The Origins of the Rapture

in the blink of an eye Millions disappear and the world is thrown into chaos cars crash planes fall out of the sky and there are piles of clothes everywhere that's the upshot of the 2014 movie Left Behind starring The One and Only Nick cage cage is an airline pilot whose co-pilot and many passengers simply vanish in fact Millions have vanished across the world those who disappeared were Christians taken to heaven and the unbelievers were well Left Behind the Left Behind movie was based on a best-selling series of books that outline a scenario in which true Christians are snatched up to heaven right before the appearance of the Antichrist this climactic moment is called The Rapture the sudden physical removal of all living Christians from the world into God's presence while the Left Behind franchise is probably the most famous example within the prophecy fiction genre for many American Evangelical Christians the core idea of the Rapture is not fiction at all they believe that the Rapture will actually happen Rapture theology as interpreted by many American Evangelical Christians has several principles first of course the Rapture the sudden disappearance of Christians at any moment but specifically a pre-tribulation Rapture meaning that this sudden removal of Christians occurs before a time of global hardship and suffering called the tribulation during this period a human foe called the Antichrist will rise to power finally at the end of the tribulation the second coming occurs Jesus Christ will return resurrect all believers and dispense Justice to the Sinners he will defeat the Antichrist imprison the devil and establish an Earthly Kingdom that will last a thousand years the so-called Millennial Kingdom after the 1000 Years there will be a final confrontation with Satan before he's defeated and thrown into the Lake of Fire for good Scholars call this theology dispensational pre-millennialism it's probably the most common form of rapture theology among American evangelicals but there are other versions that we won't get into pre-millennial refers to the belief that Jesus Will effectively return twice once before his Millennial Kingdom in the Rapture and then again after the tribulation to establish his kingdom and dispensational refers to the idea that God's relationship with Humanity has undergone distinct phases or dispensations throughout history each dispensation is a unique stage in which God relates to humanity in a certain way for many dispensationalists history is partitioned into seven dispensations and we are living in the second to last one on the cusp of the end of the world while virtually all Christians believe in the second coming of Christ most do not adhere to this view of the end times belief in the Rapture is not promoted among Catholics the different branches of Orthodox Christianity or the majority of protestant Christians however it is popular among American evangelicals as one of the largest religious groups in the United States American evangelicalism has a high visibility in the country both culturally and politically so the support of rapture Theology and the huge popularity of Prophecy fiction like the Left Behind series gives the impression that this view of the end times is more widely accepted than it really is but it has been hugely influential one historian describes dispensationalism as perhaps the most resilient popular theological movement in American history dispensationalist beliefs such as the Rapture have even influenced U.S foreign policy as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is a dispensationalist Evangelical and has spoken openly about his belief in the Rapture so where did this idea of a pre-tribulation Rapture come from proponents of rapture theology look especially to one particular Bible passage composed by the Apostle Paul which they argue refers to a rapture-like event first Thessalonians chapter 4 verses 16 and 17. it's worth quoting the whole thing for the Lord himself with a cry of command with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet will descend from heaven and the dead in Christ will rise first then we who are alive who are left will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air and so we will be with the Lord forever so what does this mean first of all I need to stress Scholars are not 100 sure it's famously one of the most confusing passages in the entire New Testament as the scholars candida moss and Joel Baden say desp despite the many many studies on this passage the cultural and intellectual context of being quote caught up in the clouds together with the Lord and the air has remained obscure has remained obscure is an academic way of saying we just don't know what Paul means here but let's try our best this verse comes from a letter that Paul wrote to a church that was worried that the return of Christ had not happened yet especially because some members of the congregation had already died without experiencing the second coming that's not supposed to happen they're supposed to witness the inauguration of a new kingdom not simply die so Paul is offering an interpretation of what will happen to those that had already died and ends the passage with therefore encourage one another with these words he was trying to comfort a bunch of Christians who thought the return of Christ should have happened by now the dead in Christ will resurrect don't worry the New Testament scholar helmet Kester argued that ancient Imperial military imagery is bubbling under the surface of this passage the text says the Lord himself with a cry of command and with the Angel's call and what the sound of God's trumpet will descend from heaven this description can be seen as echoing the imagery of an