Why I Want to Be Left Behind

Christian Post ^ | 09/23/2014 | BY JOSHUA RYAN BUTLER

[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).

[CynicalBear]

It’s a totally different Greek word used in the verse you used. See my post 80.

[CynicalBear]

>>Pre-trib rapture would mean Jesus returns a second time, yet there is no scripture that says Jesus returns more than once.<<

Jesus doesn't return at the rapture. We meet Him in the air.

[antidisestablishment]

I’ve read worse.

Ever glance at Twilight? My daughters started screaming at me and ran me out of their room after I was nice enough to treat them to a dramatic reading: “Oh, Edmund! How your pallid white pearl-like skin glows palely in the lacy lunar moonlight...”

Though, I must admit a morbid enjoyment of the movie. It was sooo bad, I just laughed and laughed.

[ealgeone]

See my post #28....we’re thinking the same thing. Always gotta go with the Greek!

[CynicalBear]

LOL! I saw that after I posted. Gmta!

[Iscool]

Now, why would Irenaeus say that the reason the number of the antichrist’s name is given in the Bible, is so that when antichrist does come WE may be identify him, if we are supposed to have been raptured out before this?

It's not surprising that some of you know so little of the scriptures...What is surprising that you would comment on the scriptures that you must know you know so little about...

After the Rapture of the church, there's going to be billions of people left on the Earth...There's going to be tons and tons of Catholics...

And at that time, there may be some who can't find many of their friends and relatives who seem to have mysteriously disappeared who have heard about the Rapture and spoke and taught against it...Likely they then will be looking around for a guy associated with the number 666...

[Iscool]

My only concern is that fervent believers in the rapture will fail to prepare themselves and may be bereft if they’re wrong.

How do you prepare yourself for starvation and grotesque torture while going thru the plagues God is going to send down on you??? I suspect there's going to be a lot of suicide...

[CorporateStepsister]

Simple.

If I am left behind, I will spend the first three and a half years in Israel being safe from the plagues. Apparently Israel will be immune from much of the misery.

Then, after the Abomination of Desolation (desecration of the Temple) and announcement by Antichrist of his own divinity, I’m going to hightail it to Petra. Once I’m safely ensconced in Petra I’ll be preaching regularly to reach those suffering and confused and likely see Christ come, safe from the incursion of the military that Antichrist will assemble, stupidly, to do battle with the King of Kings! I’ll make sure I have a front row seat and shriek mockery to the forces of evil. I’ll make the most of all of it.

I’m not stupid enough to doubt scripture or the timeline of events, so frankly I think I’ll make it relatively unscathed.

[Friendofgeorge]

I certainly dont want to be left behind. As for the Rapture being something new?

The word RAPTURE is the only thing not found in the Bible. For those that have a problem with the word RAPTURE, use another.

The Scriptures are all there to support it, I am NOT going to put them all up here

this is the order of events according to my Bible.....

Christ returns in the air (the Rapture)

Rise of Anti Christ

unparallelled trouble

Christs return to earth

1000 year Reign

Final Judgement

Billy Graham, Franklin Graham believe in the rapture(call it what you like if the word Rapture bothers you)

Just by chance perhaps, but every single Christian leader that I respect shares this view, I believe it because I read it myself from the Bible

If a person really has asked Jesus into their life, thanked Him for dying on the Cross for them, and is trying to live for Jesus, isn`t supporting abortion rights etc or teaching children that homosexuality is a option for them, or is not in support of removing God/Christ from classroom /public square etc

That`s the most important I would think, but why people would be upset by God`s Word and what it says in certain Scriptures??? I believe every Word of God, but that`s just me

[Iscool]

So I see insufficient evidence for a pretrib rapture. On the contrary, I see that Christians are supposed to be prepared to suffer for Christ’s sake, and consider it a gift, because of the eternal rewards involved.

Those verses have nothing to do with the Rapture or the Great Tribulation...

