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Joe explains how common misconceptions about final judgement and the end times make people misinterpret what it means to be “left behind.”
Transcript:
Joe:
Welcome, back to Shameless Popery. I’m Joe Heschmeyer, and today I want to talk about the end of the world and specifically the idea of the rapture. Now, if you’re part of a church or denomination that celebrates Advent, you may know that this time of year we look forward to the coming. That’s what Adventist means, the coming of Christ, both at Christmas but also at the end of the world.
But many people, particularly evangelicals in America, believe in another event called the Rapture. Now, for those of you who are not Protestant or are not from America, this might be foreign to you. Maybe you’ve heard of movies like Left Behind that depict this theology, but having grown up believing in the rapture and thinking this was the biblical way of understanding the end of the world and what was going to happen next, kind of in what’s called eschatology, the end times, I wanted to explain both what people mean by the rapture, where they think they see it in the Bible, and also what the Bible actually means by these controversial passages. So just to outline very, very basically the two major camps on this question. The first is what I’ll call the traditional view. This is basically all Christians before the 19th century. There might be a handful of exceptions, but I’m going to leave the whole question of the history of rapture theology for another time.
But the traditional view is that described in Hebrews nine. So Hebrews nine says that Jesus has appeared once for all the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Now notice that reference to the end of the age doesn’t mean the end of the world. This is talking about Jesus’s death, his self-sacrificial death. But then it says and just ass it appointed for men to die once and after that comes judgment. So Christ having been offered once to bear the sins of many that’s past tense, that’s still the cross will appear a second time not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. So there are two comings of Christ. The first one is the earthly coming of Christ in the first century, which everybody agrees on, at least all Christians agree on which these earthly life culminates in his death and resurrection.
He puts away, he resolves the problem of sin. Now, sin has a solution. That solution is Jesus. It’s the cross, but he’s going to come again, not to die on the cross for sin again, but rather for salvation to save those who eagerly wait for him. This is the second coming of Christ and early Christians describe this by saying, we look forward or we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. That there is this idea, the basic timeline goes something like this. We’ve got the present era. Now there’s going to be some kind of tribulation, some rough patch. We get into the details of this are a little fuzzy in scripture, but certainly there’s a clear sense that things are going to get worse before they get better. But then this will ultimately culminate in the second coming of Christ Jesus’ return in glory and his judgment of the living and the dead.
That’s the traditional view. The rapture view says somewhere in there you’ve got a rapture. I’ll explain what a rapture is in a second amongst people who believe in the rapture, there’s no agreement on what the details are about this timeline. So you’ve got some that are called pre-trib or pre tribulation believers, people who believe the rapture will happen before the great tribulation. Again, I’ll explain what the rapture is in a second. You’ve got some who say it’s post-trip, it’s after the tribulation. So we’ve got the present era tribulation, then the rapture and then Christ second coming, or you’ve got also mid trib, those who believe that the rapture will happen sometime in the middle of the great tribulation. But whenever it is, then it depends which rapture believer you talk to what is meant by the rapture. The basic idea is twofold. Number one, it’s some kind of event in which Jesus takes all of the saved to heaven.
Basically the assumption of all the saints into heaven bodily. Two, that this is specifically before the end of the world. This is not the same thing as the second coming of Christ because if you just mean at some point all the saints are going to be united with God and glory, that’s uncontroversial. Christians have always believed that the rapture is that before the second coming, maybe before the tribulation or before all of the tribulation, before the second coming, Jesus is going to take just the righteous into heaven. So this is David Jeremiah talking about this, and by the way, this clip alone has 1.7 million views, belief in the rapture. Many of you have never heard of it, many of you have never engaged with it. It is massively popular in the us. So here’s David Jeremiah explaining his belief on what the rapture is, and at the very end you’ll notice he’s going to distinguish it from the second coming. I don’t get into the full clip, but just enough to give you kind of a taste for what the rapture is. From a rapture believers onwards,
CLIP:
The rapture is a time in the future when the Lord Jesus Christ is going to return not to the earth but to the heavens, to receive to himself every single person who has put their trust in him for eternal life and before he receives the ones who are on earth, all of those who have died in Christ who are Christians, they’re going to be resurrected. And the Bible says, we’re going to meet the Lord in the He bodies will be reunited with spirits and souls. Christians who are dead will be reunited with Christians who are alive. And then finally, all of us will be reunited with the Lord Jesus Christ, the great reunion. Amen.
