The End: Be Sober, Be Hopeful

I am struck by the way Jesus ascended into heaven. The apostles had been staying in Jerusalem, but Jesus “led them out as far as Bethany, and…he parted from them and was carried up into heaven” (Lk 24:50-51). Jesus led them out of the earthly Jerusalem to witness his ascent to the heavenly Jerusalem (Gal 4:26; Heb 12:22; Rev 21:22). It was a graphic reminder that these two cities were not to be confused. And yet, one of Jesus’ final directives to the apostles was that they were to return to the earthly Jerusalem, the city in which he had been crucified, to await the coming of the Spirit (Acts 1:4-5). Jesus had passed over from this world to the Father and was preparing a place for them (Jn 13: 1; 14:2-3); but their work – the continuation of his redemptive mission – was just starting, and this fallen world was their mission field.

Unlike me, the apostles never seemed surprised when they faced resistance. Seeing the treatment Jesus suffered, they had no illusions about what was to come. Jesus had also, after all, directly told them that they would be ostracized from family and polite society, publicly flogged, and even put to death (Mt 10:16-25). This knowledge, however, was unable to cripple them. They had seen the Risen One. Death was no longer something to be feared; Jesus had broken its hold and he extended this freedom to them (Heb 2:14-15). The only fear Christ would permit them to entertain was that they might prove unfaithful in loving and obeying him – a fear that kept them constantly returning to private and communal prayer for fresh infusions of grace (Lk 12:4-9; Lk 21:36; Jn 6:57-58; Heb 10:23-31).

The Apostle Paul stressed that, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). We too must follow Jesus in death and resurrection (Phil 3:10-11). The Lord was blunt, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Lk 9:23). It’s true for each individual, and it is true for the Church as a whole. The Church has passed through cycles of turmoil and rebirth; but never forget that her most challenging period still lies ahead:

“Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers….The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil…[taking] the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.” (CCC 675, 677)

This truth, this reality, should keep us sober during our time in the world. This is not our homeland. We “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Heb 11:16). And we can never become so emotionally enmeshed in it that we are left reeling when it turns on us. We know how flimsy this world is, how easily it breaks – from refrigerators and cars all the way up to nations.

The Lord allows us to experience these difficulties. They are our participation in his Cross. The little disappointments, borne with his strength, prepare us for the ever greater struggles that lie ahead – our personal ends and The End. Recall what we heard on the First Sunday of Advent:

“The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard ‘delay,’ but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a mighty roar and the elements will be dissolved by fire…But according to his promise we wait for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you await these things, be eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace.” (2 Pet 3:9-10, 13-14)

If we put anything before Christ, then we are fools. But the culture in which we live increasingly says just the opposite – that we are fools because we put Christ before everything else. It was the same in the beginning (1 Cor 1:20-31), and it will certainly be so at The End. Let’s not pretend otherwise and be caught off guard. Let’s not make the mistake of thinking that God has abandoned us. The Father was just as united to Jesus on the Cross as he was to him in the glory of the Transfiguration, and he is to us, too! Obedience to God in the midst of suffering is rewarded with the glory of the Resurrection (Phil 2:8-11; 3:10-11).

Faith is the gift that makes the Christian life possible. It is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). Even in the midst of a pandemic, even knowing of the Church’s future Passion, we have joy and hope, because the eyes of our hearts are fixed upon Jesus, “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2).

 I’ve started telling myself something at the start of each day: “Today, I will be crucified” – there’s the sobriety – “with Christ” – and there’s the hope. May the Lord fill us with joy as we live each day, awaiting his return and the world that is to come.

Why I'm Not Down with "the Rapture"

In a nutshell, the rapture is a belief that says Jesus will instantaneously transport (rapture) believers from earth to Heaven just prior to the final antichrist’s rise to power.  Christians will not have to endure the horrible suffering of the final days (known as the Great Tribulation).  That is reserved for those left on earth, some of whom will finally recognize the signs of the times and come to a belief in Jesus prior to His return in glory.

