The Rapture

The Rapture were a rock band from New York City, formed in The band's final line-up consisted of Luke Jenner (lead vocals, guitar), Vito Roccoforte.
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First to receive their new bodies are those who have died as Christians, and then, those who are "alive and remain. We shall not all die but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet call. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall all be changed" 1 Corinthians When Will It Happen? The rapture will be instantaneous, in "the twinkling of an eye" 1 Corinthians Scripture nowhere encourages us to try to determine the date of Jesus' return.

The timing of the Rapture sparks a great debate within Christianity. Does it occur before, during, or after the tribulation period?

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The tribulation is a seven-year period that immediately precedes the return of Christ and the establishment of His millennial kingdom, which lasts for 1, years. At the midpoint of the tribulation, the Antichrist will proclaim himself god and require worship from all people of the world. Many will bow down and worship the Antichrist, including taking his mark of worldwide registration. Some will refuse to worship the Antichrist and receive his mark, and many will be killed for this act of disobedience. The second half of the tribulation is referred to as the "Great Tribulation.

For scriptural support, see Revelation 3: So, the main debate on the Rapture is not what it is, but when it will occur in relation to the tribulation. Edward Miller described Irving's teaching like this: The pre-tribulation position advocates that the rapture will occur before the beginning of a seven-year tribulation period, while the second coming will occur at the end of it.

Pre-tribulationists often describe the rapture as Jesus coming for the church and the second coming as Jesus coming with the church. Pre-tribulation educators and preachers include Jimmy Swaggart , J. MacArthur , and John Hagee. John Nelson Darby first proposed and popularized the pre-tribulation rapture in Darby and other prominent Brethren were part of the Brethren movement which impacted American Christianity, especially with movements and teachings associated with Christian eschatology and fundamentalism , primarily through their writings.

These conferences, which were initially inclusive of historicist and futurist premillennialism, led to an increasing acceptance of futurist premillennial views and the pre-tribulation rapture especially among Presbyterian, Baptist, and Congregational members.

Blackstone 's book Jesus is Coming , published in , [49] which sold more than 1. Some pre-tribulation proponents, such as Grant Jeffrey, [51] maintain that the earliest known extra-Biblical reference to the pre-tribulation rapture is from a 7th-century tract known as the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Ephraem the Syrian. Different authors have proposed several different versions of the Ephraem text as authentic and there are differing opinions as to whether it supports belief in a pre-tribulation rapture.

There exists at least one 18th-century and two 19th-century pre-tribulation references: The book appeared first in , 10 years after his death. In , it was translated into English by the Scottish minister Edward Irving. The rise in belief in the pre-tribulation rapture is often wrongly attributed to a year-old Scottish-Irish girl named Margaret McDonald who was of the first to receive a spiritual baptism under a Pentecostal awakening in Scotland.

What does the Bible say about the rapture?

In , she supposedly had a vision of the end times which describes a post-tribulation view of the rapture that was first published in It was published again in , but two important passages demonstrating a post-tribulation view were removed to encourage confusion concerning the timing of the rapture. The two removed segments were, "This is the fiery trial which is to try us. It is by being filled with the Spirit that we shall be kept". During the s, belief in the rapture became popular in wider circles, in part because of the books of Hal Lindsey , including The Late Great Planet Earth , which has reportedly sold between 15 million and 35 million copies, and the movie A Thief in the Night , which based its title on the scriptural reference 1 Thessalonians 5: Lindsey proclaimed that the rapture was imminent, based on world conditions at the time.

In , the doctrine of the pre-tribulation rapture was further popularized by Tim LaHaye 's Left Behind series of books, which sold tens of millions of copies [62] and was made into several movies and four real-time strategy video games.


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The mid-tribulation position espouses that the rapture will occur at some point in the middle of what is popularly called the tribulation period, or during Daniel's 70th Week. The tribulation is typically divided into two periods of 3. Mid-tribulationists hold that the saints will go through the first period Beginning of Travail , but will be raptured into Heaven before the severe outpouring of God's wrath in the second half of what is popularly called the great tribulation.

Mid-tribulationists appeal to Daniel 7: At the halfway point of the tribulation, the Antichrist will commit the "abomination of desolation" by desecrating the Jerusalem temple. Mid-tribulationist teachers include Harold Ockenga , James O.

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Buswell a reformed, Calvinistic Presbyterian , and Norman Harrison. The prewrath rapture view also places the rapture at some point during the tribulation period before the second coming. This view holds that the tribulation of the church begins toward the latter part of a seven-year period, being Daniel's 70th week, when the Antichrist is revealed in the temple.

This latter half of a seven-year period [i. References from Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 are used as evidence that this tribulation will be cut short by the coming of Christ to deliver the righteous by means of the rapture, which will occur after specific events in Revelation, in particular after the sixth seal is opened and the sun is darkened and the moon is turned to blood. After the rapture will come God's seventh-seal wrath of trumpets and bowls a.

The Day of the Lord's wrath against the ungodly will follow for the remainder of seven years. The partial, conditional or selective rapture theory holds that all obedient Christians will be raptured before the great tribulation depending on ones personal fellowship or closeness between she or he and God, which is not to be confused with the relationship between the same and God which is believer, regardless of fellowship. Other proponents of this theory hold that only those who are faithful in their relationship with God having true fellowship with Him will be raptured, and the rest resurrected during the great tribulation, between the 5th and 6th seals of Revelation, having lost their lives during.

