THE RAPTURE Why does not the Catholic Church teach about the rapture and the end-times? The Bible clearly teaches the rapture in passages such as 1 Corinthians 15:51, and especially in Thessalonians 4:15-17. • ANSWER ME THIS! –by Patrick Madrid The Catholic Church does indeed teach about the coming end-times also referred to as “eschatology”, but it rejects as unbiblical the “pre-tribulation rapture theory” that is wildly popular among many Fundamentalists and Evangelical Protestants. There are several important reasons why the rapture theory would not hold water biblically. First, though, let us define it and explain how it fits into the end-times scenario made popular by the Left Behind series of books. The main version of the rapture theory is the “pre-tribulation” view, which holds that “the Church” (which is a Fundamentalist and Evangelical code for “born again believers” will be raptured out of this world immediately prior to the Great Tribulation. Adherents of the rapture theory believe this tribulation will last for seven years. During this time, the Antichrist and the Great Beast will arise and great calamities, persecution, and bloodshed will ensue. At the end of that tribulation period (so the theory goes), Jesus Christ will return to establish a literal one thousand-year kingdom on earth. At the end of that one thousand-year reign, the world will end, He will judge the nations, and then everyone will go either to heaven or hell for eternity. One of the problems with this theory is that it would mean that one thousand years seven years would elapse between the secret and silent “rapture,” in which Christ returns invisibly and only for Christians, and when the Lord returns on the Lat Day. But in John 6:54, Christ tells us that the dead in Christ will rise “on the last day.” Another reason to reject the rapture theory is that it is a novelty within Christian Tradition. It only became known toward the end of the 19th century, which saw the rise of feverish “end-times” sects such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mormons, and the various Seventh-Day Adventists. For the eighteen hundred years of Christianity prior to the mid-19th century, the rapture theory, as it is commonly understood to day, was essentially unknown. But the biggest reason to reject the rapture theory is the biblical problem. Let us examine five of the most commonly cited verses used by adherents to the rapture theory and see whether or not the Bible really “clearly teaches” this notion of a pre-tribulation rapture. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 –“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 Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord.” First, notice that there is nothing in this passage that would identify this event as anything other that the Second Coming of Christ, nor does it in any way even hint that it will take place prior to a period of tribulation. These are two major false assumptions that believers in the rapture are simply reading into the text. Second, Dispensationalist Protestants insist that they interpret the Bible literally unless a passage is obviously symbolic. But when it comes to the rapture, that is not what happens. In 1 Thessalonians 4, for example, the literal sense of the passage shows that the event being described here is both public and audible. It is the exact opposite of the “secret,” or “hidden,” view that those who promote the rapture theory have adopted. They claim Christ will come secretly and silently at the rapture, and the only ones who will know about it will be those who are raptured. According to the popular “left behind” rapture teaching, those who are not raptured, i.e. who were not “born again” will not realize that the rapture took place. It would not be public nor noticeable. And that makes it completely inconsistent with 1 Thessalonians 4. The notion that only those who are raptured will see and hear what St. Paul describes in that passage is another example of reading into the biblical text something that just is not there. 1 Corinthians 15”51-52 – “Behold, I tell you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkly of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.” As with 1 Thessalonians 4, this often-quoted passage contains no hint of an indication that the event it describes is something separate from the Second Coming of Christ, or that it takes place prior to the tribulation period described. Also the “twinkling of an eye” refers to the physical metamorphosis of the mortal body to a glorified body, not to the speed of the rapture. Also, this passage can not be referring to the rapture since it specifically ties this event to the blast of the “last trumpet,” which will herald the Second Coming of Christ. This is not a reference to some “secret,” “silent” rapture, but rather to the Parousia, the Second Coming of Christ, as the Catholic Church has consistently interpreted this passage for the last two thousand years. Revelation 3:10 – “’Because you [i.e., the church at Philadelphia] have kept the word of my perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, that [hour] which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell upon the earth.’” Again there is no explicit or implicit indication in this verse that it refers to an event separate from the Second Coming of Christ. Also, though the phrase “keep you from the hour of testing” might seem to imply that the Church will be kept out of harm’s way before the tribulation begins, we know from many other passages that Christ does not intend that for His Church. For example, in John 17:15, Christ says, “I do not pray that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one”; and John 16:33, where he tells us, “In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” In John15:19, we read that Christians have been chosen will be taken out of the world prior to a time of tribulation. A good example of this is the savage persecution inflicted on the Church by Emperor Nero. As an interesting side note, it may well be that St. John’s numerical identification of the Beast as “666” in Revelation 17:17 referred not to some future personage but to the crazed Emperor Nero. This number is an example of gematria a Jewish system of using the numbers represented by the letters in the Hebrew alphabet as a code to indicate something else. When “Nero Ceasar” is rendered into Hebrew, it comes out to 666. The truth is, far from containing the rapture teaching, Scripture brims with passages