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The Rapture and The Last Days (or The Dog’s Breakfast that is Evangelical Eschatology)

Andrew Randall


The following selection are descriptions of Jesus’s Second Coming from the New Testament

(All quotes are NASB)


Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. (Revelation 1:7)


“This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11)


“But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him;” (Matthew 25:31)


“And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds from one end of the sky to the other.” (Matthew 24:30-31)


“They will say to you, ‘Look there! Look here!’ Do not go away, and do not run after them. For just like the lightning, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky, so will the Son of Man be in His day.” (Luke 17:23-25)


Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will 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 will be changed. (1 Corinthians 15:51-52)


For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will 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.(1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)


For those days will be a time of tribulation such as has not occurred since the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will. Unless the Lord had shortened those days, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom He chose, He shortened the days. And then if anyone says to you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ’; or, ‘Behold, He is there’; do not believe him; for false Christs and false prophets will arise, and will show signs and wonders, in order to lead astray, if possible, the elect. But take heed; behold, I have told you everything in advance. (Mark:13:19-23)


As an enthusiastic young Christian who was raised in a small Protestant church I had read, re-read and digested the above scriptures, and on the strength of these verses I assumed that in the very near future Christ’s Second Coming was about to happen. It would be spectacular. And it would be at a level never before imagined. The following list of facts about the Second Coming, or the Parousia, were concluded from what I and all my young friends had been taught was about to transpire.

  • He will return in the sky and every eye will see Him.

  • There will have been multiple warning signs in nature, politics, and religion that would mean its immanence would have been obvious to the perceptive.

  • Prior to His return there will be a time of great tribulation such as has not occurred since the beginning of time.

  • There will be much dismay, sorrow and woe among the nations.

  • If anyone says, ‘Behold, here is the Christ’; or, ‘Behold, He is there’; do not believe them because it will not happen in secret.

  • False Christs and false prophets will arise and will almost deceive the very elect.

  • Men’s hearts will be fainting from fear at the expectation of things which are now coming upon the world.

  • As lightening flashes across the sky so it will be on that day.

  • The trumpet will sound, there will be a shout, and the voice of the archangel, and the dead will be raised.

  • The powers of both heaven and earth will be shaken.

  • He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds.

Luke puts it all together comprehensively and succinctly in chapter 21.


“There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” (Luke 21:25-27)


Now as a mature believer who has fond memories of that youthful enthusiasm, I am perplexed that in the face of what I thought was so much clarity there has evolved an environment where there is so much disagreement and diverse opinion. Why is this the case? Well there is an answer to that, but to understand we actually need to step outside and explain two unique aspects of Christian thinking and Church history.

One of the concepts that lies at the bedrock of belief about the Parousia is an old Jewish literary genre called “Apocalyptic”. It is a particular type of poetic writing designed to explain in spectacular detail what’s going to happen at the end of this age. As a tradition it began to become popular in Israel during the time of their return to Jerusalem from captivity in Babylon, or what is now called the “Post-Exilic Restoration” from around 500 – 400 BCE. Its influence as a much used literary device was well established by the time of Jesus, and it appeared regularly in Inter-testamental Literature that has come to be called the “Apocrypha” or the “Pseudepigrapha”. It crossed over into early Christianity via their continued belief in the Hebrew Scriptures, and then through the Book of Revelation. It’s full of images of dragons coming out of the sea, beasts with many heads, strange men on horses, angels blowing trumpets, and violent use of both physical and spiritual weapons. It’s about portraying the way the lives of ordinary humans are playing out in front of bigger, more powerful, but as yet invisible, forces. There has probably been more alternative opinions and disagreements about what these Apocalyptic symbols and images mean down through the centuries than just about anything else in all of Christian thought.


The other concept to be understood is “Eschatology” which is the intellectual framework that underpins Apocalyptic writing. It is the study of “last things”, “new creation”, the “final judgement” by God, and how all the dramatic “Apocalyptic” stuff will work out in practice. Since Christ’s resurrection 2000 years ago Christian believers have thought that His return to earth was just about to happen. This initially had a profound impact on the early church and was the motivation behind their zeal for inclusion and destruction of social barriers. For the outside observer it was these attributes that were an important appeal of the early “Jesus Movement”. Paul famously said the following unprecedented principles should apply.


