The Rapture?

[The_Catholic]

As far as I know, there is no offical teaching in the Church regarding the rapture or end time events right? If not, does the Church favor amilleniumists, post milleniumists, or pre-milleniumists?

I personaly believe that when Christ returns it’s judgment day-universial judgment day that is.

 

[NotWorthy]

For a great lesson on the Rapture theory (or better yet, how many holes there are in the Rapture theories) check out John Martignoni’s Bible Christian Society. He has a one hour talk that makes it easy to understand. Heck, even I can understand it.

All the free downloads are worth your time.

 

[NotWorthy]

By the way, you’re right. Jesus will come down (as some believe in the Rapture) on judgement day. Those that are left behind are the saints that will share in the Kingdom with Him.

 

[ssejllenrad]

As far as I know, there is no offical teaching in the Church regarding the rapture or end time events right? If not, does the Church favor amilleniumists, post milleniumists, or pre-milleniumists?

I personaly believe that when Christ returns it’s judgment day-universial judgment day that is.

I think there is no concrete teaching about the rapture because the church regards the revelation as an interpretation of the Holy Mass more than the rapture itself. IMO only. I could be wrong.

 

[ChristIsTheWay]

This tells you everything you’ll need to know: catholic.com/library/Rapture.asp

 

[deb1]

I, for one, am relieved that there isn’t as much emphasis on the Rapture in Catholicism as there is in Evangelical circles.

I used to be concerned that such good Christians, as some of my evangelical friends were, could get so happy about describing sinners suffering during Christ’s return. I used to also find it strange that it was believed that western European and American Christians were going to be spared suffering when people in other countries obviously aren’t. What makes us so special? I think that some of the modern Rapture Theory is not based on the bible but the belief of a certain vocal set of Christians who think that they are supposed to be spared any type of suffering simply because they are Christians.

Please correct me if I am incorrect. Don’t Catholics believe that when Jesus returns we will be caught up in the air with him and have our bodies transformed but that we won’t be sparred the tribulation and that we will have to undergo intense persecution before his return? I might be wrong, but I thought that was the general view.

For some reason the Catholic sites that I read on this subject are confusing to me, including the tract that Christis the Way referred to.(Sorry, I must be dense)

 

[bibleapologist]

Quoting from the previously linked article…

As far as the millennium goes, we tend to agree with Augustine and, derivatively, with the amillennialists. The Catholic position has thus historically been “amillennial”

Since amillennialism places the return of Christ at the same point relative to the “millennial reign”, the only difference between post-millennialists, and amillennialists is their view of what the millennium is.

Post-millennialists view the millennial reign as… well… a millennial reign. Whereas amillennialists view the millennial reign as the reign of the Church hierarchy.

My question is, if Rev. 20:4-7 literally (like the bread and wine of John 6) speaks of a thousand year reign of Christ, why would the Catholic Church take a stand on amillennialism which is obviously contrary to scripture?

(I realize this post seems to be straying off topic, but I am establishing a point which will lead to premillenialism.)

John
www.gideonsword.net

 

[NotWorthy]

My question is, if Rev. 20:4-7 literally (like the bread and wine of John 6) speaks of a thousand year reign of Christ, why would the Catholic Church take a stand on amillennialism which is obviously contrary to scripture?

Revelations is much different than John 6. Revelations is Apocolyptic Literature, so the Church doesn’t take the 1000 years literally.

Now if John had said, “Truly, Truly, I say to you, Christ will reign for 1000 years…” a total of four times, like Jesus said in John 6, we MIGHT take it literally…

 

[bibleapologist]

notworthy,

Now if John had said, “Truly, Truly, I say to you, Christ will reign for 1000 years…” a total of four times, like Jesus said in John 6, we MIGHT take it literally

But I guess the (exactly) six times Jesus told John to write “thousand years” in Revelation 20:2-7 wasn’t sufficient? Remember it was the same Apostle John who wrote “The Gospel According to John”, in particular chapter 6 (which the Catholic Church takes quite literally).

What exactly is the Catholic Church’s grounds for taking Apocolyptic literature figuratively?

If it is to be taken figuratively, why the imitation of the elements of the mass? The elements of the mass are physical reproductions of John’s vision… taken literally.

John
www.gideonsword.net

 

[Sabda]

The Catholic and deb1,
I’m currently reading a book that you two would be interested in. It deals specifically with what the Church teaches in regards to the end times. He walks you though history and Scripture.

It’s by David Currie

Rapture: The End Times Error That Leaves The Bible Behind

amazon.com/Rapture-End-Times-Error-Leaves-Behind/dp/1928832725/sr=8-2/qid=1159496095/ref=pd_bbs_2/104-3207396-1910320?ie=UTF8&s=books

BTW, can someone please show me how you change the links to say something else without messing with the address itself?

