Is the Rapture (according to your belief) an invitation or a kidnapping?

Do you have to go?

IG

Is the Rapture (according to your belief) an invitation or a kidnapping?

hahahah I laughed when I read this.....it's not a kidnapping for sure. Its actually called the "blessed hope." It's something that's anticipated by all Christians no matter how or which view of the Rapture they believe in. Some may not even think they believe in the rapture at all but are just awaiting the coming of Christ. So, in effect, without realizing it, they may actually believe in the Post Rapture.

Actually the invitation is really earlier, when you accept Christ as personal Savior. It's like you sent it ahead with a positive answer and are now awaiting the day of the party for which you have already been invited. It's sort of like those invites that encourage you to "bring a friend."

What if you don't want to go?

IG

Apoc. 4:1-2 " After these things I looked, and behold a door was opened in heaven, and the first voice which I heard was as it were, of a trumpet speaking with me, said: "Come up hither; and I will show the things which must be done hereafter. 2 And immediately I was in the Spirit: and behold there was a throne set in Heaven, and upon the throne one sitting. "

KFC,
you sure have put a lot on the plate concerning this one Scripture passage. I'm sure it doesn't surprise you that in my Catholic opinion, some of it fits (the part in which you refer to the Second COming) and some of it doesn’t. (all the rest!).


Of this passage KFC writes: Pre Trib-The Rapture will occur at the beginning of the tribulation. He will pull us out or snatch us away at the beginning of the 7 year Tribulation period like what we see here in Rev 4:1. We do not see anymore mention of the church after this period.

I totally reject this interpretation, KFC, as unbiblical for it implies that Christ returns twice---once secretly or silently for the Rapture of believers and again at the end of the world. The pre-trib Rapture contradicts the original teaching of Jesus Christ and His Apostles.


The Catholic Church rejects as unbiblical the "pre-tribulation Rapture". Premillennialism, which includes “Rapturism” (or pre-tribulational dispensationalism) started toward the end of the 1800s with the rise of 'end times' sects as the Jehovah Witnesses, the Mormons, and various Adventists groups. Now, the Rapture theory is widely popular among many Fundamentalists and Evangelical Protestants. The Rapturist position is the theology underlying the Left Behind series and Hal Lindsey’s, the Late Great Planet Earth.

The major point of contention revolves around the meaning and timing of the Millennium which Scripture describes as a thousand year reign of Christ. BUT----when does it occur? What is the nature of this reign, corporeal or spiritual? How literal is the thousand year reign? Do you think the thousand year reign could be happening right now---that it could be the Church age?

Of the Millennium, those pre-trib Rapturists who follow the Left Behind scenario would say: Accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior now, and you will be raptured into Heaven before the so-called 7 year Great Tribulation. Then we'll return with Christ at His Second Coming which precedes the Millennium. They we will reign with Him in a corporeal Kingdom here on earth centered in Jerusalem for a thousand years. After the Millennium, we will experience the joys of Heaven for eternity.

Don't worry, you won't be forced to go. It's a choice we make when we decide to follow Christ. His promise was he was going to prepare a place for us and he was coming back. But he certainly isn't going to take any not willing to go.



oh yeah!!! I was expecting you Lula....what took you so long? Let the fun begin..



well I don't think so, but I did give the diff viewpoints. But the Rapture itself really can't be contested....it's just a matter of when it's going to happen.



no you're wrong here or what you're reading is wrong. I was involved in all three of these religions, and NONE of them believe in the rapture.



yes, you are somewhat correct here. Especially the Left Behind books have made it more visible and popular but the belief in the rapture has been around long before either Hal Linsey or Tim LaHaye.



Literal. It's mentioned six times in one chapter and the OT prophets wrote alot about it... Ezekiel wrote about the millennium temple in Chap 40-42 of his book. Some have suggested we're in the 1,000 year reign but not sure how they get that. Christ has been gone for 2,000 years already so how does that work out? Besides, it's clear in Revelation that Satan will be bound during this time. Do you think Satan is bound now?



Yes this is a fair description of pre-trib.

I want to say that I'm not dogmatic here. How can I be? I will say tho that I lean towards pre-trib but mid-trib sounds interesting as well. I definitely reject the Post Trib idea. In fact some of the groups you mentioned say they don't believe in the Rapture (like I said) but do believe in the 2nd coming. I just tell them they believe in the post trib rapture but they just don't realize it. You can't deny the teaching because of what Paul and John wrote about it.