Joe:
Okay, so what are the biblical passages that lead Christians to believe that there’s going to be a rapture? Now there are several that are pointed to, but there’s a handful that can point to quite a bit.
CLIP:
The rapture event is clearly a singular event described in the New Testament. One Thessalonians four, one Corinthians 15, John 14.
Joe:
So today I want to go through all of the major passages that I know of used to support the rapture. And by the way, if you are someone who believes in the rapture or maybe used to believe in the rapture and you think there’s an important passage that I’ve forgot or just failed to mention, please let me know in the comments. I’m not purposely leaving anything out. I want to address all the major evidence while still being kind of mindful of not just addressing every verse in the span of a video, but these are the ones that I regularly hear cited to and what I think of as the strongest biblical arguments for the rapture. And I think if these ones don’t work, you’d be hard pressed to find some other passages that do. So I want to start with the left behind passages. These are Matthew 24 and Luke 17.
So Matthew 24 versus 40 to 41 says, Zen two men will be in the field, one is taken and one is left. Or in some translation one is left behind, two women will be grinding at the mill, one is taken and one is left. This is where series like left behind get that language from. This is coming from the Bible. And so the idea is, hey, you want to be raptured, you want to be taken. You don’t want to be left behind because if you’re left behind, that means you’re under the tyranny of the antichrist and your life is going to be really bad. All the holy people go to heaven. You’re going to suffer in the tribulation for a long time and as a result your life’s going to be miserable. So get right now so you don’t have to go through that kind of suffering.
I think if you read the passage in context, you’ll see that there are a few red flags that if you don’t read it already assuming the rapture, it actually says something pretty different. So I want to give you a couple things to highlight. First, if you take a broader take, Jesus’ full words from 37 to 42. Don’t just take 40 to 41 out of context because Jesus explains what it is he’s talking about. And the first thing we should notice is he’s talking explicitly about the coming of the son of man. He says, as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the son of man. Then he says, he gives the example of Noah and the ark and he says, so will be at the coming of the son of man. And then he concludes all this by saying, watch, therefore for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.
All of that would seem to suggest we’re talking about the second coming. We’re not talking about some in-between coming in the clouds but not really coming. No, it’s the second coming. I mean contextually, that’s what it appears to be. Now again, I can understand why people read it differently, but the second problem, and the one that I think is more fatal to using Matthew 24 or Luke 17 to try to support the position that some people are going to be raptured and some are going to be left behind, is that the passage in context is teaching the exact opposite of that. So in raptured theology, being taken is good and being left behind is bad. Whereas in the New Testament it’s the reverse. Let me show you what I mean. The example that Jesus uses is the days of Noah. He says for as in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark and they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away.
So who’s taken those who swept away? So will be the coming of the son of man. And so the example here is clearly Noah. So you might say, okay, so who’s left behind? Now you might imagine the people left behind are those who are not on the ark, but that’s not actually what the passage says. Those are the ones who are taken, they’re swept away, who ones who are left behind are Noah in his family, the earth is renewed because only the righteous are left behind. That’s the image that we’re given. So you can actually see that in a couple of ways. So first you can see that by looking at Genesis seven where it says he God blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the earth, the face of the ground man and animals and creeping things and birds of the air.
