The Olivet Discourse: The Return of Christ

According to all three accounts of the Olivet Discourse, the coming of the Son of Man will be unmistakable. If something is the sort of thing that could leave one speculating, “I wonder if that was it?” whatever it was, it isn’t the it we were looking for. So many groups (e.g. the Moonies, JW’s, Branch Davidians, among others) could have been spared much of their folly if they’d only taken this word to heart. Nothing about Jesus' actual return will be subtle, and it will not leave intact the course of ordinary living that had been the norm up to the time of its occurrence.

Matthew describes this lack of subtlety as having the quality of lightning flashing across the whole sky. The point is emphasized and clarified by the reference to vultures gathered at a corpse. The point is that when the sign has fully occurred (i.e. the Great Tribulation, which is akin to the corpse) that Christ's return is there on the spot like the vultures gathered in the metaphor. So, there is nothing doubtful about whether or not it will occur, or when the time comes, that is has occurred, anywhere here on earth.

Matthew tells us that Christ's return will happen "immediately" (Koine: eutheos, at once) after the distress of those days, that is the Great Tribulation. The sense of urgency entailed cannot be overlooked, so the return of Christ will come on the heels of the Tribulation without any protracted delay. I envision this as happening right after the outpouring of the seventh bowl at the end of the 70 Weeks. In other words, the seventh bowl of wrath serves as the last bit of the Great Tribulation and ushers in the return of Christ.

All three accounts reference astonishing astronomical events in conjunction with the powers in the heavens being shaken. Luke does not mention them in sequential terms (i.e, as following the Great Tribulation as do Matthew and Mark), but his generality cannot be seen to dismiss the specificity of the other two. Matthew, uniquely, refers to the sign of the Son of Man appearing in the heavens before his coming in the clouds. That sign is never described by Matthew, never mentioned by Mark or Luke, so suffice it to say, it's something we don't need to understand in any depth to know that Jesus is coming back in the clouds (and in the same fashion as he ascended).

Furthermore, we are told that the tribes of earth will mourn at the sign, whatever it might be. Mourn, in this instance, means to bereave the loss or cutting off of something or someone. This is not regret or repentance, this is the agony of defeat (see 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12). At this sign, the Gentiles (tribes) alive at that time finally recognize that they are cut off—that they backed the wrong horse and face nothing but judgment ahead. The blinders come off, the delusion dissipates, and they will see, finally, the truth about Christ with their own eyes, but without faith.

It is infinitely better to see that truth, now, by faith but without sight.

The Olivet Discourse: What Was the Question?

The Olivet Discourse appears in all three Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, Luke) but all three accounts are slightly different from one another. As a result, hermeneutical issues become paramount in harmonizing the differences and developing a consistent, noncontradictory interpretation of any of the three. Doctrinal presuppositions are key: two of which, supersessionism (the belief that the church has replaced Israel as God’s people and the holders of promise) and preterism (the belief that biblical prophecy has already been fulfilled), ensure that one will never make heads nor tails out of this or any other eschatological prophesy in the Bible. Those that hold both or either viewpoint can never take the word for what it says, and therefore are clueless when comes to understanding those things which will come to pass in the very last days.

I hold to neither doctrine and think I can help you make sense of this.

So what accounts for the differences in the accounts? Well, even though the subject of the discourse is prophetic, its recording is historical. In other words, this was not written down under prophetic inspiration by Jesus, but was inspired to be written down as a testimonial narrative by those who heard him (or by those that heard from those that heard him). As in the case of any event witnessed by different people, the individuals involved will be subjectively attentive to and impressed by different details and aspects of what objectively took place. These differences do not reflect error, contradiction or unreliability, but merely the individual perspective of the witnesses involved. God uses the individual’s experience, memory and communication skills to disperse reliable truth.

When parallel passages differ in level of detail reported, the one which reports finer detail is correct in that detail. The more general passage is not wrong, it just didn’t visit that detail to the same depth or at all. This is particularly seen in the disciples’ question to Jesus (Matt 24:3; Mark 13:4; Luke 21:7). Mark and Luke are about the same, whereas Matthew is very different. Matthew captures the gist of the question as put forth in Mark and Luke, but adds the significant detail, “and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?” That detail is what makes sense of Jesus answer in all three reports, especially, given the history that has since unfolded.

