Transcript

If you grew up like me, you were warned about the coming Rapture.

At any moment, Jesus will return to rapture all Christians from the world, saving them from the coming Antichrist and a seven-year tribulation.

Evidently, all non-believers should expect to find clothes left on the ground, cars flying down the road unoccupied, and planes falling from the sky.

This belief inspired the popular book series Left Behind, a fictional series about what would happen during the seven-year tribulation after all Christians mysteriously vanish.

Since the book series, the belief in the Rapture has gained popularity.

But is this really a biblical idea?

Does the Bible teach that a future Rapture is going to occur?

Let's explore what the Bible says and see if there's ever an indication a Rapture event is supposed to happen.

What we find might surprise you.

The Rapture is defined as the transporting of believers to heaven at the second coming of Christ.

Christians who hold to the eschatological view of premillennialism tend to believe in a Rapture.

Premillennialists see Jesus' millennial reign as something off in the future, and before the millennial reign begins, the Rapture and the tribulation must occur.

Some say it will occur at the end of the tribulation at Jesus' second coming, some believe it will occur before the tribulation, and some even argue for a mid-tribulation Rapture.

But despite the popularity of a belief in a Rapture to heaven, it is a relatively new idea that is only about 200 years old.

Most Christians throughout the past never expected one to happen.

Instead, Christians have historically been waiting for Jesus to return, resurrect the dead, and bring about final judgment.

There was never a notion of all Christians being taken up to heaven when Christ returns or before this.

It was John Nelson Darby who came up with this belief and popularized it.

Some have suggested he got the idea from a vision of a young woman named Margaret MacDonald.

She allegedly reported she saw the church being raptured from the earth at the end times, but there is no evidence she had any influence on Darby.

Prior to this, there were a few preachers who entertained the possibility of something like a Rapture, but Darby is credited with starting the modern belief in teaching it would be a future event.

Because the belief in the Rapture can only be traced back to the past 200 years, we should be skeptical of it unless it can be demonstrated to be clearly taught in Scripture.

But even more troubling for proponents of the Rapture is that when we look in the Bible, we see little to no evidence it was ever taught by the apostles or Jesus.

There are three main passages proponents use to argue for a coming Rapture.

We'll evaluate them all in some additional verses.

The first is Revelation 3:10: Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to try those who dwell on the earth.

Regarding this verse, Manfred E. Kolber says it should be noted that the church has not promised protection in or during the hour of trial, but protection out of it.

The tribulation saints are not promised exemption from suffering, Kolber being a pre-tribulation Rapture advocate.

So this verse seems to suggest that Christians who come before us suppose that future tribulation will be called out of the world so they don't have to suffer through the tribulation.

But the problem is the context does not support this understanding.

This was addressed to a specific church from the past, the Church of Philadelphia.

It is not addressed to all Christians in the future.

Christ is saying the Church of Philadelphia will be spared from the coming tribulation that the churches of the first century were going to experience.

G.K. Beale says Christ will show his faithfulness to the Christians in Philadelphia in the immediate future because they have been faithful witnesses to him in the past.

The church in Smyrna was not promised to be raptured, but they were told to endure through the tribulation that was about to fall on them.

The church in Pergamon is told they have been faithful, but because they tolerate some who hold to heretical teachings, Christ will make war on them if they don't repent.

This implies this church may have to go through a period of tribulation, not that they will be raptured away before any trials occur.

Most scholars see the opening chapters of Revelation as referring to a period of tribulation in the past that the churches John wrote to endured through.

Only the church in Philadelphia was spared through this period.

This is not a promise that Jesus will rapture all Christians away before some distant future tribulation begins.

Kolber also claims the verse uses a word that suggests the church will be taken out of the world to escape tribulation, but the word does not necessarily mean that.

It is just a general word that carries the sense of a preposition from or out of.

This doesn't mean they literally have to be raptured out of the world, but can merely be kept away from the tribulation.

Kolber also cites verses from Paul where we read the saints are promised not to experience wrath but salvation.

