Rapture: The End-Times Error That Leaves the Bible Behind (29 page)

This is nothing less than the Church’s traditional belief in the second advent of Christ. Nothing we have uncovered even remotely suggests the private rapture that rapturists try to deduce from these verses. Nowhere is anyone “left behind.” There is no secret rapture preceding a seven-year Great Tribulation; indeed, the Great Tribulation Jesus predicts here has already come to pass. There is no mention of a separate millennial reign of Jesus as Messiah after the judgment. And nowhere is there any hint of two or three future judgments. The beliefs integral to the rapturist system are conspicuously absent from the teachings of Jesus.

At this point, the rapturists’ case is looking tenuous, to say the least. In Daniel, we learned that there really was no prediction of a seven-year tribulation, but rather a seven-decade period of covenantal transition that ended in 70 A.D. In the Olivet Discourse, we learned that Jesus keeps His promises. The signs He predicted were fulfilled in the first century, the Great Tribulation occurred as predicted, and Christ came in judgment to His accusers in the Sanhedrin. When Christ returns, it will not be a secret, and no one will be left behind. Rather, we will all be judged and admitted into—or left out of—God’s eternal Kingdom.

Yet rapturists still use certain passages from New Testament epistles to try to salvage their case. Even very knowledgeable Catholics can get confused about how to answer these rapturist claims. Examining these verses, we will see that the confusion stems from the rapturist tendency toward “deceptive double vision.”

In the movie
It’s a Wonderful Life
, George Bailey’s Uncle Billy looks for his hat after drinking too much at a party. When George holds it out to him, he looks at it and asks, “Which one is mine?” The audience laughs because everyone knows that there is only one hat.

We will encounter a similar scenario with the rapturist treatment of the epistles. One, and only one second advent is taught in the New Testament. Yet in each passage, the rapturist will ask which “hat” is being discussed: the secret rapture or the second coming.

After examining the “double vision” passages, we will look at two epistles that will give us valuable insight into the mindset of the Apostles. These passages will “sober us up” after the “double vision” passages. After we glean what we can from the wisdom of these epistles, we will be ready for The Apocalypse.

The time line is assumed: 1 Corinthians 15:20–26

This passage lays out a general time line of the events of the end. This is certainly not Paul’s primary purpose—which is to convince his readers of the resurrection of the body—but this makes the order of events even more compelling:

Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.… As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at His coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when He delivers the Kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

The order is clear. First, Christ was raised bodily from the dead. This event stands as a prophecy concerning our own personal future. Christ was “the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (GR3). Second, Christians will be raised from the dead. Third, “the end” comes.

That is the order. If St. Paul had believed in the rapturist system, this would have presented a perfect passage in which to include it. But Paul does not allude to the rapturist time line of the end; moreover, he lays out a time line that excludes its possibility. There is no mention of a two-stage coming split into a secret rapture and a later, public second advent. In fact, there is not even a hint of a secret rapture. There is
one
resurrection mentioned (not two) and only
one
coming “event” (not two, or in two stages).
Immediately
after this coming (not seven or a thousand or 1,007 years later), “the end” arrives, at which time Christ “delivers the Kingdom to God.”

This is a major problem for the rapturist system. Even leading rapturists admit that the idea that Christ’s second advent will be split into two stages is not taught in a single passage of Scripture. The only way to justify their system is to assign certain passages to the first stage and other passages to the second stage, even though the passages themselves do not encourage this. This is what I call “deceptive double vision.”

This tendency on the part of the rapturist to assign certain passages to one stage or the other in an arbitrary way is nowhere more apparent than just a little further on in 1 Corinthians:

Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep [die], but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.… Then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

(Church nursery workers like to claim that this passage describes their experiences with babies: “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.”)

Rapturists would say that this passage describes the secret rapture. But why? There is certainly nothing in this text that cannot be understood perfectly well as happening at the traditional second coming. In fact, that is a better way to understand the text. St. Paul tells us that not all Christians will die, but that “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye … we shall all be changed.” The Church has always understood this to be an event that will occur at the second coming of our Lord and Savior.

We read that this will occur “at the last trumpet.” Trumpets always proclaim public events in the Old Testament (Exod. 19:10–20; Lev. 25:8; Num. 10:1–10; Jos. 6; Ps. 81:3–5; Isa. 27:13, 58:1; Jer. 4:19–21; Ezek. 33:3–6; Joel 2:1, 15; Amos 3:6; Zeph. 1:14–16; Zech. 9:14). The image of trumpets’ boldly announcing Christ’s coming certainly does not resemble a secret rapture.

Further, this is not just any trumpet. This is the “last” trumpet. “The dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed” at the end of time. The rapturist tries to place this last trumpet 1,007 years before the second coming! But the “last” trumpet will not occur seven or 1,007 years before the end. It seems too evident to require pointing out, but the “last” trumpet will sound
last
.

