The “Rapture” Monkey Wrench
Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 4:17 NASB
Be caught up – Where did Paul get the idea of the rapture of believers? You might be tempted to answer, “Well, God told him, of course.” But not so fast, please. Ideas like the rapture were part of Jewish apocalyptic thinking long before Paul wrote this verse. Not that the history of this idea matters much to contemporary Christians. For example, in a web article entitled “Top 7 Bible Verses About Rapture or the Rapture,” the explanation of 1 Thessalonians 4:17 reads like this:
The Greek word for “caught up” is “harpazō” and means “to seize, to carry off by force” or “to snatch away.” Someone who was kidnapped could be said to be caught up or snatched away by force and so this is the Lord’s doing however it is not done against our will because those who have repented and put their trust in Christ have by their own freewill chosen to believe in Him (John 3:16). I think Paul wrote this to the Thessalonians to reassure them about those who had already died and they feared that they would miss the Lord’s return or miss out on the kingdom. Paul expressly wrote this to reassure them that the Lord wouldn’t miss any of His when He returns; therefore Paul wanted them to “encourage one another with these words” that he wrote.[1]
There’s just one little problem. harpazō is used idiomatically in literature during the time Paul wrote. The Book of Enoch and the documents from the Qumran community use the same Greek word, and the same imagery, to describe victory, not rapture. In fact, there are many Jewish apocalyptic texts that read like Paul’s writings but have nothing to do with a physical rapture. Consider this:
In fact, the apocalyptic and pseudepigraphical evidence generally contains a mix of eschatological portrayals which prohibit any clear determination of personal destiny after death. The only text that truly bears any resemblance to 1 Thess 4:13-18 is 2 Esdr 13:24: “those who are left are more blessed than those who have died” (cf., however, 1 Enoch 103:3: “Your lot [those who died in righteousness] exceeds even that of the living ones”). The weight of this isolated text must be balanced by assertions within that same book that the pious departed attain immediate blessedness (7:88-99, e.g.). Indeed, the immediate blessedness of the righteous departed may well be the predominant view of pseudepigraphical literature. 33 While the body lies in the dust of the earth, the soul rises to heavenly bliss at the moment of death, following from the anthropological dualism that marks hellenistic Jewish thought, including the thought of Paul. 34 The Greek thought that influenced Jewish eschatology here converges with that indigenous to Thessalonica. The issue perplexing the Thessalonian church is rooted in its own religious milieu and is provoked by what they view as the powers of darkness at work around them. The church wonders if their departed are “with the Lord”.
The theophanies of God in the OT may also be involved here, as Paul recalls such passages as Mic 1:3 and the whole tradition of holy war wherein God is viewed as the commander of the angelic hosts who come as his agents of judgment upon the impenitent (2 Sam 24:16; 2 Kgs 19:35; 1 Enoch 1:8-9; Syb. Or. 2:287, 3:309) and of deliverance of the elect (dead [Luke 16:22; Jude 9] and living [1 Enoch 104; Apoc. Elijah 5:2]).”
That this verse involves a literal rapture of believers is far from necessary, particularly in light of 1QM which may well form the conceptual background for much of this pericope. In the 1QM xiv 2-17 hymn of victory of the sons of light over the sons of darkness (cf. 1 Thess 5:4-5), those who have been preserved from death in battle praise God for their own victory over evil using the metaphor of assumption: “raise from the dust for yourself and subdue gods” (vv 14-15). 49 This metaphorical use of a rapture idea is also found in some other pseudepigraphical texts. 1 Enoch 96:2 asserts, “your children shall be raised high up and be made openly visible like eagles,” and “you shall ascend and enter the crevices of the earth” in authority over sinners. 50 Here “the righteous are assured of reconciliation and miraculous protection” in the judgment upon sinners. TMos 10:8-9 says, “Then will you be happy, O Israel! And you will mount up above the necks and wings of an eagle. Yea, all things will be fulfilled. And God will raise you to the heights. Yea, he will fix you firmly in the heaven of stars, in the place of their habitations.” This is likely an allusion to Israel’s exaltation over its enemies. 51 None of the contexts of these pseudepigraphical texts supports the idea of a literal general rapture of believers. Rather, these texts demonstrate the metaphorical use of the assumption motif as divine assurance of protection and victory over evil in eschatological conflict. In his use of “harpazō” Paul may therefore be describing the protection of his people and the victory which Christ obtains over evil in the figure of a rapture of the sons of light after the manner of 1QM and certain other pseudepigraphical texts.[2]
Is it so unimaginable that Paul, a Jewish Pharisee of considerable status, would not use language and ideas that were popular in his own culture? Does the direction of Jewish thought lead us to escape from this world? Does Paul really embrace the later Christian idea of a heavenly home apart from this earth? Perhaps you have wondered about this strange idea that believers will somehow be transported into the air, leave the earth behind and proceed to heaven. Perhaps you remember those Christian comic books where suddenly people disappear, caught up in the rapture. And perhaps now you will have to rethink all of that and ask, “What if Paul was just using Jewish apocalyptic imagery? How would that change my thinking?”
