need help debunking the rapture

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Shaolen

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Someone has said to me “I personally, believe in a pre-trib rapture. The great tribulation is going to be a terrible time on the Earth, and 1 Thessalonians 5:9 states that God has not appointed us to wrath, but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Bible also says that we should pray, continually, so that we may be found worthy to escape it. The rapture is an escape, and the way things are currently in the world, it won’t be much longer before it occurs”

can someone help me show him how the bible doesn’t imply a pre trib rapture. Particularly responding to his scripture quote but to all other areas rapture folks use.
 
This may help you understand a little about the book of revelation…I have taken some classes on the book of Revelation and read some Catholic books on it and there is a lot to it. but I am not by any means an expert on it and don’t claim to be…one thing to remember about timeline is that Christ reigns on earth now… You know yourself that Jesus is King over all creation…1,000 years means ‘a long time’ when interpreted in Hebrew, so that time is now, a long time… not literally 1,000 years. So the protestant theology of 1,000 years is off the mark. Also the number 7 means in Hebrew complete or full, in this case the fullness of time. not literally 7 years… Something they also use in their rapture theology.

Just keep close to God and continue receiving the body of Christ and you’ll be fine…remember also this every century people have believed that the end was eminent, and the Apostles especially did as they saw the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, but we’re still here…

catholic.com/video/what-do-catholics-believe-about-the-millennium
 
I have some sources that will greatly help on this.

This is my own article on it on my blog. The Rapture?

From CA and other authors:
http://shop.catholic.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/370x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/e/n/end-of-the-world.jpg
What Jesus Really Said About The End Of The World
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shop.catholic.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/small_image/135x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/b/e/beginning-apologetics-8.jpg
Beginning Apologetics 8: What Catholics Believe about the Second Coming, the Rapture, Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, and Indulgences
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First, I would suggests looking into patrial preterism and amilleniumelism, alot of church fathers and catholic apologist subscribe to those theologys, I do as well. Also, the rapture doctrine was created by dispensationalist in 1830.
 
Well, before I address the Scriptural refutation of the pre-trib rapture, I just have to say that it is a real slap in the face to the martyrs of the last 2000 years to suggest that there is a free pass for “real Christians” not to suffer the end of the world. I think that irritates me almost as much as the flat out manipulation of Scripture that occurs with pre-trib rapture.

Rapture believers tend to quote Matthew 24 as a support to their claim.

But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son,b but the Father only. 37For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, 39and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. 41Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left….

Of course, they fail to remember that in the days of Noah the ones who were taken away were taken away to judgment. The ones left behind are the godly Noah and his family. But beyond that, the same story is rendered in Luke very similarly. Luke says virtually the same thing BUT at the end the apostles ask the Lord where they (who were taken) will go. He replies in Luke 17:37 “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.” Hmm, that doesn’t sound like heaven.

Lastly we have the parable of the wheat and the tares from Matthew 13 in which the master has sowed good seed and then an enemy comes and puts weed seeds in with the good seeds. The servants ask the master if he wants them to go pluck up the weeds and he says no, let’s wait until harvest time. Then he says "Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, **Gather the weeds first **and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

Jesus then explains the parable to His Disciples:

"The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, 39and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. 40Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. 41The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, 42and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43THEN the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

There are many more biblical failings of this nonsense. I found Carl Olson’s “Will Catholics be Left Behind” very helpful.

PS. Funny that they use 1 Thessolonians 5:9 to support their claim when just a few verses earlier-- in verse two-- it is referring to the “day of the Lord” (coming like a thief in the night). The day of the Lord always refers to the LAST DAY.
 
I just had to put in my :twocents: I think it’s unfair to blanket coat “the rapture”. In general, I think what most people debate is WHEN.

We know the rapture will happen.

root word raptos or to be “caught up”. This refers to the bible verse where we are to meet the lord in the air. So in that sense the rapture is not nonsense… the bible says it will happen when Jesus comes… and that’s all we really know about it.
 
When people talk to me about a pre-tribulation rapture, I like to pull these aces out of my pocket:

Joel 2:28-31
“(28) And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: (29) And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. (30) And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. (31) The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come.”