A few verses later, we see further evidence that these are the final events being described. “When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ” At the time of this trumpet and resurrection, death will be destroyed. Yet St. Paul has already mentioned that “the last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:26). That would place these events at the final eschaton. Yet rapturists still foresee the battle of Armageddon and the battle with Gog and Magog as transpiring after this passage. That would mean death had really not yet been “swallowed up in victory.”

Rapturists claim that these verses speak of the secret rapture before the Great Tribulation and the Millennium. But they believe that during this time, people will continue to be born, to live, and to die. That, quite simply, does not fit this passage. When death is destroyed and we are all raised, all tombs will be forever empty, just as that one tomb outside Jerusalem was empty two thousand years ago. The bodies will be gone.

The scriptural evidence points much more convincingly to the Church’s historical teaching. Christ will come back one more time. At that time, all mankind will be resurrected, will be judged, and will enter into eternity. It is a simpler system; it is what the early Church believed; it is what the Bible teaches.

Our commonwealth is in Heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to be like His glorious body.

These verses promise that our bodies will be changed “to be like His glorious body.”

When Jesus’ body was resurrected, the old body was subsumed into that resurrected body. There was no longer any body on earth to decompose. When we have a resurrected body, our old bodies will not be in graves any longer. This will happen at the final eschaton, and the caskets will all be empty.

There is nothing to indicate that this is not at the second advent of Christ—the historical understanding of the Church. Only a case of deceptive double vision would necessitate the insertion of a secret rapture. There is no textual reason to insert an intermediary event before the second coming.

When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

The most straightforward understanding of this verse avoids any double vision. Christ will gloriously return to earth to close the curtain on history. When He does come, it will be in glory and power.

This glorious coming does not match the secret rapture that is sometimes read into this verse. There is certainly nothing in the context of this verse that suggests a secret rapture before Christ’s glorious return.

This is a favorite passage of the rapturists. They seem quite certain that this passage clearly teaches their version of the future. But does it?

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. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep. 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. 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; 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.… The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.… Sudden destruction will come upon them as travail comes upon a woman with child, and there will be no escape.

St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonian Christians because they were worried about those who died before Christ’s return. Many in the ancient world believed that a person simply ceased to exist upon death, as do many modern unbelievers. There seems to have been a rumor in Thessalonica that the dead Christians had lost out on any chance of a physical resurrection. St. Paul assures them that it was not so. In fact, “the dead in Christ will rise first” to meet Christ, and those still alive at the second coming will immediately follow them. But all will meet Christ at that time.

Rapturists make a point of the fact that we will “meet the Lord in the air”—the Lord who has come “in the clouds.” They infer from this that Christ will not actually touch down on
terra firma
and that we will go back to Heaven with Christ for the duration of a seven-year Great Tribulation. If so many people did not accept this explanation, I would dismiss it immediately as silly.

The word St. Paul uses for meeting the Lord “in the air” is
aer
, the Greek word for
atmosphere
. This same word is used to describe Satan as “the prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2). Yet no one would claim that, because of this word, Satan has no influence over people who keep their feet firmly planted on earth. A consistent rapturist reading of this word here would mean that only astronauts, balloonists, pilots, and airplane passengers are influenced by Satan’s power.

No, when Christ returns to the earth’s atmosphere, He has returned to
earth
. Read the verses again! We will meet Christ, but it will be at His second coming to earth. Any other use of the language stretches credibility.

Rapturists bolster their argument by pointing to the description of Jesus’ coming “in the clouds.” But this does not mean that Christ cannot return on a clear, cloudless day. Elsewhere, even rapturists do not claim that Jesus must be seated upon a stallion when He returns (Apoc. 19:11). Certain symbols appear in Scripture repeatedly. Clouds indicate that Christ will be coming again in glory as Judge. His Suffering Servant (cf. Isa. 53) days are over, and He is now victorious over His enemies (GR6).

Rapturists, however, do not want to lose this passage for their cause. They sometimes point out that the word Paul uses for
coming
in verse 15 is the Greek word
parousia
. During my childhood, rapturists were taught that this word always refers to the rapture. Even today rapturists still talk of the
parousia
when referring to the rapture. We were taught that two other Greek words in the Bible,
epiphaneia
(“appearing”) and
apokalupsis
(“revelation”) refer exclusively to the second advent of Christ. If this were true, it would be a clear indication of which passages refer to the secret rapture and which refer to the second coming.

Unfortunately for rapturists, however, their own Bible scholars have disproved this assertion. These three Greek words are used interchangeably. This leaves each reader to pick and choose which passages refer to the rapture and which refer to the second coming, based on his own subjective reading. This should be a clue to all of us that perhaps the entire system is a fabrication with no basis in the Bible whatsoever.