They were blotted out from the earth. So they’re taken away. Only Noah was left in those that were with him in the ark. So the imagery of left behind and taken or in this case blotted out. That’s coming from Genesis seven. And so here in Matthew 24, you’ve got the wicked who are taken away and the faithful are left. So it’s the exact opposite. You want to be left behind biblically. So one of the biggest red flags is that the go-to passage or one of two go-to passages for the rapture says the exact opposite of what his proponents think it’s saying. So that’s the first place. If you are relying on the kind of left behind passages, whether that’s in Matthew 24 or in Luke, they’re not saying what they’re interpreted as saying by the rapture crowd. Now, I mentioned there being two major passages because the second passage is probably the strongest pro rapture passage.
If I’m giving the strongest argument I can for the rapture, the place I would go is First Thessalonians chapter four, because in one Thessalonians four it says, for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command with the archangel’s, call the sound of the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left shall 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 in that caught up language. You can interpret that and literally you can translate that as being raptured up to be with the Lord. And proponents of raptured theology are quick to point this out,
CLIP:
Okay, many have argued that the word rapture is not found anywhere in the Bible, but here it is caught up is the English translation of the original Greek word harso whose Latin equivalent is, you guessed it rapture. The word means that the Christians who are still alive when this happens will be instantly transported into the clouds. Here they meet the Lord in the air as he takes both the dead and the living Christians with him into heaven.
Joe:
Now you’ll notice in that video he talks about the Lord taking both the dead and living Christians, but the actual passage talks about something bigger. It talks about the coming of the Lord. It talks about the Lord himself descending from heaven, so he’s descending from heaven to where to earth and then he’s talking about the dead in Christ, rising in we who are alive, who are left. So it’s the living and the dead. Now that starts to look a lot like the second coming and we who are left would then be we who are left after the tribulation. So this passage neatly squares with the traditional theology that we have, the present era, we have a time of tribulation, then we have Christ returning glory to judge of living in the dead. And one Thessalonians four is just describing Christ coming in glory to judge of living in the dead.
And it certainly sounds like he’s saying that, but there is this one problem. What about that Harso? What about that being caught up? Well, here you have to know a little bit more of the context. Scott McKnight in his book Revelation for the Rest of Us points out that the image here, the trumpet will sound we’ll departure, greet our royal king, not so that we may be raptured to heaven, but so that we can welcome and celebrate the return of the royal king to earth. Now, I read similar things from int Wright and I remember thinking it was an interesting argument, but not knowing exactly how true it was, but the more I dug into it, the more I realized, oh yeah, no, this is just absolutely the imagery that St. Paul has given us in First Thessalonians four. But it’s imagery that is lost on modern ears because we are not used to the things that are being described just like we don’t normally have trumpets announcing major news anymore, we also don’t go out to greet the king and bring him into the city.
So let’s give a little more biblical and historical context first. In Acts 28, when Paul and his companions go to Rome, the brethren when they heard of they’re coming, came as far as a form of appia and three taverns to meet us. They then escort them into Rome. This is pretty standard. You are excited about the coming of an apostle in this case, but normally it’d be a military general or an emperor, a great king. You would go out and you would greet them and escort them into the city. There was a term for this. This was called a triumph. So we can talk about a kingly triumph in general, and then I want to talk about a royal triumph in the Roman context specifically. So in second Samuel 19, David actually rebukes the tribe of Judah for not offering him a royal triumph. He says, why should you be the last to bring the king back to his house when the word of all Israel has come to the king?
You’re my kinsman. You’re my bone and my flesh. Why then should you be the last to bring back the king? And so they respond and in verse 15, we read. So the king came back to the Jordan and Judah came to Gilgal to meet the king and to bring the king over the Jordan. So the people come out of the city, they cross the Jordan, they greet the king, they bring him in. This is a triumph. You are escorting the dignitary often, but not exclusively the king with great celebration. The Romans ritualized this and had this kind of down to an art. As Kathleen Elizabeth Mills says, description of Roman triumphs have been considered their own literary genre because they had a very specific pattern they would follow. Number one, the prominent person is greeted and hailed often as a divine revelation by the citizens near the city gates.
