When Jesus comes to gather His Body of Believers in the Rapture event, that is not the second coming for He will gather us UP into the clouds to meet Him in the air. 1 John 3:2 says we shall be like Him when He gathers us up. The second coming He comes back to touch down at the Mount of Olives.
Nope, the PTR wasn’t taught before Irving and Darby, because it’s not scriptural, pure and simple.
“I am not aware that there was any definite teaching that there would be a SECRET RAPTURE of the Church at a SECRET coming, until this was given forth as an utterance in Mr. Irving’s Church, from what was there received as being the voice of the Spirit. But whether any one ever asserted such a thing or not, it was from that supposed revelation that the modern doctrine and the modern phraseology respecting it arose. It came not from Holy Scripture, but from that which falsely pretended to be the Spirit of God, while not owning the true doctrine of our Lord’s incarnation in the same flesh and blood as His brethren, but without taint of sin. p. 26.”
The Hope of Christ’s Second Coming: How is it Taught in Scripture? And Why? S. P. Tregelles. March 17, 1864.
****Tregelles was an EYEWITNESS to the event, when Margaret MacDonald made those utterances, and first time EVER hearing about the PTR theory.
Agreed...the Bible is very plain about a coming rapture with those believers yet living caught up after the dead in Christ rising first. I just don’t get how some folks eyes seem to glaze over in ignoring plain text while accusing those of us believe that a rapture is coming are some sort of “darbyist” or something..
Over the years the traditional arguments in evangelical circles have been over the timing of such an event, not that the event was never going to occur or was never prophesied. But to argue that the Bible doesn’t say what it says plainly concerning the eventuality of the rapture is astonishing to me.