Why I do not believe in the 'Rapture'

My problem with the 'Rapture' (pre-millenial; pre-tribulation) teaching is that it forces its adherents to actually REVERSE the Person of Jesus Christ to the Devil.

In the 'Rapture' (or Dispensational) scheme the believer is asked to take the Person of Daniel's 70th Week (Who is Jesus Christ at the Cross) described in Chapter 9, verse 27a:

"And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, ..."

This view is typified by the 1599 Geneva Bible notes. These are the notes of John Calvin, Miles Coverdale, and John Knox to name a few.

"By the preaching of the gospel he confirmed his promise, first to the Jews, and after to the Gentiles. Christ accomplished this by his death and resurrection."

It's pretty clear that the Reformers believed that Christ was the Person of Daniel's Great 70th Week.

In contrast however, compare this historic view to the Dispensational view typified in the Ryrie Study Notes (1978). Look who the modernists assign to this very same Person in Daniel 9:27a:

"The prince of verse 26, the Antichrist previously introduced in 7:8, 24-26, who will make a pact with many (of the Jewish people) at the beginning of the tribulation period. But in the middle of the week (i.e., 3 1/2 years later) Antichrist will break his covenant and desecrate the Temple by demanding worship of himself in it."

Historic Christianity says that Jesus fulfilled the 70th week AT THE CROSS, but Rapture Christianity (Dispensationalism) says that the Devil fulfills it in a 're-built' temple.

Therefore, Dispensationalism is no less than a frontal assault on the Cross of Christ. It reverses Jesus Christ to the Devil. It is malicious and a pernicious doctrine.

Remember, this Dispensational view was NEVER known until 1830. That's why it is a Modernist view. It was invented by JN Darby and popularized by CI Scofield, two con-men to Christianity.

In the 20th century, carpetbaggers such as Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye, Jack (and Rexella) Van Impe, John Hagee and others have made fame and fortune off of this con game. They have marketed this 'Rapture' theology like a cheap box of laundry detergent on TV and radio, and with videos and books.

My hope and prayer is that the Church starts to wake up out of its slumber and starts challenging its pastors, ministries, and teachers. The Cross of Christ is at stake here!

I’ll answer your ‘context’ argument again.

One Dispensational argument says that the ‘he’ for verse 27 is the same throughout the entire verse, and since the second half of this verse deals with the ‘overspreading of abominations’, then this must be the ‘antichrist’.

However, such an argument excludes context. If one were to apply that same logic to the previous passage, verse 26, then one would have a conflict, because the first half of the verse is clearly the Messiah, and the second half of the verse is the ‘people of the prince’.

Let’s look at this:

26: And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah (A) be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince (B) that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

27: And he (A) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he (A) shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he (B) shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

Note that both of these verses, 26 and 27, are CONJUNCTIVE (e.g. two complete sentences, with two different subjects, joined together by the conjunctive ‘and’) in their construct.

So, the first half of the conjunctive deals with the Messiah (A), and the second half of the conjunctive deals with a completely different subject, e.g. the ‘people of the prince’ (B).

Therefore to be consistent, one would expect each verse to resemble an A-B, A-B construct.

Dispensationalism violates this Scriptural pattern by using an A-B, B-B construct!

I presume you that are speaking about the Covenant in Daniel’s 70th Week, 9:27a:

“And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease ...”

What Covenant is Daniel talking about in verse 27?

... a promised one from the Old Testament?

... or, one that was never promised - but is supposedly future (to us)?

a) Before Daniel’s prophecy, God promises a Covenant with Judah and Israel, ... Jeremiah 31: 31:
“Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:”

b) During the 70th Week, in the very midst of the week, Jesus Himself confirms that same Covenant, ... Matthew 26: 28:
“For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”

c) After its fulfillment, the epistle writer reiterates the confirmation of this Covenant, … Hebrews 9: 15:
“And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.”

So, clearly there was a Covenant already promised to Israel and Judah in-place by God, and fulfilled in Jesus Christ during the 70th Week!

Note that you and other dispensationalists must totally fabricate your ‘future covenant with Antichrist’, or in your rabbi’s case ‘a covenant with the Roman Army’, completely OUTSIDE of Holy Writ.

In your case, your authority is the Talmud, which is a document that makes VOID the Word of God, as Jesus described it.

I pray that you will repent for your Disppensational sin.

In Christ Jesus, Amen.

You speak in weird ways - not plain English - “REVERSED Jesus at the Cross to a future-to-us Devil”.