As to the passage itself, we find Jesus and his disciples in Jerusalem at the Temple, taking in the sights, so to speak. Jesus prophesies that total destruction is coming to what they are looking at. When they are in private later at their site on the Mount of Olives, the disciples (at least, Peter, James, John and Andrew according to Mark 13:3) dare ask him a two-fold question: When? And what will be the sign of his coming and the end of the age? Mark and Luke’s account only capture the “when” and, in effect, skip the question about his coming and the end of the age.

His "coming" (parousias) is really the way of speaking of his arrival, of his being present here--not in an ethereal sense (as in, "lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age”) but in a substantial one ("...while they were telling these things, He Himself stood in their midst"). Since he is standing with them at the time he is speaking these things, the implication is that they knew he would leave and then return to end the age, hence the link (kai) between his coming and the end of the age. My assumption is that they assumed that the destruction of Jerusalem would result in a new Messianic age.

So Jesus, basically, brushes off the question about the destruction of the Temple (it wasn’t important to the big question) and concentrates on the second question (which, really, was the big question)--when would he come and the age end? His response is focused on that question in all three accounts, but without Matthew’s account supplying the detail, this would not be clear. In fact, he never does deal with the first part of the question, and instead takes up Daniel’s desolation (Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:11). To tell you the truth, the destruction of 70 CE was only, at best, a pretext to what he wanted to talk about, but in fact, it doesn’t enter into the actual answer at all!

The Open Door to Heaven

"After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven..."      Rev 4:1 NASB

The Apostle John looked up after his visionary experience as an amanuensis, saw an opened door in the heavens and heard the now familiar voice of his visions calling to him, presumably, through it. We're not told what caught his attention first: the appearance of the opened door, or the voice beckoning him. It really doesn't matter. A new phase in his visionary experience was beginning, and its significance would soon be apparent.

The opened door in the heavens most readily signifies access to what normally would be inaccessible to mankind. In this particular instance that represents access to two things beyond human purview: 1) the throne room, or very presence, of God; and 2) the future. God has to open the door to the experience of either, or the heavens remain closed. So, even though it is not specifically mentioned in the text, that door had to have been opened by Jesus, a key bearer who opens what no one else can open or close.

Doors, opened or closed, serve a variety of roles in the Apocalypse, but the basic concept is the same regardless--doors represent a barrier only authority or power can open. There are doors only God can open (like the one in question), and there are doors that God does not (cannot?) open. That would seem an odd thing, a door barring God, but the Apocalypse represents such a thing existing. Jesus stands knocking, in that case, waiting for the invitee to open the door. The implication for monergism, perseverance, and the whole of Calvinism is troubling, to say the least.

"Come up here," though in the form of a command, was more along the lines of divine commentary and was specific to John (singular). It cannot be related to the Rapture, nor really, to anyone else's access to God or heaven, whether by prayer or other means. Immediately, John was transported beyond the door into the midst of whatever it was opened to reveal. The surroundings were obviously symbolic because God (the Father and the Spirit) were represented tangibly when they are actually incorporeal, and Jesus was represented as a lamb rather than the corporeal form he has taken.

The purpose of John's visionary translation was to find out what things take place after the things he had already been shown. Those things were contained in the opening vision of Christ and the Letters to the Seven Churches. It stands to reason, it seems to me, that this particular sequential characteristic undermines viewing the Letters as representing successive ages of the Church. Instead, the Letters, all of them together, must have had reference to something that could have been existent in the time of John and before the bulk of what is revealed as happening afterward according to the stated purpose of the command.

Chronology of Apocalypse: Eternity

After Jesus crushes the rebellion at the end of the Millennium, the final disposition of all things (judgment) will be made. First, the Devil is thrown into the Lake of Fire without further delay (and I would conclude all the demons with him). The Lake of Fire is a condition of torment prepared for rebellious spiritual beings, but is capable of receiving physical subjects as well. There is no escape from, nor cessation of its condition--it is an eternal, perfect state.

Hades is emptied as the dead remaining there are raised to life (body and soul reunited) to face judgment. The sea is mentioned as holding the dead separately from Hades, which is more significant of the bodies which are being restored than it is to the souls of the drowned. Sheol/Hades was never a place of ultimate punishment, but more akin to a storage area for disembodied souls. The natural (created) condition of human beings is physical and spiritual, and all the dead will be returned to that condition before judgment takes place. So, at this time everyone who ever lived will be in their natural condition, ready to face final disposition.