emperor visiting a colony or Province who would be escorted by trumpets and other symbols of authority when Paul says they will meet the Lord in the air that word is translating the Greek word apontesis which is a technical term for the act of going out to meet a dignitary or Monarch from another city so according to kester's interpretation which is shared by other Scholars such as Bart Ehrman the people meeting Christ and the clouds are basically an imperial delegation of emissaries going out to meet the emperor Kester argues that there's no sense at all that they will stay up there in the clouds but rather will promptly return to Earth escorting Jesus to establish his new kingdom just as a delegation of emissaries would escort the emperor into the city Kester concludes that it is not possible to understand this passage as a statement about the Rapture of the Believers into heaven in their study on this passage Dr Moss and Dr Baden offer another complementary interpretation arguing that Paul may have been influenced by ancient Jewish ideas that God's chosen people will literally gain the ability to fly at the end of days the key text here is Isaiah chapter 60 verse 8. who are those who fly like a cloud like doves to their coats although this is a reference to the white sails of a ship bringing the Israelites back from diaspora later Jewish theologians interpreted this text apocalyptically those that fly like a cloud are literally people who will fly at the end of the world for example a passage in the rabbinic text called the talmud says in the future the Holy One will lift Jerusalem three parasangs High unless you think it is painful to go up to it scripture teaches who are those who fly like a cloud like doves to their coats so according to this the end of days Jerusalem will be a floating city but fortunately you can reach it because you will fly this idea is repeated in multiple rabbinic texts not just the talmud it's worth mentioning that these texts are much later than the letters of Paul but moss and Baden theorize that the ideas found in these texts might stretch back to the lifetime of Paul and that these people being taken up in first Thessalonians 4 may be viewed as traveling via Cloud to reach the end of days Jerusalem floating in the sky do they stay up there well Scholars don't know the phrase so will be with the Lord forever might imply that they remain up there in the clouds though as we saw with Scholars like Dr Kester others argued that Paul would have likely assumed that these people then returned to Earth regardless this passage is not describing a Rapture Paul is describing the resurrection event at the end of days the same event he describes elsewhere like in First Corinthians 15 when he says that our bodies will be transformed into Immortal bodies in an instant but now he's describing it with a colorful metaphor of escorting Jesus like an emperor into the city the notion of being Zapped away like in the Left Behind movies would have been Unthinkable to Paul proponents of rapture theology have interpreted this passage alongside other apocalyptic passages in the gospels Matthew 24 says then two will be in the field one will be taken and one will be left two women will be grinding meal together one will be taken and one will be left keep awake therefore for you do not know what day your lord is coming these verses are the partial inspiration for how the Rapture has been depicted in film sudden disappearance but in this verse it's a bit vague as to who's being taken and who is being left are the Believers taken or the unbelievers the verse is not entirely clear a parallel passage in Luke 17 is more explicit on that day no one who is on the roof of his house with his Goods inside should go down to get them likewise no one in the field should go back for anything remember Lot's wife which is a reference to the woman in Genesis who looked back at the burning city of Sodom while escaping turning her into a pillar of salt because proponents of rapture theology read these passages alongside first Thessalonians they assume that the one being snatched away in Matthew and Luke is the lucky one the one escaping Calamity but in these texts the metaphor is surviving a Calamity in Matthew 24 the disaster is specifically a flood so the one being snatched away is The Unlucky One Swept Away by the flood the person who pauses to try to save their belongings are the ones Swept Away to judgment while those who are Left Behind are the ones to be saved without the context of first Thessalonians no one would assume a Rapture is being described in these passages although the New Testament does speak of a second coming of Christ these and other verses taken by themselves do not point to the end time scenario of the sudden disappearance of Christians these ideas developed over time and like the belief in the Antichrist are a Pastiche of ideas drawn from multiple different biblical passages passages that were not originally intended to be interpreted side by side so if it's not in the Bible where did the idea of a pre-tribulation Rapture come from if you've looked into the subject before you may have heard that the Rapture was invented in the 1800s by a man named John Nelson Darby and as we'll see in the next section that's definitely when the precise Contours of dispensationalist theology were first developed systematized and popularized but there are some possible hints that Christians starting in the late antique period believed in a pre-tribulation rapture-like event even if that event does not resemble the dispensationalist version of the Rapture scene today now I'm using the qualifier possible hints because the evidence we're dealing with are not well-developed theological treatises the evidence I'm