Chapter Nineteen – A Secret Rapture?
Back to 1The Bible’s Greatest Prophecies Unlocked!
Tens of millions believe in a coming “secret rapture,” when Jesus will “unexpectedly take Christians to heaven.” After the last six chapters, it is easy to see why many hope for protection. (And those chapters did not describe the most destructive prophecies.)
Is a rapture what the Bible teaches? God does promise protection. But where? Is it a place on Earth—or in heaven? And can we know? All who care had better know.
There is a group who do not much concern themselves with the details of prophecy. They are only barely looking for what lies ahead, if at all. They are busy trusting in a rapture. They expect to be “snatched away”—so why worry? Many others, also believing in a rapture, unnecessarily fear that they will be “left behind”—that they will be left out when the time comes.
By now, if you are even a somewhat serious reader, you are thinking about how to escape all that has been described!
Is a Secret Rapture Coming?
According to fundamentalist Christians, all “believers”—those who have “accepted Jesus”—are scheduled to be whisked away to heaven without notice—no matter where they are or what they are doing. All “unbelievers” will be “left behind,” as rapturist thinking declares, to suffer under the antichrist, and through the popularly believed to be seven-year Tribulation—when war, disease, famine and religious deception explode worldwide. These missed being “vacuumed” to the safety of heaven at Christ’s supposed secret coming.
We saw the theory continues further that the antichrist will permit the Jews to build another temple in Jerusalem, which he will attack and destroy three and a half years later.
Recognize there are two major competing positions among rapturists. It occurs before or in the middle of the thought-to-be seven years of Tribulation. But, either way, the sudden disappearance of millions, it is said, will “shock the world.” After the Tribulation, Christ returns—this being His visible and, in effect, third coming—and defeats the antichrist and his army.
Theory Run Wild!
Try to imagine these headlines after the widescale confusion caused by Christ’s initial supposed “rapturing” away of His saints: “Driverless bus crashes—hundreds killed”—“Schools in chaos: Where are the teachers?”—“Hundreds killed when pilot-less airplanes collide”—“200-car traffic jam: ‘Where did all the drivers go?’”—“Factory employees gone, management wondering ‘Why?’”—“Baseball game canceled: Some players missing.” The possibilities are endless.
Many have become so consumed by this doctrine that there has developed a series of movies and bestselling books, as well as board games, about the aftermath of such a worldwide vanishing act!
One group created a “Rapture Index” that it terms a “Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity” and a “prophetic speedometer.” Supposedly, by calculating world conditions, this index can closely forecast when the Return of Christ will take place. “The higher the number,” the group’s website states, “the faster we’re moving towards the occurrence of pre-tribulation rapture.”
Another group has even gone so far as to program a “post-rapture” email chain letter, which would automatically be sent to family and friends after the rapture. The letter states in part, “Dear Friend, This message has been sent to you by a friend or a relative who has recently disappeared along with millions and millions of people around the world. The reason they chose to send you this letter is because they cared about you and would like you to know the truth about where they went. This may come as a shock to you, but the one who sent you this has been taken up to heaven…”
The email continues, “I am sure that there will be a lot of speculation as to what happened to all these people. The theories of some scientists and world leaders will have so much credibility that most of the world will believe them. It will sound like the truth!”
Have you accepted the rapture, because it also “sounds like the truth”? Great numbers of sincere people have been captured by this idea! Have you placed your hope in this belief without Bible proof?
We could ask: Will Christ come one or two more times—with the first of these being a secret coming for His saints, and the second one to the world as a whole?
History of the Rapture Theory
While many believe a rapture has always been the Bible teaching, the idea was unknown before the sixteenth century.
Some important history. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, reformers John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Luther and John Huss campaigned against the dominance of the Catholic Church. These men shook Catholic theology to its core—even calling that church the antichrist! Previously, Rome would have forced its beliefs and traditions on those who disagreed. However, support for the reformers quickly mounted. This publicly undermined Catholic authority.
Rome called for reconciliation, and convened the Council of Trent in 1545 to assess events. From this council sprang the “counter-reformation” teachings of three Jesuit priests—Francisco Ribera, Luis de Alcazar and Cardinal Bellarmine.
Ribera followed later with a commentary on the book of Revelation. To dispel the church’s label of antichrist, he created the belief of futurism. This declared that all the prophecies of Revelation only applied to the last seven years preceding Christ’s Return!
Recognize again that the Catholic church openly admits it creates beliefs—as well as traditions—entirely apart from the Bible. This is why Ribera could get away with inventing a completely non-biblical theory. Read this again: “A rule of Faith, or a competent guide to heaven, must be able to instruct in all the truths necessary for salvation. Now the Scriptures alone do not contain all the truths which a Christian is bound to believe, nor do they explicitly enjoin all the duties which he is obliged to practise...” (Faith of Our Fathers, James Gibbons, pp. 111-112).
