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Ask An Eastern Orthodox Christian: The Rapture
Spokane favs ^ | July 2021 | Nicholas Damascus

Posted on 07/14/2021 5:25:10 AM PDT by Cronos

Does the Eastern Orthodox Church believe in the Rapture?

Eastern Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics and some mainline Protestants view the Rapture as heretical teaching of the Christian faith. It was not preached or believed prior to 1830 A.D. when John Nelson Darby individually proclaimed that his teaching is what the Bible says Christ will do when he comes again. Jesus, Paul, Peter, John or any of the writers of the Bible or Christian church fathers did not preach about the Rapture.

The Rapture teaches the four comings of Jesus — first, his birth in Bethlehem; second, his secret coming to snatch away (Rapture) the select few; third, his thousand-year reign; and fourth, the final judgment at the end of time. In the Bible, there are only two, not four, comings of Christ.

Passages of Scripture that allude to the event of the Rapture are in actuality referring to the second coming or final judgment of Christ. He will return a second time to judge the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end.

The Rapture teaches that select born-again Christians will float into the clouds — no matter where they are or what they are doing — to meet the Lord in the clouds.

If they are driving, their passengers may die. If they are a pilot flying a plane, their passengers may most likely die in a plane crash. If they are a surgeon in the middle of surgery, the patient probably might die. If they are parents with young children and babies, who will take care of the abandoned children?

A better explanation of this heretical teaching can be viewed below


TOPICS: Orthodox Christian; Theology
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To: fso301
Then there are those claiming seven parallels and three parallels. None of which offer up scriptural or linguistic support.

I agree there in little evidence for three or seven parallels but support for two parallel prophecies is pretty good. There is also support for much of the prophecy to happen before the rapture from the mid-trib or the pre wrath crowd. Once we enter the final countdown, we should be able to recognize it at some point. The first time I came across the two parallel interpretations was Ironside’s commentary. He said it refers to the book written within and on the backside (Rev 5:1)

I'm not sure I see this. Remember, there are three woes. The first woe ends with the 5th trumpet Rev 9:12. The second woe ends with Rev 11:14. The two verses you cited are encompassed within the second woe. Where is the parallelism?

The parenthetical information coming between the sixth and seventh section is common in Scripture.

If you have not seen "The Star of Bethlehem" , I recommend it. It's has a short version about 16 minutes 0n youtube.
161 posted on 07/16/2021 1:39:22 PM PDT by Seven_0 (You cannot fool all of the people, ever!)
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To: Elsie; grey_whiskers

I’m beginning to think GW’s 104 is onto something.


162 posted on 07/16/2021 2:59:44 PM PDT by wita (Always and forever, under oath in defense of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.)
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To: wita

Is it just me; or is that flock of birds getting bigger??


163 posted on 07/16/2021 5:26:04 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: wita
...wrote about black people ...

Lots of folks 'wrote about black people'.

Here are a few of them:

"You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived
of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind.

The first man that committed the odious crime of killing one of his brethren will be cursed the longest of any one of the children of Adam. Cain slew his brother.

Cain might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings. This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose

and black skin. Trace mankind down to after the flood, and then another curse is pronounced upon the same race--that they should be the 'servant of servants', and they will be, until that curse is removed."

 

Image result for brigham-young

Brigham Young-President and second 'Prophet' of the Mormon Church, 1844-1877- Extract from Journal of Discourses.



Here are two examples from their 'other testament', the Book of Mormon.

Image result for book-of-mormon 

'And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people, the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.

2 Nephi 5:21

 

 

'And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob and Joseph, and Sam, who were just and holy men.'

Alma 3:6  



August 27, 1954 in an address at Brigham Young University (BYU),

Image result for elder-mark-e-petersen 

Mormon Elder, Mark E Peterson, in speaking to a convention of teachers of religion at the college level, said:

"The discussion on civil rights, especially over the last 20 years, has drawn some very sharp lines. It has blinded the thinking of some of our own people, I believe.

They have allowed their political affiliations to color their thinking to some extent.  I think I have read enough to give you an idea of what the Negro is after."

"He is not just seeking the opportunity of sitting down in a cafe where white people eat. He isn't just trying to ride on the same streetcar or the same Pullman car

with white people. It isn't that he just desires to go to the same theater as the white people.

From this, and other interviews I have read, it appears that the Negro seeks absorption with the white race. He will not be satisfied until he achieves it by intermarriage."

"That is his objective and we must face it. We must not allow our feelings to carry us away, nor must we feel so sorry for Negroes that we will open our arms and embrace them

with everything we have. Remember the little statement that we used to say about sin,

 'First we pity, then endure, then embrace'...."

(Rosa Parks would have probably told Petersen under which wheel of the bus he should go sit.)



1967, (then) Mormon President Ezra Taft Benson said,

Image result for ezra-taft-benson 

"The Communist program for revolution in America has been in progress for many years and is far advanced. First of all, we must not place the blame upon Negroes. They are merely

the unfortunate group that has been selected by professional Communist agitators to be used as the primary source of cannon fodder."



We are told that on June 8, 1978, it was 'revealed' to the then president, Spencer Kimball, that people of color could now gain entry into the priesthood. According to the church,

Kimball spent many long hours petitioning God, begging him to give worthy black people the priesthood.

God finally relented.



Sometime before the 'revelation' came to chief 'Prophet' Spencer Kimball in June 1978,

Image result for bruce-mcconkie

General Authority, Bruce R McConkie had said:

"The Blacks are denied the Priesthood; under no circumstances can they hold this delegation of authority from the Almighty. The Negroes are not equal with other races

where the receipt of certain blessings are concerned, particularly the priesthood and the temple blessings that flow there from, but this inequality is not of man's origin, it is the Lord's doings."