As stated by Ira David a proponent of this view: Lang , Robert Chapman , G. Pember , Robert Govett , D. Panton , Watchman Nee , Ira E. Campbell Morgan , Otto Stockmayer and Rev. In the post-tribulation premillennial position, the rapture would be identical to the second coming of Jesus or as a meeting in the air with Jesus that immediately precedes his return to the Earth before a literal millennium.

The post-tribulation position places the rapture at the end of the tribulation period.

Who will the rapture take?

Post-tribulation writers define the tribulation period in a generic sense as the entire present age, or in a specific sense of a period of time preceding the second coming of Christ. Post-tribulationists perceive the rapture as occurring simultaneously with the second coming of Christ. Upon Jesus' return, believers will meet him in the air and will then accompany him in his return to the Earth. In the Epistles of Paul , most notably in 1 Thessalonians 4: Moreover, after chapters 6—19, and after But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.

This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. Authors and teachers who support the post-tribulational view include Pat Robertson , Walter R. Martin , John Piper , George E. Ladd , [74] Robert H. Gundry , [75] and Douglas Moo. In the Post-Millennialism view the millennium is seen as an indefinitely long time thus precluding literal interpretation of a thousand-year period. According to Loraine Boettner "the world will be Christianized, and the return of Christ will occur at the close of a long period of righteousness and peace, commonly called the millennium.

According to them the great tribulation was already fulfilled in the Jewish-Roman War of 66—73 AD that involved the destruction of Jerusalem.

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Amillennialists view the millennial rule of Christ as the current, but indefinite period that began with the foundation of the church and that will end with the Second Coming—a period where Christ already reigns with his saints through the Eucharist and his church. They view the life of the church as Christ's kingdom already established inaugurated on the day of the Pentecost described in the first chapter of Acts , but not to made complete until his second coming. This framework precludes a literal interpretation of the thousand-year period mentioned in chapter twenty of Revelation, viewing the number "thousand" as numerologically symbolic and pertaining to the current age of the church.

Amillennialists generally do not use "rapture" as a theological term, but they do view the event as coinciding with the second coming—primarily as a mystical gathering with Christ. To amillennialists the final days already began on the day of the Pentecost, but that the great tribulation will occur during final phase or conclusion of the millennium, with Christ then returning as the alpha and omega at the end of time. Unlike premillennialists who predict the millennium as a literal thousand-year reign by Christ after his return, amillennialists emphasize the continuity and permanency of his reign throughout all periods of the New Covenant, past, present and future.

They do not regard mentions of Jerusalem in the chapter twenty-one of Revelation as pertaining to the present geographical city, but to a future new Jerusalem or "new heaven and new earth", for which the church through the twelve apostles representing of the twelve tribes of Israel currently lays the foundation in the messianic kingdom already present. Unlike certain premillennial dispensationalists, they do not view the rebuilding of the temple of Jerusalem as necessary, because it has already been established in the life of the church through Christ's ultimate sacrifice on the cross.

Authors who have expressed support for this view include St. Since the origin of the concept, many believers in the rapture have made predictions regarding the date of the event. The primary Biblical reference cited against this position is Matthew But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming Parousia of the Son of man be. Also in 2Peter 3: Any individual or religious group that has dogmatically predicted the day of the rapture, a practise referred to as "date setting", has been thoroughly embarrassed and discredited, as the predicted date of fulfillment has invariably come and gone without event.

Conversely, many of those who believe that the precise date of the rapture cannot be known, do affirm that the specific time frame that immediately precedes the rapture event can be known.


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    • This time frame is often referred to as "the season". The primary section of scripture cited for this position is Matthew From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Rapture disambiguation. Jan Luyken 's three-part illustration of the rapture described in Matthew 24 , verse 40, from the Bowyer Bible. This article contains embedded lists that may be poorly defined, unverified or indiscriminate. Please help to clean it up to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Where appropriate, incorporate items into the main body of the article. Retrieved 26 December Encyclopaedic dictionary of religion: Retrieved 6 April Dictionary of Biblical Prophecy and End Times.

    Mercer Dictionary of the Bible. Guinan, "Raptured or Not? However, for many American fundamentalist Christians, "the Rapture forms part of the scenario of events that will happen at the end of the world Drawing on all my years of Catholic education kindergarten through the seminary and doctoral studies , I replied, 'The what? Schwertley, "Is the Pretribulation Rapture Biblical?

    Vague notions had been considered by the Puritan preachers Increase and Cotton Mather , and the late 18th-century Baptist minister Morgan Edwards, but it was John Nelson Darby who solidified the belief in the s and placed it into a larger theological framework. Originally of women and cognate with rape.

    Evangelical Dictionary of Theology 2nd ed. And so shall we euer be with the Lorde. Greek Orthodox Church of Greater Omaha. Archived from the original on Retrieved 23 January Rapture is a popular term among some Protestant sects for the raising of the faithful from the dead The belief in rapture tends to be what is called 'pre-tribulation'. The Road to Holocaust. Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. When Paul speaks of 'meeting' the Lord 'in the air,' the point is precisely not—as in the popular rapture theology—that the saved believers would then stay up in the air somewhere, The point is that, having gone out to meet their returning Lord, they will escort him royally into his domain, that is, back to the place they have come from.

    Even when we realize that this is highly charged metaphor, not literal description, the meaning is the same as in the parallel in Philippians 3: Foreword by Gary Habermas. For the Beauty of the Earth: A Christian Vision for Creation Care. Engaging Culture 2nd ed. A History of the End Times. Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Practical Reflections on the Character and Translation of Enoch sermon. Dicey and sold by