 

[RyanL]

BTW, can someone please show me how you change the links to say something else without messing with the address itself?

Sure. What you do is simply select a word which you want to be linked by clicking and dragging over the text (or alternately by double clicking on the word if it’s a single word). Once that is complete, you move up to the http://70.85.23.3/images/editor/createlink.gif icon and click it (symbolizes “link to web” or “hyperlink”). A pop-up window will appear, and you put the particular url in the space for the text. Click OK, and you’re done. The end result should look like this.

God Bless,
RyanL

 

[Mr_Jullien]

As far as I know, there is no offical teaching in the Church regarding the rapture or end time events right? If not, does the Church favor amilleniumists, post milleniumists, or pre-milleniumists?

I personaly believe that when Christ returns it’s judgment day-universial judgment day that is.

According to Fr. Mitch Pacwa, brilliant Scripture Scholar, Apologist and Professor of Theology; the whole “Rapture” idea is a novel idea that does not predate A.D. 1850.

If you do a search on his name over at Catholic Answers Radio, you’ll be able to hear him elaborate on the whole Rapture craze.

You’d do better to go with a credible source rather than listening to the* opinions* of non-Catholics who actually follow this craze.
When I explained, to my fundamentalist, non-denominational friend, that the “Rapture” is merely a new craze that began in the mid 1800’s, he looked up the history, himself, and now rejects the idea.

Hope this helps you, Catholic.

PAX,

Jullien

 

[NotWorthy]

notworthy,

But I guess the (exactly) six times Jesus told John to write “thousand years” in Revelation 20:2-7 wasn’t sufficient? Remember it was the same Apostle John who wrote “The Gospel According to John”, in particular chapter 6 (which the Catholic Church takes quite literally).

What exactly is the Catholic Church’s grounds for taking Apocolyptic literature figuratively?

If it is to be taken figuratively, why the imitation of the elements of the mass? The elements of the mass are physical reproductions of John’s vision… taken literally.

John
www.gideonsword.net

Please don’t tell me John used the same writing style in his Gospel as he did in Revelation.

We could get into the symbolism of 6 in Scripture, if you’d like, how it represents man’s rebellion against God and what not.

But we do know that 1000 years had a lot of symbolism to the Ancient Jews and Christians, as well. It seems to represent perfection. David’s Kingdom was supposed to last 1000 years - and it would have from the time of David to Jesus if they hadn’t have fallen into Apostasy and all. Adam lived 930 years - Methuselah lived 969 years.

When you see God describing the Jewish liturgy in great detail in the OT and it contains all the “smells and bells” that we see in the Heavenly Liturgy of the New Israel, it doesn’t seem to be such a stretch to assume He wants his Church Militant to experience the same “smells and bells”.

 

[Sabda]

peter kreeft

Ah, cool! Thanks RyanL. Learned something new today.

 

[bibleapologist]

Notworthy,

Please don’t tell me John used the same writing style in his Gospel as he did in Revelation.

We could get into the symbolism of 6 in Scripture, if you’d like, how it represents man’s rebellion against God and what not.

But we do know that 1000 years had a lot of symbolism to the Ancient Jews and Christians, as well. It seems to represent perfection. David’s Kingdom was supposed to last 1000 years - and it would have from the time of David to Jesus if they hadn’t have fallen into Apostasy and all. Adam lived 930 years - Methuselah lived 969 years.

I do understand that Revelation was written in a different style than the Gospel of John, and I understand there is a lot of symbolism in Revelation, but you can’t tell me that everything in Revelation was symbolic.

It seems to me that to embrace an amillennial view of eschatos, leaves no other option but to also embrace the preterist postition, this in response to Rev. 20:10. John says here that Satan is cast into the bottomless pit… “where the beast and the false prophet are”. If the Catholic Church represents that “perfection” illustrated in the 1000 years, and at the end of that thousand years is when Satan will be loosed for a season, then cast into hell… then you are claiming that the Antichrist reign, and the tribulation period would have occured before the Catholic Church came into existence… But how can that be? According to you and others here… the Catholic Church was founded by the Apostles.

Also, according to Rev. 20:2,3 Satan will be bound for that “thousand years”. If the Catholic Church rule is represented by the Millennial reign, where is Satan now?

If Satan is bound according to Rev. 20:2,3 why would Paul give authority to the Corinthian church to “deliver such an one to Satan”? And how was Paul affected in the flesh by a “messenger of Satan” in 2 Cor. 12:7? And why would the catechism warn against involving yourself with Satanic activity CCC#2116?

John
www.gideonsword.net

 

[The_Catholic]

Notworthy,

I do understand that Revelation was written in a different style than the Gospel of John, and I understand there is a lot of symbolism in Revelation, but you can’t tell me that everything in Revelation was symbolic.