For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26-28)


Come on down through history to now, and believers from any period have assumed they were living in the “Eschatological” “Last Days”. The Apostle Paul believed it was his duty to preach the Gospel to the non-Jewish world as quickly as he could because Jesus’ return was to be so soon. If you were a Christian living on the edge of the Eastern Byzantine Empire around the late 7th Century, you and everybody you knew, would be experiencing the brutal expansion of the Muslim Caliphate. People were being slaughtered, taken as slaves, and being forcibly converted to Islam. You would be quite justified in thinking that you were living through “a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now.” (Matthew 24:21)


Many years ago I read a Historical Journal Article that was titled, “The Impact of the Apocalyptic Hope during the Puritan Revolutions.” The Puritan Revolutions were around the late 16th and early 17th century in Britain. It was revealing because they actually made a better case that they were living in the “Last Days” than a lot of modern Christians do about our day. Back then religion and politics were inseparable. God was always said to be meddling in history, and miraculous claims were common place. Monarchs were seen as Heaven’s appointees and possessed “The Divine Right of Kings.” The inquisition was a recent and, in some places, a current memory. Plague would sweep through and wipe out huge numbers of the population. The one consistent idea that has back-grounded Eschatological thinking in the Common Era has been that the Parousia was just around the corner or “The end is near!” History has continuously helped to focus the believer’s attention by delivering a succession of events that raised the Apocalyptic temperature. For instance the overtly Godless boasting of the French Revolution, and the resulting brutal “Reign of Terror” gave many spiritually discerning at that time grounds for heightened anticipation. The dramatic social and political consequences from events like the Reformation of 1517, the Sack of Rome 1527, the Spanish Inquisition from 1478, the Thirty Years War of 1618 to 1648, or the many Crusades from 1095 and onwards all had the same effect. Then two events in the 20th century did much more to feed the eschatological excitement. They were the Great War of 1914, and the Second World War from 1939 to 1945. Theology in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries had become increasingly liberal and, in the eyes of many earnest Americans, secular, decadent, and irrelevant. The North Americans, for their part, were going exactly the opposite way and were, in their opinion, truly getting back to the elemental truth of God with their emphasis on “fundamentalism”. This was popularly expressed via a raw eschatological emphasis which assumed things were not actually improving, but were degrading and only the Parousia could put things right.


In the 21st Century however we live in a post-Christian world and very few people outside the realm of believers or committed history students would recognize, or be interested, in much of what’s being said here. And there’s the problem. If man has always thought that he was living in the last days, then he has always been mistaken about the closeness of Jesus’ return. This is a really important point, so I’ll restate it. Christians have been wrong about the proximity of Jesus’s second coming 100% of the time. It turns out that nobody knows when it’s going to happen, and no one has any way of knowing that’s any better than any other earnest seeker. No amount of reading the signs, nor looking for hidden messages in the images of Biblical Apocalyptic has got it right in the past. In fact Jesus warned about this problem when he said to the disciples, “but of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” (Matthew 24:36) The only thing we can say at present with any certainty is that it will definitely happen, and like our own death we are everyday one step closer to it.


So how is one to understand and process the metaphorical hyperbole of Apocalyptic? There is actually an academic discipline called hermeneutics that has as its purpose the creation of systems of interpretation for historical texts. The questions it tries to answer are; How is this text meant to be read? Is is factual history? Is it poetry? Is it propaganda? What does it mean to us now? And what did it mean in its historical context? There are now four main hermeneutical systems that are used for understanding the eschatological and apocalyptic influences on the Bible.


  • The Futurist approach regards the apocalyptic imagery of Revelation as mostly the prophesying of events that are yet to take place in some undetermined future. A lot of modern US Evangelicalism is in this school.

  • Preterism is the opposite and treats Revelation as a record of the prophetic fulfillment of events in the past, and more particularly around the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD.

  • The Idealist interpretation sees the record of events in Revelation as purely symbolic or just poetic accounts dealing with the ongoing struggle and triumph of good verses evil.

