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Rapture, Pre-tribulation This doctrine started in the 1800's???
Most Christians believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming soon and even in their lifetime. The signs of the times are everywhere; so if you study bible prophecy and are looking for signs of scripture, there is even more reason to believe Jesus is coming soon. The last days however are marked in the Bible by seven years of tribulation. There are three beliefs among Christians about the return of Christ and the seven year tribulation. One is that all Christians everywhere will be "raptured" [caught up] from the earth to meet the Lord in the air when He returns. This is to avoid the tribulation period and judgments that befall earth for it's sins. Others think the flying up to be with the Lord happens in the middle of the 7 year tribulation; and still others claim it happens at the end of the 7 years of tribulation, causing God's people to suffer through it all. Some modern Christian teachers who claim there will be no rapture at all, say that rapture doctrine only started being preached not so long ago with a preacher named Darby around 1800. The doctrine however, is perfectly stated in the Bible: "For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." 1 Thess 4:15-17 Jesus taught us that there is a day coming to watch for, a day that will catch people off gaurd if they are not waiting and ready for it. After thoroughly explaining the seven year tribulation period and it's Judgments, Jesus said, "Take
heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with
surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come upon
you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the
face of the whole earth. Watch
ye therefore and pray always, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all
these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man."
Luke 21:36 (see also
John 14:3, John 11:25-26) Even though these passages and many more like them are in the Bible, some still claim that the teaching has only been around since the 1800's! Was John Darby the first preacher to teach rapture? No. There is an entire history of teachers and preachers who have written and preached it.
A HISTORY of end times rapture doctrine in the church: 150 AD Shepherd of Hermas. "You have escaped from great tribulation on account of your faith, and because you did not doubt in the presence of such a beast. Go, therefore, and tell the elect of the Lord His mighty deeds, and say to them that this beast is a type of the great tribulation that is coming. If then ye prepare yourselves, and repent with all your heart, and turn to the Lord, it will be possible for you to escape it, if your heart be pure and spotless, and ye spend the rest of the days of your life in serving the Lord blamelessly." [The Shepherd of Hermas 1.4.2.] 270 AD Victorinus, the bishop of Platuogh. "...Seven angels having the last seven plagues, for in them is completed the indignation of God. And these shall be in the last time when the Church shall have gone out of the midst." His commentary on the book of Revelation. Speaking of the tribulation period. 350 AD Ephraim of Nisibis, the Syrian who wrote many of the great hymns for the orthodox church. "All the saints and elect of God are gathered together before the tribulation which is to come, and are taken to the Lord, in order that they may not see at any time the confusion which overwhelms the world because of our sins." [sermon "On the Last Times, the Antichrist, and the End of the World"] 400 AD Jerome, who wrote the Latin Vulgate. Jerome was the first to use the word rapture when he got to 1 Thessalonians 4:16 where it says "caught up" he put the word in there, "rapidamore" which is english "rapture". DARK AGES, about 1000 years of silence. 1304 Reverend Dolcino. "The History of Brother Dolcino" was composed in 1316 by an anonymous notary of the diocese of Vercelli in northern Italy. "Again, [Dolcino believed and preached and taught] that within those three years Dolcino himself and his followers will preach the coming of the Antichrist. And that the Antichrist was coming into this world within the bounds of the said three and a half years; and after he had come, then he [Dolcino] and his followers would be transferred into Paradise, in which are Enoch and Elijah. And in this way they will be preserved unharmed from the persecution of Antichrist. And that then Enoch and Elijah themselves would descend on the earth for the purpose of preaching [against] Antichrist. Then they would be killed by him or by his servants, and thus Antichrist would reign for a long time. But when the Antichrist is dead, Dolcino himself, who then would be the holy pope, and his preserved followers, will descend on the earth, and will preach the right faith of Christ to all, and will convert those who will be living then to the true faith of Jesus Christ." 1555 Hugh Latimer. Preacher, Bishop of Worcester. "It may come in my days, old as I am, or in my children's days, the saints shall be taken up to meet Christ in the air and so shall come down with him again." [2003, "The Resurrection and the Rapture of the Church" Jack Van Impee] 1620 Joseph Meade. A literalist, who used the word "rapture" for 1 Thess 4:15-16. 1640 Cotton Mather. Pastor, scholar, and the first President of Harvard College. "...that the saints would be caught up into the air beforehand, thereby escaping the final conflagration." [A Biblical Theology of the Church, p. 141, August 1, 2006] 1697 Peter Jurieu, "Christ will come in the air to rapture the saints and return to heaven before the battle of Armageddon." [his 1687 book "Approaching Deliverance of the Church"] 1700 John Asgill. He wrote a book about being raptured. The entire title of Asgill's work is as follows: "An argument proving, that according to the covenant of Eternal Life revealed in the Scriptures, Man may be translated from hence into that Eternal Life, without passing through Death, although the Human Nature of Christ himself could not be thus translated till he had passed through Death." 1738 AD, Philip Doddridge. Used the term rapture and spoke of it as imminent. [Philip Doddridge 1738 commentary on the New Testament] 1744 Morgan Edwards. American Baptist pastor, educator and historian, Founder of the Ivy League school, Brown University. "...the dead saints will be raised, and the living changed at Christ's "appearing in the air" (I Thes. iv. 17); and this will be about three years and a half before the millennium, as we shall see hereafter: but will he and they abide in the air all that time? No: they will ascend to paradise, or to someone of those many "mansions in the father's house" (John xiv. 2), and disappear during the foresaid period of time. The design of this retreat and disappearing will be to judge the risen and changed saints; for "now the time is come that judgment must begin," and that will be "at the house of God". ["Two Academical Exercises on Subjects Bearing the following Titles; Millennium, Last-Novelties" (Philadelphia: self-published, 1788).] 1748 John Gill. "....here Christ will stop and will be visible to all, and as easily discerned by all, good and bad, as the body of the sun at noon-day; as yet He will not descend on earth, because it is not fit to receive Him; but when that and its works are burnt up, and it is purged and purified by fire, and become a new earth, He'll descend upon it, and dwell with his saints in it: and this suggests another reason why He'll stay in the air, and His saints shall meet Him there, and whom He'll take up with Him into the third heaven, till the general conflagration and burning of the world is over, and to preserve them from it...." [John Gill's 1748 Commentary on the New Testament, 1 Thess 4:15-16] 1763 James Macknight. 1792 Thomas Scott. "The righteous will be carried to heaven, where they will be secure until the time of judgment is over." [Paul N. Benware, Understanding End Times Prophecy: A Comprehensive Approach (Chicago: Moody Press, 1995), pp. 197-98.] 1830 John
Darby
These statements of preachers do not prove the
pre-trib position, only the Bible can do that, but it should change many
people's historical views on the matter.
Jesus is coming soon!
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