If you mean the Rapture as the Second Coming, then I'm on board, that's true, absolutely true and no one is left behind on that.

But, you indicated the Rapture as something else....that born again believers have a separate visit from Christ that He will free them from the final tribulation and that's neither the way of the Cross nor biblical..a fun fancy..a fictional story..a far out movie, but not biblical.

Why isn't it biblical?

Consider the idea that your body is the Temple and Christ hasn't been gone at all...he is here in the Spirit just as He said He would be. When we get further into the Book of Apocaplyse you'll see it speaks of the Temple as the Chruch (spritual Temple) and as us, we are the Temple too.

It's not a physical, real type, literal building that you are imagining will be rebuilt. Christ is done with the Old Covenant and the Temple with its bloody sacrifice...it will not be restored as some think. Antichrist is going to profane the Holy Eucharist at Catholic Churches, that's going to be the abomination of desolation...the sacrilege of sacrileges. Antichrist is going to shut down the Chruch and we will have to go underground to celebrate Mass. We will be put to death if found out.
Christ will be with us until the end of the earth because we will have Him in the Holy Eucharist to strengthen and nourish us. As easily as you can see your version, I will point how Scripture points to this. It's all right there. You have put me in over-drive to study it thoroughly enough to be able to write about it.

We are in the last days now..Christ founded His kingdom during the First Advent; it's the Church. This time that is spent now isn't just a 'lull' as you have called it, a "parenthesis" in the time line. The Messianic Kingdom isn't still in the future. It's now, it's the Church now, awaiting its fullness at the Second Coming.

The 7 year Great Tribulation has already occurred and ended at the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD. Daniel's timeline has already been fulfilled. Today, the Chruch and yes, believers are going through trial, tribulation and persecution. Our faith is being tested. It's a fire and we are being purified. Some will fall away. Worse times are ahead. Christ could come at any moment. There is no secret Rapture. Darby came up with that idea to get followers.

Yes, Satan is bound to the point that this is the time where conversion is still ongoing. When that time is over, Satan is let loose, it's going to be real bad. That's going to be at the very end just before the final battle. We know who wins   

KFC, in the main article you ask , “What will it be like when we "go up?" and that’s a good and legitimate question.

Scripture tells us the only time that each one of us will “go up”. It is which ever comes first: either upon our death and after our Particular Judgment OR at the end of the world when Christ comes again to judge the living and the dead of which no one, except God, knows the hour or the day when will occur. Those of us who are judged worthy of eternal life will “go up” as you say.


First, something about death which God pronounced to Adam and Eve after their sin. Gen. 2:17; 3:19; Rom. 5:12; 6:23. Death is the dissolution of the union between our immortal soul and our physical body which must happen to every human being at the end of his life.

What happens immediately after death? Catholicism teaches that everyone will be judged at their death (the Particular Judgment) as well as on the Last Day at the General or Last Judgment. Judgment immediately following death is when we must appear before the judgment seat of God and give an account of all we have done and left undone. St.Paul says “It’s a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Heb. 10:31. And again, “I am not conscious to myself of anything, yet am I not hereby justified; but He that judgeth me is the Lord.” 1 Cor. 4:4. Particular Judgment is based on Hebrews 9: 27, “...it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment..”


You brought up 1 Thess 4:15-17.

1 Thess as well St. Matt 25 take place at the Second Coming of the Lord for the Last Judgment. 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 concerns the general resurrection of the dead which occurs before St.Matt.25: 31-46 (Christ separating the elect from the wicked ) and both occur on the Last Day.

1Thess. 4:15-17,
15 "For this we say to you in the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not proceed those who are asleep
16 For the Lord Himself shall come down from heaven with a word of command, and with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God: and the dead who are IN Christ will rise first.
17 Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be taken up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so we shall ever be with the Lord. Comfort one another with these words."

St.Paul tells the Thessalonians the order in which things will occur during the general resurrection of the dead which proceeds the Last Judgment.

St.Paul and the Thessalonians assume that the Second Coming (Parousia) will occur within their lifetime, yet he insists that the time is unknown 5:1-2. One of the doubts of the Thessalonians is will the dead be under any disadvantage from those who are still alive when the Parousia of the Lord happens. St.Paul tells them that those who are still alive will have no advantage over those who have died v. 15-18.

At the end of the world, with the solemn blast of the trumpet, God will cause all men, the living and the dead to be summoned to the Last Judgment. All of us, everyone everywhere, will come before Christ at the Last Judgment. Scripture tells the order of the who, the how and where this will occur.