Although proponents of the rapture appeal to Scripture (and I admit, I use to count myself among them), no one – and I mean no one - in the first eighteen hundred years of Christianity saw it there. The two key verses appealed to by its proponents are 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 and Matthew 24:37-41. Allow me to address them each in turn.

I will start my quotation from 1 Thessalonians before, and end it after, the verses alleged to concern a rapture prior to the time of tribulation:

For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words. But as to the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night (1 Thess.4:15-5:2).

Note the words I have italicized. Paul is talking about the great Day of the Lord, the Day of Judgment. He is talking about the glorious, triumphant manifestation of Jesus and His Body when He returns in glory. Paul says nothing about the Church being raptured away so as to escape persecution. Instead, those translated directly from earthly existence to glory are those who are “alive,” who are “left.”

Read within its historical context, Paul is probably likening the Lord’s return to that of a victorious general. As the conqueror returned to Rome, he would stop outside the city, and wait for his family to be brought to him. Once his entourage was fully assembled they would enter the city together, amidst fanfare and celebration.[1]

Lets turn now to Matthew’s Gospel. After just employing apocalyptic imagery to describe the fall of Jerusalem, Jesus tells the Apostles:

But of the day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of man. Then two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is taken, and one is left. Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the householder had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect (Matt.24:36-44).

Like Thessalonians, we have that image of the Lord coming like a thief in the night. It was a common motif for talking about the Second Coming; that is what both of these passages are dealing with. In Thessalonians we saw the Lord sweeping up His beloved. Not so in this passage. Who is taken? In this passage it is the unrighteous! “As [in] the days of Noah,…the flood came and swept them all away.” Much to the chagrin of Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins, in Jesus’ example it is the righteous who are “left behind.” Jesus gave a similar description earlier in Matthew:

The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and throw them into the furnace of fire, there men will weep and gnash their teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear…

So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth (Matt.13:41-43,49-50).

This idea that the Church will not suffer the great tribulation is completely unbiblical, and at odds with historic Christianity. Jesus, the Master, suffered. Eleven of the twelve Apostles died as martyrs; there have been martyrs throughout Jewish and Christian history. To believe in a rapture of the Church, so as to save it from suffering, flies in the face of this.

So how did belief in the rapture begin? With a man named John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), a former Anglican priest and founder of the Plymouth Brethren.[2] The teaching made its way to the United States and was disseminated through the study notes of the incredibly popular Scofield Refernce Bible. Dallas Theological Seminary, Moody Bible Institute, and Talbot Seminary then incorporated it into the training of future pastors. Hal Lindsey, whom I have read for example, was a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary. His first blockbuster, the 1970 The Late Great Planet Earth brought the idea to the masses.[1] As we have seen, however; this belief has no ground in Scripture and runs counter to almost two thousand years of Christian belief.

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[1] Thigpen, Paul, The Rapture Trap (West Chester, Pennsylvania: Ascension Press, 2001).

[2] There is conjecture that the rapture was seen in a vision by a fifteen year-old Scottish girl, Margaret McDonald, and that this private revelation then found its way into the teaching of Darby.

[3] See Currie, David,. The Rapture (Manchester New Hampshire: Sophia Institute Press, 2003), p.14-17.

It's all in Your perspective

"You will even be handed over by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name, but not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance you will secure your lives." (Luke 21:16-19)

The Lord Jesus - talking to his apostles about what lies ahead in their mission. The Lord Jesus - talking to you and me. Thanks Lord for putting it in perspective for me. I can be put to death, but you will raise me up; in being put to death, not a single hair will be lost, because you will give it back to me. I have to stand in awe that Jesus can bring us to this kind of vision of life and world, to see and have conviction about what are eyes don't register. That's gift, pure and simple. Have a good Thanksgiving everybody.