Objection:
“The rapture of
the church must happen before the coming of Jesus to earth in
glorious judgment. Why is that? Well for the obvious reason that
there be no reason to remove us from earth after Jesus has already
come back to earth to establish his visible reign from Jerusalem.
That makes no sense at all. The rapture after Jesus lands on the
planet becomes irrelevant. It’s not needed anymore. What’s the
point of rapturing us off when Jesus has already come back to the
planet and set up his kingdom?”
While a timeline making sense helps
reinforce what we believe, I had difficulty taking it as a reason. If
the rapture is combined with the second coming during the Rev 19
timeframe (which is also when the marriage of the lamb occurs and the
beast is defeated) it may make perfect sense to God and I’m just
having difficulty processing it where I thought another way made more
sense.
Objection: There are Distinctions between rapture and
second coming
“There are
major, major distinctions between the rapture and the second coming,
proper, when he comes to earth.”
“At the
rapture, the saints will meet Christ in the air, whereas at the
second coming the Lord descends to the mount of Olives. At the
rapture, the Lord comes to save us. There is no judgment found in any
of the rapture passages.”
I don’t think that’s quite correct.
While there may be time compression in play with 1 Cor 15, the whole
argument of the existence of a resurrection for believers is flushed
out with the timeline where Christ is raised first, then those who
are Christ’s, then the end when Christ’s enemies become his
footstool. Even with time compression, the use of these terms
directly associates Christ dominating the world with the
resurrection.
2 Thess 1, while not categorically a
“rapturing into the air” passage, puts relief for the living
believers (“you”) together with a return in mighty judgment in
the very same time frame.
As noted above, many of the time frame
elements seem very similar from passages that do mention judgment to
those that mention rapture events. It’s not as solid a connection
as passages that mention both, but the fact that both details and
time frame elements seem the same, should also legitimately link the
two events.
The common recurrence of believers
being alive for both second coming and rapture events also should
link the two.
Distinction:
“There’s no
mention in John 14 of Jesus returning to earth to take the throne and
judge the world and to slaughter his enemies. In clear contrast, the
emphasis of the second coming passages is judgment, judgment,
judgment.”
In the same way we tend to talk about
different components of a doctrine (e.g. sun hardens the wax, softens
the clay), it may or may not be significant that even if we see
common time frame elements, since the rapture of the saints and the
judgment of the world are different concepts, they can be handled
separately in the texts.
Distinction:
No mention of a
millennial kingdom mentioned in the rapture passages.
There is also no mention of a
millennial kingdom outside of Rev 20 so that wouldn’t necessarily
work one way or another. Pre-Revelations mentions of the “kingdom”
seem to condense elements of what we associate with an eternal
kingdom, with eternal qualities, into a simple word. The 1000 years
is a fixed span period where, despite ruling saints and Satan bound,
you still appear to have sin and rebellion and even potentially
death, which seems to set it somewhat apart from earlier promises of
the kingdom being forever and pain free, etc.
It may or may not be the 1000 years
kingdom that in 2 Thess 1 we’re counted worthy of, for example,
especially since our inheritance is to be eternal. Christ ruling from
Jerusalem could potentially describe both the 1000 year kingdom
(where a capital is not explicit) or the New Jerusalem eternal state
which has been turned over to the God. So the absence of “kingdom”
references in rapture passages, I don’t think can be conclusive.
Distinction:
All believers
will be removed from the earth (at the rapture). At the second coming
all unbelievers are removed. Only believers make it into the
messianic kingdom.
I’m weaker on this point, but from
Rev 19, the massive slaughter and destruction seems limited to the
leaders and soldiers of the armies, when beast and false prophet are
thrown into the lake of fire. I can’t find anything here that
explicitly says all unbelievers are destroyed. From 2 Thess 1, we
know that Christ’s second coming ushers in final judgment. Rev 20
has an explicit timeline where First Resurrection precedes 1000 years
precedes Second Resurrection and final judgment. The Second
Resurrection has writing that suggests a totality of the scope of
this action over dead people. That is, if at the Second Coming
exactly Christ condemns unbelievers at that point and the Second
Resurrection is for any unbelievers who come after (e.g. rebels at
the end of the 1000 years when Satan is loosed), this language seems
to be more comprehensive then dealing with a subset of unbelievers.
And its at the Second Resurrection that death/hades (seemingly
unending conditions) are ended and people are consigned to eternal
punishment. The eternality of these qualities suggests strongly that
Rev 20 is the un-compressed timeline of the judgment theme that is
normally compressed into his second coming.
So I’m not yet convinced that
unbelievers are all wiped out before the 1000 years. Even if they
are, there are still unbelievers during the 1000 years anyway. Too,
if the rapture is pre-Tribulation, clearly from the Revelation there
are also still believers. So the symmetry of believers removed at the
rapture, followed by only unbelievers during the Tribulation,
followed by only believers in the 1000 years doesn’t seem to stand
well.
Distinction:
1 Thess 4:13-18
Only believers see Christ.
While the passage only talks about the
believers and Christ, I don’t think it shows conclusively that no
one else sees him either. Only believers are in view here, but I
expect this passage would give neither a pre-Tribulation or post-
position much difficulty. The language, however, is consistent with
the trumpet call in Matt 24 when the whole world does see and mourn
Christ. Maybe the same trumpet, maybe not, but the language seems
common to most of these passages.
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