Rapture Question

[Elok]

NOTE: If you think Christianity is all superstitious nonsense, there is no need to inform us of it in this thread. Please be rude somewhere else. Thank you.

So, while I was reading the Bible (something I really ought to do more) last night I stumbled across 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. It reads as follows:

13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.

This is the NIV translation, copied from http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...18&version=NIV

While I'm not clear about what everyone on Poly believes, I know we have a very diverse Christian community. Does anyone here know how the doctrine of the Rapture is typically justified, in light of this passage? I mean, the whole idea is that the good Christians get picked up BEFORE Christ's return, right? But this says quite clearly and umambiguously that "we who are still alive" will still be hanging around on earth at the time. I don't think he could be referring to the "left behind" who decided they wanted to be Christian after all either, since he says "we."

I cannot see a way for Darby to be right here. That's not a problem for me, Orthodox Christians don't believe in the Rapture. The idea makes me personally quite uncomfortable. But I know that the kind of Christians who do believe in the Rapture are the kind who read the Bible most, and it's a real stumper. How do they deal with this?

NOTE, REPEATED FOR EMPHASIS: If you think Christianity is all superstitious nonsense, there is no need to inform us of it in this thread. Please be rude somewhere else. Thank you.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

simple - "we who are still alive" - ie the good ones, excludes pagan barbarians.

[Elok]

? I'm not understanding you. The doctrine of the Rapture, as I understand it, says that nobody St. Paul would include in the word "we" would still be on Earth at that point. The general idea is that good Christians get rescued before the tribulation even begins.

[Jon Miller]

I don't think that the rapture makes sense on even casual reading of the Bible and/or theologians of the last 1000 years.

Pentecostals, who are the ones who likely believe in the rapture, are not known as serious Bible students.

JM
(This is as someone who admires many things about the Pentecostals.)

[OneFootInTheGrave]

oh, OK- picked up before return - ... I did not realise that this was fundamental part of the rapture concept... to me this was like "the end" ... who gets picked up when - who cares, right? did not realize someone even thought about that aspect, let alone make it into the fundamental part of the concept...

[Jon Miller]

Apparently I am wrong and it is evangelicals, and started in the 18th century. I can be a bit excused though as it didn't really grab hold until the 20th century, which was when pentecostals became strong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapture

Some Dispensationalist Premillennialists (including many Evangelicals) hold the return of Christ to be two distinct events, or one Second Coming in two stages. 1 Thessalonians 4:15–17 is seen to be a description of a preliminary event to the return described in Matthew 24:29–31. Although both describe a return of Jesus, these are seen to be separated in time by more than a brief period. The first event may or may not be seen (which is not a primary issue), and is called the Rapture, when the saved are to be 'caught up,' from whence the term "Rapture" is taken. The "Second Coming" is a public event, wherein Christ's presence is prophesied to be clearly seen by all, as he returns to end a battle staged at Armageddon, though possibly fought at the Valley of Jehoshaphat. The majority of Dispensationalists hold that the first event precedes the period of Tribulation, even if not immediately (see chart for additional Dispensationalist timing views);

JM

[Docfeelgood]

My understanding is that there is nothing written in the bible about the rapture. It was a bedtime story to make kids go to sleep.

[Elok]

oh, OK- picked up before return - ... I did not realise that this was fundamental part of the rapture concept... to me this was like "the end" ... who gets picked up when - who cares, right? did not realize someone even thought about that aspect, let alone make it into the fundamental part of the concept...

Yes, some Evangelicals construct very detailed timelines based on the several different accounts of the End Times in the Bible. We Orthodox don't bother--the very next part of 1 Thessalonians says not to. BTW, what are your religious beliefs? I thought you were one of our agnostics/atheists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapture
Some Dispensationalist Premillennialists (including many Evangelicals) hold the return of Christ to be two distinct events, or one Second Coming in two stages. 1 Thessalonians 4:15–17 is seen to be a description of a preliminary event to the return described in Matthew 24:29–31. Although both describe a return of Jesus, these are seen to be separated in time by more than a brief period. The first event may or may not be seen (which is not a primary issue), and is called the Rapture, when the saved are to be 'caught up,' from whence the term "Rapture" is taken. The "Second Coming" is a public event, wherein Christ's presence is prophesied to be clearly seen by all, as he returns to end a battle staged at Armageddon, though possibly fought at the Valley of Jehoshaphat. The majority of Dispensationalists hold that the first event precedes the period of Tribulation, even if not immediately (see chart for additional Dispensationalist timing views);

See, that's another problem, since the 1Th passage makes it quite clear that this will be a very loud and public event--"sound of a trumpet," and all that. Not to mention that this forces them to postulate a "third coming."

[Jon Miller]

I think that their belief doesn't make sense on casual reading, so I can't defend it.

