Things that won't happen- The Rapture

The full title of this theme ought to be “Things that won’t happen in the end-times”.
I’m referring to those anticipated events, featuring in speculations about the end-times, which are based on misinterpretations of what the Bible says.

In this case, I’m looking at “the Rapture”.
This expectation is based on the promise made by Paul;
“And the dead in Christ will arise first; then we who are alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air”- 1 Thessalonians ch4 vv16-17
The Latin for “caught up” is RAPTUS, which is where the word “Rapture” comes from
So any critique of the theory needs to be based on a better understanding of what Paul means by this promise.

The context is that Paul is talking about the return of Christ, and what will happen to believers when Christ returns.
Paul’s readers will be expecting to be “gathered up”, as promised in Matthew ch24 and other places.
But they may be worried about the fate of those brethren who die before the time comes.
So Paul sets out to reassure them.
Those believers who are “dead in Christ” will come back. Their coming back is described in two different ways.
On the one hand, “through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep” (ch4 v14).
On the other hand, they will rise from the dead and join the living faithful , in order to meet him on his arrival.

First the Lord will “descend from heaven”, with all the signs which announce his coming; the cry of command, the archangel’s call, and the sound of the trumpet of God (v16).
Then comes the verse quoted at the beginning, which describes the raising of the dead, who join the living, and the “catching up” of the combined group.
The sequel can be summed up in one sentence;
“And so we shall always be with the Lord”.
Other passages from the two letters to the Thessalonians make the “vengeance upon those who do not know God” an integral part of the same “descent of the Lord”.
As in the gospels, Christ comes to gather his own people and judge the rest, in one single operation.

The mark of the modern theory of “Rapture” is detaching the “being caught up” from this whole nexus of Return of Christ/Final Judgement, where it belongs, in order to give it a separate slot as a previous event in its own right.
There was never any warrant for this. It was doctrinal innovation for the sake of doctrinal innovation.
Once this interpretation was in place, other Biblical verses were brought into service to offer oblique support.
One of them, for example, is the “one is taken, the other left”, of Matthew ch24 vv40-41.
In fact this act of selection should be referred back to the ”gathering of the elect”, which was mentioned a few verses previously (v31).
It is another way of describing the final judgement, which appears in the next chapter as the separation of “the sheep and the goats”.
This event is “the coming of the Son of Man”, which is about the full and open Return of Christ and the Final Judgement even more clearly than is the case in Thessalonians.

Another argument used is the claim that the church can’t be found in the book of Revelation.
But the church can certainly be seen there, running all the way through from beginning to end.
In the opening chapter, John calls himself “your brother, who share with you in Jesus the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance” (ch1 v9).
Who is this “you” that shares the tribulation with John? It is the church, of course. The church of his own time, in the first instance. How, then, can we say that the church escapes tribulation?
The next two chapters are assessing the church’s reaction to the beginning of the tribulation,
In the seventh chapter, the church, identified in symbolism as God’s true people Israel, are sealed with the Holy Spirit in preparation for a greater tribulation.
The church, “the saints”, are being persecuted in ch11 and in ch13, and their blood is being drunk in ch17.
Finally, of course, they enter safely into the new Jerusalem at the end of the book.
That is the whole point of the book of Revelation, warning the church to be ready to pass through a tribulation, meeting it with faith and patient endurance.

The same warning can be found in the teaching of Jesus.
He tells his disciples that anyone who leaves family etc. for the sake of the gospel will receive a hundred-fold reward “with persecutions” (Mark ch10 vv29-30).
He also tells them that the period of the great tribulation will be shortened “for the sake of the elect” (Matthew ch24 v22), which would hardly be necessary if the elect had been taken away already.

Conversely, the New Testament offers no direct promise of any kind that the church will be able to evade the experience of tribulation.
I’m not sure that God ever makes that kind of promise.
Life in this world is like a river full of rapids. The Biblical God is the kind of God who protects his people by taking them through the rapids and out again on the other side, not by giving their boat a portage which will avoid the danger altogether.

As Revelation says more than once, tribulation is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints. We need to gather our courage to face up to the possibility, instead of placing false confidence in factitious promises of escape.

Many people who believe in a Rapture also believe in some kind of detailed timetable of the events of the end-times, to which they may try to attach specific dates. In which case, of course, the Rapture will find a place within the proposed timetable.
I’ve expressed my views on the date-fixing habit.in a previous thread- The futility of date-setting
I’ve also remarked in the current series on the building of end-time narratives in general, with or without specific dates.
It has to be done by speculation, because the Bible itself does not really provide a consecutive narrative.
When prophecy talks about the end-times (which is not very often), the message is focussed on three main points;
1 ) There will be a power which sets itself against God and his people.
2 ) God will deal with them, in his own time.
3 ) Our function in this crisis will be to remain trusting and faithful.

