I Have Never Heard That Preached...episode 5: The Rapture is Nonsense Theology
Is the doctrine of The Rapture and Left Behind theology true?
Hey Faith Travellers
This is the 4th episode in the “I Never Heard That Preached” series. These are my little notes on topics never mentioned from the pulpit in the churches I have attended in over 50 years. You may disagree with some of the conclusions I reach and that’s okay. You are welcome to join in conversation using the comment button below.
As I have mentioned in past episodes, it is a good to be curious and investigate how other believers, in other Christian traditions, think about God, Scriptures, Jesus and society.
Shall we tackle one of the biggest topics in End Times teaching?
My Facebook feed become full last year with memes on End Times and specifically Hell and The Rapture. In episode 3, I addressed the concept of Hell - read it here.
Have you seen this meme in your Facebook feed?
What is the purpose of someone posting this to Facebook?
The person posting is probably genuine in their desire to introduce their friends and family to Jesus and Father God but is this a helpful way of going about that and is it even true?
Is this meme it helpful?
For young people this meme produces a paralysing fear of being ‘left behind’ after their family leaves the planet and it can cause long lasting trauma. Rapture theology may produce converts confessing the ‘sinner’s prayer’ due to their fears but I don’t believe fear is a good, valid foundation to any loving relationship.
Did our marriages start off with a threat of punishment if we don’t marry our partners? No! of course not. It started with dating and romantic gestures, not fearful threats.
There is now a new stream of counselling for “rapture anxiety” to address the harm that such teaching has had on people. CNN wrote an article on it - here.
So, no I don’t think this type of evangelising is helpful or necessary.
Jesus didn’t need it, he just showed love to people, in words and actions and the people came.
Is this meme even true?
I grew up in the Open Brethren tradition where the Bible was the final authority and the church’s End Times theology was very similar to the “Left Behind” series of fiction books.
I was taught, The Rapture was an event that could happen at any time and Christians would be snatched up into the air to meet Jesus. Then we would move onto heaven and spend eternity there with Jesus. The “Left Behind” books and movie added the extra details of planes crashing because the pilots were raptured and their clothes being left behind.
I thought all Christians believed in the Rapture. But do they?
I knew that there were differences of opinion on the timing of the Rapture…was it before the supposed 7 year tribulation? or in the middle of the tribulation? or at the end? Or was it before the wrath? Boy, it got confusing! BUT I didn’t know that there was major disagreement with the truth of The Rapture.
I did feel in my younger years that there was a certain amount of gymnastics required to squeeze a few scripture verses to fit the notion of a Rapture. It definitely didn’t take into account a natural reading of Scripture or placing the verses in their right context, including why the author was writing and how the listeners would understand the meaning to be.
But I have since discovered that we (as in Western Evangelical Christians) are in the minority in regards to our view of The Rapture.
What??
I discovered that there are whole branches of Christianity that have never entertained such notion!
Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Lutherans, Anglicans, most Methodists, most Presbyterians, and other believers in various Reformed traditions do not believe that the rapture, as it has been popularized in many evangelical circles, will occur.
How did I not know this? Because it was never mentioned from the pulpit.
I thought that the early Christians believed in the Rapture. Why wouldn’t they? They wrote about it. But did they?
Nope they did not! The idea of reading 1 Thessalonians 4 :16-17 as an event where Christians are suddenly snatched out of the earth to heaven leaving Non Christians on earth to go through a 7 year tribulation was not taught or discussed or written about in the early church.
It wasn’t until the 1800s when a British guy called John Nelson Darby (who formed the Plymouth Brethren churches) caught hold of this view from writings by Dr. John Gill (1748) and Morgan Edwards (1788). He began to formulate the teachings into his own doctrine, started teaching it and then took it to America in 1864. D.L. Moody became a supporter of the doctrine but it wasn’t until Darby’s thoughts were inserted into the footnotes of the “Scofield Reference Bible”, published in 1909, that it became more widespread. 1
So it has only been in the last 200 years that a portion (yes, a portion) of the world wide Christian church believed in the notion of a rapture event.
Here is a helpful YouTube video by Dr Jordan B Cooper a Lutheran Priest “ 5 Problems with the Rapture”
Here is another one - I am not sure about the end times vision that the 12 year old girl had that Dr. Keesmaat mentions at the beginning of the video, as I haven’t been able to verify that but what she talks about after that is very helpful in explaining the 1 Thess 4:13-18 passages, Matthew 24 passage and others.
“Why the Rapture is Not Biblical” by Dr. Sylvia Keesmaat
So if there is no Rapture, then what happens?
This is already over 900 words and has probably taken you over 5 minutes to read so I will leave answering that BIG question to next time.
What are your thoughts?
Victorious Eschatology: A Partial Preterist View by Dr. Harold R Eberle & Dr. Martin Trench
Here is a great article by N T Wright which summarises what I have also noted - https://ntwrightpage.com/2016/07/12/farewell-to-the-rapture/
Here is a very good short video of an interview with NT Wright where he is asked about The Rapture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlcjeFL-dyY