Judgment will by two kinds of books. One is the Book of Life, the others are the Books of Record (my name, not the scriptural name). If one's name is not found in the Book of Life, the Book of Records will determine the nature of judgment against that individual (i.e. how hot will be their eddy in the Lake of Fire). If one is found in the Book of Life, the Book of Records will determine the nature of rewards that one will experience in God's presence (i.e. our normal conception of heaven). Either way, it is true faith in Christ which is the marked difference between one class and the other.

Anyone raptured prior to the Millennium (the Church, the 144,000, the martyred mark resisters) has nothing to fear at all from this judgment, for they all are already in their eternal condition, which is alive with Christ. The dead raised in order to face this judgment are in a heap of trouble, by and large, I'm not certain any of them will escape judgment. Their works will not excuse any of them, and only those who died during the Millennium, unmarked, could possibly have true, saving faith in Christ (otherwise they'd have been raptured). Those found in the Book of Life enter eternity with Christ, those not are thrown in the Lake of Fire to burn eternally.

Everything that had to do with this current, temporal, existence is then done away with: Death and Hades and the damned are thrown into the Lake of Fire, and in a flash, the heavens and earth are made new (no death, no entropy).  God's habitation, the heavenly Mount Zion, the New Jerusalem, descends upon the new Earth, and eternity as it should be takes flight. No Devil, no demons, no death, no disease, and no damned will be there anywhere but bound in the roiling fires of the Lake. The righteous in Christ live on forever, free to move about the cabin, and enjoy the adventure with our heavenly pilot.

Chronology of Apocalypse: The Millennium

After dealing with the Devil, the Antichrist, the Pope and the troops they had gathered at Armageddon, Christ resurrects those who were killed for refusing to take the mark and worship the Antichrist. They, along with all those raised earlier (the Church, the 144,000, and Enoch and Elijah), enter into the Millennial Reign of Christ as his lieutenants, serving as priests to God.

These resurrected saints will be in their eternal state in incorruptible bodies, like unto the resurrected Christ, and will not die nor marry or be given in marriage, not only in this period, but throughout all eternity. The population of Earth not part of Armageddon will continue to reproduce and live in natural, corruptible bodies throughout their lifetimes during the Millennium. The effects of the Fall will be greatly ameliorated during this time: lifespans will dramatically increase, carnivorism will cease, war will be no more.

Christ will rule the world with an iron rod from Jerusalem, the resurrected will be his agents throughout the earth, without any opposition from the forces of spiritual darkness. Though there is no hope for those who took the mark, their ancestors will have known no ruler but Christ, and no kingdom but his. Nevertheless, at the end of the Millennium, the Devil is loosed from his chains and the Abyss and manages to deceive great numbers of them. They gather against Christ and his saints at Jerusalem, but fire falls from heaven and consumes them, ending their rebellion and the Millennium.

Yet to Come... Eternity

Chronology of Apocalypse: The Second Half of Tribulation

The Antichrist will elevate the Pope at that time to serve as his viceroy and the vicar of a new religion which worships the Antichrist as god. In conjunction with that worship, a new economic system, which requires everyone to be marked with the name of the Antichrist or the number of his name (666), will be imposed globally. All those who take that mark (and that will be everyone except the Jews) are lost forever. Those that refuse will be arrested and killed. The seventh trumpet has sounded.

All those who took the mark will be stricken with a plague-like disease producing festering sores. I can see it being passed off as an unfortunate circumstance of the technique used to make the mark. The first bowl of wrath has been poured out.

The entire sea will be stricken with a reddish pollution that will kill everything still left in it after the earlier judgments. This may be something akin to red tide run amok. The second bowl of wrath has been poured out.

The pollution spreads to fresh water. The third bowl of wrath has been poured out.

The sun will suddenly become much more active, perhaps a solar flare and a coronal mass ejection, and scorch the inhabitants of earth with intense heat and sunburns. Their reaction will be to curse God. Evidently, their worship of the Antichrist will not preclude them from having at least some reckoning of the true God. The fourth bowl of wrath has been poured out.