Number two, he’s informally escorted into the city accompanied by hymns and or acclamations. Number three, the procession typically ends in the temple where some kind of ritual takes place in the case of Roman paganism, that might be a benevolent sacrifice or a hostile expulsion of some kind. You get rid of the enemies, you offer some kind of sacrifice. Jesus enacts this In the New Testament, we see Jesus doing a Christian version of a Roman triumph. If you’ve ever heard of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, triumphal is in reference to a Roman triumph here. So this is one of the things Kathleen Elizabeth Mills points out that when we’re trying to understand Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem upon a cult, we have to understand that in light of Jewish and Israelite triumphal entries, but also the Roman triumphal processions of emperors after military victories, that’s the if you are a Jew living under Roman rule and you see Jesus being escorted into the city of Jerusalem right before at the beginning of Holy Week, that’s going to evoke both King David doing that of old that’s also going to evoke the Roman emperor or Roman generals doing that after a military victory.
And again, this is just kind of a cultural language that is lost on us. We have parades that’s maybe the closest we get. We don’t rush out of the city to greet people and bring them into the city. So that imagery, the imagery of one Thessalonians four is just kind of lost, I think on modern audiences. But that’s what’s happening here. And similarly, that’s what’s happening in Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem, and you can see that actually very clearly. So for instance, in John 12, he mentions the crowds going out to meet him and says, so they took processions of palm trees and went out to meet him crying. Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel. So you have the hymns and you have the crowd going out of the city to meet him, but what do they do?
They don’t go out of the city to just flee Jerusalem. They’re not just getting zapped away from Jerusalem or anything like that. No. They then go with Jesus into Jerusalem and the crowds are crying out. This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee. So that’s the idea when you read in one Thessalonians four about the saints going out or coming up to meet Jesus, it’s not about them being snatched away from the earth because we’re abandoning earth. No, they’re going out to meet the triumphant Lord and king of the earth and escort him into the city or in this case planet. That’s the image that Paul is using and that imagery unfortunately is just lost on us, so we get confused by it. Another way you can see that rather than looking at the military or triumphal entry kind of image is to look at that of the bridegroom arriving because this is going to be another and really important motif.
So look at the parable of the 10 virgins. This is in Matthew 25. You’ve got 10 virgins who are waiting for the arrival of the bridegroom, and then at midnight they hear a cry. Behold the bridegroom come out to meet him. So that again, this idea of coming out, but what do they do? They then the bridegroom comes and those who already went in with him to the marriage feast, so they’re not going out to abandon the place they were, they’re going out to greet the bridegroom and bring him into what is his, similarly to what a king would do coming into what is his, you go out to greet him, you welcome him in so red in that light in one Thessalonians four when St. Paul says that we who are alive, who are left shall be caught up together with them, the dead in Christ.
The idea is that the living in dead saints are escorting our Lord in because we’re meeting him in the air, we’re meeting him outside the city as it were and we’re coming with him because it would be a mistake. As you saw from the David Jeremiah clip, he takes the fact that the Lord has described as in the air to me, and this isn’t his second coming to judge living in the dead, but this is his second coming to judge living in the dead because it talks about the Lord descending from heaven. He is not just in some far off heaven. See in the air is the arrival of heaven to earth. That’s the image, and I think that’s image understandably has just been lost. So as I say, those are I think the two strongest points that one might look to support a rapture.
And I think if you understand them in their Jewish context, neither of them do I get how people read them the wrong way because you think left behind, oh, that sounds like the people left behind out of Noah’s Ark. But biblically, the people left behind are Noah and his family. But you’ll notice something really important here in both of these cases, the biblical depiction is the union of heaven and earth is the thing that we’re looking forward to. We look forward to a new heavens and a new earth. But just as we look forward to spiritual bodies, one Corinthians 15, but if you read those passages carefully, it’s not about I annihilate my old body or God annihilates my body and gives me a completely new one. It’s about the body being transformed. The new body is a transformed body, not a completely separate body.