Topical Index: rapture, 1 Thessalonians 4:17
[1] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christiancrier/2015/01/29/top-7-bible-verses-about-rapture-or-the-rapture/
[2] Randall Otto in https://www.preteristarchive.com/BibleStudies/JewishSources/Apocalyptic/-165_enoch_apocalyptic.html
Hello this leads me to a question. Maybe it was covered maybe not with the soul going to heaven in the body going to the ground. The text reads those who are asleep. Is that referring to the body ? When the soul is gone?
First of all, where did Paul ever “just use” anything, verbatim; even Scripture? Isn’t there a larger pattern of Paul taking something that was well known and applying it to something brand new? In other words, was Paul necessarily LIMITED to the prior application and understanding of Jewish apocalyptic imagery just because he used it? Does the rest of this verse, not to mention the surrounding verses, support the reductio of this reasoning? Do I conclude that all the rest of what Paul was trying to say here MERELY meant “the protection of his people and the victory which Christ obtains over evil”? If so, then why didn’t he just say so? Why did he go on and expound the literal aspects so specifically then?
To me, this is a highly unsatisfactory conclusion, based on dubious and unqualified premises that are not supported by examples. Further, if what you say is true, and the Second Coming is not literal, then why does Paul and John, and many others, spend hundreds of verses literalizing it? Does one generalization from ancient apocalyptic literature wipe all that effort out? Do I therefore conclude that because prior use of this term was a generalization of a concept that Paul necessarily was limited to using it as such? Am I stuck with “just using” something identically to the way those before me used it, too? I think that this is not only an insult to Paul (because it does not pay attention to how he actually approached Hebrew literature or thought), it is an insult to our ability to see new revelation, or, apocalypse, too.
The ancient Jews did not see a literal Man ascend up into air while being assured that He was going to be coming back the same way. Paul wrote this passage after that new imagery had been acted out. Shouldn’t we reasonably expect that new revelation can shed new light on old revelation? If not, we may find ourselves limited to having to think the earth is flat just because that is the best our ancestors could come up with.
P.S. I know that the arguments against the modern secret rapture teaching mean well, but I am afraid I am seeing this one fall into the trap of the dialectic. The Biblical verses describing this ascension into the air to be with our Lord are accompanied with, among many other particulars, the description of a VERY public, audible, visual – in other words, literal – event.
The dialectic attempts to separate the event from its context, and I detect it at work, here. This is how we end up with a thing called “rapture” that is esoteric, secret, etc. There is no Biblical foundation for a SECRET RAPTURE, for sure. The problem with attacking the entire event based on that secretiveness or some other esoteric aspect being put forth, however, is that the baby invariably gets tossed out with the bathwater in the fight.
I have fallen for the dialectic, myself, so many times. Having been burned every time, I have concluded that you cannot enter the seduction of the dialectic without ending up arguing against at least some of the truth that got separated from itself (as well as from its context) in the process. Better to just stay out of the mud fight altogether. At least that is how I read my Bible, anyway.
My side note on the dialectic is that, much as I admire Socrates, I believe argument is based on the dialectic, and, therefore, can never establish the truth; for truth (to be truth) must never be separated from itself in the first place. Platonic argument never put Humpty Dumpty back together again, much less established him on the wall. To argue against the secret rapture, using the elements that that argument purports, will only make a hash of the rest of the subject.
I also think I have learned that it is better to attack the premises that an argument or a proposition uses than to just use them, too, for to argue with something is merely to accept its definition of the terms. I think perhaps it would have been better to use the surrounding verses to establish the context of “caught up” rather than to attempt to argue that it does not mean what it says; apocalyptic literature notwithstanding. My humble opinion, anyway.
On the same page again- I say ditto
I am pretty sure that Skip is not saying there is no Second Coming. All Orthodox belief holds to that. Rather he is writing about issues related to ‘the Rapture’, which is often presented as a kind of ‘third coming’. See David William’s postings for more on that.
