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Posted on 05/17/2025 6:45:55 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
During my daughter’s first year at The Master’s University (an institution with a decidedly dispensational rapture theology), the school spent a week of chapel services devoted to the topic of the rapture of the church. Confused by the topic, she texted me, “What is the rapture? I’ve never heard of that before!” For her, the rapture was a totally foreign concept. As a pastor’s daughter, that may seem like a travesty! But it doesn’t surprise me as I don’t remember ever preaching a sermon on the rapture. Some reading this might be thinking, “You’re right! You haven’t taught on the subject—not directly anyway!” There are reasons for that.
My first doubts about the biblical veracity of the rapture were in 1990, while staying in the home of a pastor in England. While there, our conversation somehow shifted to the topic of the rapture in connection with the European Union. I will never forget what he said. He said something to the effect that rapture theology was largely an American evangelical phenomenon that arrived relatively late in church history with a man named John Darby in the early 1800’s—a theology that most European evangelicals did not embrace. I was shocked! I assumed every conservative Christian in the world believed in the rapture.
What was equally startling was this British pastor was not a theological “liberal” or someone who played fast and loose with the Scripture. That conversation planted a seed in my head. From then on, I would scour the Scripture (specifically the New Testament) to see if, indeed, the rapture of the church was a truly biblical doctrine. In what follows, I want to lay out—as concisely and as clearly as I can—what I discovered from that day forward.
(Excerpt) Read more at eparkway.com ...
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Review
It was invented by John Nelson Darby around 1830.
You’re right.
Yup.
WHICH rapture is where the real fighting begins.
As I read Revelation the bottom line message is “repent and turn to God.” There is an angel flying around with that message and the people prefer rocks and mountains fall on them.
Can you imagine that? How could anyone choose rocks and mountains over God?
In Catholic ism we don’t discuss any rapture. Does Jesus talk about it? I don’t think so.
IF the Rapture does happen...are you ready?
IF is doesn't happen...are you ready?
It’s a long article I’ve set aside to read later, when I have time, but things taught about the Rapture have always bothered me. They say there will be piles of clothes everywhere, the clothes of people who’d been raptured. I assume those piles will include things like toupees, breast implants, crutches and wheelchairs, false teeth, artificial limbs, etc. Why would God do things that way? What would He want with our old, broken physical bodies? Are we all going to find ourselves naked in heaven saying things like, “Gee, Grandpa, you look funny without your toupee.” “There’s cousin Phil crawling around because his wheelchair wasn’t raptured.” Or will we somehow be clothed and our physical problems disappear once we get up there? If so, why even do things that way? Why wouldn’t God just take our souls and leave our bodies behind, like He does every time someone dies? Are airplanes really going to fall from the sky when pilots are raptured?
And people rising from their graves. What about cremated people and those who died at sea? Why would our graves, filled with whatever’s left of us, even be significant then? Why would we have to rise from those exact locations?
Just doesn’t seem logical, doesn’t seem like how God would do things.
Just doesn’t seem logical, doesn’t seem like how God would do things.
But this is religion, man based.
Whether there is a Rapture or not, it is not the issue. Whether you have claimed your salvation or not is the issue.
I have my doubts, but that is not important. Come what may, I am saved regardless of what happens. Those that obsess over Rapture need to stop and self-examine. A friendly suggestion, of course...
not this darby canard again .
heavy sigh.
darby didnt write the old or new testament.
It's the Establishment way. Everybody's right because it's all of those other people who are wrong.
"I never knew you." ~ Jesus of the Bible, anti-establishment by nature because for one thing, he has much higher standards, unlike:
But first, I want to make one thing perfectly clear. I do not consider the subject of the rapture as a major doctrine. Not even close! One’s commitment to orthodoxy or a high view of Scripture should NOT be questioned simply because of an alternate view of a rapture or its timing!
How big does truth need to be, before it, you know, really actually matters?
If something doesn't matter, or the explanation dependent upon theory and conjecture, why is it a doctrine?
It's like the saying that the usual suspects agree upon -- "good scholars disagree".
When I want to hire an architect, I know a good one doesn't let a few inches matter here or there. (/s, just in case.)
In other news, Blinded by the light.
Instead of making up assertions let’s see what actual scripture says. Honest debate about the Rapture can be had but to state as fact there is no basis for it or it was created in the modern centuries is a flat out lie. Scripture does indeed discuss concepts that directly support a rapture, including direct words from Christ our Lord.
See the scriptures below for a start, there are A LOT more I could have quoted.
1 Thessalonians 4:16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
1 Thessalonians 4:17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
1 Corinthians 15:52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
Matthew 24:29-31 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Luke 17:34-37 I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed. One will be taken and the other left. There will be two women grinding together. One will be taken and the other left.” And they said to him, “Where, Lord?” He said to them, “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.”
1 Corinthians 15:51-53 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.
Acts 1:9-11 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
The Greek word for rapture in the Bible is harpazo
There is one biblical event of Christ and 3 of His 12 Disciples climbing a mountain and those 3 witnessed Christ transfigured while on the mount.
Just before that event, Christ said that some of them standing there would not taste death till they saw Him Come in His Kingdom.
3 of His 12 Disciples didn’t have to taste death before they saw, while the rest of the 9 had to wait for their death to see Him in His Kingdom.
What were the 9 doing while the Christ and His small remnant were on the mount?
Fighting, and losing, to demons.
Until Christ returned and drove the demons out of the child.
There is an odd discrepancy in the scriptures about that event.
One of the gospels speak of a 2 day delay.
Meaning the event in one of the gospels appeared to hint that it happened 2 days later than the other gospels.
We know that didn’t really happen, so why the 2 day delay?
If those 2 days is as 1,000 years x 2, then there may be an end times 3/12 that get to not taste death before they see Him Come in His Kingdom.
By ascending alive.
While the rest of the 9/12 of His Disciples are on the ground, fighting and losing, to demons..
One thing would be certain. It wouldn’t be universal if that Mount of Transfiguration spiritually repeats in some form after ‘two days’.
Only a small remnant didn’t taste death till they saw Him in His Kingdom on that mount- 3 to be exact.
Agree. They pull Darby out every time they want the Rapture concept dismissed.
It worked for Enoch and Elijah. The Bible does not talk about what was left behind. When Jesus ascended He went up as He was. Stop inventing questions.
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