G
gcharles
Guest
Revelation 21:4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the OLD ORDER of things has passed away.
Revelation 21:4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the OLD ORDER of things has passed away.
I guess I’m just worried / upset / scared of the Rapture because I know where I’m going
There will be no “Rapture.” There will only be the Judgement Day. If you become Catholic, your feet will be planted on the solid Rock, and you will not be moved. But stay in the shifting sands of “make it up as you go along” Christianity (including things like the “Rapture” and “New World Order” which were never heard of before now, and only recently invented by false preachers seeking to deceive and frighten the simple) and who can say where you will end up?I guess I’m just worried / upset / scared of the Rapture because I know where I’m going![]()


The Bible teaches that we are in the “last days” of the church-age. When the last member of the Body of Christ is saved the Lord will return in the air to catch us up, and so we shall ever be with the Lord. The tribulation period [7 years] will follow, then the Lord returns to earth and establishes the earthly kingdom for Israel and the nations. The 12 apostles will sit on 12 thrones to judge the 12 tribes of Israel in this kingdom. During this time Satan is bound. At the end of 1,000 years Satan is loosed and easily gathers an army to fight again the Lord. The Lord, of course, wins and Satan is cast into the lake of fire. The great white throne judgement of the lost is next. No saved person is there to be judged. Then comes the new heaven and the new earth and eternity. BTW, Paul paints a dark picture of apostasy as this age draws to an end.Maybe I should re-phrase my question, is the idea of the NWO conspiracy supported or declined by the Bible? I’m looking for Biblical evidence that supports or refutes the conspiracy theory. Thanks for any help?
As jmcrae said, we Catholics don’t really hold to the (admittedly modern) Dispensationalist idea of the Rapture where faithful Christians are spared the period of tribulation and everyone else is, well, ‘left behind’. Here are a few pages about it.I guess I’m just worried / upset / scared of the Rapture because I know where I’m going![]()
Sorry you don’t believe what Paul wrote in 1 Thess. 4:13-18; Titus 2:13; and 1 Cor. 15:51ff.As jmcrae said, we Catholics don’t really hold to the (admittedly modern) Dispensationalist idea of the Rapture where faithful Christians are spared the period of tribulation and everyone else is, well, ‘left behind’. Here are a few pages about it.
catholic.com/tracts/the-rapture
americancatholic.org/Newsletters/CU/ac1005.asp
davidmacd.com/catholic/raptured_catholics.htm
Pre-trib, pre-mill are you? :bounce::tsktsk:The Bible teaches that we are in the “last days” of the church-age. When the last member of the Body of Christ is saved the Lord will return in the air to catch us up, and so we shall ever be with the Lord. The tribulation period [7 years] will follow, then the Lord returns to earth and establishes the earthly kingdom for Israel and the nations. The 12 apostles will sit on 12 thrones to judge the 12 tribes of Israel in this kingdom. During this time Satan is bound. At the end of 1,000 years Satan is loosed and easily gathers an army to fight again the Lord. The Lord, of course, wins and Satan is cast into the lake of fire. The great white throne judgement of the lost is next. No saved person is there to be judged. Then comes the new heaven and the new earth and eternity. BTW, Paul paints a dark picture of apostasy as this age draws to an end.
Grace and Peace,
QC
Actually, while premillennialism was a belief held in the early Church, it was different from Dispensationalist premillennialism. Let me just quote what I wrote a while ago:Sorry you don’t believe what Paul wrote in 1 Thess. 4:13-18; Titus 2:13; and 1 Cor. 15:51ff.
And, this isn’t an “admittedly modern Dispensationalist idea.” I have already shown, in previous threads on this forum, that the pre-tribulation rapture of the Body of Christ was held by the early church - Clement and others.
QC
Ah…one of my favorite topics!
Indeed, many of the Church Fathers and other various shades of early Christians expressed a premillennialist view in their writings, such as Papias, St. Victorinus of Pettau, St. Justin Martyr (though some argue that his own eschatological views were not consistent), St. Irenaeus, Tertullian, St. Melito of Sardis (as per St. Jerome’s testimony), Lactantius, and others, and even various gnostic groups and the Montanists. Justin makes it clear from early on though that the view he holds was not universal and that there was some differences in opinion, as “many who belong to the pure and pious faith, and are true Christians, think otherwise.”
The concept of a temporary earthly messianic kingdom at the Messiah’s coming was not an invention of Christianity; instead it was a theological interpretation developed within the apocalyptic literature of early Judaism. You can already see this line of thinking in some apocalyptic works like 1 Enoch (2nd-1st century BC) and 2 Esdras (post-AD 70?). Some rabbis even debated as to how long the messianic kingdom would last, with figures ranging from sixty years up to 2000 years, or whether there would even be a messianic kingdom at all. Far from being a newly-invented Christian idea, it seems that premillennialism was already alive and thriving when Revelation was still being written. This is probably what is meant by the disciples of St. John understanding Revelation in a premillennialist light: one can say that they had merely inherited their beliefs from some Jewish schools of thought.