Granted. But there is a very physical aspect to the Coming that can be missed if we are not careful. That aspect is what exactly does He do with the righteous during the Thousand Years? The popular Rapture says that they do not stay planetside; they go “to be with their Lord”. If we are not careful, we can miss the truth hidden in the myth. You cannot dismiss the entire physical event just because some aspects of it are clearly not in the text. The best lies are those that are largely still true. It cannot ALL be a lie. We have to attach this subject to the subject of the Thousand Years; it cannot be separated from that.
Since I haven’t a clue what tomorrow may bring, I do subscribe
to Scripture’s admonition to “be ready” and “keep watch”.
God help me to “do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be
generous and willing to share”.
In doing so Paul writes that we ‘”may take hold of the life that is
truly life”. That much I can understand.
My future goggles are as vague and mysterious as God’s Word.
Are we told to consider the times. Zacchaeus if I remember correctly was told by Yeshua that you are a teacher of Israel and you know that the wind and the rain bring seasons but you do not know the Times of Israel. Would not this lead us to there is an appointed time which brings Redemption. Even to the Redemption of who. would that not be the Redemption of the first born. excetera excetera excetera.
Below is a short article written, by bible scholar NT Wright, on the nonsense of Rapture Theology. Just a little digging will pull-up where this idea came from. Briefly, Rapture Theology came ‘whole-cloth’ from the mind of a feverishly ill teenage girl living in Scotland in 1830, who as I understand it, had a ‘vision’ of Jesus coming from His heavenly dimension into our earthly dimension. This vision was communicated to John Darby, who created his ‘Rapture Theory’ from that vision. The rest is history, so they say. There seems no end to human gullibility. Also, in his book “Surprised by Hope”, Wright devotes part of a chapter titled “When He Appears”, to this subject. Enjoy the read!!
“Farewell to the Rapture – NT Wright
Little did Paul know how his colorful metaphors for Jesus’ second coming would be misunderstood two millennia later.
The American obsession with the second coming of Jesus — especially with distorted interpretations of it — continues unabated. Seen from my side of the Atlantic, the phenomenal success of the Left Behind books appears puzzling, even bizarre. Few in the U.K. hold the belief on which the popular series of novels is based: that there will be a literal “rapture” in which believers will be snatched up to heaven, leaving empty cars crashing on freeways and kids coming home from school only to find that their parents have been taken to be with Jesus while they have been “left behind.” This pseudo-theological version of Home Alone has reportedly frightened many children into some kind of (distorted) faith.
This dramatic end-time scenario is based (wrongly, as we shall see) on Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, where he writes: “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of an archangel and the trumpet of God. The dead in Christ will rise first; then we, who are left alive, will be snatched up with them on clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)
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What on earth (or in heaven) did Paul mean?
It is Paul who should be credited with creating this scenario. Jesus himself, as I have argued in various books, never predicted such an event The gospel passages about “the Son of Man coming on the clouds” (Mark 13:26, 14:62, for example) are about Jesus’ vindication, his “coming” to heaven from earth. The parables about a returning king or master (for example, Luke 19:11-27) were originally about God returning to Jerusalem, not about Jesus returning to earth. This, Jesus seemed to believe, was an event within space-time history, not one that would end it forever.
The Ascension of Jesus and the Second Coming are nevertheless vital Christian doctrines, and I don’t deny that I believe some future event will result in the personal presence of Jesus within God’s new creation. This is taught throughout the New Testament outside the Gospels. But this event won’t in any way resemble the Left Behind account. Understanding what will happen requires a far more sophisticated cosmology than the one in which “heaven” is somewhere up there in our universe, rather than in a different dimension, a different space-time, altogether.
The New Testament, building on ancient biblical prophecy, envisages that the creator God will remake heaven and earth entirely, affirming the goodness of the old Creation but overcoming its mortality and corruptibility (e.g., Romans 8:18-27; Revelation 21:1; Isaiah 65:17, 66:22). When that happens, Jesus will appear within the resulting new world (e.g., Colossians 3:4; 1 John 3:2).
Paul’s description of Jesus’ reappearance in 1 Thessalonians 4 is a brightly colored version of what he says in two other passages, 1 Corinthians 15:51-54 and Philippians 3:20-21: At Jesus’ “coming” or “appearing,” those who are still alive will be “changed” or “transformed” so that their mortal bodies will become incorruptible, deathless. This is all that Paul intends to say in Thessalonians, but here he borrows imagery—from biblical and political sources—to enhance his message. Little did he know how his rich metaphors would be misunderstood two millennia later.
First, Paul echoes the story of Moses coming down the mountain with the Torah. The trumpet sounds, a loud voice is heard, and after a long wait Moses comes to see what’s been going on in his absence.