Likely the effects of a solar flare from the increased activity of the sun, something will strike Bergama, Turkey and throw the Antichrist's kingdom into darkness. Computer systems will crash, power will go offline, communications will cease, and his kingdom (the three broken off horns) will literally and figuratively be in the dark. This is a local, specific event rather than a global incident. His people's reaction: blasphemy. The fifth bowl of wrath has been poured out.

The Euphrates River, which had been ground zero for volcanism of sixth trumpet, finally dries up all together. It provides troops amassing in the east unhindered traverse to Israel. I believe the troops were originally moving to confront and perhaps unseat the Antichrist, but he, the Pope, and the Devil deftly spin a tale which unites those troops under his banner and against the invasion he is expecting (from outer space, I think). He directs them, along with others from other places, to the Jezreel Valley, near Megiddo. The sixth bowl of wrath has been poured out.

A global earthquake, the largest such event that will ever occur, will shake every city throughout the world. As a result, Jerusalem will be divided into three and Rome turned to ashes. Islands will be inundated and mountains crumble in landslides. Although the related signs of volcanic or asteroidal activity are not mentioned, a rain of large hail falls upon the earth, which makes me wonder if this is yet another aspect of the earlier strikes (i.e. a comet breaking up and hitting earth piecemeal). The seventh bowl of wrath has been poured out.

At that time, Jesus will burst through the skies, with all the saints raptured before in tow behind him. He captures the Antichrist and the Pope and tosses them into the Lake of Fire, which will have been formed at that time. All the amassed troops are killed, their bodies left to the birds. The Devil is bound and locked in the Abyss (and I would conclude all the demons with him).

Jesus has returned to earth, the saints with him, and he will rule with a rod of iron and the saints will reign with him.

Yet to come... the Millennium and Beyond

Chronology of Apocalypse: The First Half of Tribulation

The further we proceed into the prophetic future, the more speculative are my interpretations. Generally, after doing some double checking, I go with whatever strikes "my gut" after reading the descriptions in the text. I am satisfied that I am at least in the ballpark concerning what these things mean. They weren't meant to be all that mysterious after all.

Either just before or just after the Rapture, the Antichrist, as leader of the 10 nations, will seal a treaty between his alliance and Israel. Although the details of the pact are not known at this time, it will have a treaty period of seven years, and it can be inferred that it will allow Israel to rebuild the Temple and attempt to reinstate the OT sacrificial system. This will signal the advent of Daniel's 70th week and the concluding of God's promises to him concerning the people of Israel and Jerusalem. The seventh seal has been broken.

At that time, Enoch and Elijah will begin prophesying in Jerusalem, speaking a message that must be antagonistic toward the world, toward unbelief in Israel, and toward the Antichrist. Though no one in the world appreciates their message, no one can do anything to stop them. While they are prophesying, 144,000 sealed and protected Messianic Jews are present (probably in Israel) having whatever redemptive affect they may have on the Jewish people.

Shortly thereafter, fiery hail will fall upon the earth (probably the aftereffect of the volcanic cataclysm which was the sixth seal) and a third of earth's vegetation will be lost. The first trumpet has sounded.

Then, an asteroid will strike one of earth's oceans, polluting a third of the seas, killing a third of the life therein, and sinking a third of the ships sailing the seas (perhaps as a result of tsunamis). The second trumpet has sounded.

On the heels of that asteroid strike, another will fall, maybe in a lake (like the Great Lakes) or upon land, but definitely not in the ocean, and its aftereffect will be the pollution of a third of the fresh water on Earth. Note: I do not see the megastar presented as the proximate cause of this catastrophe as necessarily an angel, even though specified stars in the Apocalypse generally are. The third trumpet has sounded.

Probably as a result of the ejecta of these asteroid strikes, a third of the light of the sun, moon and stars will be darkened. The fourth trumpet has sounded.

Then a tremendously annoying but not deadly disease will spread throughout the earth. Its tortuous symptoms will last five months. I doubt the inhabitants of the earth will suspect the demonic origin of the epidemic, anymore than they suspect that kind of thing in disease now. The fifth trumpet has sounded and the demons have been loosed upon earth.

