The Great Escape? An Exposition and Critique of Rapture Doctrine
David J. Nixon
"One bright morning, when this life o'er, I'll fly away; to the land on God's celestial shore, I'll fly away!"
We turn to consider what is arguably one of the most hotly debated topics in all of eschatology today. If the debate between Preterism, Pre-Millennialism and Amillennialism wasn't complicated enough for you already, then you might be terrified to learn that within Pre-Millennialism there is a battle ground over the timing of an event which is commonly referred to as The Rapture. This term itself is not Biblically correct, however. Rather if you are going to call it anything then it should more appropriately be referred to as the "snatching away/or catching up" - the literal meaning of the New Testament Greek word "harpazo" found in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will 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".
How can it be that there is such ferocious debate concerning the Rapture? Well whatever the reason it is not justified! Of all the issues for Christians to be busy arguing over, there are better and more important issues that we could be addressing instead. As well as explaining the various positions on Rapture theology, as well as advancing a defence for my understanding of the scriptures this article will also seek to put the Rapture in perspective with our first and foremost duty to be salt and light in this world while we are still in it!
The schools of thought on the Rapture primarily divide into 3 camps today:
1) Pre-Tribulation: this advances this position that prior to the commencement of the 70th week of Daniel (aka "the Tribulation" period in popular parlance - although strictly speaking the only Biblical usage of this term is in description of the last half of the 70th week, which Jesus called the time of "Great Tribulation") there shall be an initial coming of the Lord Jesus in the air to remove His bride, the Church from the Earth. This removal of the Church and consequently the indwelling Holy Spirit within every believer causes the preserving influence had by the Church to cease and so provides opportunity for Satan to raise up the End Time character of the Antichrist (again not a truly Biblical term as there is only reference to many antichrists, who oppose and deny the deity of Christ. However, since the Beast of Revelation (Revelation 13), Man of Lawlessness (2 Thessalonians 2:3), the Little Boasting Horn (Daniel 7:20) or the Prince of the People Who Must Come (Daniel 9:26) will personify all the antichrists of history he earns the proper name of Antichrist) who only then will be able to confirm the covenant with Israel which will mark the commencement of the 70th Week or "Time of Jacob's Trouble" (Jeremiah 30:7). These 7 years will cease with the actual return of Christ, not to the air, but to the Mount of Olives as prophesied by the angel post-ascension in Acts 1. This is the interpretation of all the scriptures which is most consistent given the whole prophetic picture, in my opinion.
2) Pre-Wrath: this takes the view that the Church is only promised to be saved from "the wrath that is to come" (1 Thessalonians 1:10) and that wrath can only be said to be poured on the world in the post-abomination of desolation timeframe in the latter half of the 70th week when the 7 trumpets and bowls of wrath judgements are poured out on the world. The Great Tribulation spoken of by Jesus is the period that immediately follows the Abomination in Temple and is when the Antichrist engages in his war against the Church, but it will be caught short by the sudden rapture of the church out of the world at an unspecified time in this latter part of the 70th week, but before the last 2 sets of judgements because they alone can be called the “wrath of God” – thus the term: “Pre-Wrath. The Church will still be present before this point to suffer the wrath of Satan as demonstrated in Revelation 12, but this is distinct still from the wrath of God. Today the Pre-Wrath is one of the fastest growing schools of thought on the Rapture and deserves some study, which this article cannot hope to do justice to currently.
3) Post-Tribulation: finally this view sees the Church as being present on the Earth throughout the whole Tribulation to incur the wrath of the Antichrist and only being rescued by the bridegroom Christ when He is already coming in the air to bring in the kingdom physically at the Second Coming. It rejects that there is a two stage coming as in the two other predominant views!