Second, he echoes Daniel 7, in which “the people of the saints of the Most High” (that is, the “one like a son of man”) are vindicated over their pagan enemy by being raised up to sit with God in glory. This metaphor, applied to Jesus in the Gospels, is now applied to Christians who are suffering persecution
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Third, Paul conjures up images of an emperor visiting a colony or province. The citizens go out to meet him in open country and then escort him into the city. Paul’s image of the people “meeting the Lord in the air” should be read with the assumption that the people will immediately turn around and lead the Lord back to the newly remade world.
Paul’s mixed metaphors of trumpets blowing and the living being snatched into heaven to meet the Lord are not to be understood as literal truth, as the Left Behind series suggests, but as a vivid and biblically allusive description of the great transformation of the present world of which he speaks elsewhere
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Paul’s misunderstood metaphors present a challenge for us: How can we reuse biblical imagery, including Paul’s, so as to clarify the truth, not distort it? And how can we do so, as he did, in such a way as to subvert the political imagery of the dominant and dehumanizing empires of our world? We might begin by asking, What view of the world is sustained, even legitimized, by the Left Behind ideology? How might it be confronted and subverted by genuinely biblical thinking? For a start, is not the Left Behind mentality in thrall to a dualistic view of reality that allows people to pollute God’s world on the grounds that it’s all going to be destroyed soon? Wouldn’t this be overturned if we recaptured Paul’s wholistic vision of God’s whole creation?” (NT Wright—-Farewell to the Rapture)
David, is this an extension (or maybe part of) the 19th century phenomenon of fundamentalism? Or do the two come from different perspectives? Neither of which I understand.
George, I am not sure about your questions. Skip could speak, from a lot more authority on that time period. I believe the fundamentalism you refer to, from that period, was a reaction to the Enlightenment. Whether Darby’s Rapture Theory/Theology was born, of that same reaction, is a gray area for me. The rapture theology teaching may have had its’ growth born more from the Christian frustration of the seemingly endless delay in Yeshua’s Second Coming, which at that time would have been 1,830 years. (Maybe it is something along the line of ‘give them something else to think and stew about’.) In reality, Rapture Theology actually creates a ‘Third Coming’ of Jeshua, which to my understanding, is not supported in Scripture. Unfortunately, Evangelical Christianity to this day, continues to gorge themselves on their ‘daily bread’ of the Rapture and the End Times. It’s making a lot of people very wealthy selling this ‘snake oil’. All this End Times / Rapture stuff does, is distract us from the mission we all have been given, i.e., to do the Kingdom work God has for us to do today and eternally on this good Earth.
Bart Ehrman says, “Jesus was an apocalyptic Jewish prophet. He anticipated that the God of the Jews was soon to intervene in history, overthrow the forces of evil, and set up his kingdom on earth. Jesus told the Jewish crowds that they needed to do what God had commanded in the Jewish law, specifically, carry out the two greatest commandments of the law (love of God and neighbor as thyself.) He appears to have had no intent to start a new religion. His was the religion of the Jews correctly interpreted, unlike some Pharisees and Saducees.”
No fundamentalist rapture necessary. Thanks David (and NT Wright) for getting this going for me.
Question: Since Paul was writing these things to newly-minted mix of disaporic jewish & god-fearing gentile believers (spent only 3 sabbaths teaching in Thess), would they have fully understood the nuances of the esoteric Jewish sources cited here?
Well have we opend Pandora’s box or cut off the head of Hydra?
I haven’t commented on this topic for the simple reason that I didn’t want to “steer” any of the comments of others. Like the Trinity and Sinful Nature doctrines, the rapture is pretty standard stuff in the evangelical world. But as we have tried to point out with all these ideas (and many more), they all have a history. If that history doesn’t take us back to Scripture, then somewhere along the way the idea was probably an invention of men. I am not talking about “proof-texting” for these ideas. After all, once we have adopted an idea, we can usually find the proper evidence to support it. But the evidence comes after the adoption, not before. That’s how a paradigm works. I first “discover” a way of explaining something and then, amazingly, I find that the “evidence” fits.
The reason I wanted to introduce some critical examination of this topic is simple: the meaning of a word must be determined by the way the word is used in the culture of origin, not by the way later cultures think about the same word. For example, “holy” must be understood as the term is used in the context of the biblical culture, not as it is later defined by Reformed or Catholic thinking. Matthew Wilson’s excellent book on this subject shows us just how far we have strayed from the biblical meaning of “holy.” In my comments of “rapture,” I am suggesting that Paul is a product of his age and that “rapture” is a word that should be defined by the way it is used in his age. Since Paul was part of the first century eschatological outlook, it is appropriate to ask, “What did the word mean to those who used it in the first century?” What we discover is that this word has a very different meaning than the one we commonly assume today. If this is the case, then “Where did the idea of our concept of the rapture come from?”