What are you trying to say? That the translation or translators or people with a certain ‘blind’ interpretation are taking the passage in Daniel to somehow equate to the Antichrist what you feel should be accurately attributible to Christ?

It’s a strange stretch you have there as if ‘Modernists’ are somehow NOT stating Christ’s once-and-for-all atonement on the Cross, NOR that He ALONE is the ONLY Way, Truth and Life and He ALONE can forgive sins by His blood shed.

No one here is confusing Christ’s redemptive work. So for you to take one passage and call all who disagree with you regarding an End Times/Not-End-Times specific point as NOT born of the Spirit is dangerous to do.

Additionally, what exactly are you saying regarding the AntiChrist - when will his time be? Are you saying he WON’T make a deceitful covenant with the Jews who are wrongly looking for The Messiah? You DO realize that their deception has much to do with their blindness in thinking atonement with sacrifices must still be made - thus the nature of the discussion regarding the AoD standing in the Temple?

Because that would mean the millenial reign began in 70 AD. Thus, after the sack of Jerusalem in 70 AD . . .

You're reading Revelation far too literally. Revelation is the "unveiling" - i.e. it shows the spiritual reality of the things that were manifested in time. It draws the veil of time and space away from the events that led up to Christ and His ministry and how all of that relates to our salvation. Now, the spirit world exists outside of time. So, in Revelation, Satan is always cast out of Heaven into hell by Michael the Archangel, Christ the King is always victorious over His enemies, and the Wedding Feast of the Lamb is celebrated every day in the traditional Christian churches as the Eucharist.

The prophetic books of the Bible use allegorical and symbolic languages to explain the ineffable. Michelangelo does the same thing - God, Who Jesus says is "pure spirit" - is depicted as an old man with a beard. Does that mean that Catholics believe that God really is an old man with a beard? Of course not. In the same way, the authors of these books, inspired by the Spirit, had to explain to us who are bound in time and space things that exist wholly outside our experience.

Revelation is not some encoded blueprint for the future. It describes in human language the eternal world that always has existed, always does exist, and will exist forevermore.

I don't mean to be unkind, but the whole Rapture thing is really an adolescent's reading of inspired texts. It would be akin to letting a bright junior high student read Shakespeare without some guidance. You're coming to patently absurd conclusions. And you're discrediting the cause of our Lord by making this silliness a centerpiece of Christian theology.

I will say no more, except that when will one of these end times preachers get something right? Hal Lindsay has been felling entire forests publishing his particular brand of drivel for the past 40 years or so. I read the Late Great Planet Earth when I was a kid back in the 70s. The founding of Israel in 1948 kicked off the Big End Times Countdown, you see. Armageddon was upon us - it's "clearly" set forth in Scripture. And the end time players were discernible - the Soviet Union was symbolized by some animal that appears in Revelation. The strange insects were Soviet helicopters, for Pete's sake. I mean really. What Christian could take this stuff seriously? And note well that none of it - and I mean zero - cam true.

Here's the point: if that's not false prophecy, then I don't know what is.

Indeed, given how often the whole Rapture crowd has been wrong, and in view of how they soldier on despite being wrong time after time after time, aren't they making themselves candidates for Revelation's church of the False Prophet?

Maybe it's time for the reset of Christendom, like the slain prophets in Revelation, to shout at the church of Hagee, Lindsay, et al "come out of her, my people."

“Revelation is not some encoded blueprint for the future. It describes in human language the eternal world that always has existed, always does exist, and will exist forevermore.”

Except that, it (and Matthew) are read as exactly such an encoded blueprint for events that would occur up until 70 A.D. Nero was the antichrist. The tribulation was the fall of Jerusalem and the Temple etc. But after the destruction of the Temple, the events related in Revelation have to be metaphor according to exactly the same people. I don’t see that either interpretation is so clear that one is driven to a single conclusion. Assuming that the Lord jumped from event type prophecy to pure metaphor seems a leap of convenience rather than anything compelled by scripture.

“I don’t mean to be unkind, but the whole Rapture thing is really an adolescent’s reading of inspired texts.”

I deliberately said nothing about the Rapture in my post. Paul’s language in Thessalonians is also not so clear that one is driven to a single conclusion. He could be talking about a rapture type event. He could be talking about the Resurrection before final judgment. Certainly many fine scholars from many denominations agree with you. The Lord knows the true answer. I do not. Someday, the true answer may be as obvious to me as it is to you.

But I don’t think it much matters much how either of us come out on these issues because Jesus, Son of God, Son of Man, and Messiah died for our sins and was resurrected on the third day and because I daily accept that gift of forgiveness with the help of the Holy Spirit. He will come again to judge the living and the dead and His Kingdom will have no end. Most of the rest is detail. So I’m content with however my Lord chooses to end things and begin everything anew. In fact, somedays I’m even eager to see how He works it all out.