Now that being said, early Christian premillennialism, known as historic premillennialism, and the new-fangled Dispensationalist premillennialism of Darby and his ilk - the kind you encounter today in some Protestant circles - are two different beasts. Historic premillennialism, for instance, sees no radical theological distinction between Israel and the Church, unlike Dispensationalism. It maintains chiliasm because of its view that the Church will be caught up to meet Christ in the air after a period of tribulation (notice here: **no Rapture for the believers!) and then escort Him to the earth in order to share in His thousand-year rule. Early Christian premillennialism was often bound up with the belief in sexta-septamillennialism, the view which holds that the created universe will last for only six thousand years and then will enjoy a thousand years of Sabbath rest before the end. This septamillennial scenario echoes the six days of creation and the seventh day that God rested.
There had been rising opposition to premillennialism in the Patristic period, especially in the 3rd century AD. One of the first recorded opponents to this belief was the infamous hereitc Marcion. Not just the idea of a thousand-year messianic kingdom, he in fact doubted whether there would be a Parousia at all. There was no logical place in his system for a real second coming, all because he never believed that Jesus really became human in the first place.
Another one whom we know disagreed with this idea was Origen. Through allegorical interpretation, Origen had been a proponent of amillennialism, but in some of his writings he apparently took his allegoricalism too far and completely spiritualized Christ’s second coming: “Christ’s return signifies His disclosure of Himself and His deity to all humanity in such a way that all might partake of His glory to the degree that each individual’s actions warrant.**” (Commentary on Matthew 12.30) Even Origen’s milder forms of this teaching left no room for a literal millennium and it was deemed so extreme that few actually followed it.
Dionysius, Pope of Alexandria (reigned 248-265) - himself once a student of Origen - stood against premillennialism when the chiliastic work, The Refutation of the Allegorizers written by an Egyptian bishop named Nepos, who was a strict literalist and designed the book to be a refutation of those who held allegorical interpretations of Scripture, became popular in Alexandria. With his reply, On the Promises, he argued against Nepos’s influence convincingly and with charity (he held Nepos in high regard and managed to criticize the doctrine without attacking the person!) and convinced the churches of the region of amillennialism.
We know this because the historian and bishop Eusebius of Caesarea preserved the story for us (Church History 7.24-25). Eusebius, for the record, had low regard for Papias, and attributed his premillennialism to a “misunderstanding of the apostolic accounts, not perceiving that the things said by them were spoken mystically in figures,” all because he had “very limited understanding.” (History 3.39.12-13)
It was with St. Augustine - who was himself a premillennialist early in his career before shifting his view to amillennialism - that the amillennialist view became the dominant position in later theology; his influence in Western thinking has, after all, been great. His shift in views is believed to be the cause of:
- *]Reaction to Donatist Excesses: Augustine displayed a revulsion to the Donatists’ bacchanal feasts which seemingly used excessive amounts of food and drink (City of God, 20.7). Donatists were premillennial and it would seem that St. Augustine formed a connection between their ‘carnal’ behavior and their earthly eschatological expectation.
*]Reaction to Eschatological Sensationalism: The millennial fervor of premillennialists as the year AD 500 was nearing caused them to have overly jovial celebrations: some septa-/sextamillennial interpreters calculated Jesus’s birth to have happened 5,500 years after creation; thus AD 500 should, according to these calculations, mark the beginning of the thousand-year Sabbath and the End of Days. These celebrations, in Augustine’s view, appeared to take more pleasure in the physical world than the spiritual.
*]Preference for Allegorical Interpretation: Finally, St. Augustine was influenced by the popular allegorical interpretation of Scripture, particularly of Revelation. In this he took influence from Ticonius, the African Donatist writer about whom little is known except that in addition to two works in defense of Donatism, he wrote the Book of Seven Rules (Liber de septem regulis), detailing seven rules for interpreting the Bible, and a Commentary on Revelation itself, where he applies those same rules. Gennadius of Massilia wrote that Tyconius interpreted the book of Revelation in ‘a spiritual sense, nothing carnally’, and describes Tyconius’ interpretation of the book as a revelation, not of the (temporal) last days, but of the time of the Church:
He denied the idea of a kingdom of the righteous on earth lasting a thousand years after the resurrection. Nor did he admit two future resurrections of the dead in the flesh, one of the good and one of the bad, but only one of all, in which the misbegotten and deformed will rise too, so that no part of the human race ever animated by a soul shall perish. He showed the distinction of the resurrection really to be that we must believe that there is a revelation of the righteous now in this world, when those justified by faith rise by baptism from the death of sin to the reward of the eternal life, and the second [resurrection] to be the general one of all flesh.
His influence on St. Augustine is especially manifest in the work The City of God.