Catholic leadership makes no attempt to hide their belief that tradition outweighs Scripture. In fact, this has become its own tradition. Yet most are unaware of this. The Council of Trent gave tradition—in this case, the humanly invented futurism—equal authority to the Bible.
It was Ribera’s idea that opened the door to the rapture theory.
Here comes the irony. Almost 300 years later, Protestants adopted Ribera’s “futurism” invention. Thanks to the Catholics, John Nelson Darby, the Anglican preacher who is called the “father of the rapture,” could pick up where Ribera left off with his own invention—dispensationalism. Unlike any need the Catholics felt, Protestants—in this case, Darby—needed a way to get the Bible to say what they wanted to believe about a rapture. His way of interpreting the Bible taught that Christ would first secretly collect His followers, and later return to defeat the antichrist. This teaching continued through Darby’s disciple, Cyrus Scofield, who assembled the Scofield Bible.
In Heralds of the Dawn, John A. Anderson records more history of what was originally “counter-Protestantism”: “The Catholic Apostolic Church had its beginning in 1830. It was founded in Britain by...men and women who claimed divine inspiration. They said the Holy Spirit revealed to them that the last days had come [this proved false], that the Lord was about to return [also false], that first He would rapture the believers...at a secret coming...after which Christ would come in manifested power.”
Since the early nineteenth century, countless millions have blindly accepted the rapture theory—fearing what would happen if they did not. But grasp this. The doctrine began in the minds of Catholic priests, then continued its development in the minds of the reformers—not God’s mind, as revealed in the Bible! The Protestants simply bought in and picked up later.
Now think. Disagreeing theologians—remember rapture theorists do not agree—found different ways of interpreting the Bible to present the rapture. Which should one listen to? The answer? None! Again, this is because the belief is not in the Bible. Inventing theologies such as futurism or dispensationalism will not unlock God’s Word! By merely letting the Bible unlock itself one can understand all the events surrounding the Tribulation and Christ’s Second Coming.
What Will Really Happen?
Some review provides necessary foundation. Jesus describes a period when society becomes “as the days of Noah were” (Matt. 24:37). That time was “filled with violence” (Gen. 6:11), yet people were going about their daily business, pursuing pleasure and gain. This is when disaster fell on them.
People are again foretold to be so immersed in their lives that the Tribulation will take the world by surprise. Recall yet again Jesus’ warning: “For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth” (Luke 21:35). Solomon added, “For man also knows not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time [certainly true of the end time], when it falls suddenly upon them” (Ecc. 9:12).
In an upcoming chapter we will see that before Christ returns, armies will again surround Jerusalem. Just before the Great Tribulation begins, God’s people are warned to flee to safety (Matt. 24:16-22;Luke 21:20-27).
Matthew 24:16 states, “Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains.” At the third and final fulfillment of the “Abomination of Desolation,” immediately before the Tribulation, God states in Revelation 12:14 that His people will literally flee.
God’s promise to protect His people is as real as the Great Tribulation. But, unlike the rapture theory, the Bible reveals there is a designated place on Earth—not heaven—where His Church will be safe during the three and a half (not seven) years of Tribulation. Luke 21:1-38 and Matthew 24:1-51 together revealed that the surrounding of Jerusalem by foreign forces and the abomination standing in the holy place are the events that signal when God’s people should flee to safety—not be raptured away to heaven! (The next chapter necessarily covers separately, and in detail, the biblical place of safety.)
Jesus was concerned for His people. He warned of what was coming, and of the need to escape invading armies and escalating war. He knew three problems would be apparent. First, those with small children, and especially nursing babies, would have particular difficulty escaping (Matt. 24:19). Second, God’s people should pray that the time of flight not be “in winter”—meaning wintry conditions, because a related prophecy points directly to a wintertime flight. The third had to do with the Sabbath (Mt 24:20).
Obedience to the sanctity of God’s seventh-day Sabbath—which God’s Church has always observed, and would therefore still be faithfully observing right to the end—could make flight more difficult.
Consider: Why would Jesus instruct to pray concerning the time of flight if His servants were going to be supernaturally sucked away? Rapturists ignore this by incorrectly focusing on, “Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house” (Matt. 24:17; Mark 13:15). Such misrepresentation bypasses any need for personal responsibility! In the first century, homes were largely joined and people could remove themselves more quickly by traveling from roof to roof. Jesus was merely using a term His disciples could understand. So must we understand.
Jesus wants His people prayerfully involved in their escape (Luke 21:36)—not self-assured, lazing back, expecting a heavenly vacuum cleaner to do it all for them! See through not only the false—but also irresponsible—rapture theory. But the theory does bring with it a carefully crafted theology used to sell it.
Supporters cite five verses as “proof” of the rapture. The first two are repeated here with much the same explanation from other chapters. This is so the reader will see their role within the overall rapture error.