I suspect that, in retrospect, we will all be as surprised as was Paul when he discovered the Messiah had different plans than did almost every second temple Jew for His kingdom. They were so sure scripture told them it was going to be one way. And they were wrong.

There will be those who do not go up in the Rapture because they did not know Christ as Savior before that event. They will go into the Tribulation, and, as Scripture tells us, will be saved after the Rapture but will have to go through the Tribulation. These people are not those who accepted Christ during the Church age, but receive Him after the Tribulation has begun. Those people, along with Jews who come to Christ during that time, are the Christians who will be on earth at the physical return of Christ.

The Rapture cannot be considered a "return" because Christ does not come to earth at that event but catches His bride to Himself and takes us back to "where He (is)", which is Heaven. So the Rapture is not a return of Christ.

And no, neither you nor I nor anyone will know the day or the time of the Rapture, but Jesus does command us to watch for Him as we see the prophesied signs He gave coming to pass, and we are to know the season we are in. That is a commandment.

And the passage you gave from Matthew is proof positive of a pre-trib Rapture - in the Rapture Christ Himself comes for His bride; after the Tribulation is complete, He sends angels to collect those who have become saved during the Tribulation.

Two separate events, with two separate methods of collecting His own.

Notice that it says NOTHING about a ‘seven year peace deal’, as you so declare. Aboslutely zero. So, again, this is merely another figment of your imagination.

You could not be more wrong.

From The Seventy Weeks of Daniel

THE MAKING OF A COVENANT

"What is it that “he” will do? The antichrist will “make a firm covenant with the many for one week,” that is seven years. Non-literal interpreters of Daniel’s seventy-week prophecy usually attempt to make this covenant a reference to Christ’s covenant to save His people, usually known as the covenant of grace. “This, then, is a confirming of a covenant already extant, i.e., the covenant of God’s redemptive grace that Christ confirms (Rom. 15:8),”125 claims Dr. Gentry. Dr. Gentry and those advocating a similar view, must resort to a non-textual, theological interpretation at this point since there was no seven-year covenant made by Christ with the Jewish people at the time of His first coming. They must back off from the specifics of the text in verse 27 and import in a theological interpretation, thus providing us with a classic example of spiritualization or allegorical interpretation. If this is supposed to be a reference to the covenant of grace, then “it may be observed first that this would be a strange way to express such a thought,”126 notes Dr. Wood. Christ’s salvation covenant is not limited to seven years rather it is an eternal covenant. Daniel 9:27 says the covenant is to be made with “the many.” This term always refers in some way to Israel throughout the book of Daniel (Daniel 11:33, 39; 12:3). Thus it is a narrow term, used in a specific context. It is not a broad term, synonymous with the language of global salvation."

"Further, “it is evident that the covenant is subsequent to the cutting off of Messiah and the destruction of the City and the Sanctuary, in the twenty-sixth verse; therefore, it could not have been confirmed at the First Advent,”127 says G. H. Pember. Such an interpretation does not fit this text and it does not account for the seven years that Gabriel says this covenant will be in place. Dr. Wood further explains:

"Since the word for “covenant” . . . does not carry the article (contrary to the KJV translation), this covenant likely is made at this time for the first time (not a reaffirmation of an old one, then) and probably will concern some type of nonaggression treaty, recognizing mutual rights. Israel’s interest in such a treaty is easy to understand in the light of her desire today for allies to help withstand foes such as Russia and the Arab bloc of nations".128

"Since a covenant as described in verse 27 has not yet taken place in reference to the nation of Israel, it must therefore follow that this will be a yet to occur future event. This then, demands a postponement of the seventieth week with a gap of time between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks of years".

The reason we know that the 70th "week" lasts 7 years is that the 7 "weeks" and 62 "weeks" (a total of 69 "weeks"), which have already happened, lasted exactly 483 years = 69 weeks X 7 years/week. Messiah was "cutoff", crucified, exactly 483 years after the commandment of Artaxerxes to rebuild the temple, March 14, 445 B.C.

This whole prophecy (of Daniel) was made in 538 B.C. while the Jews were in Babylon at the end of their 70 year captivity. The 1st 69 "weeks" were fulfilled exactly as predicted and the 70th "week" will also.