Not long afterward (nothing could be since we're only dealing with a total of 3 1/2 years in this entire section), a third of the human race alive at that time will be overcome by what appears to be pyroclastic flows or the volcanic aftereffects of the cataclysm of seal six and/or the asteroids of trumpets two and three. Ground Zero for this event will be the Euphrates River, but the spread of the effect is not detailed (although I speculate it would be easterly toward the populations of India and China). As with trumpet five, I doubt the inhabitants of the earth will suspect the demonic origin of the catastrophe. The sixth trumpet has sounded.

For whatever reason (having undergone what is described above may be reason enough), Egypt will rebel against the Antichrist and his alliance. The Antichrist will lead a response of such cold-blooded, lethal and overwhelming force that the heart of any other potential rebel will find itself without resolve. Whether through biological, chemical, or nuclear means, the wound of Egypt's (one of the seven heads) rebellion is staunched, the Antichrist is strengthened, and the world amazed and awe-struck. Egypt will suffer the aftereffects for a generation into the reign of Christ.

As the Antichrist turns back toward his base in Turkey, he will pass through Israel and stop at Jerusalem. There he kills Enoch and Elijah and leaves their bodies dead in the street, though God raises them back to life and then to heaven. The 144,000 appear to go to heaven with them. A strong earthquake will rock the city, but won't stop the Antichrist from confiscating the Temple, putting an end to Israeli plans to reinstate the OT sacrificial system.

Nothing is left for the inhabitants of earth at that time but the duress of God's wrath.

Yet to Come... the second half of the Tibulation

Chronology of Apocalypse: The Rapture

At some point in the near future a series of events will unfold which will wind up the current age. Some of the sequence and detail is uncertain in my mind, and very debatable, most is reasonably clear. With that disclaimer in view, let's give this a shot...

At some time in the near future, a politician will arise, likely in Turkey, and begin to gain prominence. He will find a way to take control of where he arises and form a ten nation alliance including Turkey, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Greece, Macedonia, and Albania. In the process, he will extend his personal rule over Syria and Iraq (or vice versa if he arises in Iraq or Syria instead of Turkey), reviving the long dead Seleucid Empire (the King of the North).

At some time in the near future, a tremendous cataclysm will come upon the earth. I think it will be volcanic, perhaps several large eruptions occurring concurrently, even if they don't all start off in unison. Perhaps it could be a supervolcanic eruption; e.g., Yellowstone, Long Valley, or Toba. Regardless, it will be the sixth seal breaking and will herald the coming of God's wrath, signal that the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and indicate that God's redemptive efforts are being turned from Gentile to Jew.

As that cataclysm occurs, or just before it, some big personnel changes will occur:

• 144,000 Messianic Jews will be marked by God for protection and left on earth;
• Some substantial multiple of 200,000,000 believers, dead and alive, will be raised in eternal bodies to be with the Lord there ever after;
• The restrainer will be taken out of the way, allowing the Antichrist to pursue his course successfully, and the delusion concerning him to proceed unabated among the Gentiles.
• Enoch and Elijah will return to earth to Jerusalem to minister and ultimately die.

Yet to Come... the Tribulation

Chronology of Apocalypse: Historical

One of my congregants thought an itemized chronology of the end times would be helpful. Maybe it would, so here it goes, starting with those things prophesied which have already occurred (not enough to make me a partial preterist, however).

30 CE - Jesus ascends to the throne room of God bearing the sacrifice of his own blood, and receives all authority and dominion from his heavenly Father.

30 CE - Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to endue his followers with power and turns them lose on their global mission to spread the Gospel to every nation. The rider on the white horse sets out to overcome.

70 CE - The Temple in Jerusalem in destroyed, signifying the end of the Mosaic Covenant and the transition to the Age of the Gentiles. From that time to the time (which has not yet occurred) the Temple is reestablished, God's redemptive work is focused on Gentiles, with a mere trickle of Jews coming to Christ.

95 CE - The last handpicked witness of Christ sets forth the last Apostolic testimony concerning Christ. His vision mirrored, although is much more extensive than, that of Daniel who was the last prophet who saw the glory of the Davidic Kingdom.

192 CE - The Emperor Commodus rises to the throne and destroys the reality of the Pax Romana. Never again will Roman realms be as peaceful or the empire as coherent as they were before his rule. Never again would the world know such a golden age. The second seal was broken.

