The Rapture: Another Letter to a Loved One
I have been getting a lot of questions about this one. We’ve heard about it on the news lately and there seems to be billboards all over the country talking about it (although, I don’t know if anything like this is being done in other countries. If so, I’m certain it’s not to the extreme that it is in America).
The Rapture.
Or, more correctly, the so-called “rapture.” The reason for the “so-called” and the quotes around the word “rapture” is that, now get this …
The rapture is not true.
In fact, it was not even in the vocabulary of the church until the early to mid 1800’s (although there is supposed to be a text from as early as the late 1700’s). Now think about this for a moment. This joyous experience was not even on the lips of the followers of Jesus for over 1800 years. None of the apostles talked or wrote about it (we’ll get to some of the biblical texts in a moment). None of the church Fathers or Mothers wrote about it. None of the churches councils ever made declarations on it or wrote creeds about it. This should make us really pause for just one moment at least.
“But what about when Jesus said …”
“Or when Paul wrote …”
Let’s look at some of those passages very briefly.
In Matthew’s Gospel, after blasting the religious elite of his day (Matthew 23), Jesus said, “Your house is left to you deserted” and stormed out of the Temple (23.38; CEB).[1] I’m sure you could have heard a pin drop. And the the yelling begins! Quickly the disciples follow Jesus. Not really sure that they heard him properly, they point out the buildings of the Temple with all of the beautiful stones, gold, etc. (Matthew 24.1). Jesus responds, “Do you see all these things? I assure that no stone will be left on another. Everything will be demolished” (24.2), and then goes off to the Mount of Olives. Yeah, they had heard him correctly. Their Temple would be destroyed. The world as they knew it would be coming to an end. They only had one question on their minds — when? (24.3).[2]
Now notice Jesus’ response to them, “Watch out that no one deceives you” (24.4a; emphasis added). Jesus was talking about the Temple he and his disciples visited daily. He told them that that very Temple would be destroyed. To make certain of this, they pointed to the Temple they all just left. Jesus reiterated clearly that it was their Temple which would be demolished. The disciples asked him when it would happen and Jesus warns them not to be deceived. There’s no way, in good conscience, we can take these words and think Jesus was really talking about us and our time. None whatsoever. As a good friend recently said, “Words mean something!”
Throughout the rest of the chapter, Jesus uses the personal pronoun “you” about twenty times (depending on which translation you use). If we were standing on that mountain with them, there’s no way we would have thought Jesus meant other followers, thousands of years in the future, when he kept saying “you” and looking at us! And yet that’s what people would have us believe.
“But what about the signs — the sun going dark, the stars falling from heaven, etc.? Those things haven’t happened yet so Jesus was clearly speaking to us and not the disciples.”
All of those things have happened repeatedly throughout the Jewish Scriptures. Over and over again, when a powerful nation fell, the prophets of old used cataclysmic language to talk about its demise. Isaiah 34.1-5 is a classic example. In that passage, mountains are drenched in blood, the heavens melt away, the stars fall from the sky, etc. etc. That prophecy was against Edom (verse 5) and none of those things literally happened. Certainly, the nation was destroyed, but none of the “end of the world” events took place. The language is poetic language describing the “end of the world” for the nation of Edom. That’s exactly the same thing that Jesus and the New Testament writers did. They were prophets warning about the “end of the world” for the first century Jewish nation. And, just as Jesus said that his contemporary “generation won’t pass away until all these things happen” and Paul wrote that the “ends of ages” had come upon them, their predictions came true within their generation.
In Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, where the infamous passage occurs (and the context is clearly about the resurrection), he talks about going out (or being “taken up”) to where Jesus is. The scene that Paul paints is of a king coming to a city. The people run out to meet the king. But the people don’t stay outside the city! They come with the king into the city. And that’s exactly what we see in Revelation 21.
In that passage, the realm of God (referred to as the New Jerusalem) actually comes down to the realm of humanity! The two realms become one place.
“But what about the Antichrist?”
Well, the only place that the antichrist is mentioned is in the first letter of John. There John wrote, “Little children, it is the last hour. Just as you’ve heard that the antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. This is how we know it’s the last hour” (1 John 2.18; adapted). There are a couple of things that needed to be pointed out here. First, John was writing to the followers of Jesus in the first century — not to us today.[3] Second, John wrote that it was the “last hour.” Please let that sink in. We’ve been told for years that we’re living in the “last days” and yet, right here in the Bible, the very Bible that some claim plainly teaches the “rapture,” the Bible plainly states that it was the “last hour” — not today, but then. Lastly, John wrote that “antichrists” were a reality when that letter was written.
We could go through each passage,[4] but the Bible is quite clear. There is no “rapture.” The “last days” were about the War of the Jews in 66-70 CE when Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed. The “antichrist” was a reality in the first century.
I hope that clears some of this up. And, if you want to have more of a conversation about this, please leave a question or comment below.
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In the Love of the Three in One,
Br. Jack+, LC
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[1] Scripture quotations marked (CEB) are taken from The Common English Bible. Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible.
[2] I know that Matthew’s telling of the story has three questions, but when compared to the versions in Mark and Luke, one can see that their main concern was when their Temple would be destroyed.
[3] While this passage is for us, it’s not to us. There’s a difference.
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