  • The Historicist approach has been probably the best known. It attempts to identify events and people in history and see their actions prophesied about in the metaphorical language. It has had a broad range of historical figures like Sir Isaac Newton, John Wesley and Martin Luther who have been supporters. The ideas expressed in the aforementioned journal article about the Puritan Revolutions are a prime example of the Historicist approach.


The Puritans were quite effective in identifying historical issues, along with political and religious personalities in their day, and lining them up with the apocalyptic symbols in Revelation. But Jesus didn’t return and bring an end to their crisis. In fact they all shipped themselves off to America and began another era as well as a new continent. The following generations did the same thing to their time period and reapplied the symbols with exactly the same outcome. So how does one choose which hermeneutic is the correct one, and why? This is a crucial question that doesn’t seem to have a clear answer. There doesn’t appear to be any obvious guidance within the Bible itself that tells the reader which particular framework should take prominence.


This is not an ideal situation but rightly or wrongly it is the one we are stuck with. From as early as the 2nd Century BCE right down to David Koresh and the “Branch Davidians” of Waco Texas in the late 20th century there have been commentaries, commentaries, and commentaries about apocalyptic. For the average believer struggling through a tough life in our present age our most elemental of desires is for a future of where Jesus….

….. will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away. (Revelation 21:4)


Jesus’s return to inaugurate this new age, that is the focus of Eschatology, is also the central method of deliverance for every one of the faithful, so it is no trivial event. But just like the aforementioned commentaries on Biblical Apocalyptic there are many variations in detail read into it what we would identify as the return of Jesus. It turns out my youthful anticipation of the Parousia is not as simple as looking out for lightning flashing across the sky.

As recently as 1830 an Anglo-Irish Bible teacher named John Nelson Darby, who was one of the foundation members of the Plymouth or Exclusive Brethren, came up with a framework for interpreting the religious history on earth called Dispensationalism. It would be very easy to underestimate the impact of his particular hermeneutic. When his many evangelistic campaigns through North America in the 1860’s and 1870’s were followed up in the early 20th century by something called the “Scofield Reference Bible” the framework of understanding proposed by Dispensationalism gained a traction in the world of Eschatological Evangelicalism like nothing before. While the Bible itself supplies us with no specific guidelines on how to interpret Apocalyptic imagery, Cyrus Scofield had no such timidity, and the most significant change that Darby and Scofield brought to our present understanding of the transition from this age to the next is something they called the “Secret Rapture”. The idea is derived from a passage in 1st Thessalonians 4 where they concluded that prior to Christ’s Second coming, His millennial reign, and his Final Judgement, all the true believers of God’s elect will secretly be “taken” or “withdrawn” from earth and carried up to heaven for a time. In the process they will all be rescued from the predicted Great Tribulation.


Why has this new idea become so important? There are two reasons. Firstly it is important because it has been taken very much to the heart by that overwhelming, loud, and prosperous beacon of Christianity that is North American Evangelicalism. It has been estimated from polling that around 30% of North Americans (US and Canada) are sailing in this ship, that’s around 114 million people, and that’s a significant amount of believers. While these numbers are big and are therefore influential, the pre-Advent and pre-Tribulation “Rapture” itself is not a unifying banner that we can all peacefully shelter beneath while we await its arrival. There is much diversity of opinion on this subject. You might not think this was the case however if your favoured method of exposure to Christianity is via modern electronic media. It has been completely taken over by the Darby-Scofield Eschatological narrative, and its growth and influence has been breath-taking.


To understand the second reason why the Rapture’s acceptance is not universal we need to acknowledge another area of theological Eschatology that historically has also proved extremely difficult to pin down, and it is The Millenium of Revelation 20. Part of that Chapter 20 is quoted below.


Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of [b]their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshipped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.