313 CE - Constantine issues the Edict of Milan that made it legal to be a Christian in the Roman Empire. In 316 he intervenes in the Donatist controversy and calls the Council of Nicea in 325. A marriage of church and state began to be apparent, but no doubt was left in 380 by the enactments of the edicts of Theodosius. The Whore of Babylon had settled in Rome.

1315 CE - The Little Ice Age starts, bringing recurring cycles of famine and death to the temperate zones (particularly of Christendom) which were dependent on cereal grains. The third seal had been broken.

1347 CE - Someplace in the East, a disease became particularly pestilent and was carried by vermin across the civilized globe. Truly an epidemic of biblical proportions, within just a few years the Black Death had taken at least a quarter of the world's population. The fourth seal had been broken.

1535 CE - Although persecution and martyrdom was not unknown from the earliest days of the church (e.g. James, Stephen, Peter, Paul, the Roman persecutions under Decius and Diocletian), nor in the Middle Ages (e.g. the Waldenses, the Lollards, the Hussites), it was the scale of death of true believers initiated with the Huguenot Persecutions that warrants an emphasis on martyrdom. The influx of martyred souls into the presence of God in the 1500's signifies the fifth seal being broken.

1917 CE - Anticipating the British occupation of Palestine during WWI, the Balfour Declaration officially undoes almost 1800 years of Roman policy excluding the Jews from Palestine. It is the signal event that revealed the end of the end times was upon us.

1933 CE - Hitler rises to power, the seventh king in the Antichrist Scheme. In 1938 he stepped up his campaign against the Jews to wholesale physical violence, confiscation of property, imprisonment, and death. Ultimately, two-thirds of the Jews within his reach were killed.

1948 CE - The State of Israel declares its independence and a nation is born in a day.

1967 CE - Israel captures East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, and the Sinai in the Six Day War. Israel was well on the way to capturing Cairo and Damascus in the Yom Kippur War which followed in 1973. In both wars, against overwhelming odds, Israel all but miraculously defeated all her enemies. She has since signed formal peace treaties with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994), but as yet has to sign a covenant with many which would give her unfettered access to the Temple Mount.

Yet To Come... the Rapture

A Rapture? Actually, There's Three

What I'm about to share with you I'd wager you've never heard anywhere else before. Don't let that scare you, though you may suspect I'm a Gentile short of the full number before it's over.

Before we go any further, let's define an important term: rapture. The word itself is generally considered to be a non-biblical term, but that is not quite true. It is a fair translation of the Koine, harpazó, found in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, as the dictionary clearly demonstrates. For the sake of accuracy, let me define rapture in this way: an event in which God translates the body of a believer not only from its earthly location to a heavenly one, but also, and more importantly, transforms it from its earthly form to its eternal one. Both the living and the dead are included, and the fullest treatment of the circumstance is found in 1 Corinthians 15:50-57.

The most important consideration, quite apart from all that, is whether or not the term does justice to biblical thought, and that it does quite well!

If you've been a Christian for a minimum of 5 minutes, you've probably been assaulted by the arguments as to the timing of this event. Although there are those who would argue against the existence of the event at all, that perspective is so out of harmony with scripture, it's not worth the words it would take to refute it. That aside, there are pre-, mid-, and post-tribulationists who subscribe to the event but differ as to its timing. There are even so-called pan-tribulationists, cheeky monkeys who say they could care less, figuring it will all pan out in the end.

What I can say in regard to this question, that may be unique and is definitely outre, is that they're all right! 

Haven't I said in prior articles that the Gentile church was raptured out at the beginning of the 70th week? Yes, but let me say here that each of the viewpoints (pre, mid and post) can cite solid scriptural references to back up their viewpoints. For each view, those that hold the others can shoot holes in their arguments. Why? They are, in fact, all right, they just don't realize it. What the Bible actually teaches is that the rapture has a pre-, mid-, and post-tribulational component. What!?! Yup, all three pre-millenial rapture theories are correct, but not exclusively so, whereas post- and a-millenialism are out to lunch.

I lay out the pretribulational rapture of the Gentile church in another post, so let me lay out the rest for you. 

In Revelation 7 we are introduced to 144,000 Jews who believed in Christ at the beginning of Daniel's 70th week. They are sealed and protected from the wrathful events falling upon earth at that time for three and a half years. Their time on earth during the 70th week runs concurrently with the two prophetic witnesses mentioned in Revelation 11. Those witnesses are killed at the midpoint of the Tribulation and left unburied on the streets of Jerusalem for three and a half days. At that point, God calls for them from his abode and they rise from the dead and ascend into heaven. 

