So
how did this Rapture rumour get started? The following short history is gleaned
from a paper by Elwin Roach called “The Rapture Question.”
A man called J. Preston Eby who
researched the subject states that there was no significant body of believers
that taught a rapture prior to a seven year tribulation till the early to mid
1800’s.
At the time of the Reformation,
Protestants were convinced that the Pope was the antichrist and the Catholic
Church the Harlot system, which teaching drew many believers out of the Roman
Catholic Church. To counteract this, Catholic theologians taught “futurism” -
the belief that the events of Revelation would take place in a very short period
at the end of the age. This was popularised by a Jesuit priest called Ribera.
Later, another Jesuit priest named
Emmanuel Lacunza wrote a book called “The Coming of Messiah in Glory and
Majesty” which took up this teaching. He wrote under the name of Rabbi Ben
Ezra, supposedly a converted Jew, which gave the book acceptance among
Protestants. In the book he wrote that Jesus’ Coming is in two stages. He comes
first in a secret rapture for His Church so they could escape the reign of the
future antichrist.
Edward
Irvine a leader of the Catholic Apostolic Church discovered Lacunza’s book and
translated it into English. He began preaching the Secret Rapture of the
Saints. John Darby from the Brethren movement took up the teaching and also
wrote prolifically about it. Derby developed and organized “futurism” into a
system of teaching called “dispensationalism.” In this teaching, the Church age
climaxed in the Secret Rapture followed later by the 2nd Coming of
Christ to the Earth.
A Congregationalist preacher named
Scofield came under the influence of this teaching and it became enshrined in
the notes of The Scofield Reference Bible which influences many Protestant
churches. Many ardent preachers of the Rapture today would be mortified to know
that it began with the writings of a Jesuit priest. Scofield influenced D.L.
Moody who influenced the Pentecostal movement. Moody was a very influential
Christian with solid Biblical beliefs, but God was moving on and Moody like
many others didn’t accept the new teaching of a personal Pentecost.
When the Assemblies of God were formed
in the early 1900’s they brought teaching materials from Moody Press and added
to it the teaching of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Bill Britton wrote that
he was astonished to find that he was being taught from a book that said that
speaking in tongues was from the devil. The Assemblies of God accepted and
taught The Secret Rapture doctrine from that same book.
(Comment: Since the Holy Spirit is
given to lead us into all truth, one wonders why they accepted without
question, a teaching of the end times which was held by people who didn’t
believe that the gifts and manifestations of the Spirit were for today. The
focus of the Pentecostals at that time was naturally enough, to teach the
Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Now God is moving on again towards the final Feast.
It remains to be seen whether ongoing revelation will again meet with
resistance as it usually does. The truth of Pentecost was and is, still
resisted be many in the mainline denominations though it can be plainly seen in
the Scriptures)
Around 1830 a young Scottish girl named
Margaret MacDonald purported to have a revelation of the coming of the Lord
before the tribulation. It is said that Derby borrowed and modified her revelation.
(Comment: I have read Margaret
MacDonald’s account and find it quite enigmatic. It lends itself just as well
to the coming of the Lord by His Spirit in power IN His people before the 2nd
Coming which I believe is what the Bible teaches and is what I have written
about.. e.g. She states “I saw the error to be, that men think that it will be
something seen by the natural eye; but ’tis spiritual discernment that is
needed, the eye of God in His people.” and “I felt that the revelation of Jesus
Christ had yet to be opened up – it is not knowledge about God that it
contains, but it is an entering into God” “I saw that there was a glorious
breaking in of God to be.” Amen! But this is not necessarily a Rapture, only to
those who want to make it so. She seems to be a very spiritual young lady who
no doubt had a revelation of a Coming of the Lord, which was taken by some to
affirm the teaching of a “Secret Rapture.”)
In John 7 Jesus gives us a clue to
this secret coming IN His Church in a powerful way. It was the time of the
Feast of Tabernacles – the final Feast of the religious calendar and yet to be
fulfilled in the Church. Jesus’ brothers were going up to Jerusalem to the
Feast and expected Him to go with them. Jesus told them that His time has not
yet fully come. However, after His brothers had left, Jesus went also “not
openly, but as it were in secret.”v10.
About the middle of the Feast He went up into the temple and taught v14.
On the last day, “that great day of the
feast” Jesus stood and proclaimed Himself openly. This shows, I believe
that Jesus will certainly be coming to the end-time Feast of Tabernacles, but
not openly till the end.
Again, Jesus spoke of a Coming to His
disciples saying,
“A little while, and you will not see Me; and
again a little while, and you will see Me, because I go to the Father.” John
16:16
Earlier
He had said,
“I
will not leave you orphans, I will come to you.” John 14:18
He
came on the Day of Pentecost. This was a Coming of the Lord. He came to live in
His people by His Spirit. There will without doubt be a visible Coming of the
Lord when He will come “with clouds, and every eye will see Him,” (Revelation
1:7) “in like manner as (the disciples) saw Him go into heaven.”(Acts 1:11) In
the meantime there will be “Comings” when the Lord rises up in His people by
His Spirit.
