The Rapture Doctrine

Paul wrote that there would be a “gathering together” of Christians at Christ’s coming to meet him in the clouds of heaven (2 Thes 2.1). The word “gather” as a verb in the Greek language is episunago which means “to gather together, suggesting stress upon the place at which the gathering is made (epi, to), is said of a hen and her chickens, Matt 23:37; and so of the Lord’s would-be protecting care of the people of Jerusalem…Luke 13:34; of the gathering together of the elect, Matt 24:31” (Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, 1952 one volume ed.,142 N.B. This lecturer has utilised “Vine” only due to its common popularity). The noun, used in 2 Thes 2.1,is episunagoge. The word “rapture” is from the Latin of this same Greek term (rapere, the very word from which “rape” comes and which means to seize or take away).

In essence, some Christians believe that prior to the end-time appearance of the Antichrist (or, Beast) of the book of Revelation, Yeshua will come secretly to “snatch away” his true believers. Still others who hold to the secret rapture doctrine believe that Antichrist will reign for three-and-a-half years of his expected seven year tenure on planet Earth and that at that time Christ will secretly come for his elect. Then, according to them, the final cataclysmic “Great Tribulation” will be unleashed by Satan onto this planet in all of the fury of his hate for mankind. In other words Christ removes his church to heaven leaving the Jewish people and the rest of the nations on Earth to go through the Great Tribulation.

Popular evangelist De Haan claims that Christians will be caught “up into heaven” prior to the tribulation period and says “this is the teaching of Revelation and of the entire Bible.” Oswald Smith disagrees. “There is not a single verse in the Bible that upholds the [secret coming of Christ pre-tribulation] theory…There is no scripture for a pre-tribulation rapture,” he says.

It is not an uncommon sight to see car bumper stickers which read “The Rapture: The only way to fly!” or “In case of the Rapture, this vehicle will be unmanned.” Such sentiments convey to the pagan public (and to Christians who do not care for the doctrine) an arrogant triumphant attitude which was quite decidedly the opposite displayed by Our Lord (Jn 11.35; Lk 19.41,42).

Up until a few short years ago it was my privilege to visit Christian congregations with diverse denominational backgrounds deputised as the
representative of the largest international missionary radio organisation on the face of the Earth. This was an organisation many Christians once believed was actually capable of fulfilling the Great Commission of Our Lord in reaching all nations with the Gospel of Christ’s salvation. But it was astonishing to me just how many people in the denominations which I visited who were sucked in — “hook, line and sinker” — to the travesty of the two-stage rapture doctrine. So powerful was this teaching even when they had the truth of the matter explained to them simply (as a child would be capable of understanding) they remained firmly entrenched in their stupid doctrinal nonsense — and for a good reason, which I will come to in a moment.

As I travelled from church to church, I aimed at focusing the attention of those to whom I was speaking on the great need to pray intelligently, as well as to encourage them all to support financially that same ministry, in reaching the lost of humankind. At the same time, I was eager to convey my desire that all of God’s people most certainly have need to experience their own intimate and personal outreach in their own immediate community. The lost exist here in our own country as well as overseas in foreign lands. Underscoring all my sermons was a sense of genuine urgency as I am one of those “fools for Mashiach” who believes that the coming of Our Lord is near.

Christian Apostasy, Here Now

One day I was invited back to a particular denomination by its pastor, a well-known man of the cloth (who shall remain anonymous). Having heard me
speak before he gave me free rein to speak on any subject I desired. Yet, not a mere two minutes before I was to take the pulpit, as the final lines of the pre-sermon hymn wafted into the belfry, this ‘man of God’ leaned across to me from the pew directly before me and whispered soberly, “Brother, you know that you can speak on anything you want, but please do me a favour.”

I have a natural tendency to be more than a little hesitant about agreeing to do people favours before I know what they are. “What’s the favour?” I asked responsively.

What proceeded from his mouth at that point engulfed me with dismay. “Please don’t mention the Second Coming! I don’t believe in it…about 60% of my congregation no longer believes in it either, and I’d like to keep them!” I could hardly believe what I had just heard. I sat there in my pew like a stunned mullet in a fish shop window. I was swallowed up in turbulent thoughts. I did not realise the hymn had finished. The congregation was waiting somewhat impatiently for me to take the pulpit, and I was still standing in the pew with an opened hymn book in my hands. Peter’s words were flooding into my brain: “There shall come in the last days scoffers…saying, Where is the promise of His coming?” (2 Pet 3.3,4). I could hardly believe what I had just heard. Here was a minister of God DENYING what was once the central hope of the Christian Community — the Second Advent of Christ — “our blessed hope.”

Friends, over the years I have discovered that this was not to be an isolated incident. Doubt about the second coming, and disbelief in it, seems to be an alarming trend among a growing number of ministers not only in Australia but around the globe.

For 2000 years we Christians have proclaimed the (single second) coming of the Lord in glory. We have been consistent in our teaching that the Lord
would one day appear in the clouds above in power and majesty to “catch us up” — to RAPTURE us — to be with Him AT His second Advent.