about to show you are passing references in a small handful of Fringe ancient and medieval texts moreover these passages have been analyzed almost exclusively by Pro Rapture Evangelical theologians people who may be motivated to prove that this idea was taught by the early church more research is needed in this field conducted by more critical Scholars but I'm sharing these passages as potential evidence that problematizes the idea that a pre-tribulation Rapture was invented in the 1800s first let's consider a document called The Apocalypse of Elijah a text that was circulated among Egyptian Christians around the 3rd Century CE the document outlines a scenario in which an antichrist-like figure called the Lawless one is persecuting Christians when God sends an army of angels to rescue them on that day the Christ will pity those who are his own and he will send from Heaven his 64 000 Angels now those upon whose forehead the name of Christ is written and upon whose hand is the seal both the small and the great will be taken up upon their wings and lifted up before his wrath archangels then lead the rescued Believers into a liminal Place simply called The Holy Land it's unclear if the author specifically means the land of Israel but it's a logical conclusion the text draws imagery from the book of Exodus in which the Israelites follow a pillar of fire but in this case the archangels Gabriel and Uriel make a pillar of light once they arrive in the Holy Land the text says they will neither hunger nor thirst nor will the Lawless one have power over them the next chapter describes the decline of the Earth the trees are uprooted wild beasts and farm animals will die in catastrophe birds will fall on the ground so here we see a possible early example of Jesus rescuing Christians from experiencing the destruction of the Earth but it's nothing like the Left Behind Rapture mainly there's no indication that they're transported to heaven but rather remain on Earth in a safe place the Holy Land another example comes from a sermon probably composed in the 7th or 8th centuries called The Apocalypse of pseudoefram pseudoephram because it seems to have been forged in the name of the Syrian Church Father Ephraim the text describes a tribulation at the end of the world you know the drill Wars disasters diseases then the Antichrist arises and rules of the world from Jerusalem in this text is a passage that appears to some Modern Evangelical theologians as a rapture-like event for all the saints and elect of God are gathered prior to the tribulation that is to come and are taken to the Lord lest they see the confusion that is to overwhelm the world because of our sins this seems pretty straightforward but it's more complicated than that Scholars have described the end times theology found in this text as confused contradictory and muddled for example in the very next section it says that during this terrible time neither Christian nor heretic neither June or Pagan will have time to bury their dead a few sections later the text says that the tribulation will overwhelm all people just an unjust which suggests that the author assumes that Christians are still there on Earth to experience the tribulation they're not all gone The Scholar David Malcolm Bennett one of the few researchers to study this text says that these pre-tribulation theologians are imposing their own theology on the text since pseudoefram seems to assume that Christians are still on Earth during the tribulation Bennett concludes what is probably intended by those comments is that the Saints will be protected by God within the tribulation rather than removed from it left behind's rigid literal interpretation is clearly alien to the thought of Ephraim whose method was much Freer and more imaginative fast forward to the turn of the 14th century a document dating to around 1307 called the history of brother dulcino mentions a rapture-like teaching among a renegade monastic order called the apostolic Brethren led by a friar simply known as dulcino this group was violently persecuted by the Catholic church and his leaders were burned at the stake the text says that the members of the apostolic Brethren will be caught up into heaven three and a half years into the reign of the Antichrist and in this way they will be preserved unharmed from the persecution of antichrist after the death of the Antichrist brother dulcino himself would return to Earth as pope now it's worth mentioning that this text was composed by an opponent of the apostolic Brethren so we should be skeptical that the text accurately reports their theology but whether or not dulcino held to this belief some pro-rapture theologians in recent years have held this up as an example that the idea of a pre-tribulation Rapture was held by at least some Christians before the 1800s though with some important changes notice that the text says dulcino and his followers would be transferred into Paradise not the whole of Christianity only dulcino's followers and there's little to indicate that Jesus Christ is doing the Rapture and returning here it's brother dulcino who returns to earth judging from texts like The Apocalypse of pseudoefram the idea that God will rescue some or all Christians and spare them from the tribulation may have been held by some Christians but these texts do not mirror what we see in modern Rapture theology two of our three examples seem to suggest that Christians remain on Earth during the tribulation and the third example only describes a small group of one man's disciples so how do we get to the left behind style of the Rapture the complete sudden removal of Christians from Earth for that we need to turn to this guy the Englishman John Nelson Darby known as the father of dispensationalism