When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison, and will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war; the number of them is like the sand of the seashore. And they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them, And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:4-15)


These verses are the only place in which reference to the Millenium is found, and because of its obvious connection with the end of the current era, Christ’s return, the Final Judgement, the final destination of the unsaved, and the inauguration of the New Earth understanding it has achieved crucial status in any explanation of Revelation. The contemplation of all the Apocalyptic metaphors has lead many a theological mind into some complex Eschatological worlds. The main three that have evolved for these minds are Amillenialism, Postmillenialism or Premillenialism. It is not necessary at this point to have a detailed definition of what these all mean so a short summary will suffice

Premillennialism, believes that Jesus will physically return to the Earth at the time of His Parousia and before the start of the Millenium. His triumphant arrival will inaugurate an actual 1,000 year reign of peace with us down here. It is said to be based upon a common sense, or literal, explanation of the words of Revelation 20 cited above.

Postmillennialism, believes that the 1,000 years will also be down here but it will happen before the Parousia. Because of the successful work of the church in spreading the Gospel there will be a Golden age where the acceptance of Christian values will bring about ameliorative social improvement.


Amillennialism, isn’t concerned with a literal reading of Revelation 20. The Millennium is happening now, but the 1,000 years is symbolic and the resurrected Jesus is ruling in heaven with all the saints who have died and have gone to heaven to be with Him. Jesus as the Lamb of God who has taken away the sins of the world has triumphed over evil and Satan. His reign is total even though victory has not yet been fully worked out in space time.

When these three complexities are understood and a choice has somehow been made between them – and at this point I’m sorry to say that I personally have nothing to contribute to that resolution – one can then move on into the next level of choosing between Pretribulationism, Prewrath Tribulationism, Midtribulationism or Posttribulationism. There may be clarity in these competing isms for somebody somewhere, but the answers to their origins are like how one chooses an appropriate hermeneutic. They are not to be found by reference to the text. Rather their validity is dependant on inference and allusion supplied from outside sources. To state it again, because it’s a vital point, the Bible nowhere directs us to a correct or proper hermeneutic, and it nowhere identifies which tribulation “ism” is the best.


For the many modern minds who have accepted as orthodoxy the Darby/Scofield Rapture the two “ism’s” that have achieved prominence and are accepted by the aforementioned 114 million North Americans, are Premillenialism and Prewrath Tribulationism. What all that means is that in practice is that Jesus and His Angels will secretly remove or “Rapture” all the believers from earth prior to the “Great Tribulation”. Within the book of Revelation they assert that this happens at the end of Chapter 3. Everything else in Revelation until the start of the Millenium in Chapter 20 then goes on down here on earth while we the saved are with Jesus up in heaven and are apart from it all. The sequence of events is as follows.

  • The world around us is full of persistent warning signs that make it clear to the faithful to be on their guard, for “the thief in the night” is about to act.

  • The Secret Rapture of the Saints is then facilitated by Jesus and His Angels. The common images used to describe what happens in this process are found in Jesus’s Olivet Discourse. One will be “taken”, and one will be “left behind”.

  • The prophetic period of great Tribulation is then released onto the ones who are “left behind” on earth. There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth as a result.

  • Israel’s importance to the narrative and what happens in Jerusalem is raised back up to crucial.

  • There then follows the “Abomination of Desolation”, “The Mark of the Beast”, “The Anti-Christ” and so forth, but the Saved are safely ensconced in heaven with Jesus so most of Revelation really doesn’t matter to us.

  • Jesus then mercifully brings it all to an end via His Second Coming, (actually His third if you count His meeting the saints halfway in the Rapture as a “Coming”) and at the same time He starts the Millennium which simultaneously begins the Final Judgement.

  • At the end of the Millenium the consequences of the final Judgement are invoked on the unsaved, Lucifer and his angels, and along with Death and Hades are put into the Lake of Fire.

  • Then follows the arrival of the New Jerusalem.


So according to the Pre-Tribulation Pre-Millenialist Eschatological model the short-hand version will be -

1) The Last Days warnings,

2) The Rapture

3) The Great Tribulation

4) Jesus’s Second Coming

5) The Millennium

5) The Final Judgement

6) The “Second Death”

7) The New Heaven and the New Earth


So how do those who accept this most popular “Pre-Mill/Pre-Trib” options explain and justify their conclusions? We’ll start with number one.