The first event that will happen upon the end of the world is the general resurrection of the dead v. 16. God will send out His angels who will blow a mighty trumpet blast that will re-echo throughout the whole world and cause the earth to tremble. Everyone must obey the sound. Every one, including those conceived in the womb, that has died, will rise again in the general resurrection of the dead. St.Paul says, “We shall indeed all rise again, but we shall not all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise again incorruptible; and we shall be changed.” 1Cor. 40: 51-52.

V. 16 tells us the first to be resurrected from the dead are those who have died IN Christ. This is the resurrection of the good or elect. Concerning this Christ says, “He shall send His angels with a trumpet and a great voice; and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from the farthest parts of the heavens to the utmost bounds of them.” St.Matt. 24:31.

The general resurrection begins while the trumpet sound still re-echoes over the globe. Awakened by the sound, all the souls of the just will come down from the farthest parts of heaven accompanied by their guardian angels. The grave site where their bodily remains were will be opened and through the power of God the body made incorrupt will be reunited with the soul. This on the authority of God’s omnipotence and His word, no matter how long ago the body of a man may have turned into dust, whatever changes it went through, every portion and particle will unite to form again the same body which was during his lifetime. “And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and hell gave up their dead that were in them.” Apoc. 20:13.

That the just will take precedence over the wicked is told by Christ, “Wonder not at this; for the hour cometh where all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God. And they that have done good things shall come forth to the resurrection of life; but they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment” St.Jn. 5:28-29.

The resurrection of the wicked follows immediately upon that of the just...but it’s different for them. In every burying ground of the lost souls the bodies will resemble devils more than men, thus soul and the body will mutually anathematize each other.

Next is the manner in which the good and the wicked will be conducted to the place of the Last Judgment. According to OT prophet Joel 3:2-12, the Last Judgment will be held in the valley of Josaphat, not far from Jerusalem.

If the good and evil are found together in the grave sites, that will come to pass which our Lord predicted, “So shall it be at the end of the world, the angels shall go out and shall separate the wicked from among the just.” St. Matt. 13:39. Since the good are laid to rest amongst the wicked, it follows that at the general resurrection , they will be found amongst the wicked as well. Accordingly, after the general resurrection, the holy angels will come and separate the just elect from the wicked reprobate.

This is where v. 17 applies, “Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be taken up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so we shall ever be with the Lord......"

“shall be taken together with them” that is those elect who have just risen from the dead in the general resurrection. St.Paul tells them that those who are alive, who are left, will be caught up, that is changed, made from being corruptible and mortal to being incorruptible and immortal, and together with those elect who have just risen from the dead, will be taken in the clouds to meet Christ in the air. So, all the good, all the elect, will be carried on the clouds in splendor and great glory by the holy angels to the place of judgment.

There is no time that Scripture allows for a silent or secret coming of Christ to Rapture or take up believers. The Rapture is an unbiblical concept.

If Satan is bound, then why do I still see him and his demons at work?

So if we're in a 1000 year period already, Lula, when did it start? When will it end?

The time of the Chruch blessing is known as the Millennium. St.John describes the Chruch age in Apoc. 20:1-6.

The age started with the birth of the Church at Christ's Passion. Satan was then definitively defeated but his public chaining occurred when the Temple of Jerusalem fell. From here on Christ rules with his saints over a world-wide spiritual kingdom.

The blessings of Daniel are being bestowed via the strong covenant he predicted in 9:27. Daniel's vision is all about the covenantal transitiion...the Old Covenant to the New and his 70th week has been fulfilled. There is no 2,000 plus years (the parenthesis) between the 69th and 70th weeks. The Old Covenant Temple to the New (spiritual grace) has been fulfilled. The 70 week was fulfilled the destruction of Jerusalem which meant the end of biblical Judaism once and for all. Up until that time the fledgling Chruch was confused by having the Temple bloody sacrifice still going on for expiation of sins. In 70AD the Infant Church, free of the OLD Cov. Temple rituals was free and unencumbered to grow the Church in the everlasting New Covenant of grace until the fullness of time. This is the Millennium.

The Millennium is the present Church age in which Christ is reigning in the Church Temple and in the Temple of our body. The secret Rapture idea is simply a token of a falsly spiritualized note notion of believers. It fails to understand that the Chruch is sacramental in nature, a supernatural reality embodied in space and time, nature and history.

