| APPENDIX 2 What About the Rapture? The predominant teaching in contemporary Christianity is that the coming of Christ will be in two separate events. First he will invisibly come to secretly “rapture” his church to heaven (along with removing the Holy Spirit from the earth), and then, seven years later, he will come in an open demonstration of power and glory. In between those two events, the Antichrist (an evil human dictator) is supposed to come to power and the great tribulation period takes place. This teaching was never taught until the last century, and is not biblical. The Bible nowhere speaks of two separate comings of Jesus. This is what we find in the Scriptures: Christ’s coming, the resurrection, and catching up of the saints to meet Jesus in the air all take place at the same time—at the end of the world. This is why Jesus promised, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”[552] Why would Jesus promise to be with his church until the end of the world if he intended to come seven years before the end to take them out of the world? The secret rapture doctrine contradicts the words of Christ in Matthew 13, when he said that the wheat and tares (saved and lost people) would grow together until the “end of the world,” and then would be separated. According to the two-stage teaching, both groups would not grow together until the end of the world; the righteous would be separated from the wicked seven years before the end. Regarding the resurrection of the saved, Christ said, “I will raise him up at the last day.”[553] There are two resurrections—the “first resurrection” of the saved, and the “second resurrection” of the lost. You definitely do not want to miss the first one, and you certainly do not want to be in the second one! Those who believe in the rapture teach that tribulation is after the rapture and the resurrection—so what will happen to the martyrs who die in the tribulation? They missed the first resurrection, and the only other one the Bible speaks about is the resurrection of the lost. (Besides, how will anyone get saved during the tribulation anyway, if the Holy Spirit is not around anymore?) Paul declares that the saints are caught up to meet the Lord at the same time the dead in Christ are raised: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.”[554] Nothing secret or invisible about that! God has never removed his people from persecution, but rather helped and protected them. There have been many persecuted and martyred in the past; what makes us so special, that we should be removed from the earth before the tribulation? Jesus specifically prayed for those living in the end, “I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but I do ask you to keep them safe from the Evil One.”[555] A favorite text of rapturists is Matthew 24:40,41. Taken out of context, it would seem to support their view. But “A text taken out of context is a pretext[556].” Notice the entire passage: “But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the son of man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.” Jesus clearly drew a parallel between the second coming and the days of Noah. There were only two classes: those who entered the ark were saved, and those who refused to enter were left outside, where they died, not for a “second chance,” as rapturists teach. So, according to Jesus, will it be when he comes at the end of the world. One will be taken to heaven with Jesus and the other will be destroyed. Verse 51 makes it clear what happens to those who are left: “And he shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” If we read the parallel account of this passage in Luke 17:26-37, Jesus adds the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as another example of what will happen when “two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken and the other left.”[557] Again, there were only two classes: those who were taken out of Sodom and saved, and those who were left behind and destroyed. The disciples asked Jesus to clarify where those “left behind” were left: “And they answered and said unto him, ‘Where, Lord?’ And he said unto them, ‘Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.”[558] |
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| 552 Matthew 28:20 553 John 6:40 554 I Thessalonians 4:16,17 555 John 17:15,20 TEV 556 a lie. 557 Verse 36 558 Verse 37 |
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