The Rapture is a claim that Jesus Christ is coming back to earth, not once more, but twice, a total of three times… One of those times, this teaching asserts that He will come SECRETELY to take away true believers from the world so they can escape the great tribulation – a time of natural catastrophes, and the brutal persecutions of the Antichrist.
Then according to this scenario, after several years of horror, Christ will return one last time in glory to judge the living and the dead. This secret “taking away” has been dubbed the Rapture from a Latin verb that means “caught up or snatched.”
This scenario of the Rapture is alien to both sacred Scripture and sacred Apostolic Tradition (Tradition as handed down from the Apostles).
It’s important to note that this isn’t a Catholic-Protestant disagreement. Most Protestants throughout history, and most Protestants today, have rejected the notion of a SECRET Rapture. None of the major leaders of the Protestant Reformation ever taught such a doctrine. But there are still some Protestant faiths that believe in this Rapture.
The “plain sense of Scripture” that some Christian leaders claim as support for the Rapture was not discovered until well after the Protestant Reformation, and it didn’t gain popularity until the late 19th and 20th centuries. This “plain sense” of Scripture escaped the attention of the worldwide Christian community, Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant —for a millennium and a half.
The Rapture, as it is currently taught in some Christian circles, seems to have evolved in the 19th century. At that time, two British preachers began circulating the idea, and it spread to America through several popular revival preachers and a best-selling Bible whose commentary promoted it.
Later books also pushed the doctrine, such as the 1970s best-seller by Hal Lindsey, “The Late Great Planet Earth (1970). The story line of the current “Left Behind” series of novels, then, is only the latest incarnation of an old, non-biblical idea.
The single scriptural detail that most excites Rapture believers is found in St. Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians: “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thes. 4:16-17
As we examine this text, first we must ask how being “caught up” to Christ could possibly be a SECRET occurrence. The apostle gives enough details to make it clear that he is talking about a glorious and public event
According to a long line of biblical commentators, in this passage, St. Paul uses imagery reflecting a custom of ancient culture. State dignitaries often made grand public visits to a city. Such an appearance was called an "“arousia”, the same Greek term that St. Paul and other biblical writers often used to describe Christ’s glorious arrival at the close of the age.
As illustrious visitors approached a city with an entourage, citizens came out to welcome them and accompany them back into the city. When we find that the Greek word translated here as “meet” or “meeting (apantesis)” is the same term used for the gathering of citizens to meet a celebrity, the passage makes perfect sense. Those still alive on Earth when Jesus returns will have a great privilege. They will be caught up in clouds of glory to meet the approaching King of Kings, accompanying Christ as He enters the world in triumph.
Another text commonly quoted by Rapture believers as evidence of a secret snatching comes from the Gospel. Jesus said: “As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days…the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is taken and one is left” (Mt. 24:37-41).
These words have been cited countless times in sermons on the end times. The assumption is that the man taken from the field and the woman taken from the mill were true believers caught up at the SECRET Rapture; the two left behind were not.
Many Christians believe this text applies to the destruction of Jerusalem by Roman armies in the first century. But even if we grant that it refers to the end times, we need only read the words introducing this scenario to see the flaw in a Rapture interpretation. “As were the days of Noah…the flood came and swept them all away” (Mt 24:37,39). In the days of Noah, the wicked were taken by flood waters and the righteous (Noah and his family) were left behind in safety. If the Rapture teachers are correct in thinking that this passage applies to the close of the age, then it would seem to prove the opposite of what they teach about who gets taken (i.e. the wicked were taken) and who gets left behind (i.e. the righteous – Noah and his family, were left behind).
But even if we should allow that Jesus is saying the righteous will be the ones taken and the wicked will be left, then the passage still fits the Second Coming scenario we have described: When Christ returns, publicly and in clouds of glory, the righteous will be caught up to meet Him as He descends to Earth, while the wicked remain to await imminent judgment. No SECRET, invisible, extra coming of Christ is depicted here
Now, what is the danger of the Rapture teaching? It can lead Christians to give up on trying to improve society. If the world is headed to destruction, and God’s plan for God’s soldiers is to escape rather than fight the enemy, then why bother?
But the larger issue, of course, is the possibility of redemptive suffering. Rapture teachers often imply that Christians are exempt from suffering God’s punishment in this life. They fail to understand that suffering can become a channel of God’s cleansing grace; that even when we’re innocent, our suffering at the hands of evildoers can be joined to Christ’s own suffering, thus cooperating with his redemptive work in the world. For all these reasons, God has no plan to snatch humankind out of the world when the Antichrist comes. (continued on next posting)
), I was brought up in the belief of the rapture as an inevitable truth. This philosophy was a comfort to me for many years.