Pay special attention to verse 31–the sun is darkened and the moon turns to blood before the day of the Lord comes.

Joel 3:13-15
“(13) Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get your down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. (14) Multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of destruction. (15) The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.”

15–sun darkened, moon also darkened. If the moon was literally turned to blood, I don’t think it would be very bright anymore.

Isaiah 13:9-10
“(9) Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. (10) For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.”

The sun and moon are darkened, and the stars stop shining. These events are again associated with the Lord’s coming, but this time they’re also associated with “cruel both with wrath and fierce anger”.

Matthew 24:29-31
“(29) Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. (30) And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. (31) And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect form the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”

We once again see the sun and moon darkened–which are associated with the Lord’s coming–but this time, we see that they happen only after the tribulation. Pre-trib rapture: debunked.
 
Ask them why their beloved great great grandmother and grandfathers who held the faith were not raptured up and if any other dead relatives were.

Ask them why there wasn’t a single family member that lived in their line to have been raptured. Ask them why they would be far more worthy of rapture then they were. Where are the creds?
 
Ok so I replied mentioning the issue with the “day of the Lord” and also about Darby. He now has come back with this.

"In like manner of how the Bible doesn’t state that we’ll be taken before, it also does not in any manner imply of a post-trib rapture either. In fact, nowhere in the Bible does it directly say that the Church will go through the tribulation. Jesus did say, “Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh” (Matthew 24:44).
The only time frame I can think of when we believers would not be expecting Jesus to return would have to be before The Great Tribulation.

Furthermore, I have seen the “Day of the Lord” argument before. A number of people have attempted to refute the pre-trib rapture by trying to associate the “Day of the Lord” with a catching-up of believers at the END of the tribulation. They base their rapture views solely on the idea that the “Day of the Lord” and the rapture are either synonymous or somehow linked together. They are not.
The Achilles heel of their argument has to be the notion that the “Day of the Lord” and various other “days” of an end-time context refers to a 24 hour period that occurs at, or near the end of the tribulation.
Probably the most commonly cited verse is (as you have used) 1 Thessalonians 5:2, where Paul tells us the “Day of the Lord” will come “as a thief in the night.”

I’ve read countless articles that describe the “Day of the Lord” as Christ’s advent at Armageddon. These articles go on to say that, because Paul also tells us the Lord will come “as a thief,” we have a direct link to the same description that is applied to noted rapture verses.
It’s rather obvious that those trying to rely on the “Day of the Lord” never really bother to validate the meaning of this particular day (not saying you my friend but in general).
I’ve checked a number of commentaries on the “Day of the Lord” and many of them define this as being an all-encompassing period that begins with The Great Tribulation.
We can even examine some verses that clearly indicate that the term “day” is used to represent a broader time period.

II Peter 3:10-13 - The “Day of the Lord” Peter spoke of in second Peter, cannot be a one day event because it mentions the destruction of the earth by fire and its renovation. Rev 21:11 tells us the earth will not be renewed until after Christ’s 1000 year reign.

Joel 2:11-20 - The “Day of the Lord” Joel describes, includes the defeat of the northern army. Ezekiel 38 and 39 is a parallel passage here. Most would time the destruction of the Gog & Magog (Russia and other surrounding territories, but DEFINITLEY Russia) army as occurring before in the first half of the tribulation.

John 12:48 - In the book of John, Jesus uses the term “last day” to indicate when the lost would be judged. Rev 20 makes it clear that the unsaved will not be judged until after the millennial reign – yet another 1000 year gap.

Hebrews 10:25 - One of the best indications that most of the various “day” references are citing a general time period, can be found in Hebrews 10:25 which reads: “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”
Surely, Paul would not be warning us to watch for a day that would be coming at the end of the tribulation.
That type of logic would be like warning children, as they cross the road, to watch out for taillights.

This is one of the most widely circulated attacks against the pre-trib rapture. It actually began BEOFORE John Nelson Darby. The notion was that a girl named Margaret MacDonald started this theological view back in 1830. The claim is typically made that MacDonald received a demonic vision, passed it on to John Nelson Darby, who in turn popularized it. Disproving this assertion proves rather easy though.
Pre-trib scholars have discovered a host of rapture writings that predate Margaret MacDonald.