That experience for those two witnesses most certainly fits the definition of Rapture. As it so happens, the next mention of the 144,000 is in Revelation 14, but, quite noticeably, their location then can no longer be said to be clearly on earth. They're with the Lamb, singing a special song before the throne and the elders. How did they get there? They were raptured, like any other humans who get there, along with the two witnesses. And smack dab in the middle of Daniel's  70th week!

What about the post- component?

That's found in Revelation 20, where we discover that those (they will be Jews) who were executed in the last three and a half years of the 70th week, will be raised from the dead and join the ranks of those ruling and reigning with Christ. Rather than buy into THE lie and take the mark of the beast, they stayed true to Christ and paid the price with their lives. They will find the same reward as all who have done similar before them. And, it meets the definition of Rapture!

There you have it. The completion of the first resurrection-- a rapture for sure, but in three distinct, biblically attested phases.

The Rapture: The Secret's Out

The idea of a "secret" gathering of the Gentile church in the air to meet Christ, while the world descends into tribulation, is a difficult one for many. The concept is relatively new to the church, first proposed, as near as I can tell, in 1812 and not popularized until about 1830 (by Irving and Darby). My own hermeneutical guidepost is that what someone has said or not said about the Word, regardless of how long ago they lived and wrote, is not really the issue. Whether or not the Word itself actually bears out the interpretation behind the teaching is what matters.

So, does the Bible actually bear out this teaching of a pre-tribulational Rapture? Yes, resoundingly, yes!

Let me offer you an annotated list of scriptural citations which support the concept:

1) Revelation 7: note that the 144,000 are described in earthly terms, whereas the Gentile saints are described in heavenly ones; 

2) Matthew 24:32-51: note that despite referencing the signs of the end, Jesus teaches the sudden, unexpected taking away of those that were ready;

3) Luke 21:36: note that the "escape out from all these things" is associated with standing before the Son of man;

4) 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5: note that the Thessalonians had thought they missed it all, not only the gathering of the saints to Christ, but the coming of our Lord. The reference only makes sense if they were expecting a "secret rapture." Paul reassures them by reiterating that the coming will not be secret, even though the gathering is; 

5) Revelation 3:7-13: note that there is a Jewish/Gentile divergence referenced and that the church in Philadelphia was promised to be kept out from the hour (a short period) of trial coming upon the whole earth; 

6) Luke 17:26-36: Note that the rescue in the ark was followed by wrath on the earth, which makes perfect sense in light of 1 Thessalonians 5:9; 

7) Revelation 12:1-6: this will actually take some words to develop, so please read on.

Perhaps no chapter of scripture is more helpful eschatologically than Revelation 12. Once one properly understands the symbols, the end-time scenario clarifies and the timing of end-time events settles into place. The imagery of the woman clearly hearkens back to Joseph's dream, the figure is obviously Jewish. That she was pregnant brings into focus two thoughts:

1) She would give birth to something like her, and 

2) While in the womb that something was expected but hidden. If one sees the woman as a corporate symbol (like the nation of Israel), rather than an individual (like Mary), then the infant must taken the same way.

Interpreting Revelation 12

The woman is the messianic Jewish community, the baby in her womb is the Gentile church. The church is in the womb because it was hidden from sight from the former prophets, secreted in between Daniel's 69th and 70th week (despite the Jews being prophesied as having an effect on all nations). Though hidden, it grows and develops until it has attained its full gestation (Romans 11:25, full number), at which point, its time in utero is complete and the baby is born. 

Immediately, the child is raptured (Koine: harpazo) into the heavenlies. We should recall at this point that the church is the body of Christ and that we will rule and reign with him. The Jewish mother is left, protected on earth for three and a half years. That equates symbolically quite well with the description of the 144,000. Her other offspring, who become subject to the animosity of the dragon, are the Jews who will be coming to Christ as a result of the testimony of 144,000 and the two witnesses (but that's for another article).

So, the Bible does teach a sudden and escaping translation of the Gentile church to heaven at the close of the Age of the Gentiles and the beginning of the 70th Week of Daniel. Though often pejoratively referred to as the Secret Rapture, all I can say is that the secret's out!