Joh 17:14 I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
Joh 17:15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
Joh 17:16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
Joh 17:17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
Joh 17:18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

The suffering that we see or experience is NOT the suffering that is going to be inflicted during the Tribulation...The apostle Paul describes the suffering that Christians go thru:

o 4:9 For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.
1Co 4:10 We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised.
1Co 4:11 Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwellingplace;
1Co 4:12 And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it:
1Co 4:13 Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day.
1Co 4:14 I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you.

Some of us may lose sight of the fact that there are Christians all over the world and many of them do suffer persecutions that we have never experienced...

[Iscool]

If you lived in Noah's day, you didn't want to get taken. You wanted to be left behind.

I'll bet that as the water crept from their knees up to their necks with no end of the water in sight, there wasn't a single person saying to himself, 'I don't want to go, I think I'd rather be left behind'...

[mlo]

"The biggest one is why does Nicolas Cage continue to get starring roles in movies?"

Well, consider the movies.

[Friendofgeorge]

so you wont be fazed if you are left behind? All your Christian friends are gone and you are still here, you wont be just a little bit concerned :)

I certainly would be. BTW I am fully counting on God`s mercy just for full disclosure, if it was dependent on my personal goodness I would have no hope. But thank God For Jesus and what HE did for me on the Cross.

But yes to be left behind would be very upsetting to say the least.

[Iscool]

Pre-trib rapture would mean Jesus returns a second time, yet there is no scripture that says Jesus returns more than once.

How many times does this have to be explained to you guys...Jesus does not return at the Rapture...The church leaves...

[Texas Songwriter]

Thank you for your comment. Jesus was referred to as Ark of the New Covenant. God told Noah to prepare for a flood (which had never occurred before). Noah believed God and obeyed, up to the day "God shut them in". He protected them from his judgement. His judgement of the world was because of the sin of the world. Noah was accounted righteous in the eyes of God and was spared by the judgement of God. Then every person on earth was drown. But God's people were not subjected to the wrath and judgement of God. So, "As it was in the day of Noah they were eating, drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage.......

Now, some say those who are made righteous by accepting the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, who were made righteous, not by their acts, but by the sacrifice of God's own Son are appointed to His wrath and will go through the Tribulation. The Bride of Christ.....appointed to Gods wrath????? I do not find it in the Bible. We have put on the righteousness of Jesus, Himself.....God, Himself said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." We are made righteous by Him , and his perfect sacrifice. We are his Bride. There will come a time when God calls forth the Bride and God will shut them in the Ark. Then great Tribulation will come upon the whole world.

I Thessalonians 4:15, I Corinthians 15:51...

To be Snatched away...."Then we which are alive shall be caught up to meet him in the clouds, in the air......."

[boatbums]

Well, Mr. Butler (not you SeekAndFind), when Jesus DOES come to “catch up” (rapture) the church (believers in Christ) before the Tribulation, you will be quite GLAD that you weren’t left behind. It’s called “the time of Jacob’s trouble” for a reason.

[free_life]

Jesus’s “return” is about returning for us, His bride. Maranatha Lord come quickly. If He came in the air here on earth and caught us up to Him and took us out of here, that would be Jesus returning. He would then have to return a second time.

One return of Jesus for His bride who He catches up into the air on His way down to establish His kingdom on earth for a thousand years during which satan and the demons are bound.

Jesus in clouds is the great cloud of witnesses from heaven (the saints in heaven) given their resurrected bodies, then us who still live on earth caught up to Him and given new bodies for a millennium here on earth. Bodies are for here on earth not heaven.

[avenir]

Well said!

[free_life]

15 “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house, 18 and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. 19 And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! 20 Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. 21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. 22 And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short. Mtt. Mat. 24:15-22

For who’s sake will those days be cut short? The elect! Us in Christ! If the elect were not here on earth the days would not have to be cut short. Jeremiah’s prophecy of Jacob’s (Israel’s) trouble coincides with the great tribulation.

[sasportas]

“What is surprising that you would comment on the scriptures that you must know you know so little about...”

I was not commenting on the scriptures, I was commenting on Irenaeus, who was commenting on the scriptures (Rev. 13:18).

As to the rest of your post, it is based on an assumption, a pre-trib rapture is assumed in the scenario you described. An assumption neither I, nor Irenaeus, would agree with.