Leaving Behind the Doctrine of the Pre-tribulational "Rapture"

Modern day dispensationalism, with its belief in two peoples of God (the Church and the modern secular nation-state of Israel) and a pretribulational rapture may be extremely popular amongst conservative Protestants today, but historically it was never a considered eschatological position in any major branch of Christianity. Indeed, there is little if any evidence that it was ever articulated before 1830 when it was popularized by John Darby and later by C.I. Scofield (who not only wrote the Scofield Reference Bible, but was also a convicted criminal who deserted his first wife and children after he was saved). Many Evangelicals and fundamentalists are shocked to even learn that there are different points of view regarding the End-Times in regards to the rapture of the church.

The word rapture is never used in the Scriptures, but dispensationalists claim that the concept is indeed found abundantly throughout its pages. Fair enough, since the same is true of the doctrine of the Trinity, which is indeed implicit from a variety of Scriptural verses (Mark 12: 35-37; Matthew 28:19, John 1:1, John 20:28; Acts 5: 3-4; Colossians 1:15-20, 2:9; Philippians 2:5-11; Revelation 22:13, etc, etc). Indeed, contrary to the claims of Jehovahs Witnesses, Unitarians, Muslims, and the like, there is a great deal of Scriptural evidence to flesh out the doctrine of the Trinity. Certainly then, the doctrine of the rapture, should offer similarly compelling evidence since it is such an important doctrine to so many conservative Protestants. Indeed, many pretribulationists consider their position to be so airtight that they label any dissenter of the rapture doctrine as a false teacher. Well then, lets examine the evidence.

There are several passages that rapture proponents point towards to prove their case and unfortunately for them, the text is not saying what they want it to say. A favorite passage is found in Matthew 24:37-41 which reads:

As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in those days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a mill, one will be taken and the other left (NIV).

The key here is verses 40 and 41which talk about people being taken away. Here is clear cut proof of the Messiah coming at an unexpected time to take away believers up to heaven before the tribulation period, right? Well, not if context means anything. Here Jesus is comparing his future coming to the time of the Flood. Notice in verse 39, right before the supposed rapture imagery, who is taken away in the Noah example? Those who were taken away were the evil people who were destroyed by the flood, the same people who were not waiting for the Flood or listening to Noah. Next, Jesus compares it to His future coming and uses this same imagery of people being taken away. Does “taken” mean one thing in verse 39 and a totally different thing in verse 40? That makes no sense, especially if we are considering that Jesus is making an analogy, which by their nature compare similarities. Rather than seeing those taken at the time of Christ’s coming as people being zipped up to heaven in a pretribulational rapture, the context of this passage suggests those who are taken away are those who are not prepared for Christs coming and are being taken to judgment.

Perhaps the verse for the believers in a pretribulational rapture is I Thessalonians 4:13-18. It reads as follows:

Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who have fallen asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lords own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 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. 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. Therefore encourage each other with these words (NIV).

According to those who believe in the secret rapture, this verse is a clear cut proof that Jesus is going to take believers out of the earth before the tribulation period. But where exactly does this passage say that? Grab a Bible and read the surrounding context of the passage. Where is there any discussion about a tribulation or removing believers secretly before an interval of judgment for everybody Left Behind? If anything vv 16-17 in this passage indicate that this coming of the Lord will be a visible event. Nothing in this passage even says anything about believers being zipped up into heaven for seven years. Verse 16 indicates that Christ is coming down from heaven, and that believers would meet Christ in the air. The concept in antiquity of the honored guests greeting the king midway as he was traveling to the banquet and the guests escorting him the rest of the way would have been well understood by the original audience. The same concept and Greek terminology can be found in a letter from Cicero in 49B.C. in which he speaks of the welcoming of Julius Caesar (with the same language found later towards Caesar Augustus) as he toured Italy [1].

Furthermore, the air was considered to be the realm of demons and if Ephesians 2:2 and Colossians 2:15 are any parallel; the stress here would be on Christ breaking their power. This takes place as Christ is returning to earth, which is also described as happening in a visible, not invisible manner elsewhere in Scripture (Acts 1:11). There is no hint that Christ is returning back to heaven after secretly taking believers from the earth before a seven-year tribulation period (The length of a seven year tribulation is only based on one verse, Daniel 9:27, which incorrectly posits a massive 2,000+ year gap between the 26th and 27th verse. This forces verse 27 to be talking about something different than verse 26, even though the context and grammar of the passage does not allow this).

Pretribulationists claim that this isn’t a reference to the Second Coming, but distinguish this being Christ coming for His saints, and the real Second Coming where Christ comes with His saints. However, this two stage end-times return of Jesus is not present in this passage or anywhere else in the NT corpus.
Note that 2 Thessalonians was written to correct the excessive excitement and speculation amongst the original audience, who upon reading 1 Thessalonians were teaching that the return of Christ had already occurred. Paul writes that before Christ’s coming, certain events needed to happen, namely “the rebellion” and the arrival of “the man of lawlessness,” assuming these to be future events from our vantage points in 2006. Most importantly in the beginning of this passage, Paul links the gathering of the believers with the Second Coming, not a prior secret “rapture”:

“Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us saying that the day of the Lord has already come” (2 Thessalonians 2:1-2).

