The Problem with the Rapture

 

The problem with the Rapture is that it’s not Biblical – at least not as taught in evangelical churches. The Bible is clear that Jesus is coming back some day, but not in the way that we learn in church.

The typical church teaching is that Jesus is coming back to Earth, Christians will rise to meet him in the air, and then Jesus will take all the Christians to heaven to live with him forever. This Rapture will be connected with a seven-year tribulation that will engulf the Earth – the Rapture will occur either before the tribulation, or in the middle of the tribulation, or maybe at the end of the tribulation. This set of doctrines is almost entirely unscriptural. The only part that’s scriptural is that Jesus really is coming back to Earth.

First, two interesting points.

      1.       The word “Rapture” does not appear anywhere in the Bible. This doesn’t prove that the doctrine is wrong (after all, the word “Trinity” doesn’t appear anywhere either) but it should make us cautious.

      2.       The idea of Christians rising up to meet Jesus in the air does not appear anywhere in the book of Revelation. (It appears elsewhere in the Bible, as we shall see, but not in Revelation.)

Let’s look at two commonly used passages that the church uses to teach about the Rapture.

      1.       One passage is 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 – “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.”
                The Rapture is often “read into” this verse. If you come to this verse with the preconceived idea of Rapture, then yes, it nicely supports your view. Yes, Jesus will return to Earth. His return will be accompanied with a “loud command” and with a “trumpet.” Everyone will know about it! The dead in Christ will rise from their graves (i.e., be resurrected) to meet Jesus in the air. Then Christians who are alive will also rise to meet Jesus.
                After that, it’s not clear from this passage what happens. It says that we will be “with the Lord forever.” But it doesn’t say where we will be with him. In heaven? On Earth? Paul clarifies it in his follow-up discussion in 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9 – “… when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God … They will be punished with everlasting destruction …”
                Paul makes it clear here that Jesus is coming back to Earth only once. Not once to rapture Christians, then again to establish a millennial reign, and then yet again to judge sinners. There is a second coming – not a third or a fourth coming.
                Paul presents Jesus’ second coming in terms with which his audience would be familiar. When the conquering Caesar returned to Rome after a victorious military campaign, his subjects would meet him outside the city, rejoice with him in his victory, and escort him in glorious splendor to take his place on his throne in Rome. Jesus himself referred to this practice in a parable in Luke 19:11-26 where he referred to himself as the conqueror who would someday return to Earth. Paul picks up this imagery in his letters to the Thessalonians. Jesus will return to Earth and his subjects (us) will meet him “outside the city” (that is, in the air) and escort him back to Earth in glorious splendor to take his place on his throne. Those who refused his Lordship will pay the price, and those who accepted his Lordship will live with him forever on the new Earth.
                This view is consistent with Paul’s emphasis on resurrection. Most Christians today don’t really think about resurrection. It’s common to hear Christians say something like, “I don’t really care about my body, I’m just going to heaven someday anyway.” But that’s not a scriptural perspective. Paul says that if there is no resurrection, there is no hope (1 Corinthians 15). The Bible teaches that we will receive a glorified body but that there will also be continuity between our old body and our new body. This is similar to Jesus’ resurrected body; sometimes he was recognized after his resurrection, but sometimes not, and he still had scars on his hands and side from his crucifixion. His body was different than before, but not entirely.

      2.       Another passage that’s often used to support the Rapture is Matthew 24:29, 30, 31 – “The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the Earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.”
                This is usually used to connect the idea of the Rapture with the tribulation. But the events in this passage don’t have anything to do with a tribulation – they have everything to do with judgement. The imagery here of a darkened sun and moon and falling stars is taken from Isaiah 13, which refers to God’s judgement on Babylon. There was no literal darkening of the sun and moon, no literal falling stars, and no multi-year tribulation; just sudden invasion and destruction by the Persians, who marched into Babylon and took immediate possession. Similarly, when Jesus comes back, he will march onto Earth and take immediate possession. (I wish Christians understood the Old Testament better. If they did, then they would be able to interpret the New Testament in context that much better.)

The church’s modern-day concept of tribulation, rapture, and millennium is not a historic Christian doctrine. In fact, it did not appear in Christianity until the 1800s, is generally credited to John Darby (1800-1882), and became popular because of its inclusion in the Scofield Reference Bible (1909).