We proclaimed this belief faithfully in the days when Nero burned the dying, screaming, crucified bodies of wretched, writhing saints in his palatial gardens in order to throw light on his debauched, decadent evening sexual orgies.

We cried it loud and long in the second century as mad emperors martyred Mashiach’s faithful, obedient servants. Men like the brilliant Ignatius, and the holy priests Polycarp and Polycrates and others. Yes, we were consistent in our preaching of His (single second) coming.

As the church elevated by the pagan Constantine to “orthodoxy” began to “eliminate” all “heresies” our central message was still one of hope. We did not spare. Yeshua (Iseou) was coming to reign as King of kings and Lord of lords.

We announced His (single second) coming was near as the unfortunate Trinitarian controversies rocked the universal church to its very foundations.

In the Dark Ages, when the light of the glorious Gospel had faced near extinction we faithfully sealed the truth of Yeshu’s (single) Second Advent in the shed blood of multiple millions of martyrs for the Faith.

In the days of the universalist Wycliffe and his Lollards — when every second man in England saw himself as a new creature being prepared for a new creation by virtue of a new birth — we were faithful in preaching and teaching that Christ was coming again.

During the days of the great missionary awakening of the 19th century, when Hudson Taylor took the life-giving Gospel to pagan China, we were again found to be trustworthy stewards of God’s holy word. The (single second) coming of Christ was not considered a mere doctrine, but a fundamental reality.

The twentieth century has witnessed that reality degenerate from a living hope and confident trust into nothing more than a sometimes required
doctrinal tenet (open, of course, to modern interpretation) of the Christian belief system. The last major voice raised up by the living Jesus Christ, and
who boldly proclaimed His soon appearance, was Billy Graham. We do not apologise for our mention of Billy Graham even though some would insist that he has become a 33° Mason in these his twilight years. But I first came to an intellectual knowledge of “Jesus Christ” through one of Graham’s mighty evangelistic crusades in the mid ‘fifties. Brian Booth, a famous international Australian cricketer, gave me a gift of a particular New Testament around 1959. Later, in 1981, I was to meet the Messiah on my own Damascus Road. But today Graham’s golden, appealing voice is silent. Where are
the Billy Graham’s of today? His son is no patch on the Old Man.

Now, as Yeshua prepares to intervene in the affairs of our rebellious planet and war-weary Earth — at a time when the nations have amassed enough nuclear fire-power to destroy all life more than 50 times over (though once would be sufficient) and man has cleverly devised and stockpiled more than 50 different and effective methods of cosmocide — we hardly ever hear the really good news of Christ’s soon return. It would appear the church may have lost interest in the reality of our Saviour’s (single) Second Coming.

I sat in the pew with this man’s words of sheer unbelief ringing in my ears — “60% of my congregation no longer believes in it and I’d like to keep them” — and the longer I stood there the angrier I became. I must be quite candid about it. A white-hot righteous indignation began to swell higher and higher
into my throat. This was my Messiah and soon-coming King this self-indulgent pious parasite was pompously denying, yet a man who clearly knew what the Scriptures plainly taught. No mental mutant he; although the same could not necessarily be said of his congregants, many of whom I had previously met, and a few of whom still believed in the coming of the Lord — although in two stages. I left the safety of the pew slowly and deliberately, and then walked with a steady, purposeful gait up to the imposing mammoth pulpit. I had actually prepared an innocuous sermon on prayer. It was no longer relevant! This was war! When I finally took the pulpit, I opened my Bible, and that church got a rock solid hour of the Second Coming!

I never expected to ever be invited back there to preach, and frankly lost absolutely no sleep over it. Before I had finished the minister had hurriedly fled the scene. I let myself out, shaking hands with only a few who hung about the church door. I might add, too, that I preached that day one of the most convicted sermons I have ever given, before or since. And it was a single Second Advent that was preached — in the tradition of Charles Spurgeon, William Booth, George Muller, B.W. Newton, John Wesley, Thomas Newton, Isaac Newton, John Knox, John Calvin, Edwin Sandys, Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, John Foxe, William Tyndale, Philipp Melanchthon, Huldreich Zwingli, Martin Luther, John Huss, John Wycliffe, Irenaeus, Lactantius, Cyprian, Hippolytus, the Canaanite Tertullian, and Justin Martyr — to name a few who also taught a single Second Coming!

For, had not the angels instructed the disciples on the day of Our Lord’s ascension that He would come back again “IN LIKE MANNER [in the same
exact way] as you have seen him go into the heavens”? (See Acts 1.11 in any version or translation of the Bible). It is apparent, even to the dull of intellect, that Yeshua decidedly DID NOT ascend into the heavens in two stages. Please forgive my devastating logic but the disciples watched His ascension IN ONE STAGE from the moment His feet left Olivet until clouds received Him out of their sight (Acts 1.9). Their eyes never left Mashiach. Their eyes were riveted to Him. There was no up-and-down-and-up-again feat aimed at entertaining the local imagination. The Lord did not utilise such a ploy to give “inside” information to His elect apostles about a two-stage return to this Earth. And He did not keep them in the dark about His coming again, only to reveal the precious “Secret Rapture” doctrine to an obscure Scottish-Edomite peasant woman centuries later somewhere in the British Isles!