Rejecting "The Rapture"

1) The Rapture is a new doctrine, arising in the 1820`s (Show | Hide Notes)
  • Dispensationalism and its embedded "1.5 Coming of Christ" doesn`t appear till the 1820s via John Darby and the Plymouth Brethren.
  • Dispensationalism and the Rapture were rejected in England, but embraced by Dwight L Moody in America.
  • Dispensationalism and the Rapture were part of a laymen`s movement till Moody Bible Institute and Dallas Theological Seminaries emerge, giving it a veneer of scholarly respectability.
  • In the early 1900s, the Scofield Bible with its Dispensationalist passage headings and footnotes embeds the doctrine in the wider Fundamentalist/Evangelical community.
  • Unlike Pentecostalism--which was a re-re-rediscovery of a Biblical practice that had emerged, faded, and reemerged several times over the Christian centuries, the Rapture was a totally new invention with abolutely no historical roots.

2) I Thessalonians 4:16-18 says NOTHING about the resurrected saints returning to Heaven with Christ.(Show | Hide Notes)
16 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. 17 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. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words. I Thes 4:16-18

If you believe in the Rapture, point at the place in these verses where it says God`s caught-up people will return to Heaven with Jesus.

3) In context, Matthew 24 clearly says it is the wicked, not the righteous, who will be taken away. (Show | Hide Notes)
38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 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. 40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

4) The parables of the tares and the dragnet portray the wicked as the ones being carried away.(Show | Hide Notes)
The Biblical pattern is for the wicked, not the righteous, to be spirited away.

5) The church DOES appear after Revelations 4:1 (Show | Hide Notes)

Rapture believers claim that the word ecclesia not being used after the "Come up here" of Revelation 4:1 shows the church is not on the Earth for the rest of Revelation. The word "saints", however, appears numerous times after 4:1, and there are no grounds whatsoever for claiming these "saints" are Jews converted after the Rapture.

  • 7 And it was permitted to wage war against the saints and to conquer them. It was also given authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation. Revelation 13:7
  • 10 If anyone is to be taken captive, into captivity he goes. If anyone is to be killed[a] with a sword, with a sword he will be killed. This calls for endurance and faithfulness from the saints. Revelation 13:10
  • 12 This calls for endurance from the saints, who keep God’s commands and their faith in Jesus. Revelation 14:12
  • 6 Because they poured out the blood of the saints and the prophets, you have given them blood to drink; they deserve it! Revelation 16:6
  • 6 Then I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the witnesses to Jesus. When I saw her, I was greatly astonished. Revelation 17:6
  • 24 In her was found the blood of prophets and saints, and of all those slaughtered on the earth. Revelation 18:24
  • 8 She was given fine linen to wear, bright and pure. For the fine linen represents the righteous acts of the saints. Revelation 19:8
  • 9 They came up across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the encampment of the saints, the beloved city. Then fire came down from heaven[a] and consumed them. Revelation 20:9

6) TRIBULATION comes from the Devil; WRATH comes from God (Show | Hide Notes)
God's people are spared from the wrath of God, but not from Tribulation in this world.

7) Could the Rapture Doctrine be the first emergence of Prosperity Teaching? (Show | Hide Notes)
For 1800 years, the Church had believed Christians were destined to suffer on this earth. Though David, Daniel, the three Hebrew children, and others had escaped pain and death through God's intervention, the lot of God's people had generally been persecution by the world. I have heard Rapture believers say that God loves His People too much to let them suffer through the Tribulation.