture" is in the Bible. Even setting aside all other scriptures, parables, patterns, and parallels that may support the rapture, the rapture event is clearly and unequivocally taught in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. This passage doesn't necessarily answer the question as to the timing of the event, but yes, the rapture is going to happen. A trumpet will sound and the dead in Christ and those who are "alive and remain" will be "caught up" into the clouds. It plainly, unequivocally says believers will meet the Lord in the air.
2. Next, I want to talk about perhaps the most common argument against the pre-tribulational rapture. This argument is now known to be factually incorrect. So if you believe in a mid-trib, pre-wrath, or post-trib rapture, that's fine by me, but don't use this argument. The argument is that the pre-tribulational rapture theory was invented by a girl in 19th century Scotland named Margaret MacDonald. This is patently false. For starters, 18 years prior to MacDonald, a Catholic Jesuit priest espoused his belief in the pre-trib rapture in his book The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty. We now also have clear, extra-Biblical support for the pre-trib rapture as early as 373AD (Ephraem the Syrian who clearly taught the doctrine, even using exact language). See here: http://www.raptureready.com/rr-margaret-mcdonald.html and here: http://www.grantjeffrey.com/article/why_some_reject.htm
3. Thirdly, many Christians will often argue that the pre-tribulational rapture is not foreshadowed in the Bible and that the doctrine is just "easy-escapism". In essence they will say that God doesn't remove us from trials and tribulation, He just protects us in the midst of it.
I actually agree with their point about God protecting us in the midst of tribulation. However, this has nothing to do with the pre-tribulational rapture, which I believe is CLEARLY foreshadowed. The 70th week of Daniel (final 7 years of the age), are the years specifically set aside for God to pour out His OWN wrath. Not just the normal trials and tribulations every generation has faced because of the consequences of sin, but a tribulation God Himself sends on the world, as the Scripture says to test an unbelieving and unrepentant world (Revelation 3:10; see also Luke 21:36). That same passage says clearly says that God will keep believers from facing that coming tribulation. Elsewhere the Bible says "we are not appointed unto wrath" (1 Thessalonians 5:9).
So, yes, it is correct to say God doesn't always remove us from worldy tribulation, but He does ALWAYS remove us from His wrath if we trust in Him. This is foreshadowed:
These current troubles are no Great Tribulation.
I refuse to believe humans have God figured out.
No, it teaches that it's impossible to calculate the timing of the rapture. Once that peace treaty with Israel is signed the days to His return are exactly numbered.
There are Rapture bunnies and there are Easter bunnies.
It was already recognized as God’s wrath at the very beginning as we see in Revelation 6.
It begins with the holding back of the wind, the sealing of the 144k and the appearance of the giant multitude “who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
And then the Wrath of God section of 3.5 years begins. No more salvation. Only wrath.
Rapture,,
it’s almost a cult!
To be caught Up, is a catch phrase .
The apostle Paul knew of no such thing as a two stage resurrection/coming. He saw three benchmarks, three bodily resurrection, with virtually everything eschatological fitting into them, we see this in 1 Cor. 15:22-26. “Every man (made alive) in his own order.” The order, or sequence:
1.) Christ’s resurrection, his resurrection the first of the series.
2.) “afterward (the next resurrection to happen) they that are Christ’s at his coming.” (”coming” is in the singular, not comings plural)
3.) “Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” (According to Revelation, it is at the end of the millennial that death is destroyed)
Notice:
Paul saw only one resurrection and one coming ahead for “they that are Christ’s.” A singular event, not two resurrections or two 2nd comings.
He saw this resurrection only for the saved, “they that are Christ’s,” he didn’t see this resurrection as a general resurrection, resurrecting both the saved and unsaved. The latter, thus have to be resurrected at the end of the millennial.
Rev. 19, 20 agrees with Paul 100%. A resurrection for “they that are Christ’s” at his 2nd coming that begins the thousand years, and a resurrection for “the rest of the dead,” at the end of the thousand years.