For example:
Epharaem the Syrian said, in 373 AD, “For all the saints and Elect of God are gathered, prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord lest they see the confusion that is to overwhelm the world because of our sins."
One post-trib author offered a reward to anyone who could find a quote that predated MacDonald. He had to quickly cough up the money when someone identified a scholar who wrote about the pre-trib rapture several years before MacDonald. As of late, dozens of examples have been found, and the literary surface has hardly been scratched.
With the revealing of all these pre-MacDonald writings, you would think that the post-trib argument has been debunked. Unfortunately, this is not the case (as you and I are discussing lol)."

Can anyone offer any rebuttal to his claims? Please help
 
The believers in a pre-trib rapture miss a specific detail that completely debunks their theory. In the rapture in the Bible, it is preceeded by an angel’s trumpet blast. The same trumpet blast at the Lord’s Second Coming. It will be the loudest, most attention-getting noise ever in the universe.

And it will only happen after the tribulation at the end of times. The rapture will NOT be a quiet or secret event just before the tribulation.

Completely debunked.
 
His appeal to Pseudo-Ephraim harms his case more than does it good. If that text really did espouse a pre-trib rapture, then what he’s really telling you is that someone proposed it, not in the 4th century, but in the 8th century AD… and then it was ignored and rejected by the Church for a thousand years, until Darby proposed it anew – and at that, on his own initiative, and not based on Pseudo-Ephraim!
 
Gorgias said:
His appeal to Pseudo-Ephraim harms his case more than does it good. If that text really did espouse a pre-trib rapture, then what he’s really telling you is that someone proposed it, not in the 4th century, but in the 8th century AD… and then it was ignored and rejected by the Church for a thousand years, until Darby proposed it anew – and at that, on his own initiative, and not based on Pseudo-Ephraim!
Click to expand...
can you elaborate on why its pseudo-Ephraim and in 800ad?
 
Gorgias said:
His appeal to Pseudo-Ephraim harms his case more than does it good. If that text really did espouse a pre-trib rapture, then what he’s really telling you is that someone proposed it, not in the 4th century, but in the 8th century AD… and then it was ignored and rejected by the Church for a thousand years, until Darby proposed it anew – and at that, on his own initiative, and not based on Pseudo-Ephraim!
Click to expand...
Shaolen said:
can you elaborate on why its pseudo-Ephraim and in 800ad?
Click to expand...
It’s actually very simple and I refer to this in my article but only in passing. The document is a spurious forgery and heretical which is why it was rejected by the church.

If it really was something that the ECF taught, there would be more extant documents saying so, but there aren’t, and this citation of a forgery defeats his whole argument.

Notice that the guy you’re talking to is pulling verses out of context and misinterpreting them, which is the only way that many of these n-C beliefs can even remotely be argued for.

My problem is that if the early church endured over 300 years of persecution and martyrdom, then why would we think that modern believers will be spared something as bad or worse? To me the (pre tribulation) rapture is much like a security blanket that will cause the collapse of many people’s faith when it doesn’t come to pass and it gets bad. Think of the recent Mass readings on the parable of the sower and the seed. Look here at Matthew 13:20] As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21] yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.
 
Church_Militant said:
It’s actually very simple and I refer to this in my article but only in passing. The document is a spurious forgery and heretical which is why it was rejected by the church.

If it really was something that the ECF taught, there would be more extant documents saying so, but there aren’t, and this citation of a forgery defeats his whole argument.

Notice that the guy you’re talking to is pulling verses out of context and misinterpreting them, which is the only way that many of these n-C beliefs can even remotely be argued for.

My problem is that if the early church endured over 300 years of persecution and martyrdom, then why would we think that modern believers will be spared something as bad or worse? To me the (pre tribulation) rapture is much like a security blanket that will cause the collapse of many people’s faith when it doesn’t come to pass and it gets bad. Think of the recent Mass readings on the parable of the sower and the seed. Look here at Matthew 13:20] As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21] yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.
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do do you have a reference or source about the forgery? That would help a lot
 
Shaolen said:
Ok so I replied mentioning the issue with the “day of the Lord” and also about Darby. He now has come back with this.

