"Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together
with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be
with the Lord."
(1 Thess. 4: 17, KJV)
I have been a strong believer and
advocate of the "Rapture" for a number of years, until of recently.
Just prior to my time I spent at NBBI, from 2002 to 2005, I began to question this
doctrine on the Rapture. It is only now for the first time that I am writing my view
on the Rapture. There are a number of Scripture references that Dispensationalists
use to advocate their teaching on the Rapture, an event that will happen just
prior to the Second Coming of the Lord. The Scriptures are as follows: John
14 : 1-3Romans 8 : 19-201 Thess. 1 : 101 Tim. 6 : 14Titus 2 :
13Hebrews
9 : 28James 5 : 7-91 John 2 : 28-3Jude 21 ;
Rev. 2: 25; 3: 10. In this blog I will only focus on a few of the verses
here that Dispensationalists use to support their doctrine of the Rapture.
"Ver. 3. The
particle if in this place denotes no uncertainty of the thing whereof he had
before assured them; but in this place hath either the force of although, or
after that: When, or after that, I have died, ascended, and by all these acts,
as also by my intercession, shall have made places in Heaven fully ready for
you, I will in the last day return again, as Judge of the quick and the dead,
and take you up into heaven, 1Th 4:16,17 ;
that you may be made partakers of my glory, Joh 17:22. This is called, Ro 8:17,
a being glorified together with him; and elsewhere, a reigning with him. So as
this is a third argument by which our Lord comforteth his disciples as to their
trouble conceived for the want of His bodily presence with them, from the
certainty of his return to them, and the end and consequent of his return: the
end was to receive them to himself; the consequent, their eternal abiding with
Christ where he was."[1]
"Ver. 52. This
change will be on the sudden, in a moment; either upon the will and command of
Christ, which shall be as effectual to call persons out of their graves, as a
trumpet is to call persons together; or rather, upon a sound made like to the
sound of a trumpet, as it was at the giving of the law upon Sinai, Ex 19:16 . We read of this last trump, Mt 24:31; 1 Th 4:16. There shall (saith the
apostle) be such a sound made; and upon the making of it, the saints, that are
dead, shall be raised out of their graves; not with such bodies as they carried
thither, (which were corruptible), but with such bodies as shall be no more
subject to corruption; and those who at that time shall be alive, shall one way
or another be changed, and be also put into an incorruptible state."[2]
We see here that the Dispensationalist's teaching on the Rapture is backwards. For it is the wicked who are taken and the righteous who are left behind (Matt. 24: 37-41; Luke 17: 34-37; Matt. 13: 24-30, 47-50). "The word translated “left,” in Matthew 24: 37-41 and Luke 17: 34-37, is the Greek aphiemi (αφιεται), which, in one of its three chief meanings, means “to send forth, let go, forgive, or pardon.” ... The word translated “taken,” in Matthew 24: 37-41 and Luke 17: 34-37, is the Greek paralambano (παραλαμβανεται), which means “taken violently in judgment,” as can be seen in Matthew 27: 27 of the “taking” of Jesus by the soldiers to be scourged, and in John 19: 16 of the “taking” of Jesus being crucified."[3]
[1] Matthew
Poole, Matthew Poole's Commentary, (Power Bible CD, 5.2).
[2] Matthew
Poole, Ibid., (Power Bible CD, 5.2).
[3] Timothy Klaver, The Berean Desk: The Rapture in the Synoptic Gospels?
[3] Timothy Klaver, The Berean Desk: The Rapture in the Synoptic Gospels?
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