My bias is very apparent here, as I can find myself with very little to say to neutrally describe the post-trib position! While I can very much appreciate the perspective set out by pre-wrath given the scriptures, I cannot say the same for post-trib because when we conduct a similar survey of the relevant prophetic passages concerning the Lord's return we are left with a contradiction if we attempt to combine a two stage coming into a single post-trib event! There is a clear division of scriptures which speak of an unknown coming of the Lord:
"Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night." (1 Thessalonians 5:1-2)
"Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. [...] For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will." (Matthew 24:42,44)
"Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour" (Matthew 25:13)
But also a separate set of scriptures which indicate that we will be able to calculate exactly the day of the Lord's return, most notably these passages involving numbers:
"The woman [Israel] was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent's reach [...] Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring - those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus." (Revelation 12:14, 17)
"The saints will be handed over to him [Antichrist] for a time, times and half a time." (Daniel 7:25)
These passages are taken one from the Old Testament prophecy regarding the time of the Antichrist and one from the New Testament fleshing out of the foundations laid by Daniel. It describes a two fold attack against the Lord's people. It shows that after the Abomination of Desolation, Antichrist will seek to destroy the nation of Israel to prevent her ever returning to the Lord and triggering the Second Coming by confessing "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord". Enraged by God thwarting his efforts he will instead turn his efforts against the remnant of Christian believers who have been saved during the first half of the Tribulation. The length of time given over for the Antichrist's war against God's people is fixed in both portions of scripture at this nebulous time period of "a time, times and half a time", which to cut a long story short refers to a period of 3.5 years - or more precisely 1260 days when based on the Hebrew lunar calendar comprised of 360 days in a year. When looking at Daniel's 70 weeks prophecy we see that a "week" refers to 7 years, or 2520 days precisely in the Hebrew calendar, so we can infer that if Antichrist is to break his covenant with Israel half way through the Tribulation and his war will last for 1260 days that it will commence at this exact mid-point of the 7 years. Therefore, it does not take a genius to conclude that we can know well in advance the time of the Lord's Second Coming - so much for it being a day and an hour we would not imagine...that is if we accept the post-trib position that there is only one stage in the Lord's return.
Another important contradiction, which may not be immediately apparent can be summed up in the question: ‘who is to populate the Millennium if the Rapture is post-trib?’. Paul describes the Rapture as being the time when those who are alive and remain will be bodily resurrected and transformed into their eternal bodies as they are caught up in the air (1 Corinthians 15:51-52) “Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal put on immortality”. Now when we consider what it means to put on the imperishable body we’ll have during eternity we must refer back to the teaching of Jesus on what life will be like in Heaven, where describing relationships He says: “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven” (Matthew 22:30). This strongly implies that just as there is no indication of procreation between the angels that we will cease to procreate when we have been bodily resurrected! How then, if all those Christians who have rejected the Mark of the Beast during the Tribulation are raptured out of the world at the moment of Christ’s return, will there be a population explosion during the Millennium so that just the number of the final rebels will be “like the sand of the seashore” (Revelation 20:8b)? This is an important question that the post-trib Rapture cannot explain without suggesting that the people of the Millennium will come from the remnant of those who are not Christians but who also resisted the Mark of the Beast and survived to the Second Coming – however, even if this answer is accepted they must still deal with the introduction of contradiction into the scriptures which cannot so easily be explained away!
In both the Pre-Trib and Pre-Wrath positions there is a clear degree of uncertainty as to when the Rapture will happen, although far more so in the former case because the Rapture could literally happen at any time without any of the prophetic signposts warning of its impending arrival; let alone the ultimate sign of Antichrist declaring himself to be God in the Holy of Holies in the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem! Indeed, I would go so far as to argue that the Pre-Wrath position is untenable if we are to take the Holy Spirit as "the Restrainer" in 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 because this passage is clear that the Antichrist is unable to rise into power until the Restrainer is removed. How then can Antichrist engage in war against the Church and have committed the Abomination of Desolation if the scripture here seems to indicate He will not come until after the removal of the Restrainer? If the Church is here until around the middle of the 70th Week then the Holy Spirit would need to be removed from the Believer, an event that is strictly provided against in God's infallible promise to never leave nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). Therefore, the only safe ground to proceed is for the Church itself to be removed, and for any post-Rapture converts to be in a situation akin to the non-indwelt Old Testament saints. However, I will not go to the extreme hermeneutical fallacy of suggesting that the word "apostasy" - or falling away in the same passage can be taken as a reference to the harpazo snatching away of the Church. There are no grounds whatsoever in the Greek to justify this suggestion, and it should be exposed as the desperate attempt to justify the pre-trib position that it is. The pre-trib position is safe in this passage, without needing to resort to twisting the scriptures to suggest that the Rapture is required to make way for Antichrist - the passage does this without our help!
In favour of the Pre-Trib position there is the evidence of the sealing of the 144,000 Jewish witnesses to be evangelists in the world in the Tribulation period and the testimony of the 2 witnesses in Jerusalem. Why would you need this event to take place unless of course suddenly there is a vacuum resulting from the removal of millions of Christians? Arguably since the Tribulation, as the Time of Jacob's Trouble and the 70th Week of Daniel, is primarily the completion of the Lord's redemptive programme for Israel that these Jews are sealed as evangelists to better reach Jews with the gospel and they will not be significant in reaching the rest of the world. So this is not necessarily a strong argument, but is a question worth contemplating!