Darby was an influential preacher Theologian and Bible translator Who Rose to prominence in the 1830s originally in Anglican priest in Ireland he eventually grew disillusioned with the church and resigned his position in the 1820s and 30s he became associated with a Christian Movement called the Plymouth Brethren named for the fact that one of their largest congregations was based in the port city of Plymouth and Southwest England the Plymouth Brethren were a group of anti-establishment Christians who rejected professional clergy were very critical of established churches like the Church of England and claimed to read the Bible literally now to say that Darby invented dispensationalism in general and the Rapture specifically is probably an overstatement the concept of dispensations predates Darby and at the time pre-millennialism was already an idea held by some Anglican Christians in English and Irish intellectual circles though more on the margins of those intellectual circles moreover a Baptist Theologian named Morgan Edwards who was active decades before Darby throughout the 1700s seems to have taught a version of The Rapture that also placed it before the tribulation so while Darby was not inventing ideas out of whole cloth we can definitely say that he systematized and popularized the idea of the Rapture within his complex theological system that went on to get very popular and we can trace a direct line of influence from Darby To the Left Behind series here in the 21st century Darby argued that history tree is divided into dispensations which we defined at the start of this video as discrete ages during which God relates to humanity in different ways later popular formulations divide history into seven dispensations the first begins with creation and ends when Adam and Eve sin against God the next one is the anti-diluvian dispensation or the time before the flood which goes from Adam to Noah and ends with the great flood described in the Book of Genesis the second to last is the age of the church and the final is the millennial Kingdom now Darby's exact divisions are not quite so clear-cut he seems to have divided history like this on screen starting with Noah and ending with the final dispensation that begins with the Rapture Darby argued that these dispensations were a boom and bust cycle always ending in tragedy always with humans failing the fall of humanity into sin Noah's flood the Babylonian exile disaster after disaster after disaster like later formulations Darby believed that we are living in the second to last dispensation the age of the church but even this dispensation is headed for ruin like other Plymouth Brethren he thought that most established churches in this era have fallen into apostasy he believed that only a small remnant of Christians were truly destined to be saved Darby taught that the church dispensation would end with the Rapture a two-stage return of Jesus first Jesus would appear in the clouds and Christians would rise to him as described in first Thessalonians chapter 4 then seven years of tribulation then Jesus would return physically to Earth after the tribulation establishing his 1000 year Rule and commencing the final dispensation as we said these ideas were not 100 novel The historian Daniel Hummel who wrote the most recent and comprehensive history of dispensationalism says that Darby was not making entirely novel contributions on any of these points but he was shaping a new type of Christian identity that bundled a condemnation of established churches a pre-millennial eschatology and a dualism Between Heaven and Earth so how did Darby's theology get so popular well the Plymouth Brethren went abroad throughout the mid-1800s Plymouth Brethren preachers started to bring their ideas to North America where they found a bunch of people already obsessed with predicting when the second coming of Jesus would occur William Miller whose followers would later form the Seventh-day Adventist denomination taught that the second coming of Christ would occur in 1843 or 1844 when this prediction failed others stepped in with their own predictions so the Plymouth Brethren found a very receptive audience in the U.S Darby himself also traveled to North America visiting seven times between 1862 and 1877. he spent most of his time in the American Midwest and New England between several major cities and urban evangelicals started to adopt his ideas most importantly a man named Dwight L moody moody was a Revival Preacher based in Chicago at the time though he had some disagreements with Darby he started teaching pre-millennial ideas in his sermons spreading far and wide the idea that a pre-tribulation Rapture was about to happen any day Moody thought he was living in the final days he wrote I look on this world as a wrecked vessel God has given me a Lifeboat and said to me Moody save all you can but Rapture theology really exploded in the U.S thanks to this guy Cyrus Schofield he was a confederate soldier turned Union sympathizer turned politician and lawyer who converted to Evangelical Christianity in the late 1880s launching a second career as a theologian and preacher he was part of the whole to White L Moody movement and he started preaching within the local Moody network of congregations where he adopted dispensationalist ideas he went on to publish the Scofield reference Bible in 1909 a King James version of the Bible with commentary explaining the text from a dispensational pre-millennial perspective so for example right here at the beginning in the Book of Genesis the Scofield bible has a subheading above Genesis chapter 1 verse 28 calling it the first dispensation below the text in the footnotes it provides a helpful definition of what that is and in a note under the