Can anyone offer any rebuttal to his claims? Please help
Click to expand...
Okay…here is one from a non-Catholic source, which I think he cannot refute (there is a lot of material here):

the-highway.com/rapture_Woodrow1.html

But do the scriptures teach that the rapture will be a secret, invisible, and quiet event? Let us look at the main verse on the rapture and see.

“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a SHOUT, with the VOICE of the archangel, and with the TRUMP of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess. 4:16, 17).

To us, this verse indicates anything but a quiet, secret rapture. Whether we take the “shout”, the “voice”, and the “trump” in a literal sense or as having a figurative meaning, either way, this passage does not convey the idea of a secret and quiet event! If anything, it would indicate that the coming of the Lord will be a loud, noisy, open, and wonderous event. Amid the sound of the Lord himself descending from heaven with a shout, the voice of the archangel, and the trumpet of God, there will be the sounds of praise and rejoicing from vast multitudes of saints as they are caught up to meet the Lord! Where is any secrecy here? This is not the description of a hidden and quiet event. Nevertheless, in spite of every indication to the contrary, this verse is constantly used as a text for sermons which describe the rapture as a secret, hidden, and quiet coming of Christ!

Having now examined the rapture passage (1 Thess. 4) and all of the “thief” passages, we fail to find any scriptural basis for the teaching that the rapture will be a secret, invisible, quiet event. If anything, the evidence is to the contrary. Where, then, do the scriptures place the rapture? Will it be before a seven year tribulation period? Or will it be at the end of the age?

Shortly before his death, Jesus spoke these words to his disciples: “In the world ye shall have tribulation . . .” (John 16:33). The verses that follow record the prayer in which Jesus prayed for his disciples. As he prayed to the heavenly Father, he said: “I pray NOT that thou shouldest TAKE THEM OUT OF THE WORLD, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil” (John 17:15).

Though it would be no easy task to take a stand for Christ; though they would be persecuted; though in the world they would have tribulation; yet, Jesus did not pray that the church would be taken out of the world! The church was to remain in the world, but it would not be of the world…According to this, how long will the church be in the world fulfilling this divine commission? The answer is that the church will remain in the world until the END of the age. Surely his promise to be with the church until the END of the age would be strange if it is his plan to remove the church seven years before that time! If, when the end of the age comes, the church would no longer be on earth, a promise such as this would be meaningless.
 
Shaolen said:
Ok so I replied mentioning the issue with the “day of the Lord” and also about Darby. He now has come back with this.

Furthermore, I have seen the “Day of the Lord” argument before. A number of people have attempted to refute the pre-trib rapture by trying to associate the “Day of the Lord” with a catching-up of believers at the END of the tribulation. They base their rapture views solely on the idea that the “Day of the Lord” and the rapture are either synonymous or somehow linked together. They are not.
The Achilles heel of their argument has to be the notion that the “Day of the Lord” and various other “days” of an end-time context refers to a 24 hour period that occurs at, or near the end of the tribulation.
Probably the most commonly cited verse is (as you have used) 1 Thessalonians 5:2, where Paul tells us the “Day of the Lord” will come “as a thief in the night.”

I’ve read countless articles that describe the “Day of the Lord” as Christ’s advent at Armageddon. These articles go on to say that, because Paul also tells us the Lord will come “as a thief,” we have a direct link to the same description that is applied to noted rapture verses.
I

Can anyone offer any rebuttal to his claims? Please help
Click to expand...
Chapter 5 discusses this “day of the Lord” further:

the-highway.com/rapture_Woodrow5.html
 
Shaolen said:
do do you have a reference or source about the forgery? That would help a lot
Click to expand...
godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1693400/pg1

First the reason this document is called Pseudo-Ephraim because it was found very late in the game, the language is not in Greek but in 8th century Latin… all REAL Ephraim documents are in greek and translated in the latin of his day 4th century. There were works even among his early works that were suspected of fakes. So 8th Century Latin using the name of Ephraim the Serian is a forgery.
[link to en.wikipedia.org]
 
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