Since God said he would deal with the Jews as a nation for seventy "weeks", and He promised to regather them nationally in the future in preparation for His Coming, then, God plans to deal with the NATION Israel in the future for one "week" before He returns. To say that one week of Daniel 9:27 has already happened (since God says He will regather Israel as a NATION) is to say there will be 71 weeks. Therefore, the 70th week of Daniel can not have happened in the past and is yet future.

Since we already know (from the 69 weeks that HAVE happened) that a "WEEK" is SEVEN YEARS, then, God will have a future dealing with the NATION Israel for SEVEN years.

And finally, Scripture proves that the "peace" covenant the Antichrist makes with Israel lasts for seven years.

And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate. (Daniel 9:27)

The week is a week of years. At the beginning, one person brokers a peace treaty, and that person later stops the sacrifices and grain offerings. Then comes another person who makes an abomination of desolation at the Temple. Finally, a complete destruction is decreed to be poured out on the second person who performed the abomination of desolation.

In Daniel 12:11, it states specifically that from the abomination of desolation, there will be 1290 days. The 1290 days is when Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah will come to reign on the earth.

And he said, "Go your way, Daniel, for these words are concealed and sealed up until the end-time. Many will be purged, purified and refined; but the wicked will act wickedly, and none of the wicked will understand, but those who have insight will understand. And from the time that the regular sacrifice is abolished, and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be 1290 days. (Daniel 12:9-12)

The above verse corroborates a piece of the outline from Daniel 9:27. We are told that the sacrifices will be stopped and that an abomination of desolation will be performed. However, we are also told an important new piece of information, namely, that there would be 1290 days from the abomination of desolation until a certain event. In the context of the chapter, Daniel 12, the 1290 days is the arrival of the Messiah to rescue Israel. The 1290 days from the abomination of desolation is what Christians call the Second Coming, and the Jewish people call it the First Coming.

1290 days is one half of seven years. The Scripture, as always, is correct and inerrant and absolutely true: a seven-year covenant will be brokered by the Antichrist with Israel. Again, God is proven to be right and those who deny His word proven to be fools.

The modus operendi of those out of fellowship and those who reject Christ is an interesting study.

The more they degenerate, the more incessant their desire to exercise their volition and demand the volition of others comply to their whims, even to the point of seeking and demanding the worship by others of their person.

Since the Rapture is so well documented in Scripture, the adversarial ploy will first be to obfuscate the identification of the Rapture. Either by denial of its existence, misidentifying it with things past, things present, or even when it occurs to claim it still has not happened.

The later degenerate thinking will arise to substitute and/or prevent the Rapture from occurring. In an effort of rebellious arrogance, it is likely the Adversary will empower an antichrist to slaughter all believers in Christ.

A modern day event might be similar to the story of Shadrach, Mishach, and Abendigo. All believers might be rounded up, placed in concentrated areas, then simply ‘nuked from orbit’. Similar to the OT story, if such an event occurred, I could understand how we might be ‘caught up in the air’ and met by Him. Such a model is probably incomplete, as it doesn’t fully account for all 1st resurrection saints who will rule the Gentile nations in the Millenial Kingdom.

Such a scenario would be consistent, IMHO, with the arrogance of those who are enemies of Christ. When they know, but deny eschatological events, they are likely to flaunt their volition by attempting to substitute their volition for God’s Sovereignty.

I suspect this is the direction of modern day ecumenism within the RCC and Protestant Churches, which have fallen out of fellowship with Him. Their eschatologies insist they are the rulers of His Kingdom and whatever they decide is in their own minds, the righteousness of God. When they perceive anything different than their perspective, they will have a tendency to first give an opportunity to turn to their volition, then to attack those who are different than their perspective.

I suspect the RCC has been working with the Muslim communities to build a worldwide army of force to control all believers who are not members of the RCC. Once obtained, the RCC would then refocus its target on Islam after believing it had reunified its body.

Although I generally consider many believers happen to be members of the RCC, it is also prudent to recognize when evil is unopposed, it doesn’t remain ineffectual.

Except for those Catholics who study alone and in effect are not active members of the RCC, every RCC Catholic I have ever met, harbor hidden agendas with an extreme deep seated hatred for believers who are not members of their Church or do not place allegiance to the Pope before faith in Christ. That deeply rooted hatred is frequently abated by slowly formed worldly agendas, conspiring with others in worldly communities and within their RCC to secretly lay traps for other believers.

Articles such as this, are attempts to satiate their own thinking, while laying foundations to continue a charade even after the Rapture occurs, to control those who remain behind.

The next agenda might be a Sci-Fi campaign coupled with the occult, to rationalize the appearance of the the angelic domain when prophetic events begin to unfold.

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