JM

[Elok]

Sure thing. Do we have any Rapture believers here--Kid, maybe? I always thought the doctrine was based mostly on one passage in an epistle of Peter's, but trying to follow the different opinions in Wiki's article on the matter is causing my brain to explode.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I am not a believer in the Rapture. I think it is based on a bad reading of the Bible, from 1 Thessalonians 4 and in Matthew 24 when it talks about two will be working in a field and one will be taken as in the days of Noah (of course in Noah, those who were "taken" were the wicked who were drowned & the story is about the broader idea that no one will know when Jesus comes again). I think it is related to the evangelical focused reading as Heaven and Hell is the end place for humanity and NOT the new Jerusalem when heaven and earth become one and the dead will rise.

That said, I do know many who believe in the Rapture (all Pentecostals) based on the caught up in the air and one will be taken language.

It is somewhat of an issue (one can say its simply a minor theological dispute about the 2nd Comming, therefore let everyone believe what they want), but as N.T. Wright points out, a belief that the elect will be wisked away to the heavenly realm makes those people less likely to care about fixing this world (bringing Heaven to earth).

[molly bloom]

I think that the reading of the Rapture in the Bible stems in part from the struggles of the Puritans and many other Protestant sects in late 16th and early 17th Century England- at least from my knowledge of their beliefs.

The proliferation of Protestant sects who believed in an imminent arrival of 'King' Jesus, coupled with a military battle against someone occasionally identified as the Antichrist (Charles I), a religious battle against the Beast (Rome) and assorted other bad guys (Archbishop Laud, Catholics in general) led to a burgeoning of millennial beliefs.

These sects also migrated to North America, where as they saw it, they could build a New Jerusalem, against the coming of the Lord.

Unsurprisingly, there were divisions in the sects between those who saw the Bible as the literal word of God and those who saw metaphors and parables (a literalist reading of the Bible would have been quite novel in the 17th Century, if memory serves).

Many Pentecostalists are influenced by the more literalist approach- and it isn't really too surprising to see small sects opt for a Calvinist approach to salvation, seeing themselves as either pre-ordained or more likely to be saved than the great mass of humanity.

This is all based on my memories of an English literature course on Bible translation and having to study the religious divides in the English Civil Wars...

[Elok]

Thanks for the info, Imran and Molly

[molly bloom]

Thanks for the info, Imran and Molly

I particularly recommend the works of Christopher Hill on the English Civil Wars and Puritanism. He wrote an essay called 'John Mason & The End of the World' which is particularly applicable.

People like John Bunyan, John Milton and various pamphleteers in England up to 1649 were covinced they were living in the End of Days.

A group called the Fifth Monarchists seized London briefly in 1661 for 'King Jesus':

Thomas Venner (d. 1661) and some fifty rebels had plotted to overthrow the new fledgling government of King Charles II in London by the force of arms. This was a very desperate effort to seize the seat of government before the coronation of Charles II. The work: A Doore of Hope (1661) addressed to Parliament stated their fears of a new monarchy, the return of bishops, and the revival of popery in the Church of England.


What is known as Venner's Rising happened on 1-4 January 1661. Venner with his Fifth Monarchy Men, and other supporters attacked the centers of power in and about Greater London under the cry "King Jesus and the heads upon the gates".

http://www.exlibris.org/nonconform/engdis/fifthmonarchists.html

For more modern versions, a good reference is Damian Thompson's 'The End Of Time', especially Ch. 10, 'Seoul: The Apocalyptic City'

It deals with the whole evangelical/Pentecostal wave in South Korea and the likes of these:

DOOMSDAY has arrived one month early for a Korean church leader who had been predicting the end of the world for 28 October, writes Terry McCarthy.

South Korean police have arrested Lee Jang Lim, head of the Tami Missionary Church, on charges of defrauding his followers and of violating foreign exchange laws.

Earlier this year, Mr Lee had started preaching that the end of the world was nigh, and his message caught on so quickly that the authorities began to get alarmed. Around 100,000 people have thrown their lot in with the eschatological movement, and many donated money, gave up their jobs and even got divorced to ensure they would be among the chosen ones at the Second Coming.

In the last few weeks, families of the believers had been anxiously pleading with the police to do something out of fear of a rash of suicides if the Second Coming did not come. Korea has a penchant for radical religions, and is the home of, among others, Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church.

However, the police needed evidence that Mr Lee had broken the law, since his sermons, although disturbing, were protected under the country's guarantee of freedom of religion. They began to get suspicious when it was discovered he had received about 3bn won ( pounds 2.3m) in donations from his flock. When it was also discovered that he was converting some of this into dollars, illegally, the police raided his house.

They found large amounts of cash, and, most incriminating of all, 300m won in bonds that were due to mature in 1995 - three years after the end of the world, according to Mr Lee's sermons. The police say they suspect he was planning to flee the country.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/end-is-nigh-for-korean-preacher-1554491.html

[Elok]

Oh, fun! Is that essay online? I'm in Peru right now, and English books are both limited in selection and outrageously expensive.