The Rapture is not something that ever required study at great depth... even forty years ago.
I believe what the Bible so clearly teaches about the Rapture, and that the Rapture can be clearly defended. It is a given, or should be, as anyone would have to literally hide from the Bible text (which they do through allegory) to deny the truth of the Rapture.
The finer points, much of the excruciating detail I have seen debated is like arguing over the color of the church carpeting; it contributes nothing to the calling of the church, i.e., the saving of souls.
I have seen participants in on-line "Rapture" forums ready to pronounce anathemas upon those who did not share their own view, especially the mid-Trib or post-Trib position.
They may be, IMHO, as blind as bats, but a knock down, drag out, is hardly required, as the doctrine of salvation is not inseparably entwined into faulty positions on Eschatology.
Are those in Revelation 7:14 and in Revelation 20:4, who were saved during the Tribulation by the 144,000 Jewish Evangelists and subsequently martyred for their testimony of Jesus and refusal of the mark of the beast, not the same?
As they came to life (were resurrected), at the beginning of Jesus Christ, the Messiah's 1,000 year reign on David's throne, already on earth, they could not have been raptured off of or snatched from the earth. Upon their death, their souls would have individually ascended to God (or been escorted by God's angel), as ours are today.
A Jewish listener, due to the extensive invitation at the parable's end, would hear in the wedding story of Matthew 22 an allusion to the Great Banquet of God in Isaiah 25.6–8; a banquet for all believers on earth.
Revelation 7:9,14
9 "After this I looked, and behold,
a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,"
13 "Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?"
14 "I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me,
“These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."Revelation 20:4 After Satan is Bound for the Thousand Years
4 "Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed.
Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.No one can definitively state which was written first, I and II Corinthians (54 - 56 A.D.) or the gospel of Matthew (early 50s - 60s A.D.), though I believe it was Matthew, and John's gospel (60s - 90s) later.
A mystery is something of God that is concealed in the Old Testament, the Tanakh, and revealed in the New Testament.
Once Jesus spoke those words of believers being snatched from the earth to escape God's wrath, it was technically no longer a mystery - even by your definition, - for men on earth, even to their limited understanding, had been foretold.
Matthew's gospel is written to the Jewish people with an emphasis on their known Scriptures, traditions and culture. Paul wrote to the gentiles, as Jesus had commissioned him, principally to the Greeks, appealing thru their pagan culture often Greek philosophers and history with which they were familiar.
I know of no dissertations by Jesus distinguishing between two separate raptures... one to escape God's wrath (the purpose of the Rapture), and a second Rapture to escape God's wrath AFTER being subjected to it?
To what end?
Finally, although most of those who refuse the Mark of the Beast because of their faith in Christ will be killed (Revelation 6:9-11 and 7:9-17 speak of this multitude), the 144,000 Jewish Evangelists will survive, as they have the seal of God upon them (Revelation 7:1-8).
In addition, there will be some saved Gentiles who emerge alive at the end of the Tribulation, for the Judgment of the Nations (Matthew 25:31-46) would be irrelevant otherwise, as there would be no one living among the "sheep nations” to successfully stand judgment and proceed with our Lord into the Millennial Kingdom.
Again, because some who came to faith in Christ during the Tribulation will be alive upon the earth at the end of the Tribulation, I see no reason to believe some elitist group was raptured off in a second until-now-unknown Rapture, after the Rapture.
olegig wrote:
First let me compliment you on such an exhaustive explanation of things concerning the Rapture of the Church.
The time spent in researching the historical proof text was no doubt countless hours. Seems many schooled scholars today are limited to only what their contemporaries have voiced.
I would like to zero in on but a small part of your fine treaties as represented by the condensed above.
For many years the use of the Matthew and John passages (I will call them the gospel passages) in reference to the Rapture of the Church troubled me.
As we see:
But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: 1 Corinthians 2:7 - KJV
Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 1 Corinthians 15:51 KJV
When Paul first revealed the Rapture of the Church at 1 Corinthians, he termed it a mystery; therefore it was something hidden in God, but never before revealed to man.
If Paul spoke truth, which I believed he did, then the words of Jesus in the gospel passages could not have been referring to the Rapture of the Church or else Paul could not term the doctrine a mystery.
In my humble opinion Jesus' teachings in the gospel passages do refer to a catching out, but not of the Church.
I feel Jesus was telling of a catching out of Tribulation Saints who had followed God's instructions for those on earth during the Tribulation.
IMO these are to be caught up to be guest at the wedding of Matt 22 and referenced at Rev 7:14.
First let me compliment you on such an exhaustive ... (
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