Similarly, the new heavens and the new earth. This is not saying God is literally getting rid of heaven, he’s literally getting rid of earth and he’s creating new ones. This is talking about the transformation of heaven and earth and the principle way that it’s transformed is heaven and earth are now united. So I think it’s really fascinating that the precise way that these passages keep getting misunderstood are in the raptured theology. Earth is something we’re being saved from. Whereas in New Testament theology, all creation groans as it awaits its redemption creation is to be redeemed, not abandoned. So the rapture represents this kind of abandonment of earth, the late great planet earth is how Lindsay puts it. That’s not the biblical model that gets the biblical model all backwards, that this gets into a recurring theme that I find in exploring this is that you can find these hints of something like gnosticism, a real distrust of the material world or a real distrust of the body.
And in fact, these things are made to be restored and glorified, not abandoned. But I’m going to leave that a side except to just point out that you might catch hints of that as we go. So those are the two major passages. A third passage I sometimes hear used is one Corinthians 15 when St. Paul talks about us being transformed. So in verse 51, he begins low, I tell you a mystery, we shall not all sleep. That means die, but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. So notice again very similar language to like one Thessalonians four, you’ve got the trumpet and then he says, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised in perishable and we shall be changed. For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable and this mortal nature must put on immortality.
So notice by the way that he’s talking here about bodily glorification that your body and your soul are going to be glorified and so will the bodies of those who’ve died. This is bodily resurrection explicitly. That is what one Corinthians 15 is about. You can go back and read the passage. It’s about the resurrection of the dead. It’s about bodily glorification. Now that is just explicitly, that’s the second coming, that’s the last judgment as Jesus says in John chapter five, he talks about how as the father is life in himself, so he has granted the son also to have life in himself and has given him authority to execute judgment because he’s the son of man. So this is explicitly about judgment. What happens at the day of judgment. He says, do not marvel at this for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who’ve done good to the resurrection of life and those who’ve done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
In other words, when you hear in passages like one Corinthians 15 or one Thessalonians four about the righteous dead being raised, that’s not the only thing that’s going to happen. The wicked are also going to be brought before the throne at the last judgment. So those the righteous dead and the righteous living, those still on earth through the tribulation are going to the resurrection of life. Whereas those who are wicked, those who’ve lived or died who are wicked are going to go to the resurrection of judgment as Jesus puts it. So these are not two separate events. What Jesus is describing in John five is just the second coming in the last judgment, and that’s pretty clearly also what one Corinthians 15 is about, that this transformation is about our glorification. If you’re still alive after the tribulation, when Jesus comes in glory, in other words, if it happens that the world ends in our lifetime, the tribulation happens, Christ returns the second coming, the last judgment and all of this, your transformation into becoming the saint that you need to be can happen instantaneously.
It can happen in the twinkling of an eye, but that doesn’t mean there’s some kind of pre tribulation, mid tribulation or post tribulation rapture. That just means that there’s this spiritual transformation as some go to the resurrection of life and some go to the resurrection of judgment. This is a separation of the sheep and the goats. This is the end of things. There is no need to read into this text, some other event besides Jesus’s return and glory and judgment of the living and the dead. It simply isn’t there in the text and there’s no reason to read that into either one Corinthians 15 or passages like Daniel 12. So listen to Daniel 12 because I think this shows the traditional timeline to be true pretty clearly. Verse one at that time shall arise, Michael, the great prince who was charged of your people, Saint Michael Lee Archangel, and there shall be a time of trouble such as never has been since there was a nation till that time.