1) Last Days Warnings

This one is relatively easy and non-controversial to support. Any Christian, other than those at the very liberal end of the spectrum, or some amillenialists, would agree with the conclusion that many of the signs predicted in the Bible are occurring before our eyes, right now, and they indicate that we are very close to the last days.

“There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because our redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21:25-28)


“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.“ (Matthew 24:36-40)


And Jesus began to say to them, “See to it that no one misleads you. Many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He!’ and will mislead many. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be frightened; those things must take place; but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will also be famines. These things are merely the beginning of birth pangs. But be on your guard; for they will deliver you to the courts, and you will be flogged in the synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them. The gospel must first be preached to all the nations. When they arrest you and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but it is the Holy Spirit. Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by all because of My name, but the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.” (Mark 13:5-13)


“Then the kingdom of heaven will be comparable to ten virgins, who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were prudent. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the prudent took oil in flasks along with their lamps. Now while the bridegroom was delaying, they all got drowsy and began to sleep. But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him. Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the prudent, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out. But the prudent answered, ‘No, there will not be enough for us and you too; go instead to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they were going away to make the purchase, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast; and the door was shut. Later the other virgins also came, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open up for us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly I say to you, I do not know you.’ Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour.” (Matthew 25:1-13)


“Be dressed in readiness, and keep your lamps lit. Be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks.” (Luke 12:35)


“But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:13)


“At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you ahead of time. “So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” (Matthew 24:23-27)


Given the broad range of opinions and variations on how we interpret the Bible this part of the scenario has healthy agreement on what the believer needs to understand. The key points derived from the Bible references cited above are

  • The gospel will be preached to all the nations

  • There will be signs in the “sun, moon and stars”, and nature in general

  • There will wars, rumours of wars, and much social upheaval

  • Beware of false messiahs

  • And in a slightly controversial idea for the Pre-Mill/Pre-Trib Jesus warns in Matthew 24:23-27 to take no notice if someone says He has come back in a way that is anything other than as “lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west…” So perhaps we should be on guard for something “Secret” perhaps?


2) The Rapture

The Rapture of the saints by Jesus to the safety of heaven prior to the Apocalyptic history that is described in Chapters 4 – 19 of Revelation is without doubt the most crucial event in God’s dealing with humanity since the incarnation of Jesus. If the saved do not participate in the Great Tribulation, which seems to be one of the elementary claims of Dispensationalism, why have Christians spent two thousand years wrestling with the possible meanings of Apocalyptic imagery in Revelation when most of it doesn’t matter. What is the meaning of the Seven Seals, The Four Horsemen, The Two Witnesses, The Beast from the Sea, The 144,000, The Seven Trumpets, The Woman The Child and The Dragon, the Seven Plagues and The Seven Bowls of Wrath, etc etc? Who cares. It doesn’t matter! We don’t need to bother trying to understand The Abomination of Desolation, The Anti-Christ, or The Mark of The Beast either. It’s not going to have any impact on any of us. Therefore the veracity or otherwise of The Rapture is as critical as it can get for a believer anticipating the coming end of the age. So what is the Biblical support?


For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will 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. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)


Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will 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 will be changed. (1 Corinthians 15:51-52)


“For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him.” (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10)


“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way where I am going.” (John 14:1-4)



And He said to the disciples, “The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. They will say to you, ‘Look there! Look here!’ Do not go away, and do not run after them. For just like the lightning, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky, so will the Son of Man be in His day. But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building; but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, the one who is on the housetop and whose goods are in the house must not go down to take them out; and likewise the one who is in the field must not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other will be left. There will be two women grinding at the same place; one will be taken and the other will be left. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other will be left.” And answering they *said to Him, “Where, Lord?” And He said to them, “Where the body is, there also the vultures will be gathered.” (Luke 17:22-37)



When I Googled “Biblical support for the Rapture” I have to confess to being seriously underwhelmed by what I discovered. Now that doesn’t mean that it’s not supported by Biblical references, but given the confident assertions by Evangelical Protestantism of the Rapture’s centrality to their Eschatology, I did feel that something a little more substantive might be in order. As already stated as an issue its importance cannot be underestimated. It is no trivial incident!