that tell us the Church will endure tribulations, including the biggest tribulation of all (c.f. Matthew 24:21). The Church will come through all of them, purified and holier by the ordeal: cf. Romans 12:12, 2 Corinthians 4:4, 1 Thessalonians 3:4, and Revelation 1:9, 2:10, 7:14. Matthew 24:37-42 – “As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of man. Then two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is taken and the one is left. Watch, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” Christ is referring here to the end-times, but more immediately He is foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 by the Romans. Note that He says “this generation” (verse 34). The Lord’s description here fits perfectly with the destruction of Jerusalem. Also, we should take note of His reference to Noah. He said that this future event would “be just like the days of Noah.” Open your Bible to Genesis 6 and 7 and you will see who the people God would “blot out” were: the unrighteous, those who scoffed at God and lived in unrepented sin. And you will also see who were the ones who were left alive: the righteous, Noah and his family. This is the exact opposite of rapture theory that dispensationalists try to fabricate out of this passage. The ones who were “left behind” in Noah’s day were the ones who were saved, and those who God would “destroy . . . with the earth” by the flood were taken to judgment, not to safety. One final point about Matthew 24 is this telling statement from Christ: “He who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt. 24:13). That is a clear reference to Christians who endure any and all tribulations God allows them to go through for their own purification. So, again, far from Matthew 24 teaching that the Church will be removed from harm’s way, the one who endures through those crises is the ne who will be saved. Revelation 4:1-2 – After this I looked, and lo, in heaven an open door! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, Come up hither, and I will show you what must take place after this,” At once I was in the Spirit; and lo, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne! Many people presume that this passage is a clear reference to the rapture. But is it? Dispensationalists argue that in this passage John represents or symbolizes the Church. Interestingly, these same Protestants are quick to deny that St. John could represent the Church when, as he stood at the foot of the cross with Mary, Jesus said, “Woman, behold your son,” and to John, “behold your mother” (John 19:26-27). But a Catholic would ask why, if they are indeed the “literalists” they purport to be when it comes to interpreting Scripture, do they suddenly select a symbolic interpretation here? I would submit that it is done simply in an attempt to bolster their rapture theory, even though, by suddenly imposing a symbolic interpretation on this passage, they violate their own stated principles of interpreting Scripture. Another example of how dispensationalists sometimes play fast and loose with the Bible in their attempt to equate the “trumpet” spoken in 1 Thessalonians 4:16. This is sloppy verse-quoting on their part, because while 1 Thessalonians speaks of a trumpet blast, Revelation 4 tells us that St. John heard a voice that sounded like a trumpet. This is an important distinction. In this passage, we see St. John told to “come up here!” Dispensationalists argue that this is a glimpse of the Church (Symbolized by John) being brought up from the earth to heaven in the rapture. But this interpretation poses yet another insoluble problem because in the Book of Revelation, St. John moves back and forth between the earth and heaven. In fact, he comes back to earth after he is told to “come up here” to stand in heaven before the throne of God. St. John is on earth when his apocalyptic vision begins “on the Lord’s day” (Rev. 4:1-2). Then he is told to “come up here” to heaven (Rev. 4:1-2). Later, in Revelation 21:10, he is carried back to earth into a “wilderness,” where he sees the Whore of Babylon seated on the seven-headed, ten-horned scarlet Beast. Obviously, the wretched and iniquitous Whore of Babylon could not be in heaven –she’s on earth. Then St. John’s location changes yet again, this time to a “great and high mountain,” where he sees the heavenly Jerusalem “coming down out of heaven” (Revelation 21:10). And finally in Revelation 21, St. John is present when heaven and earth are finally united into a single permanent reality. So if the rapture adherents were biblically consistent, which they aren’t, this would mean that the Church (purportedly symbolized here by John) also goes back and forth between heaven and earth during the time of tribulation. But, of course, no believer in the rapture would ever agree to that. But above all the other problems with the rapture theory, there stands an even more compelling reason to reject it. Carl Olson, a convert to the Catholic Church from Dispensational Protestantism, and an expert on dispensationalism, points out that, amazingly, even the major Protestant promoters of the rapture theory admit that it is not expressly taught in the Bible. And this is a crucial point, since these same purveyors of the rapture claim to follow the Reformation principle of sola scriptura (Latin: by Scripture Alone). Although many Biblical references are used to support it, the pre-tribulational Rapture has no basis in Scripture. In fact, prominent dispensationalists admit that no clear and obvious scriptural support exists for this belief. [Tim] LaHaye acknowledges this fact, ironically, at the start of a chapter titled “Who Says It’s Obscure?” : One objection to the pre-tribulation rapture is that no one passage of the Scripture teaches the two aspects of His Second Coming separated by the Tribulation. This is true. But then, no passage teaches a post-Tribulation or mid-Tribulation rapture, either. [John] Walvoord makes the same admission in the first edition of the “The Rapture Question:” Neither pre-tribulationalism nor post-tribulationalism is an explicit teaching of the Scripture. Walvood removed the statement from later editions of the book. At the end of the same book, Walvood lists “Fifty Arguments for Pre-tribulationalism.” None contains a passage from Scripture explicitly teaching the pre-tribulational rapture for the simple reason that none exists. -
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 22:44:40 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015