However, these verses are not about some future tribulation but refer to how Christians have been saved from the wrath that our sin causes.

We have been saved from the wrath we deserve from our sin because Christ paid for our penalty.

None of these verses are teaching a future Rapture will occur.

Jesus also explicitly says in this life we will experience persecution and trials.

If there is a coming tribulation just before the second coming, there is no reason to think we'll be raptured away before it begins.

Another passage used to support the Rapture is Matthew 24:40-42. Some argue this refers to a future event when the Lord will come back and rapture his saints away.

Some will vanish instantly while others will be left behind.

But once again, context matters.

If we read the parallel passage in Luke, we see that those being taken away are not the saints, but those who are judged and cast out of the presence of the Lord.

There will be two women grinding together; one will be taken away and the other left.

They said to him, Where, Lord?

He said to them, Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.

In other words, you don't want to be one of the people taken away.

In Matthew 24, Jesus compares those being taken away to those who perished in the great flood of Noah.

So the passage likely refers to being cast out of the presence of God at final judgment.

When Christ returns and resurrects all for final judgment, some will be taken away because they rejected him, while the rest will be allowed to remain with him and rule on earth.

Additionally, many assume that because Jesus compares the coming of the Son of Man to the days of Noah, this means we should expect he will return at a time of great sin.

However, Jesus says it will be like the days of Noah in the sense that no one expected the flood to occur.

Jesus doesn't compare the second coming to the evil that was in the days of Noah, but to the unexpectedness of the event.

So this doesn't necessarily mean the world will be filled with evil or ruled by an Antichrist when Jesus returns.

The passage that is used most often to support the Rapture is 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17: For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

The word translated in Latin is where we get the term Rapture from.

Proponents of the Rapture use this passage to argue that at the end times, Christ will return to rapture all the saints away.

But we should note that even if the verse is about a Rapture, it refers to Jesus' second coming when he physically returns to earth.

It doesn't refer to an event that takes place seven years before his return.

The passage says the dead in Christ will rise first, referring to the resurrection to come before we are caught up in the air with Christ.

N.T. Wright notes that Paul is using the typical language of the day about an emperor coming into the city, where people would run out to meet him and accompany him back into the city.

Likewise, when Jesus descends from the clouds, Paul is stating we will be caught up in the air to meet him, but in the sense that we will be welcoming him back to earth, not that we will be raptured away from earth to heaven.

Paul conjures up images of an emperor visiting a colony or province; the citizens go out to meet him in open country and then escort him into the city.

Paul's image of the people meeting the Lord in the air should be read with the assumption that the people will immediately turn around and lead the Lord back to the newly remade world.

Paul's mixed metaphors of trumpets blowing and the living being snatched into heaven to meet the Lord are not to be understood as literal truth, as the Left Behind series suggests, but as a vivid and biblically elusive description of the great transformation of the present world, of which he speaks elsewhere.

Craig Keener says, The word for meeting in the air normally referred to emissaries from a city going out to meet the dignitary and escort him on his way to their city.

The contrast that this image provides with the honor thought to be particularly due to the Lord Caesar and his emissaries could well have provoked hostility from local officials.

In other words, this is not about being raptured up to heaven, but about the second coming when Christ returns to physically be present on earth.

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul uses similar language to what we see in 1 Thessalonians 4, but it is clearly referring to the second coming and the resurrection of the dead.

So this is likely what he was also referring to in 1 Thessalonians.

In truth, this is not about a future Rapture, but the second coming of Christ when the resurrection of the dead will occur.

In fact, the end times may not be a future of doom and gloom.

In other videos, we have argued that the future is much brighter than most realize, and what may bring about the end is not a tribulation and the rise of the Antichrist, but the spread of the Gospel and the completion of the Great Commission.

There is no reason to think a future Rapture is predicted in the Scriptures.

This is a recent invention that does not trace back to anything in historical Christianity.

Therefore, there is no reason for Christians to expect a Rapture at any minute.

Instead, we should be focusing on what Christ commanded: fulfilling the Great Commission.

Let's put this distraction behind us and get back to what is important.

Thank you.