Back when I was a young Christian digesting all those texts quoted at the beginning there was a popular Gospel song we used to regularly sing at church meetings by the American musician Larry Norman. The song had the excellent title “I Wish We’d All Been Ready”. The second verse and chorus were the following,


A man and wife asleep in bed

She hears a noise and turns her head

He's goneI wish we'd all been ready

Two men walking up a hill

One disappears and one's left standing still

I wish we'd all been ready

There's no time to change your mind

The Son has come and you've been left behind


Since those days in the early 70’s, and some more Gospel Rock by Larry Norman, the whole idea of one person being “taken” and one “left behind” have become one of the most commonly used images to describe what happens in the Rapture. There have been books and books, and even movies based on the theme. The only problem is that this language doesn’t match the words of Jesus. In fact the exact opposite is the case. Luke quotes Jesus as saying in chapter 17:26-30


And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building; but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.


And then in verses 34-37


I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other will be left. There will be two women grinding at the same place; one will be taken and the other will be left. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other will be left.”


Matthew quotes Jesus saying much the same in Chapter 24:36-41


For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left.


When the flood came “and took them all away” who was actually taken and who was left behind? Well it’s obvious. The wicked were the ones who were taken, and Noah and his family were the ones who were left behind. The same question is then asked about Lot and his family, with exactly the same answer. And just in case there is still confusion, Jesus actually says in Luke 17:32 “Remember Lot’s wife.” He or she who turns and looks back will be taken, and the ones who are ultimately left behind will be the ones who preserve their lives and escape God’s wrath. Now this mix up doesn’t prove or disprove the Biblical veracity of the Rapture, but what it does is put a question mark over the use of simple slogans in its support. The Bible was written two millennia before any songs by Larry Norman, or popular books by Hal Lindsey or Tim Lahaye, and I’m sure that they would be the first to say that we should always stick with what it says in any discussion.


It’s the passage from 1st Thessalonians 4 that presents the main difficulty for anyone trying prove The Rapture from the Bible. Here is the passage again.

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will 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. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)


The problematic passage is in verse 16 and is “ ...with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.” If that sounds familiar it is because Paul uses similar language in 1st Corinthians 15, “...at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable,” and it is almost identical to the language that is used by Jesus in the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24:31. “And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.” the significant passages are cited below one after the other


1) “ ...with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.”

2) “...but we will 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,”

3) “And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.”


The problem that these verses raise for those who wish to support the idea of a Rapture is that the language that Paul twice uses is conceptually identical with Jesus words to His disciples, and there can be no dispute that in the Olivet Discourse He is referring to His Second Coming. In almost the same breath as “Trumpets” sounding and “Angels” going forth, He says that “...the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky,” “….and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn.” Then [the tribes of the earth] “…... will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.” This is after He describes lightening across the sky, and men’s hearts failing them. This is definitely not secret, exclusive, or only for the faithful. Furthermore Jesus is quoted in Matthew 13 describing the transition to the new age from an alternative perspective.


“So it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous,….” Matthew 13:49


Just like the left behind/taken mix up “angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous” seems to describe a process that is the very opposite of a Rapture.

Matthew and the two Epistles were, according to current experts, written around the same time, ie 50 – 52 CE. They probably would not have known what each other was writing at the time, but it would be reasonable to say that they would have got the wording from the same sources. The words of Jesus would have been highly treasured and well known to both of them. The Jewish nation at that time was one of the most literate societies anywhere in the world. For centuries they lived under the rule and power of the written word. Jewish believers in the early Jesus Movement, which was the majority at that time, would have been meticulous in their storing up and sharing of the sayings of Jesus, either orally or textually. And as a former Pharisee Paul would have equally chosen his words very carefully. Therefore it could be argued that the similarity between his words and the words recorded by Matthew was no accident.


If one simply reads all the New Testament verses that refer to Jesus’s Parousia there is no evidence in any text that suggests it is talking about anything other than the Second Coming. Some have suggested that what was once called the “Second Coming” is actually Jesus’s “Third Coming”, given the timing of the Rapture, This is an interesting idea but once again there is no scripture that differentiates between a “Rapture” and the “Parousia”. Jesus never did according to all four Gospel writers. In fact supporters of the Rapture admit that the word itself does not appear anywhere in the Bible. Paul never makes mention of any differentiation. Some say that the two passages by Paul do make subtle suggestions of a Rapture. Well if they do it is a pretty obscure subtley.