This is the tribulation in the last days. But at that time, your people shall be delivered. Everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. Now you’ll find people who take that to mean, but at that time, meaning before the tribulation happens, that is not the natural meaning of those words. And delivery doesn’t mean being raptured away from the thing. You can literally just read the next verses and see that because verse two goes on to say, in many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake summed everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Now this is clearly the same event or seems to me clearly the same event that Jesus is describing in John five and elsewhere, the separation of the sheep and the goats, the judgment of the righteous and the wicked. This is the judgment of the living and the dead of the last days. And so Daniel goes on to say, and those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever. So there is a spiritual transformation of some kind of the righteous, but this is happening simultaneous with the judgment of those destined for shame and everlasting contempt. These are not separate events biblically. Alright, the next passage is John 14.
CLIP:
In John 14. Jesus says, don’t let your heart be troubled. Well, look, if I thought I was going to go through the tribulation, that’d be kind of a hard pill to swallow. What do you mean not let my heart be troubled? What’s going to happen? I mean, I don’t want to necessarily live under the tyranny of antichrist. That’s going to be a horrible, terrible time every way you slice it. That’s not something you should be fearful of. Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe in me. Here’s the good news in my father’s house or many dwelling places or rooms. If it weren’t so, I would’ve told you I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you, I’ll come again and receive you to myself that where I am there you may be also. Where is he? He’s talking to his disciples in the upper room on Thursday night. I’m going and he goes back to heaven and says, I’m coming to take you to heaven. Well, if his second coming establishes his kingdom on earth and whatever this is takes us to be with him in heaven, that’s two different events and they have to be separated.
Joe:
So let’s think about the context here. Jesus is at the Last Supper. Is he telling the disciples some people in the future are going to be raptured? I don’t think that is a good reading of what’s happening at all. Rather, I think if you want to understand the passage, it’s important to have a little bit of background of the Jewish imagery because it’s true. Jesus talks about going to prepare a place for us and then returning to bring us to himself. I will come again and we’ll take you to myself again. Sounds like the second coming, but there is absolutely this imagery of coming to live with Jesus. Now, if your imagination about eschatology is we abandon the earth to go be in heaven forever, then I can understand why you would read a rapture into that. Notice, it doesn’t mention anything about rapture or anything like that, but if you understand that the ultimate Christian destiny is the new heavens and the new earth, the restoration and glorification transformation of the earth as well as heaven, the union of heaven and earth.
So the two are, as it were, married, the wedding feast of the lamb. Then you can see quite clearly there might be cause to talk about that here at the Last Supper. Now we could get much more into the deeper theology here. Jesus is establishing at the Last Supper, the Eucharist. He’s establishing a way of having communion with his disciples while talking about the ultimate communion. We’re all called to this total union of God and humanity in glory. So that I think is a better reading. It makes sense why he’s talking about this at the Last Supper. But also if you want to understand this passage, you have to understand the marital context. Now, those of you who are regular listeners of the show have heard me talk about this ad nauseum and I make no apologies because it’s really beautiful and really amazing. But as Anita Dama says in her book, the New Jewish Wedding, Jewish weddings traditionally were in two stages.
The first stage is called the duchen, and this is something’s translated as betrothal. But the reality is the bread and groom become legally wedd at this point and to separate the needed a formal bill of divorce. So when you hear about Joseph and Mary where it says they’re betrothed and yet Joseph is contemplating divorce and Matthew calls him her husband, you might think what is going on in the Jewish system, the first stage of a wedding, you became legally married but you didn’t live together yet. That’s the second stage called the ene, which is called the elevation or the lifting up. And she suggests in her book might refer to the fact that a bride was literally carried into the new home. But the idea is that a groom had anywhere from a few months to a year to go and prepare a home for his new bride.
So the image in the sene is just anything that demonstrates the couple’s intention to have a new home and a new life. So read in that way that makes complete sense of the text. Jesus is saying the church is already the bride. And St. Paul is very clear about this in places like Second Corinthians 11 where he describes this as already being betrothed to Christ and yet we are going to go to live with Christ forever, but we’re not going to go to live with Christ by abandoning the earth but rather by Christ returning in glory. That’s why he will come that where he is, we may be also. That’s not him bringing us to heaven and abandoning the earth. That is him bringing heaven, earth and earth to heaven. In Revelation 19, this image, the restoration of heaven and earth is described as the marriage of the lamb.