In I Corinthians 15, the apostle Paul takes up a lengthy discussion about the resurrection of the dead and the resurrection body. Many see the “rapture” in vv.51-52 where Christians will be transformed “in the twinkling of an eye.” However, the passage nowhere states directly or indirectly that this is referring to believers removed before a tribulation period. The rapture can only be found in this text if it is assumed and inserted there. The context is talking about the resurrection of believers that would happen at the time of the general bodily resurrection of believers. In this verse, like several others, pretribulationists must insist that a secret rapture is in question and not the general Second Coming/resurrection of the saints.

The book of Revelation also says nothing about a two-stage return of Jesus. The passages usually thought to do so will now be examined.

Revelation 3:10 is perhaps my favorite pretribulational rapture proof text. It is in a section of Revelation (Chapters 2-3) where Christ addresses seven historical churches of the first century where he admonishes and encourages each church. This particular passage in addressed to the church of Philadelphia. The verse reads as follows:

Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth (NIV).

Many dispensationalists have a very peculiar way of interpreting Revelation 2 and 3. According to many the seven churches may or may not have been real historical churches, but the primary thrust of the passage is supposedly giving a prophetic picture of the church throughout the ages. In this interpretive scheme, the early church of the first century is the church in Ephesus and gets progressively worse until today, where we are now living in or are on the verge of living in the age of the lukewarm church of Laodecia. Various dispensational sources will give you their estimate of what time period correlates to which of the seven churches in Revelation.). The only problem with all this is that it is terribly subjective and is based mainly and seeing the church through a Western lens. For instance, there are plenty of churches in persecuted lands today that are not Laodicean churches, just as there were plenty of churches in early Christendom that could be said to have reflected any of the seven churches. I don’t think I would consider the thriving persecuted church today in China as lukewarm. Nor would I consider many Spirit-led Western churches to be classified as such. It is best to instead see these as seven historical churches of the 1st century that can find application or correlation with many congregations throughout the current church age.

Remember, Revelation was written either in the mid 60s or mid 90s and must be relevant to the people it was addressed to. Revelation is addressed to these seven churches (Rev. 1:4) and is going to be written at least in part about issues that will immediately concern them. Revelation should not be wrenched from its historical context and be seen as a solely futuristic document that only concerns 20th and 21st century Christians. So while there has been great application in chapters 2 and 3 for the Church throughout the ages (and these chapters make great preaching material today), it is a mistake to say that these chapters are primarily referential to various normative stages in church history.

If such is the case, how then could Revelation 3:10 be talking about a pretribulational rapture since we are already past that stage in church history (if we believe that chapters 2 and 3 are primarily revealing progressive stages of church history)? If we are now in the Laodecian era, then apparently a bunch of us missed the rapture! It rather makes more sense to view 3:10 in light of the historical circumstances of that day and the hour of trouble that the church was going to face under imperial Roman persecution. Even if 3:10 is speaking secondarily beyond the immediate historical circumstances and hinting towards final end-times events, which is possible, there still is no warrant to see this passage referring to a secret invisible rapture.

There is nothing said in this passage about secretly removing Christians from the earth, rather it stresses Gods protection of believers from His judgments on the ungodly. This should be distinguished, however, from the persecution inflicted upon the righteous by the unfaithful (Revelation 2:10, 7:14). Regarding Revelation and tribulation there is a “great tribulation” described in 7:14 that is probably referring to the full number of Christians (or Christian martyrs) throughout history enduring through the tribulation period. But even if this passage is solely regulated to a period of time in the future, notice that the multitude comes out of the “great tribulation,” they do not escape it. There is nothing in this text here to suggest that the saints escape the great tribulation. According to New Testament scholar Craig Keener, “They have endured the dramatic end-time Tribulation and proved faithful to death.”

Revelation 4:1 forms a new unit in Revelation and is also seen as a pivotal verse to believers in a pretribulational rapture. To some, this is supposedly John’s own personal rapture described in this new section of Revelation where John goes up to heaven and gets a tour before the next section begins (the next section starting in chapter 6 which begins a section supposedly referring to exclusively distant future judgments during the tribulation period according to dispensationalists). John sets a pattern for our own rapture, or at least supposedly so.

A close reading of the text, however, does not agree with the above interpretation. The John who is writing this book is functioning as a prophet and the style of this literature is apocalyptic, meaning the imagery is highly symbolic in many respects (all apocalyptic literature involves the use symbolism and the use of bizarre and even frightening imagery to convey to readers the unfolding of generally unknown matters). What John sees here cannot be said to be a literal description of the inhabitants of heaven as he is clearly also borrowing from Old Testament imagery and applying it accordingly. Compare the differences between John’s vision in chapter four and Ezekiel in Ezekiel 1. After John is told to come up here (to heaven) we are told that he is in the Spirit and once he is in the Spirit, he begins his heavenly vision. Therefore, a physical ascent up to heaven is probably not what is being talked about here, but rather an ecstatic vision in apocalyptic language which then sets up for the succeeding imagery in chapters five and six.

