THE FALSE ESCHATOLOGY OF THE RAPTURE
During the sermon on the evening of July 10, 2016 at Christlife Church, another anecdotal reference was made to a theological viewpoint not held by any of the early Fathers of the Church in the first four centuries after Christ. This reference was to the eschatology of the Rapture which purports (based on a misreading of selected verses of Sacred Scripture taken out of context) that:
(1) Christ will physically return to planet Earth to rescue all true Christians
(2) The majority of humanity will be left behind to be persecuted under the reign of antichrist for seven years
(3) Then Jesus Christ will come for a third time to establish a reign of 1000 years of peace and prosperity (called the Millennial Reign of Christ)
(4) After this Satan will be released upon the world for one last rebellion after which he is thrown into hell and the Final Judgment comes.
This essay will refute the false eschatology of a dispensationalist rapture using first Sacred Scripture and second historical evidence.
SACRED SCRIPTURE
When the Pentecostal fundamentalist eschatology is explained in the simple and straightforward way described above, it seems like the ludicrous theology that it actually is. But let us examine this deeper. The idea of the rapture evolves out of a misinterpretation of Matthew 24:40-44 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.
Matthew 24:40-44 states:
40 Then two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left. 41 Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is taken and one is left. 42 Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But know this, that if the householder had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
Fundamentalist dispensationalists like Pentecostals take this to mean that when Christ returns at the Parousia, the person who is truly and authentically Christian will be lifted into the sky to meet Jesus in the air and go to Heaven while the sinful person will be left behind to suffer torture and torment on this Earth. Unfortunately, the parallel passage of this part of St. Matthew’s Gospel in Luke 17:34-37 is ignored:
34 I tell you, in that night there will be two men in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 35 There will be two women grinding together; one will be taken and the other left.” 37 And they said to him, “Where, Lord?” He said to them, “Where the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together.”
St. Luke’s account gives a detail that St. Matthew’s account omits (the two Saints simply reported the same thing differently). The disciples ask the Lord where this abduction of people will happen, and the Lord says where the eagles are gathered together. Now we must remember that these things were said in Judea in the early 1st century AD when the Roman Empire had conquered the entire Mediterranean world. The symbol used by the Roman legions above their military banner inscribed with the initials SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romae) was the golden eagle.
Jesus was telling his disciples that where they would see that banner with its eagle would be the place of abduction, and those being abducted would not be going to Heaven in some sort of mysterious rapture by Him, but into Roman prison and possibly subsequent crucifixion. That is why Jesus says, “Where the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together,” for at the dead bodies of crucifixions would be the SPQR banners atop of which were the Roman eagle.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 is the other passage of Sacred Scripture used to promote this false eschatology of a rapture:
13 But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 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; 17 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. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
St John Chrysostom, one of the 36 Doctors (or recognized Teachers) of the Church who lived from AD 347 to AD 407, explains in part what this passage of Sacred Scripture means in his eighth homily on St. Paul’s First Letter to the Church at Thessalonika:
Let us then see what he now also says. “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in nowise precede them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the last trump.” For then, he says, “The powers of the heavens shall be shaken.” [Matthew 24:29] But wherefore with the trumpet? For we see this on Mount Sinai too, and Angels there also. But what means the voice of the Archangel? As he said in the parable of the Virgins, Arise! “The Bridegroom comes.” From [Matthew 25:6] Either it means this, or that as in the case of a king, so also shall it then be, Angels ministering at the Resurrection. For He says, let the dead rise, and the work is done, the Angels not having power to do this, but His word. As if upon a king's commanding and saying it, those who were shut up should go forth, and the servants should lead them out, yet they do this not from their own power, but from that Voice. This also Christ says in another place: “He shall send forth his Angels with a great trumpet, and they shall gather together his Elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” [Matthew 24:31] And everywhere you see the Angels running to and fro. The Archangel therefore I think is he, who is set over those who are sent forth, and who shouts thus: “Make all men ready, for the Judge is at hand.” And what is “at the last trumpet”? Here he implies that there are many trumpets, and that at the last the Judge descends. “And the dead,” he says, “in Christ shall rise first. Then we that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”
It is apparent from this that St. Chrysostom regards St. Paul’s account as an event happening at the end of the Earth prior to the Last Judgment, hence his words above:
The Archangel therefore I think is he, who is set over those who are sent forth, and who shouts thus: “Make all men ready, for the Judge is at hand.” And what is “at the last trumpet”? Here he implies that there are many trumpets, and that at the last the Judge descends.