After moving away from premillennialism to amillennialism, St. Augustine viewed Sabbath rest in the sexta-/septamillennial scheme as “symbolically representative of Eternity.” Moreover, the millennium of Revelation 20 became for him “symbolically representative of Christ’s present reign with the saints.” His view laid the eschatological foundation for the Middle Ages onward which practically had all but abandoned premillennialism. Julian, Bishop of Toledo (642-690) summarizes the medieval doctrine of the millennium by referring to it as “the church of God which, by the diffusion of its faith and works, is spread out as a kingdom of faith from the time of the incarnation until the time of the coming judgment.”
No offense, but question: why is everything so centered around the United States of America? I mean really, not being American, I can’t just comprehend this whole America-centrism manifesting itself even in theories like these. For some odd reason, most stuff of this type revolve around the US and A. Can’t be helped I guess (seeing as Catholic Answers is based on the US and a good majority of the members of this forum are American), but still.The Trinity is not mentioned in the bible. Jesus is God in the flesh isn’t mentioned in the bible. NWO isn’t mentioned in the bible. Think!!! George H Bush mentioned NWO 216 times. He contributed over $1 million to Illuminati causes. When we have a one world government and one world banking system. There are only three countries-Cuba, Iran and S Korea to connect ot the world banking system. When they do a total connection. What’s that scar on Obama’s head that has been confirmed as a surgical scar and he wouldn’t release his medical records.
If you are looking for scientific evidence that Jesus is the “way the truth and the life” look at the history of the Shroud of Turin. It is scientifically proven physical evidence of the resurrection of Jesus. It was analyzed by experts from all applicable scientific fields. There is even a History channel special on it. Download it from the History Channel web site or watch it (in many parts) on Utube. It shows that Jesus’ Passion was truthfully and completely witnessed to in the Gospels by His Saints.“Sorry you don’t believe what Paul wrote in 1 Thess. 4:13-18; Titus 2:13; and 1 Cor. 15:51ff.” Did you actually read the pages I linked to? From the second page:
The ‘Rapture text’ in Scripture
Those who propose the Rapture maintain that it is found in Scripture. From its first appearance, as we have seen, others have questioned this. What are we to think?
Written by Paul from Corinth, about 50 or 51 A.D., less than 20 years after the death of Christ, 1 Thessalonians is commonly considered the oldest book of the New Testament. It is clear that these earliest Christians were eagerly expecting Jesus’ return in glory at the end of the world. As time went on and this was delayed, two pastoral problems emerged that Paul addresses in these lines.
The first is the question of when. Paul tells them that they “know very well” that we do not know the time of the end; it will come like a thief in the night. This becomes a truism throughout the New Testament, appearing in the Synoptic Gospels (Mt 24:42,44; Mark 13:21-23, 32-33; Luke 12:39-40; 17:20-24; 21:34-35); Acts of the Apostles (1:6-7); the Letters (our passage and 2 Peter 3:9-10); and even in the Book of Revelation, not once but twice (Rv 3:3; 16:15)! Needless to say, this clear teaching has been consistently ignored by many up to the present day.
The second question seems more urgent. Since Christ’s coming was delayed, some of the community had died. Those who were left became worried: Would the dead lose out in some way at Christ’s return? Would they be at any disadvantage?
In describing Jesus’ return, Paul combines imagery drawn from two sources. From biblical apocalyptic (e.g., Daniel 7:13), he gets the coming on the clouds of heaven with the angelic trumpets. From his Greco-Roman experience, he gets the imagery of an arrival of a king on a state visit (in Greek, parousia); a joyful multitude goes out to meet him on the road and accompany him back to the city.
The dead will rise first and then we, the living, will be “snatched” up to join them in the air. Many pagan epitaphs of the time spoke of the living “being snatched” away by death. Here Paul speaks of our “being snatched” up to join the Lord and to welcome him at his return.
In the ancient world, the “air” was a scary place filled with unseen beings, many of them hostile. Together with Christ, there will be nothing to fear. Paul means this as a message of comfort and consolation for the Thessalonians. Christians do grieve the loss of their loved ones, but they should not do so “as others do who have no hope.”
The passage is about Jesus’ return in glory at the end of the world. The New Testament knows of only one such return. There is no “first” second coming!
Further, the passage says absolutely nothing about being “separated from” sinners; the whole thrust is exactly the opposite. It is about “being together with” the dead. There is no suggestion that once we meet Jesus “in the air” that he then turns around and goes back, taking us with him, to return later.
The conclusion is clear: There is no basis whatsoever in this passage for a doctrine of the Rapture. To see such a doctrine here is a complete distortion of the biblical text. If we were to examine other biblical texts often cited in support of this doctrine (e.g., Mt 24:40-41; Luke 17:34-35; Rv 3:10), the results would be the same.“the pre-tribulation rapture of the Body of Christ was held by the early church - Clement and others.” I’d like to see quotes, in context.
when your nWo, your nWo 4 life. Don’t you know that Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were two of the apostles:yup:?What does the Bible say about the NWO?