(Far from being liberal with the text, it is instead simply a matter of interpreting this particular genre of literature as it is meant to be interpreted. Many interpreters of Revelation think they are being faithful to the Biblical text by interpreting apocalyptic symbols in a literal fashion, and see any elements of non-literal interpretation as watering down Gods word. But when the language is as metaphorical and symbolic as we have in Revelation, what is often meant to be conveyed is not literal images. The figurative language, however, is used to convey very real and literal messages! Besides, dispensationalists are hardly literal with their interpretations unless they really want to argue that the antichrist is a scarlet monster with seven heads and seven horns, that Satan is really a big red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, that Satan has a literal tail that is going to literally fling a third of the stars in space down to earth, that Jesus is going to have a literal sword come form out his mouth, etc, etc.)

The idea that John experiences his own rapture which sets the stage for a later Christian rapture is necessary for the next argument. It is argued that since the word church is not used again in Revelation until 22:16, the church will not be present on earth during the judgments described in chapters 6 onward. This assumes several things: (1) John is only describing events in the far distant future which have nothing to do with his contemporaries to whom he is writing, or to Christians throughout the general church age (2) That John’s rapture in 4:1 sets the stage for the Church’s own rapture before these future judgments begin (or, if 4:1 was not a description of Johns rapture as some dispensationalists admit, it is still presupposed that the church is raptured before the judgments begin), and (3) all references to the saints (i.e. Christians) in chapters five through nineteen are only a reference to Tribulation Saints who convert to Christianity after the church has been raptured during the tribulation period.

To assume that the saints mentioned throughout the middle of Revelation (see 6:9, all of chapter 7, the saints of chapter 14, etc) are only people who have converted after the rapture is just a faulty presupposition coupled with circular reasoning. The thinking goes, “Well, of course those saints only converted after the rapture happened because we know the rapture happens before the tribulation.” Based on what? If it’s the above Biblical evidence, then there is no reason to assume that these are just converted “Tribulation Saints” and that prior to this tribulation period all true Christians were removed from the earth. So while the word Church isn’t used in the middle of Revelation, it really makes no difference, because the saints who make up the church are clearly present all throughout Revelation. The only way to conclude that earlier Christians were raptured away before the judgments and persecutions is to make grand assumptions from very flimsy evidence and circular reasoning.

Other reasons trotted out in support of a secret rapture before the real Second Coming are just as questionable. I’ve heard arguments like, “Just like God protected His faithful in the past, He will do so in the future.” Noah is usually the prime example used. Well, its true that in earlier Scriptures that God doesn’t rain down His punishment on the righteous as he does with the unrighteous (such as the unfaithful people during Noah’s day, Sodom and Gomorrah, etc), also keep in mind that the Church has never been given a pass from human persecution and martyrdom. In fact, the Church has always been a martyr Church. All one needs to do is read the Book of Acts and know a little bit about Church history. Why should we assume a future generation will be any different? Rather, the Left Behind theology appears more to be unwarranted escapism from the realities set before the Church to endure hardship.

There is much more that can be said about problems with an invisible rapture of the Church before a visible coming of Jesus. I’ll explore some other practical logical absurdities in the near future. But dispensationalism’s excesses span beyond just the rapture. There are many problems with their overall misunderstanding of prophecy, both in the Old and New Testaments, their belief in two separate programs for the Church and Israel, and even some of their strange ideas of performing animal sacrifices in a rebuilt temple during Christ’s millennial reign (have they read the book of Hebrews?!). Also, their overall beliefs on these issues affect their political beliefs in the present day which lead to some dispensationalists basically opposing any sort of peace for the Middle East, lest the rapture be delayed. This is very troublesome and needs to be refuted. Not only that, it does not agree with Jesus command to be peacemakers and good stewards of the earth.

None of this suggests that dispensationalists on a whole are bad people. Many of my Christian friends are dispensationalists and are very good people and good Christians; I just think they are wrong on these end-times issues. Rather than dispensationalists and non-dispensationalists declaring each other anathema, all sides in this eschatological debate should continue arguing and airing their views. It has great implications for the Christian’s theology and even political beliefs. More importantly, denominations should not be making the issue of the rapture a central tenet of their theology, especially pretribulationalists who are resting their case on such little evidence.

Finally, rather than thinking of ways to ignore the world, Christians of all stripes should continue thinking of how to have maximum impact while they are here. Even those like myself who are in the non-dispensational wing of premillennialism (historical premillennialism) need to beware of escapist or abandonment type thinking in our relationship to the world. The ultimate goal of Scripture is not an escape from all that is material, ala Gnosticism, but rather a recreation of the heavens and earth (Revelation 21).

Christians do need to be prepared at all times to meet their maker, either because of physical death or the Second Coming, which will come like a thief in the night. But believers would be better served if they put down their elaborate multi-colored prophecy charts and took Christ’s words seriously that no man knows the day or the hour. As long as any of us are here on earth, we have responsibilities and a life in the here and now before us.

We ought then to make the best of it.