Posted on 03/13/2015 7:43:01 AM PDT by amessenger4god
In a word, Yes.
In THE Word, Yes.
Welcome to FR.
I refuse to believe humans have God figured out.
In an answer, no. Christians will have to suffer for the Lord Jesus, just like Jesus did in His passion.
There will be a rapture at the second coming of Christ. The perousia.
False choice....all or nothing figured out. Of course we cannot comprehend everything, figure everything out. But certain things He was very clear about.
Bandwagon fallacy. Just because a number of people believe it doesn't make it true. Moreover, the statement is not even true, unless Catholics and Orthodx Christians don't count- they do not believe the concept of a pre-tribulational rapture is in the Bible either.
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.
Strawman fallacy. This is not the argument at all. The argument is that this was never a doctrine of any Christian church before MacDonald; that is no group of Christians ever accepted this, incorporated this into their written beliefs, and believed it as divinely inspired. No sifnificant number of Christians believed this before Margaret MacDonald spread this false doctrine to John Darby who spread it to a number of seminaries, which led to the result of it spreading like wildfire as a wholly new doctrine that was eventually believed by a significant number of Christians, despite never being accepted as such in the two thousand year history of the church.
I refuse to believe humans have God figured out.
I agree.
Understanding what God said in His word is not having "God figured out".
Not once in all of scripture are faithful followers of Christ subjected to God's wrath. In fact, they are promised to never suffer the wrath of God.
I certainly agree with that sentiment, but I think the discussion revolves around what God Himself has revealed... not just human conjecture.
Jesus and the apostles did.
Welcome to FR.
I think...
I once got into it on Facebook with some who made similar arguments. You really can’t reason with someone like that.
What I call “The Rapture” is in Revelation 7, after the 144k are sealed. But it could just be the “subject shift” that happens so often in Revelation.
Oh, and how can anyone who has read the Bible even think that God desires to remove us from experiencing trials and tribulations? Trials are the means of sanctification, of drawing us closer to him, of refining us, as is clearly indicated through the lives of almost every figure in the Bible— throughout the Old Testament (Noah, Moses, Job, Joseph, David...) and New (Jesus, apostles). Paul tells us this directly multiple times, but especially in Romans 5.
I believe the Bible was written so we could “figure God out”.
Does that mean that we always get our “figuring” right - NO! it doesn’t.
But, God graciously gave us the instructions anyway.
The Bible tells a story of a prophesy that was given about a Messiah. Well, that came true. So, even those many people who did NOT believe in a Messiah; they were witnesses to His arrival, His life, and His death.
You can be ready for whatever, by just accepting Christ as your Savior; finding a good church and growing in the knowledge of Him. If you do this, you will not be surprised by events.
Remember what Jesus told us, “... it has been given unto you to KNOW THE MYSTERIES AND SECRETS OF THE KINGDOM”.
Jesus suffered greatly for us; why then would God want to punish us more. If we have received Christ, all our sins have been washed away, so why would we deserve more punishment?
We, Christians, have not been appointed unto wrath.
You can be punished if you want, but I’m redeemed from the curse ...”
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