The idea of the Rapture appeared on the American Evangelical scene around the same time as many other cults or cult-like movements: the Church of Christ was founded in 1804, Mormonism was founded in 1830, Seventh-day Adventism was founded in 1863, the Jehovah’s Witnesses were founded in 1870, Christian Science was founded in 1879, and of course my very own Apostolic Christian Church was founded in 1831, the same decade that the Rapture was invented.

What was it about the 1800s that gave rise to so many extreme, strange, sectarian ideas? Well, the Age of Reason (also called the Enlightenment, which was connected with Scientific Revolution) became popular in the 1700s. This philosophy abandoned the view of scripture as authoritative and instead viewed it as any other man-made document – written by man (not God) and full of errors and inconsistencies (not inerrant). In so doing, the Enlightenment threw the baby out with the bathwater – it did not recognize that the Bible, even though it was written by man and even though it might include errors and inconsistencies, could still be God’s Word (just like Jesus, even though he was human and weak and frail, could still be God).

The church’s reaction was gradual but sure. Rather than concede the strengths of the Enlightenment, it dug in its heels and it also threw out the baby with the bathwater. Doctrines like inerrancy and young-Earth creationism were formulated as reactions to the Enlightenment. These were doctrines that did not exist until the roots of fundamentalism took hold in the 1800s – again, as a direct reaction to the Enlightenment. Before then, Christians didn’t worry about whether the Bible was inerrant – it was enough to know that it was God’s Word. Christians didn’t worry about the age of the Earth – it was enough to know that it was created by God. (Incidentally, ever since then, the church has been reacting against the world. The church doesn’t take the lead in propagating the Gospel – it doesn’t set the agenda – instead it reacts against the latest fashions of the world. Witness the church’s recent vehement obsession with homosexuality and transgenderism.)

It’s not a coincidence that the 1700s and 1800s included so much political upheaval. In fact, historians identify the years 1775-1848 as the Age of Revolutions. Authoritarianism was turned on its head with revolutions in America, France, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Poland, and Hungary.

It was in this environment that the doctrine of the Rapture originated. By the early 1800s, Western modernity had overturned traditional theology and authority. The church could react in one of two ways: either modernize and adapt to the changing times; or retrench, dig in its heels and double down on its commitment to separation from the world. Guess which route it took?

The doctrine of the Rapture took hold because the church felt a need to separate itself from the encroaching liberalism of the world. “If we have to live in the world, then we can at least teach that Jesus is coming back to rescue us out of the world. And by the way, as an added bonus, the unbelievers will experience the hellacious wrath of God while we have a front-row seat in heaven!” This teaching had just enough scriptural plausibility, and just enough appeal to the darker side of human nature, to catch on in the church and to remain in modern-day statements of faith.

Ever since the Rapture was invented by John Darby in the 1830s, Christians have repeatedly predicted the date of Jesus’ return, including such luminaries as John Wesley in 1836 and Chuck Smith, he of “Jesus Revolution” fame, in 1981. Most preachers and teachers are not so crass today as to predict a specific date, but they have no problem making confident assertions that we’re surely living in the last days. This is partly due to ego-centrism – “The world has never been worse that what we’re experiencing today, and our generation is at the focal point of history.” And it’s partly due to a need to control their congregations – “You’d better shape up and do what I say because Jesus is coming back any day now!”

So, what’s the problem? Well, other than the fact that it’s unscriptural, the traditional view of the Rapture encourages an overly separatist perspective by Christians. “We’re going to be taken out of the world soon anyway, so screw ‘em.” This gives rise to a “holy huddle” strain of Christianity. We don’t try to improve the world, we don’t accommodate ourselves to the world, and we don’t reach out to the unsaved in a culturally appropriate way. I’m not saying, of course, that all Rapture advocates have this mentality – I’m saying that it’s a general rule and that belief in the Rapture encourages this type of separatism. After all, it’s the idea of separatism that gave rise to the doctrine in the first place! As an example, compare the social programs of Catholics (who don’t believe in the Rapture) with the social programs of Evangelicals.

What’s the problem with the Rapture? It’s unscriptural. Yes, Jesus is coming back – and yes, Christians will rise to meet him in the air. But Jesus will not be taking us to heaven while raining plagues down on the unsaved who are “left behind.” Instead we will escort our Savior back to Earth to take his rightful place as Lord, where he will judge unbelievers and reign over the new Earth. There is much about the end times that is unclear, but that much (and not much more) is what we can know from scripture.