To regard this in any other way than the prelude to Final Judgment is to require not two comings of Christ (one at His birth 2000 years ago and another at the end of time), but three (one at His birth 2000 years ago, a second at the rapture and another when Jesus comes to defeat antichrist and start His millennial reign), or possibly even four (the last being at the end of His millennial reign when He at last casts Satan into hell). Obviously such eschatology is ludicrous.
HISTORICAL EVIDENCE
Before the 19th century the idea and the term rapture never appeared in any Christian writings, including Protestant, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox. The writings of the men who were taught by the Apostles in the late 1st century and early 2nd century are completely devoid of any eschatology where Christ raptures true believes, a seven year tribulation occurs, and then a millennial reign happens. Rather, this idea came from a man by the name of John Nelson Darby who lived from 1800 to 1882, and whose ideas another man by the name of CI Scofield popularized in a Protestant Study Bible in the early 20th century.
John Nelson Darby started out as an Anglo-Irish priest. But when he learned that to continue in the Irish-Anglo Church he had to swear allegiance to England’s George IV as the rightful king of Ireland, he resigned to join an interdenominational group of believers who did not want to be answerable to any ecclesial authority. Eventually through the twists and turns of human self-will run riot he became the head of what was informally known as the Darbyite Brethren. He maintained the false Calvinist notion of predestination (the heresy of once saved, always saved contrary to 2nd Peter 2:20-22) and created a man-made system of dispensationalism and futurism which included this idea of a rapture. Interestingly, fellow Calvinist and contemporary Charles Haddon Spurgeon published various criticism of John Darby’s theology (there is no unity within the various factions of Protestantism).
In a first edition of 1909 and then in a revised edition of 1917, a certain Cyrus I (CI) Scofield, having come upon John Darby’s ideas, popularized them in his dispensational study notes in a Scofield Reference Bible. CI Scofield's notes on the Book of Revelation are a major source for the various timetables, judgments, and plagues elaborated on by popular religious writers in the late 20th and early 21st centuries such as Hal Lindsey, Edgar C. Whisenant, and Tim LaHaye; and in part because of the success of the Scofield Reference Bible, 20th century American fundamentalists placed greater stress on eschatological speculation. This, needless to say, has contributed to great financial success in the publication of books and the production of movies. Yet NONE of these ideas which have profited self-made, self-appointed Protestant clergymen so much were ever taught by the Apostles or heard of by their spiritual descendants, the ones whom they taught, the early Church Fathers. Indeed, St. Victorinus (a bishop of Pettau in what is now Austria and an ecclesiastical writer of AD 270 who suffered martyrdom probably in AD 303 under Emperor Diocletian) wrote a Commentary on the Apocalypse of the Blessed John. None of the ideas of a rapture and dispensationalist futurism purported by John Darby and CI Scofield appear in this late 3rd and early 4th century exposition on the Book of Revelation (or Apocalypse as it is called in Greek).
CONCLUSION
A true reading of Sacred Scripture is inconsistent with the man-made eschatology of a rapture. And none of the dispensationalist ideas of John Darby and CI Scofield appear in history until a Protestant “priest” got upset over having to swear allegiance to the King of England who himself was Protestant. So I ask the reader this: will you believe what the early Church Fathers (Sts John Chrysostom, Victorinus et alias) learned from the Apostles themselves, or will you default to the feel-good and exciting theology of dispensationalism that has contributed so mightily to the profit of self-appointed clergymen who write books and produce movies for the titillation of the emotions without the edification of the spirit? We would do well to remember what is said in the 2nd Papal Encyclical (other known as St peter’s 2nd Epistle):
20 First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, 21 because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. [2 Peter 1:20-21]
Interpretation of Sacred Scripture belongs to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church Who Herself at the Councils of Carthage and Rome in the 4th century AD determined what would be in the Sacred Canon and what would not be. It does NOT belong to self-made, self-appointed men like John Darby and CI Scofield, nor with their descendants who use a false eschatology to earn monetary profit for themselves.
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