It is likely that this is the kind of
Coming of which Margaret MacDonald had a revelation and which I believe will
happen at the end of the age before His visible return to reign on the Earth.
Whatever has been taught or
prophesied, the litmus test is; do the Scriptures support a secret
Rapture. Let’s look at the Scriptures
used by those who teach it:-
Probably the main Scripture used is 1
Thessalonians 4:14-18. There is certainly nothing secret about this Coming.
The Lord will descend from heaven “with a shout, with the voice of an
archangel, and with the trumpet of God.” This undoubtedly is the Second Coming
of the Lord and would be accepted as such by all Christians if there were no
teaching of a secret Rapture interpolated upon it.
Paul is reminding the Thessalonians that their
loved ones who have died are with the Lord and He will bring them with Him when
He returns. (v14) He then goes on to speak about the Second Coming. The bodies
of those who have died in Christ (those who are coming with Him) will be
resurrected first, then Christians who are alive will rise together with them
to meet Jesus as He returns to the Earth. This is indeed a Rapture but nowhere
does it say we will all then go back to Heaven. It simply says that we will
always be with the Lord. Where is He going to be? Right here on the Earth.
When Christ comes into this Earth’s
atmosphere in all His resurrected glory, the whole Earth will be renewed
including the dead bodies of the saints.
This is the time of “the restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21) Why
would those who have all this time been with the Lord in Heaven, suddenly need
their resurrected bodies if they’re going back there? We will need our bodies,
resurrected and glorified, to live in this restored earthly realm. The story
doesn’t end in Heaven; it ends right here on the Earth. It will be an Earth
restored to its original state or better – an extension of Heaven. Jesus will
be here, Heaven will be here, the city of God will be here; why would you want to
be anywhere else?
This
plainly is a scripture about the Second Coming, not a Secret Rapture.
1 Corinthians 15:51-58 Another
Second Coming scripture. This is clearly describing the same event as in the Thessalonians
passage. Both these scriptures are claimed to be about the Secret Rapture by
dispensationalists. Note that this event is at “the last trumpet.” The
unlikely explanation is given that this means the last of two trumpets sounded
at this time – one to raise the dead and one to change the living. This is
obviously the same “trumpet of God” as in the Thessalonians passage. Trumpets
were sounded for a number of reasons including assembling the people and to
announce the arrival of a king as in 1 Kings 1:34.
Revelation 4:1,2 This is a
clear instance of making the scriptures fit an already arrived at position. Those
who hold the popular end time scenario state that when it comes to the Book of
Revelation, what can be taken literally is literal and what cannot be taken
literally should be taken to be symbolic.
Yet they do not apply that principle to this scripture. John is seen as
symbolic of the Church. John is caught up (whether in or out of the body we do
not know). He records what he sees. He comes back.There is absolutely no
warrant to say that this is the Rapture of the Church. Dispensationalists do so to get the Church
out of the way before what they perceive as the Great Tribulation in Revelation
chapters 6 - 18, and in order to fit in with their theory. John is having an
experience similar to Paul in 2 Corinthians 12, where he was lifted up to the
third Heaven where he saw things “unlawful for a man to utte.r” No one would suggest that, Paul’s experience was
the Rapture of the Church and neither was John’s experience. A point which they
make to support their theory is that the word “church” is not mentioned after
Revelation 4:1. In fact though the word “church” may not be written, the Church
is present all the way through the book of Revelation.
2 Thessalonians 2:2-8 This passage has been used by some to prove
that the Church is taken away in the Rapture before the Antichrist is
revealed. The key question is ‘Who or
what is the Restrainer?’ Is it the Church as Dispensationalists teach? In verse
6 the Restrainer is neutral indicating a force, and in verse 7, it is masculine,
indicating an individual. There are a number of suggestions as to the identity
of the Restrainer who is keeping the Antichrist is check. Some say that it is
the Roman system of government which is why Paul is being necessarily vague;
others believe that it refers to the Holy Spirit or to God Himself. The NKJV
appears to support the later as the passage reads “only He who now restrains
will do so until He is taken out of the way.” Use of capitals for the pronouns
indicates that they are referring to Deity. Paul clearly expected the
Thessalonians to understand who or what he meant as he had previously spoken
about this when he was with them (vs5). However the scripture is too unclear
for anyone to dogmatically state who or what the Restrainer is. The passage is
far too ambiguous to use it to support a doctrine of a pre-tribulation Rapture.