The biggest problem for the Rapture however is that what it actually does in relation to the Final Judgement. It separates the timing of the Judgement for the saved and the unsaved. The unsaved don’t receive their Judgement outcome till the Second (or third) Coming, which in the majority Pre-Mill/Pre-Trib model happens after the seven years of Tribulation, and in the less popular Pre-Mill/Mid-Trib model it is cut back but till about three and a half years. But then neither of these scenarios are supported by Jesus. John quotes Him teaching that they happen, if not at exactly the same time, then at least not years apart. This also assumes that being taken to Heaven by Jesus and His Angels constitutes a successful Final Judgement outcome for each saved individual.


“Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgement.” (John 5:25-29) (emphasis mine)


The following passage from Matthew is the concluding remarks of Jesus about the “Parable of the Wheat and the Tares”. In that story the owner of the harvest specifically requires that everybody wait till both sets of plants are mature and then deals with them all at the same time; which will be at the end of the age.


“So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.” (Matthew 13:40-43) (emphasis mine)


In chapter 25 of Matthew Jesus describes how “all the nations of the earth” will be gathered before Him and His Judgement will be like a shepherd who is separating his sheep from his goats.


“But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world …….

Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels…..

These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.(Matthew 25:31-34/41/46) (emphasis mine)


In His Olivet discourse of Matthew 24 – 25 where Jesus is specifically warning His disciples about the end times there is also the parable of the “Wise and Foolish Virgins”, the parable of “The Talents”, and the parable of “The Fig Tree”. They are all premised on the concept of a Final Judgement where both the good and the bad conclusions are being delivered simultaneously.


The following words of Jesus cited from Mark are also particularly difficult for those who hold to the Pre/Mill Pre/Trib or Pre/Mill Mid/Trib models.


“For those days will be a time of tribulation such as has not occurred since the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will. (Mark 13:19)


…...But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers that are in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then He will send forth the angels, and will gather together His elect from the four winds, from the farthest end of the earth to the farthest end of heaven. (Mark 13:24-27) (emphasis mine)


The order of events given here by Jesus, that is, the Great Tribulation ends, and then the Angels are sent out to collect the faithful “from the four winds”, must be jarring for those who embrace a Pre/Mill Pre/Trib or Mid/Trib, On the strength of this passage alone this key piece of the Dispensationalist scenario, with its removal of the saved prior to the seven weeks of Tribulation, is not what is spelled out in the Bible. Read it again if it’s not clear. We can’t then say the rapture must be Post/Trib either, because that’s the Second Coming. If the Rapture and the Parousia coincide then they must be the same event. What this does for the rest of that most popular of end time interpretations is another question, but this is not a good place to start.


Finally, another important part of Jesus’s explanations to His Disciples were His warnings about what the end of the age would “not” look like. No matter how you read the parallel passages from Mark and Matthew below the overwhelming message is that what is going to happen is not going to be in secret. It’s going to be a monumental one-off event where everyone both dead or living will be impacted by it.


“Then if anyone says to you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ,’ or There He is,’ do not believe him. For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect. Behold, I have told you in advance. So if they say to you, ‘Behold, He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out, or, ‘Behold, He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe them. For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.” (Matthew 24:23-28)


“And then if anyone says to you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ’; or, ‘Behold, He is there’; do not believe him; for false Christs and false prophets will arise, and will show signs and wonders, in order to lead astray, if possible, the elect. But take heed; behold, I have told you everything in advance.” (Mark 13:21-23)


Before we leave this discussion of the Rapture it would be appropriate to familiarise ourselves once again with the historical track record of the church in predicting how and when the events described by the apocalyptic imagery in Revelation has worked out in practice. Remember, we have been wrong 100% of the time. And yet if you look at any modern US Evangelical electronic media presentation there will be someone there making the same old mistakes over and over. Perhaps a little more unity, inclusiveness and humility might be in order. Our enemy is the devil, not each other.


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