Three great benchmarks of prophecy, three bodily resurrections. Since Christ’s resurrection, the first one, has already happened, there remains the other two. One at the 2nd coming (Rev. 19), called “the first resurrection,” (Rev. 20), for “they that are Christ’s,” one at the end of the thousand years for “the rest of the dead,” (Rev. 20:5).
No amount theological spin (pretrib, prewrath, amillennialism) can do away with these three great benchmarks.
I do believe that good Christians will live through the Great Day of the Lord.
I do not believe we will be jettisoned out physically in order to be free from any suffering.
That would make a mockery of every saint who has ever suffered for Jesus.
The wrath of God is the entire seven year period. From Revelation 4 the "church" is gone. After finishing with warning the seven churches in chapter 3 after which they are not seen again, chapter 4 starts with "“Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” After what? After the faithful believers are gone from the earth. Those that were not but realized after the disappearance of millions are the "tribulations saints" who then become believers and who are beheaded. The wrath of God begins with the opening of the first seal.
The only thing I will say to you about pre-trib is you need to think about this:
What about all the Christian martyrs who have died for the Christian faith throughout history? What about all the Christians around the world and especially in the Mideast who are dying horrific deaths right now because they will not deny Christ? In their eyes they may feel like they are going through the tribulation right now.
Do you really believe God is going to give you a pass and whisk you away so you will not have to stand for him yourself at some point? Personally I don’t think so. It might be prudent to prepare yourself to be a warrior for Christ.
In 1995, my son's Latin Professor translated an original manuscript on the subject by Ephraem the Syrian (A.D. 373).
If you don't care to purchase any of the scholarly reviews, you can get a synopsis here:
www.arewelivinginthelastdays.com/com/ephraem.htm
After finishing with warning the seven churches in chapter 3 after which they are not seen again, chapter 4 starts with ““Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” After what? After the faithful believers are gone from the earth.
And just because something is not “seen immediately” in following verses does not mean it is not there. It can (and usually does) mean the writer has moved on to a different topic. Unless, of course, the writer explicitly SAYS the thing is not there, which it doesn’t.
These are the original arguments used when I first became a Christian in 1981 to “prove” to me a pre-trib rapture. It was taught at length at my church and Sunday school. I then studied it myself a few years later. It drastically changed my position on the subject but, even more, it made me realize that none of us really know. We only speculate, and often on ridiculously scant information.
We all do it. It’s just easier for me to see when someone else does it than when I do it. ;-)
Being alert, watching, being prepared - do NOT mean trying to calculate the year.
If the Bible tells us that no one but God the Father knows when then it is folly for a man to try to know when.
Being alert, watching, being prepared - do NOT mean trying to calculate the year.
If the Bible tells us that no one but God the Father knows when then it is folly for a man to try to know when.
The world has been in a lot worse shape than it is right now. No rapture then. There is no predicting it. Just because things in the world are getting ugly doesn’t mean it is coming. JMHO.
Church historians call Ephraem the Syrian, “Pseudo”- Ephraem.
“Pseudo” means false. There was a true Ephraem the Syrian in church history, and a false Ephraem, this one being the false one.
Not only so, the pretrib rapture pretribs claim to see in Pseudo-Ephraem is likewise false. A pseudo-pretrib rapture is read into Pseudo-Ephraem.
I haven’t looked at that scholar’s work.
It’s real simple: he’s ONE scholar.
For 1800 years, there was no “left behind” movie, no dispensationalism.
There WERE allsorts of cults with all sorts of wrong interpretation.
It’s possible to find some scholar in history to support just about any position one could imagine.
But serious conservative scholars for 2,000 years have pretty much had the SAME eschatology.
Study the theology of the Reformation, start with the Westminster Confession of Faith 1646.
This version has Biblical Proof Texts cited; just click on the numbers.
http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/
The last chapter, 33, is “Of the Last Judgement”.