Thanks everyone for your excellent and thought-provoking comments. We all have a long way to go before we can truly think like Paul.
Are You Ready?
No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. And they were oblivious, until the flood came and swept them all away. So will be the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left.
Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day on which your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known in which watch of the night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. For this reason, you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect Him.
Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of his household, to give the others their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whose master returns and finds him doing his job. Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions.
But suppose that servant is wicked and says in his heart, ‘My master will be away a long time.’ And he begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. The master of that servant will come on a day he does not anticipate and at an hour he does not expect. Then he will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
~ They were not ready for His “first coming” either!!
~ None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory ~
It’s never mentioned in rapture teaching that it is the wicked that are “taken.” As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. And they were oblivious, until the flood came and swept them all away. So will be the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left.
We may want to consider how the Jewish feasts of Harvest where a foreshadowing of the Resurrection. We know the the Jewish harvest had three components, 1) The First-fruits, 2) the Main harvest and 3) the gleanings (droppings +.4 corners of the field) In relation to the resurrection we see Jesus portrayed has the First-fruits along with those that rose with Him and are raised now (to die is gain), The rapture being associated with the main harvest (before the 7 year tribulation) and finally during the Tribulation which will also have people who will respond to the gospel (Rev. 7:9-14) from nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues (4).
It is also known that the 70th week of Daniel is that 7 year period of Revelation where God deals once again with His people Israel who have been “on the shelf” during the times of the gentiles. This week focuses on what will happen to Israel during the end times period and the world in general in terms of cataclysmic occurrences. I think that if the church (the Body of Christ) was present at that time it would diminish the purpose of dealing with Israel. The 144000 evangelist are said to be from the 12 tribes of Israel sent to bring the gospel to His people. This is not a function of the church at this time as it will not be there.
This can be a confusing issue. 1. Is there any kind of Rapture? If so, is it a 2. Pre-tribulation, 3. Mid-tribulation, or 4. Post-tribulation Rapture?
If it is a post-tribulation Rapture, then it is not a “secret” Rapture but the age ending second coming of Christ, which begins the Millennium.
One of the reasons some envisioned a secret Rapture event was because of the coming tribulation. It was reasoned that Christ would not put His saints through seven horrible years of tribulation. If they are the beneficiaries of super abounding grace then it made no sense, as it was not consistent with free and easy grace to put Believers through this period. They get away Scot-free while it was the law-keeper who must go through the suffering.
But I don’t understand Skip’s apparent doubting of a physical second coming of Yeshua. (If I’m understanding him correctly on this.) If there is a kingdom on Earth and He is the king, then doesn’t He have to come back at some point?
The Scriptures in question say nothing about anyone going to the celestial heaven. They only say the saints, whether they be still alive, or dead in the ground, will be resurrected and/or “changed” into an immortal body and will therefore be able to meet Him in the “air” or “clouds”. Not that they continue on up somewhere into the “celestial” heaven, but that they immediately return to Earth with Christ the King so that, “where I am, you shall be also.” Confirming what the angels said when the disciples watched Him disappear at His ascension that He “will come in the way you have seen Him going into Heaven.”
I don’t see a problem with a simple understanding of the any of the verses cited. Christ will return physically to Earth with His newly changed and resurrected saints whom He first meets in the earth’s atmosphere before conquering the world.
I think you misread me. I am not questioning a physical return of the Messiah. Not at all. I am only asking if OUR contemporary ideas about the rapture aren’t really additions to the use of the term in the first century. That’s all.
What are “clouds” referring to , here? Ps. 68:17 “The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels; the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy Place.” Ps. 104:3: “…who makes the clouds his chariot: who walks upon the wings of the wind…” Where He goes, apparently heaven and all its occupants are. “Thy kingdom come” is a very good way to understand it.
Skip says we need to go back and look at where all these doctrines originated. David Williams made a start, but he didn’t follow the nefarious trail all the way back. We have come a long way from the start the Reformers made (they didn’t get all the way across, either, but then, we haven’t made a whole lot of progress, ourselves, so we can’t talk), but in some ways we have fallen back again. More like fallen like suckers for any straw that does not require us to expect to be straightened out in heaven’s unfailing crucible: affliction. The scary fact is that people want to believe anything that does not require change, especially tribulation. We have NEVER been promised escape from that.
If we wanted to do a real history lesson, we would be looking at the premises and the origins of all these teachings, instead of just trying to argue against them. If we did that, I think the hair on a lot of people’s heads would stand straight up. We have been sleeping while wolves have been mingling with the flock.