It seems to me that to embrace an amillennial view of eschatos, leaves no other option but to also embrace the preterist postition, this in response to Rev. 20:10. John says here that Satan is cast into the bottomless pit… “where the beast and the false prophet are”. If the Catholic Church represents that “perfection” illustrated in the 1000 years, and at the end of that thousand years is when Satan will be loosed for a season, then cast into hell… then you are claiming that the Antichrist reign, and the tribulation period would have occured before the Catholic Church came into existence… But how can that be? According to you and others here… the Catholic Church was founded by the Apostles.

Also, according to Rev. 20:2,3 Satan will be bound for that “thousand years”. If the Catholic Church rule is represented by the Millennial reign, where is Satan now?

If Satan is bound according to Rev. 20:2,3 why would Paul give authority to the Corinthian church to “deliver such an one to Satan”? And how was Paul affected in the flesh by a “messenger of Satan” in 2 Cor. 12:7? And why would the catechism warn against involving yourself with Satanic activity CCC#2116?

John
www.gideonsword.net

When used to listen to this certain Christian radio station they put it like this: "Satan was bound for a thousand years starting at Calvary (that thousand years repersents the complete ammount of time from calvary to the tribulation) then as we approach the end times Satan is loosed and and has gone out to decieve the nations and world once again, this is the tribulation and is why there are so many false teachings today.

I don’t know, it’s intersting.

 

[The_Catholic]

Notworthy,

I do understand that Revelation was written in a different style than the Gospel of John, and I understand there is a lot of symbolism in Revelation, but you can’t tell me that everything in Revelation was symbolic.

It seems to me that to embrace an amillennial view of eschatos, leaves no other option but to also embrace the preterist postition, this in response to Rev. 20:10. John says here that Satan is cast into the bottomless pit… “where the beast and the false prophet are”. If the Catholic Church represents that “perfection” illustrated in the 1000 years, and at the end of that thousand years is when Satan will be loosed for a season, then cast into hell… then you are claiming that the Antichrist reign, and the tribulation period would have occured before the Catholic Church came into existence… But how can that be? According to you and others here… the Catholic Church was founded by the Apostles.

Also, according to Rev. 20:2,3 Satan will be bound for that “thousand years”. If the Catholic Church rule is represented by the Millennial reign, where is Satan now?

If Satan is bound according to Rev. 20:2,3 why would Paul give authority to the Corinthian church to “deliver such an one to Satan”? And how was Paul affected in the flesh by a “messenger of Satan” in 2 Cor. 12:7? And why would the catechism warn against involving yourself with Satanic activity CCC#2116?

John
www.gideonsword.net

From what I understand Satan is not bound in the sense where he cannot do any harm, but that he cannot decieve the world the way he could before Calvary. Until this symbolic thousand years is up.

I understand that but it does seem kind of far-fetched. Revelation 20 seems to be so clear for a literal thousand year reign. But other verses in the New Testamnet seem to indicate (to me) that when Christ returns it’s universal judgment day.

Whatever, it’s nothing to fight over.

 

[Ron_Conte]

Here’s my article offering a Catholic interpretation of the passage that Protestants interpret as proving the rapture.
catholicplanet.com/future/catholic-rapture.htm

And my controversial speculative article on a millennium:
catholicplanet.com/future/millennialism-defined.htm

Ron Conte

 

[Pryority7]

I’d like to add to this…

When I was 16 years old, I started reading the books of Hal Lindsey (Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth, The Late Great Planet Earth, the Liberation of Planet Earth, etc…). I believed the whole Rapture/Tribulation/Millenial Reign senario…and I was Catholic… I was just discovering my Catholic faith, I had just done my sacraments, and I had just done my first retreat (Which by the way was the true life changing event of my life).
I held on to the Rapture view for many years after that, and I learned early on that the Rapture was not something taught by the Catholic Church. Being a college student at the time I was bombarded with anti-catholic attacks through reading the Chick publications comic books and other literature. I was really confused. Then I started reading about orgins of this Rapture idea, and slowly and surely, I began to reject this notion. Not only from an objective, historical perspective but from personal insight. If I was “Saved, Once and for all”, and I had no more need to fear damnation, then why is it that I kept on sinning the same sins, getting tied up in the same vices that I as a person struggle with…The answer was obvious. God has begun a great work in me and He is not finished with me yet. I’m a work in progress. Not a finished mural as other Christians profess. Something inside me kept telling me after I messed up that I needed to fix this…that I could be “left behind” if I didn’t straighten out my act.
I understand now that I am Saved, I’m being Saved and that I will be Saved, and God loves it when I’m involved with this process…I can’t do anything without God, but He won’t do anything without me.
Amen
P7

 

[Cardinalsong]

I understand now that I am Saved, I’m being Saved and that I will be Saved, and God loves it when I’m involved with this process…I can’t do anything without God, but He won’t do anything without me.