(Mormon Doctrine, pp. 526-527).



When Mormon 'Apostle' Mark E Petersen spoke on 'Race Problems- As they affect the Church' at the BYU campus in 1954,

the following was also said:

"...if the negro accepts the gospel with real, sincere faith, and is really converted, to give him the blessings of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost, he can and will enter the celestial kingdom.

He will go there as a servant, but he will get celestial glory."



When Mormon 'Prophet' and second President of the Church, Brigham Young, spoke in 1863 the following was also said:

"Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God

is death on the spot. This will always be so."

(Journal of Discourses, Vo. 10, p. 110)





Yeah; Native Americans are althroughout the Book of MORMON; too.

 

“I saw a striking contrast in the progress of the Indian people today ... they are fast becoming a white and delightsome people.... For years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming white and delightsome,

as they were promised.... The children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation.

At one meeting a father and mother and their sixteen-year-old daughter were present, the little member girl-sixteen-sitting between the dark father and mother, and it was evident she was several shades lighter than her parents—

--on the same reservation, in the same hogan, subject to the same sun and wind and weather.... These young members of the Church are changing to whiteness and to delightsomeness.

One white elder jokingly said that he and his companion were donating blood regularly to the hospital in the hope that the process might be accelerated.

 

(Improvement Era, December 1960, pp.922-23). (p. 209)

 



 

164 posted on 07/16/2021 5:32:20 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Cronos
The Rapture teaches that select born-again Christians will float into the clouds — no matter where they are or what they are doing — to meet the Lord in the clouds.

HMMMmmm...

Matthew 24:37-42
 
37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
 
40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
 
42 Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
Rapture; eh??
I thought this was Bible.

165 posted on 07/16/2021 5:40:30 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: metmom
Heh, if the Great Tribulation was Nero’s reign, I’m wondering when Christ’s millennial reign was. Seems we missed it somewhere between then and now.

And I'd really like to know where this place is:

    The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The infant will play by the cobra’s den, and the toddler will reach into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the sea is full of water. (Isaiah 11:6-9)

166 posted on 07/16/2021 8:12:23 PM PDT by boatbums (Lord, make my life a testimony to the value of knowing you.)
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To: Cronos

I didn’t fail to notice your non-response to my reply. Does this mean that the Rapture ISN’T a “heretical teaching of the Christian faith” and the OP author was wrong to state that (among the numerous other things)?


167 posted on 07/16/2021 8:18:01 PM PDT by boatbums (Lord, make my life a testimony to the value of knowing you.)
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To: Cronos; MHGinTN
It's Matthew 24 BTW, and I hope people do read it Matthew 24. Because when they do they will see that all the things Jesus said would happen HAVEN'T all happened yet. If you notice, verse 21 says, "For at that time there will be great tribulation, unmatched from the beginning of the world until now, and never to be seen again.". So, if such terrible things will never be seen as bad again, I can think of quite a few things that have happened that were worse than Jerusalem being trampled and the temple being utterly destroyed as it was in 70 A.D. Also, the actual Great Tribulation revealed by Jesus to John and written in the book of Revelation/the Apocalypse of John describes unbelievably terrible things to come GLOBALLY that will make Hiroshima seem like a cherry bomb.
168 posted on 07/16/2021 8:38:14 PM PDT by boatbums (Lord, make my life a testimony to the value of knowing you.)
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To: Elsie

Matthew 24-25 was not given to the Church, it was given to the Jewish men who asked the questions regarding the end times FOR JERUSALEM. Read Matthew 23 to get a clue, Larry. The church is noit addressed until chapter 14 of John’s Gospel.


169 posted on 07/16/2021 9:27:36 PM PDT by MHGinTN
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To: MHGinTN
The church is noit addressed until chapter 14 of John’s Gospel.

Then I assume that John 6:28-29 was to the JEWs only as well?

170 posted on 07/17/2021 4:16:18 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: MHGinTN
Matthew 24-25 was not given to the Church, it was given to the Jewish men who asked the questions regarding the end times FOR JERUSALEM.

I see.

What criteria does the Lord use to separate one JEW from another in the verse I posted?

171 posted on 07/17/2021 4:17:55 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie

Sorry FRiend, I am not going to get into an argument with you over the issues. Have you read the Matthew passages starting with chapter 23? I do not take the mention of “upon this rock I will build my church” to be an introduction to the rest of Matthew’s account as addressing the Church (ekklesia).


172 posted on 07/17/2021 6:47:43 AM PDT by MHGinTN
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To: MHGinTN
Sorry FRiend, I am not going to get into an argument with you over the issues.

And you won't.

You and I already know where each of us will align on most issues by now, but there may be some reading this thread who also won't accept a 'thus it is so' answer to certain questions, and want to see WHY it is supposed to be 'thus and so'.

173 posted on 07/17/2021 5:52:39 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie

I occasionally get freepmail from some of those seeking the why.


174 posted on 07/17/2021 5:57:18 PM PDT by MHGinTN
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To: Cronos

Rome “ended” in 476. Then, the Catholic church, i.e. the little horn power, took over in 538, with the blessing of Justinian.


175 posted on 07/18/2021 4:54:50 AM PDT by Philsworld
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To: metmom

Well said, MM. Just keep on reminding everyone who professes that when the time come, they might confess at the Bema Seat of The Christ when He passes out rewards. This note of yours ought to be rewarded, as should your continual labors of bringing lessons before our eyes. Look forward toward entering into the Joy of the LORD!


176 posted on 07/20/2021 11:14:17 AM PDT by imardmd1 (Fiat Lux)
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