all-important passage first Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 16 the Scofield bible takes the two-stage Resurrection narrative for granted explicitly saying that the passage describes the first resurrection so by using footnotes and subheadings the Scofield reference Bible basically builds a pre-millennial dispensationalist framework around the entire Bible and as a study Bible it presents itself as a scholarly Authority using scholarly academic language to disregard competing interpretations especially rejecting critical biblical scholarship and darwinian evolution which made it a very popular bible within fundamentalist circles and it was very popular it sold one million copies within a decade and exceeded 2 million copies by the end of World War II the Scofield bible thus spread dispensationalist ideas like the Rapture to millions and millions of conservative Evangelical Christians effectively solidifying dispensationalism as a part of American Evangelical culture for the rest of the 20th century so by the mid 20th century capture and other dispensationalist beliefs had become a staple of end times thinking among conservative American Evangelical Christians and it reached new heights of popularity during the Cold War when many began to look for a religious explanation for current events like the rise of the Soviet Union and the establishment of the modern state of Israel a new generation of Evangelical authors started to interpret geopolitics through the lens of dispensationalist thinking most importantly Hal Lindsey I'm speaking to you today from the last Battlefield on planet Earth Hal Lindsay was an author who sparked a cottage industry interpreting current events as fulfilling biblical prophecy many people think that because this man's called the Antichrist that he'll appear to be evil but Satan's no fool a graduate from Dallas Theological Seminary he published a book in 1970 called the late great planet Earth it was basically an explainer of pre-millennial dispensationalism packaged for a popular audience blending prophecy spirituality and geopolitics and it was a mega bestseller it became the best-selling non-fiction book of the 1970s with 10 million copies sold in the 1970s and 28 million sold by the year 2000. the historian Daniel Hummel says that the book entered the bloodstream of American culture making the word rapture a household term the book also kick-started Decades of people monetizing dispensationalist Theology and Rapture predictions in books radio shows movies and later on social media notably one of these authors was Tim lahaye the Baptist Minister who would go on to co-write the Left Behind series in the 1990s but he got his start in the 1970s soon after Lindsay published his book though lahaye's first book was nowhere near as popular as the Left Behind series which sold 80 million copies perhaps no other work is more responsible for belief in the Rapture in other words the idea was spread not by theologians but by popular media and here we see an interesting phenomenon here in the 21st century tension between the Evangelical Intelligentsia and popular Evangelical belief Dr Hummel argues that we're witnessing a collapse in dispensationalist theology here in the 2020s in the early 2000s conservative American evangelicalism swung toward what some have called new Calvinism led by figures like the Baptist Theologian John Piper Piper explicitly rejected the concept of a pre-tribulation Rapture as did NT write an Anglican Theologian and Scholar who became very popular among certain segments of American evangelicalism Wright explicitly attacked Rapture theology in his 2008 book surprised by hope Evangelical universities founded by dispensationalists such as Biola college and Gordon College ditched the theology as well as did some Evangelical denominations in 2019 the Evangelical Free Church of America removed pre-millennial theology from its statement of faith so while Rapture theology remains very popular today it draws most of its inspiration from pop dispensational writings like the Left Behind series some historians go so far as to call it a form of folk evangelicalism as the theological muscle backing the belief has diminished as Evangelical theologians and institutions have turned away from it all this to say belief in the Rapture started on The Fringe of Evangelical theology but it may be headed to The Fringe once again as we talked about in this video Rapture theology draws a lot of inspiration from first Thessalonians a text composed for a congregation that was very concerned that Jesus had not returned yet as the decades and centuries went on Christians started to Grapple with this delayed return in writing developing new theological Frameworks to make sense of it one of these texts is the Gospel of Thomas which has passages that describe the coming of the kingdom of God as an internal event rather than an external political event I'll be teaching an online webinar about the Gospel of Thomas on Monday July 31st starting at 6 30 PM U.S east Coast time tickets cost whatever you want I don't want cost to get in the way think of this webinar like a guided close reading of a very complicated text I'll walk us through the major themes in the Gospel of Thomas some key passages and the scholarship on what the text actually means if you can't make it during that exact time slot don't worry afterward I'll send out a recording of the webinar to everyone who signed up just head on over to religion for breakfast.eventbrite.com to join so again that's religion for breakfast.eventbrite.com thanks everyone hope to see you there

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Length: 26min 38sec (1598 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 20 2023