There are those who deny the rapture. Some do so because of the mistaken and erroneous belief in a secret event when Christians are mysteriously removed from the earth prior to the tribulation.
The word rapture comes from the Latin rapio which means catch up or snatch. In 1 Thessalonians 4:17 Paul tells us that Christians still alive and left on earth will be caught up (αρπαγησομεθα) together with the risen dead in Christ in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. It can therefore be argued that at the second coming of Christ, when the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with the loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, Christians will be caught up or raptured!
Let us be clear that this is no secret or hidden event. The loud command, the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God will herald the clearly visible second coming. Yes, He is coming with the clouds and every eye shall see Him! Revelation 1:7.
Somehow since the 19th century a doctrine of a two stage event has been introduced in which the rapture is separated from the visible return of the Lord Jesus Christ. The rapture is wrongly understood as a secret event when true Christians are suddenly and mysteriously removed from the earth.
According to this view, Christ is not seen and the elect disappear. Although this doctrine is very well publicized and has been popularized in the Left Behind books and film, its historical background goes no further back than the first half of the 19th century, about 1830. It has been spread through the teaching of Edward Irving, JN Darby, the Scofield Bible, dispensationalism, Hal Lindsey and a host of other preachers and authors.
The last trumpet must clearly refer to a public and visible event. It rules out a secret and hidden rapture.
I would recommend the You Tube video by Bezel333 on this subject under the title The rapture of the church... yes, and no. I have inserted the link so that you can see it.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QxA_LlQC_is
Wednesday, 31 December 2008
Rapture but no secret rapture
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Dedham
River Stour
2 comments:
What a marvelous and most interesting and worthwhile blog that you have! Many Christians, however, seem to be totally ignorant as to the pretribulation rapture's relatively recent history. I can recommend that they turn to Google and open up an article entitled "Pretrib Rapture Diehards." A couple other interesting articles on the same engine would be "X-Raying Margaret" and "Deceiving and Being Deceived" (all by the same historian). Grant
A couple other interesting articles on Google would be "Roots of (Warlike) Christian Zionism," "America's Pretrib Rapture Traffickers," and "Pretrib Rapture - Hidden Facts." Grant
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