What is striking to consider is the obvious parallel between the pre-trib rapture and the Jewish marriage custom. Christ returns for His bride to take her to the marriage supper of the Lamb and this, in the pre-trib case, would last 7 years (we know already that 7 years can be described in prophetic imagery as 1 week). Jesus firstly promises "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also," (John 14:3) which matches Jewish custom at the time were the bridegroom would propose and then go away from the bride to prepare a home for her before returning to take her with Him for a marriage ceremony and new life together. Jesus then in Matthew 25 tells the parable of the 10 virgins, and those who were caught asleep at the surprise coming of the bridegroom were left locked outside the marriage celebration. Such a celebration in Jewish culture would have lasted for an entire week! Are you beginning to see the parallel? The Church Age is the period when Jesus has been preparing for us a home in Heaven. Those who miss the Rapture due to spiritual slumber will be left outside of the marriage supper of the lamb when He returns for His bride for the duration of the 7 year Tribulation. I do not put it beyond the Lord to have so poetically planned out His eschatological plan so that it compliments the picture of marriage, for we learn as we read Paul in the New Testament that marriage is meant to be a depiction of Christ's relationship with the Church (Ephesians 5:23ff).
Finally, in just one more point, Revelation begins with the declaration that John will see the things that were currently at that time and the things which would come later (Revelation 1:19). After the revelation of the letters to the 7 churches, representing the 7 distinct periods of the Church Age, John sees a door in Heaven and hears a voice like a trumpet say "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things" (Revelation 3:1). Firstly, this suggests that after the Church Age is complete and God is ready to finish Israel's redemptive phase of history that is when the door in Heaven will open and we will be caught up in Rapture - how do I reach this conclusion? Well when we read Paul we see a similar picture with similar objects employed: "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will 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." (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17) This is our text for our basis for the word "rapture" and it is inexorably tied to a call upwards to Heaven that is like the sound of a trumpet, the same image used later by John in Revelation. Is this not arguably the same event being seen?
I want to close this article with a clear warning to all who read it. I do not preach what I call an "escape pod gospel" because that is nothing but irresponsible! We are told by the Lord Jesus that in this world we are as salt and light preserving and holding back evil - believe it or not things would be, and indeed will be, far worse without the Church here! Read Isaiah 61 and see that the Lord's will is for kingdom justice to reign in this world, for the poor to be treated fairly, for the destitute to be fed, for the broken hearted to be comforted! Yes, we will not be able to cure all this world's ills and ultimately the only cure for our problems is Christ's return and our own bodily resurrections, but still that doesn't mean we can abrogate our responsibilities here and now as Christ's ambassadors and as His body to be busy doing the work He Himself inaugurated and led by example in during His ministry here on Earth. If you look forward to the Rapture and are so obsessed with it that you cease doing the kingdom work then the warning goes out sternly from the Lord Jesus Himself to the wicked servant in Matthew 25 who did nothing with the gift he received from his master before He went away. The Lord wants us to be busy about His work so when He returns we have produced fruit, have made a difference, have fed and clothed and comforted those who need it because if we truly are His people and truly know Him that we should know of His broken heart for these people and ruined sinners. If we do not do these things is it not a reflection on our spiritual condition and the fact that we are not overflowing with the love that Christ has now placed into us? Does that thought not give us cause to look again at Matthew 7 and question whether the Lord will confess us as friends or deny us as strangers if we persist in living and believing in an escape pod Rapture doctrine. The only reason enduring the Tribulation can be full of hope despite all its horrors is the picture of the Millennial kingdom and eternity with Christ, in the New Heavens and Earth restored from the decay which causes all of nature to long for that day to come (Romans 1). It is the ushering in of Kingdom justice that will mark that place and if we do not love it now, is there hope for us to be able to endure its saturating weight in the eternal Kingdom?
I have seen ministries sell the gospel and the Rapture doctrine as a ticket to an escape pod out of God's wrath, and really we are selling people so short if that is the extent (or lack thereof) of our Biblical understanding of the redemptive purposes behind the Tribulation then I propose that we need to spend some time thinking and praying through where God's heart is, because He earnestly desires justice and to see people saved, and His purpose through all the wrath is to break man's rebellious will and cause him to return to his Heavenly Father who is waiting with open arms to give eternal life to the one who repents the second before the Second Coming as He did to the first 2000 years before. So I close this critique of Rapture doctrine with these thoughts, and encourage you to think about what you are doing in the knowledge and hope of the Rapture, because time is short and the task still left for us on Earth is great indeed because evil abounds and has set itself against all that the Lord desires to see in His world.