My own thoughts on the matter are as
follows. During His ministry there were a number of times when Jesus’ life was
threatened (e.g. John 10:31, Luke 4:28-30) However the opposing forces were
restrained. It was not the time for Jesus to die; but when the right time came,
Jesus went to the Cross. To those who came to arrest Him He said “But this is
your hour and the power of darkness.” God kept Jesus from the power of darkness
till the time came when He would confront them and win the victory. The power of darkness had its day but Jesus
emerged victorious.
God is building a great Army which
will come against the enemy and enforce the victory of the Cross. This Army
will bring down the gates of Hell. Until His church is ready those dark forces
are kept in check. I have heard prophecies which confirm this.
******
In
teaching a Secret Rapture, the translation of two Old Testament prophets is
often pointed to as an example -Enoch and Elijah. The translation of Enoch is
recorded in Genesis 5:24
“And
Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.”
Enoch
is listed as one of the heroes of faith.
By faith Enoch
was translated so that he did not see death…..for before his translation he had
this testimony, that he pleased God.” Hebrews11:5
Enoch was a godly man who made two prophecies
that can be gleaned from Scripture. The first was at the age of 65 when his son
was born. Enoch called him “Methuselah.” The name means “When he is finished,
it will come” or “When he is finished, judgement.” It was a prophecy of the
great flood. From the genealogies at the end of Genesis chapter 5, we can see
that Methuselah lived 969 years. He was 187 when Lamech was born and Lamech was
182 when Noah was born. The flood came when Noah was 600 years old (Genesis
7:11) all of which adds up to 969 years, the age of Methuselah. He died in the
year of the Flood as Enoch prophesied. This is one of the many hidden truths in
the Bible which testify to its divine inspiration. God in His mercy and
long-suffering extended Methuselah’s life beyond any other man’s before He sent
judgement upon the Earth. He is “not
willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” 2
Peter 3:9
Enoch’s second prophecy is found in
Jude:-
“Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied
…saying, ‘Behold the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to execute
judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly
deeds….’” Jude 14;15
Hebrews
tells us that Enoch was translated by faith. Faith comes by hearing a word (a
rhema) from God (Romans 10; 17). Enoch had a rhema from God, very likely a
vision, in which he saw the 2nd Coming – the Lord coming “with ten thousands of His saints.” He
saw that men would go to heaven. It was a faith-imparting rhema and God took
him up to be the first.
Elijah, the great prophet of the
Spirit in the Old Testament, was taken to heaven in a whirlwind. (2 Kings 2:11)
This was a prophetic happening which pointed to the Lord’s ascension into
Heaven. Elisha, who was to be his successor, requested a double portion of the
Spirit which rested on Elijah. He was told that if he saw Elijah being taken
up, his request would be granted. As Elijah ascended, his mantle fell to the
watching Elisha and Elisha is recorded as doing twice as many miracles as
Elijah.
Centuries later the disciples watched
as Jesus ascend into Heaven. Ten days later His mantle – the Holy Spirit fell
on the disciples as they waited in an upper room. Jesus had told them that they
would do greater things than He had done because He was going to the Father and
would send the Holy Spirit. The early Church went out in the power of the
Spirit and did mighty works as Jesus had promised.
These
two men are the only ones recorded in Scripture who were translated bodily to
Heaven without dying and staying there. However there is a growing number of
accounts of people who have visited Heaven in “out- of –the- body” experiences,
some after clinical death but others without dying as did Paul in 2 Corinthians
12 and John in Revelation 4. The translation of Enoch and Elijah does not prove
a rapture of the Church, ‘pre-trib” or “mid-trib.” It is a misuse of Scripture to say that it
does. Some have Enoch and Elijah coming back to die as the two witnesses in
Revelation 11 but I doubt this very literal interpretation of what is a largely
symbolic book.
The Book of Revelation shows the
age-long battle of the Kingdom of God against the forces of darkness. We can
all take comfort from the portrayal of the worship of our great God and the
ultimate victory over evil. A helpful guide to understanding the various ways
of interpreting the Book of Revelation is in the back of the Spirit Filled Life
Bible published by Thomas Nelson Publishers.
I believe it does disservice to the Book to take it literally because
the reality is so much greater than the literal interpretation. That’s why
symbols are used. Only the Holy Spirit can unlock the depths of the Book and
this is an ongoing process.
God’s ongoing plan for the Church can be more
accurately determined from the patterns or types He has written into the
pattern nation Israel, at the beginning of the Bible. There we see God’s
Covenant people rise up in victory, overcome the enemy, regain their lost
inheritance and establish the Kingdom under David’s Son, and that is what the
future holds for the Church. This is what the Cross has purchased. Meanwhile
Jesus is “waiting till His enemies be made His footstool” (Hebrews 10:13) When
we have completed the job that Jesus gave us to do, He will come again to
reign. We will rise to meet Him and escort Him to the throne. There is much to be
done before then.
Let’s get on with it!
No comments:
Post a Comment