What is the rapture and why is it important to discuss in light of our journey and the destination of our journey?
Rapture, in a nutshell, is the idea that all Christians, dead and alive, will be evacuated from the earth to go be with Jesus in Heaven. Of course, there are many different variations of beliefs. Those include: when the rapture will take place, where Christians go and what happens next, and if people left on earth can be saved after the rapture.
Rapture – where does this idea come from?
1 Thes 4 16 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. 17 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.
Luke 17 34 I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 35 Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.
That seems pretty straight forward, right? Jesus comes back, the dead Christians rise first, and then the rest of us meet in the air and all go off to Heaven to be with the Lord forever.
Then, everyone left behind goes through the worst tribulation that world has ever seen. Sometime after, they are all judged and go burn forever. Sounds like a good book or movie.
Or does the rapture happen during the great tribulation or maybe after? That pre, mid, and post tribulation rapture discussion is one reason I began to study the rapture from a different perspective. Like I always say, many of us were taught to study the bible to prove the point that we already knew was true, not to read it for understanding. So, I began to look at the “rapture” scriptures as if I knew nothing about the rapture.
I was shocked to find out that the rapture doctrine is only about 200 years old. The doctrine is thought to be conceived by John Nelson Darby and picked up by C I Scoffield. Scoffield listed the doctrine in the footnotes of the Scoffield reference bible and the rest is history. The previous 1800 years of church history probably knew nothing of a rapture.
I will save the lengthy discussion of the rapture for my book, so I’ll just make a couple of points about the rapture scriptures above.
1 Thes 4:16-17 – The author of 1 Thes does not say where we go to be with the lord forever. Could it be that He comes back just one time (not one time for the rapture and another for His second coming) and we meet Him in the air and usher Him back to earth to begin His kingdom?
Luke 17:34-35 – If you read all little further, you realize that the ones taken are not the lucky ones.
37 “Where, Lord?” they asked. He replied, “Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.”
That’s not the rapture that we are familiar with.
The church has used the fear of a secret getaway and forever burning in hell to scare many people to God. That may be fine if all you are trying to do is see how many you can get to say a prayer and profess they are following Jesus. The number of professing Christians in the world has increased exponentially over the last century. If the goal is making sure people don’t miss the rapture and do miss hell, we should be getting closer than ever of reaching the world with that goal.
What if that was not Jesus’s goal for coming to earth? What if we were supposed to be powerful on this earth when we are saved, make a difference where we live and make the earth a better place. What if we are not saved to just get by, waiting to escape this God forsaken earth, but were saved to make a difference by living a different life.
Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you
Of course, we want eternal life with Jesus, but eternal life begins at the new birth. The point that I am trying to make is that I think we have been given a different goal than trying to save people to heaven. In fact, I believe being saved has a much larger definition than having “fire insurance”.
What if Jesus came to give abundant life right here, right now and we have been concentrating on getting out of here and taking as many as we can with us.
John 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
What happened when the Children of Israel got to edge of the Promised Land and didn’t fully believe that was their destination? They wandered around for 40 more years. We, as a church, need to make sure that we have the correct destination (goal) in our GPS. I’m tired of wandering. In the next blog post we will begin to discuss a different destination or goal.
The Children of Israel were looking for the Promised Land and we should be seeking the Kingdom.
Bill
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