What dispensationalism denies is the Biblical concept of the advancement of the Christ’s Kingdom on earth, that Christians are to be not only involved in the world but to exercise dominion over it. Dispensationalism leads to withdrawal from leading in society, giving up on leading politicially, seeing Jesus’ Great Commission (to go forth and teach all the nations) as doomed to failure. Why bother with the heathen when they are going to have dominion over “this world” until Christ comes and “raptures us away” ? So we accept wickedness in government as a given - instead of using our civil courts to purge it out. Our our government system has thus become a festering cesspool of wicked men and women, many of the professing Christians that do not know Christ at all, but are liars and vile, immoral criminals, entirely corrupt, mostly in secret, as only a few are every held to account for their corruption. That’s what happens when we abandon God and instead have pluralism - separation of Church and State - and allow our government to be based on a human-devised model instead of the Biblical model, which teaches that civil government is ordained of God to restrain evil, and must, at its foundation, base its laws on Biblical moral law.
Dispensationalism denies these verses:
Psalm 110:1
The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
Matthew 22:44
The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool?
Mark 12:36
For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool.
Hebrews 1:13
But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?
Biblical eschatology has always been an optimistic eschatology - one of hope, where, as the Bible tells us, Christ is and has been reigning over the nations in heaven at the right hand of God since his resurrection, and the nations are gradually over time subdued, either willingly by submitting to Christ in faith, or with a “rod of iron”. In the same pattern as the Old Testament ancient Israel, Christianity has had ebbs and flows of faithfulness to God; when nations turn to God they are blessed, but before long they turn to wickedness and evil men and then they are (rod of iron) destroyed by a foreign invading heathen nation. As it says in Isaiah 1, God will purge his elect when they will not give up their whoring. He chastises those whom he loves.
Since the early 1800’s when Biblical doctrine in America started to slide away from the truth, wickedness has steadily increased in its power and control of America, and Christianity has steadily decreased in its dominion over American society and leadership - which was very solid in the 1600’s.
I’m amazed at people’s inability to listen. Such argumentative and dismissive attitudes. I long for my heavenly country and home, where we are all brothers and can listen patiently and kindly to one another.
In any case, addressing several of the repeated arguments here:
1. We can’t figure God out.
Obviously we cannot do this without God’s help, but we are making a single assumption, and that is that the Bible is God’s revealed word. If true then we can read and discern what God Himself has revealed.
2. No Christian groups taught the pre-trib rapture before Darby/MacDonald.
Did anyone bother to read point #2 in the original post and read through the references? The Darby/MacDonald pre-trib origination theory is patently and historically false. 18th century American authors and preachers were already teaching pre-trib doctrine. A CATHOLIC JESUIT wrote a book where he espoused the doctrine. Ephraem the Syrian in 373 AD explicitly taught the doctrine.
Also, is it really a fair/rational argument to say that because historic denominations did not adopt the pre-trib doctrine, then it can’t be true? Is everyone aware that historic denominations did not explicitly adopt mid-trib, pre-wrath, post-trib, or preterist views either? The only explicit eschatological end-of-the-age doctrine almost universally adopted throughout Church history was the physical, literal second coming of Christ at the end of the present age.
3. The rapture isn’t in the Bible.
Unless you want to demythologize everything and interpret symbolically without contextual support to do so, then YES it is. And emphatically so: 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 and likely 2 Thessalonians 2:3 (see points #1, #4, and #5 in the original thread).
4. Can’t know the day or hour/can’t predict the rapture.
Yet the Gospels and the Epistles are FILLED with admonishments to BE WATCHFUL FOR CHRIST’S COMING and TO KNOW the seasons. Why else would we be given signs if not TO USE THEM?
As an aside, the Greek word for “knows” in these passages is actually perfect past tense. Read a literal Biblical translation to get the real meaning (like Young’s). The literal meaning is “no one has known”. NOT “no one knows”.
Jesus explicitly says that when you begin to see the signs He mentioned to “lift up your heads”. That would be skyward!
God bless.
I have and the interpretation of pre-trib rapture is an extreme stretch at best. Moreover, the Catholic church rejected this interpretation, and the doctrine of pre-trib rapture, so even if that was what he meant, it was his personal belief and not a belief that was ever accepted by any group of Christians as doctrine.
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