That Is really all we need to know.
Armed with that information, the man of faith should be ready for anything that gets thrown at him.

I’ve also noticed how fervent believers in the Rapture are prone to attach a high value to belief in the Rapture, coming close to making it one of the conditions of salvation.
I’ve been told (on this site) that I was in danger of missing out on the Rapture, if I did not believe it was coming.
In fact, I can’t believe that’s how the Rapture would work. The function of a Rapture, if there was going to be a Rapture, would be to take away God’s people. In which case, the crucial question would be “Do you believe in Christ?” rather than “Did you believe in the possibility of a Rapture”.
In other words, expecting a Rapture should not be one of the preconditions for sharing in the experience. There is no reason for people to be blackmailed into accepting the theory.

Stop reading The Bible. The Council of Nicaea destroyed it.

Everything in the Bible is suspect. You'll have to work The Truth out on your own.

What I have known in this short span of life:
God is real.
There is more than one God.
It is possible to meet God on any day of the week.
Once you know he's really real ... where are you gonna go from there? You get on with life.
Knowing is pretty damn cool though. Not everyone can say that.

ETA: Once you know what I said above is the absolute truth ... the Rapture doesn't even matter anymore.

a reply to: Deplorable
Not related to the topic of the thread.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: Deplorable
Not related to the topic of the thread.

Yeah ... I just ETAd.

Enjoy life, DISRAELI. It's pretty short compared to Eternity. See you there, Brother!!

Damn! And here I thought I was going to get my pick of abandoned cars. So those bumper stickers are just fake news. Sucks.

a reply to: schuyler
You may be able to pick them up cheap when the owners refuse to take the Mark and get put in prison.
Of course, there won't be any oil by then.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: schuyler
You may be able to pick them up cheap when the owners refuse to take the Mark and get put in prison.
Of course, there won't be any oil by then.

Thanks. I was hoping to pick up an EV-no need for oil

a reply to: DISRAELI

Hmm...title was good. I was looking forward to you elaborating on how the rapture won't happen.

a reply to: VeeTNA
I explained in some detail, in the OP, how the Rapture in the modern popular sense has not been predicted. The assumption that Thessalonians predicts a Rapture of that particular kind is based on a misunderstanding, and most of the OP is about what the text really means. That's how it won't happen.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Excellent.

It's possible that alien ETs advanced enough could rapture large populations onto their ships.

That will require a full reinterpretation of scripture though.

With sufficient tech, you could replicate all of the prophecy and fulfill it.

a reply to: muzzleflash
I'm not concerned so much about whether it is possible, as about whether it has been Biblically predicted.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Just because a Rapture, as commonly thought, isn't actually stated in the Bible doesn't mean it isn't possible or that it won't happen.

But you are technically correct that they are gratuitously misinterpreting various terminology and taking it to an unspecified (in scripture) extreme.

That doesn't qualify for a complete debunking though, it just reveals a major inconsistency in their logic and harms their credibility.

Ive studied this since the mid 70s, and have had several different opinions over the years. My dad who is a genius research scientist, and translates word by word has had different views as well. Rig
ht now I think we both lean towards that there will be one.

I was watching minister this very morning discuss this topic. He does a good job of breaking it down why he is certain there will not only be a rapture, but that it will be pretrib. He is a Penecostal, and Im a bit more conservative then they are, but I did appreciate the many points he presented. Give it a watch and see what you think about his points he makes. He presents many items I have never considered before.

I cant seem to get it to post on the Youtube.

Its here: www.youtube.com...

a reply to: visitedbythem
To be honest, I'm not fond of watching videos, partly because the process is time-intensive, and prefer reading things.
So far I've checked it as far as the title, which highlights a year in the Jewish calendar. I take it, then, that he's into speculating on a detailed narrative of the end-times, which is precisely the approach that I'm fighting against in this series.

To be exact, what I'm challenging is not the Biblical rapture as such, but the speculations about the timing of the rapture. I find that Thessalonians ties it very directly to the Return of Christ and the end of the age.

The only rapture that is going to happen are the Christians using the bible as an agenda rather than a history book or warning.

I think I only watched about 15 or 20 minutes of it. I feel the same as you about videos. In the end I felt it was worth the the 15 minutes I watched

a reply to: DISRAELI

What are your thoughts on preterist interpretations that Christ returned 1900 years ago?