This is a spiritual battle. The forces of evil are hampered by GOd's restraining of Satan. The saints of the Church in heaven (who we call the Church Triumphant)have undergone the first resurrection. By their prayers they are active in helping us (the Chruch Militant) during the entire Millennium. The reign of Christ and His Chruch will last a long time, until the Father's plan is complete. At that point, Christ will come again physically in power and glory and enter human history at the Second Advent. No one will escape this final event.

So Millennium doesn't mean 1000 years? It just means a long time?

Exactly. Numbers especially in prophecy denote a symbolic meaning more often than not. Very rarely do numbers denote any empirical value.

It's so interesting becasue in Scripture the symbolic meaning bears more importance than the literal numerical value. We see this throughout Scripture and I'm sure KFC agrees.

Let's take the number 1,000 and examine that in Scripture. Jewish tradition teaches that it was the length of the Davidic kingdom. Scripture states that God owns cattle on a thousand hills. Are we going to start identifying which hills are those exact thousand? Of course not.

# 3 was the number of God.
# 4 was the number symbolizing earth. 7 is 3 plus 4 and 12 three times four signified God working in the world.
# 10 was the number of completion. and multiples of these numbers were most important to the ancient Jews. In the Jewish calendar, the 7th month was the most sacred, being the month of the Feast of the Trumpets, Yom Kippur, and the Feast of the Tabernacles.

Scripture uses two Greek words for time. Chronological time is kronos while salvific time is kairos as described in Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8.

One thousand is the product of 10 times 10 times 10, thus it's a complete and perfect number. God's wealth is totally complete.

How about looking at numbers outside of prophecy? Take the genealogy of Christ for example. In St.Matt. 1:17, Christ's genealogy is organized around the number 14. There are 14 generations fromAbraham to David, 14 from David to the Babylon captivity, and 14 from the Babylonian captivity to Jesus. This splits the genealogy into 'from promise given to promise fulfilled" "from promise fulfilled to promise lost", and finally, where we are now, "from promise lost to promise fulfilled eternally."

Evidently, the Hebrews and other ancients understood people as numbers. 14 was the number of King David.

LULA POSTS:

So, here in Ephesians, we see St.Paul explaining the Chruch and linking the image of "the household of God" to that of God's Temple and "building". 1Cor. 3:9. Up to this point he's spoken of the Church mainly as the body of Christ v. 16 and we have discussed this many times over.

This image and that of a building are connected. Our Lord said, "Destroy this temple and in 3 days I will raise it up." St.John 2:9 and he goes on to explain that He was talking about the Temple of his body v.21. If the physical body of CHrist is the true temple of God becasue Christ is the Son of God, the Chruch can also be seen as God's true Temple becasue it is the mystical body of Christ.

The Church is the Temple of God. Jesus Christ is the foundation stone of the New Temple of God. The Father made Him the and continues to make Him the firm immovable basis of the new work of building. He does this through His Resurrection and Ascenscion.

By the new Temple, Christ's body, I'm talking spiritual and invisible Temple. It's constructed in each and every baptized person in the living Cornerstone, Christ---to the degree that they adhere to Him and 'grow' towards the fullness of Him.

In this temple and by means of it, "the dwelling place of God in the Holy SPirit, He is glorified by virtue of the holy priesthood, which offers spiritual sacrifices, 1St.Peter 2:5, and His kingdom is established in the world. The prayer that Christ Jesus taught, is "thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven".

Pope John Paul II in one of his sermons in 1981 in Madrid, said, "The apex of the new temple reaches into heaven , while on earth. Christ the Cornerstone, sustains it by means of the foundation He Himself has chosen and laid down ---"the Apostles and prophets" Eph. 2:20 ---and their successors, that is, in the first place the college of bishops and "the rock", Peter.

Christ Jesus is the stone, and this indicates His strength becasue in Him the two peoples, the Jews and Gentiles, are joined together. St. Augustine expressed his faith in the perennial endurance of the Chruch, "the Chruch will shake if its foundation shakes, but can Christ shake? As long as Christ does not shake, so shall the Chruch never weaken until the end of time."

What I go by in understanding all of this comes from the teaching of Pius XII. "Every faithful Christian must stay fixed to the solid Cornerstone of Christ by cooperating in his way of sanctification. The Church 'grows when Christ is, after a manner, built into the souls of men and grows in them, and when souls are also built into Christ and grow in Him, so that on this earth of our exile a great temple is daily in course of building, in which the diving majesty receives due and acceptable worship".