That’s the ene. So already the church of bride of Christ, we’ve had the first stage of the wedding. We are bride and groom, but we don’t live together yet the second stage of the wedding, the marriage of the lamb or wedding feast of the lamb, that’s the second stage. That’s sine, that’s the ultimate glory. But notice, and this is very clear in revelation, this is not about just abandoning the earth, rather the righteous are on earth while the wicked are cast into the lake of fire. Again, the righteous are the ones left behind now with our Lord on the restored heaven and earth. Alright, speaking of revelation, the last passage I wanted to look at is Revelation chapter three, because that is sometimes pointed to as a passage that might point to something like a pre tribulation rapture because in one of the messages to one of the seven churches, Jesus says, because you have kept my word of patient endurance.
I will keep you from the hour of trial which is coming on the whole world to try those who dwell upon the earth. Now, to read it that way, I think you have to do a few things. You have to ignore the entire historical context of what is happening in these seven real life churches and have to just take these not as letters to real churches, but just like predictions about the future. I think that’s already a bad way to understand what’s happening. But the other thing is that you have to miss the wordplay going on here because the same Greek word is being used for keeping the word of patient endurance and our Lord, keeping the church from the hour trial and keeping there doesn’t mean drawing away from, we’re not drawing away from the word of patient endurance. It’s holding to or preserving.
So in the same way that you keep the command something like that, it just means preserve. It doesn’t mean you take the commandments away. So the faithful are preserving the word of patient endurance and our Lord is preserving them at the hour of trial, not keeping them in such a way that he removes them from all trial or difficulty. That’s clearly not the context and that is clearly not what happens in revelation. Remember revelation one, John says, I John your brother who share with you in Jesus the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance, the Christian call is not, you don’t have to suffer. No, the Christian call is that we will have to suffer those. The Father loves He disciplines as Hebrew tells us, we actually have to take up our cross and follow him. So if the pre tribulation rapture sounds too good to be true, it might be because it is the Christian calling is not, Hey, don’t worry about it.
You’re not going to have to go through suffering. I mean even in John MacArthur’s clip when he talks about how he might let his heart be troubled if the antichrist was reigning, well that’s exactly what Jesus says not to do. So if you’re just saying, I wouldn’t hold fast in my hope if things were really bad, well then you’re just saying you don’t want to do the thing Jesus is calling you to do whatever is going on, whatever the tribulations are in your life, maybe you’ll see the tribulation at the end of the world much more likely. You’ll just see the ordinary crosses and ordinary tribulations of life. Our Lord does not promise to spare us from any kind of trial or test or tribulation, but he does promise that he will be with us in them and that’s his promise and revelation and that’s his promise throughout the Bible, that he is with us always, even to the end of the age.
So that’s the authentic Christian message. There is not going to be some rapture. The idea of the rapture is completely unbiblical when you actually understand what the Bible says. And again, if you think that’s wrong, show me where either the parts of the New Testament we already looked at or any other parts teach a pre or mid or post tribulation rapture. And the mere fact that proponents of it can’t agree on when this tribulation or this rapture actually is, is because they’re adding a whole event on the timeline that isn’t actually found in the New Testament predictions about the future at a more fundamental level, I think we should just be prepared for the coming of our Lord both at Christmas and at the end of the world. So live rapture ready, but not because there’s a rapture, but because someday our Lord is going to come in glory to judge the living in the dead. So I hope that’s a message you can take with you during this advent season is we prepare for the coming of Christ at Christmas to remember this even more fundamental coming of Christ at the end of the world. Don’t be caught off guard as the people were at Christ first coming. And the way you cannot be caught off guard is by living a life pleasing to our Lord right now. For Shameless Popery, I’m Joe Heschmeyer. God bless you.