LEFT BEHIND: OR DERILICTION OF DUTY ON THE HIGH SEAS.

All those who teach against the Rapture are fulfilling the words of prophecy that declared that in the end time people would question "Where is the promise of his coming since we have heard about it since the beginning."

So many people worry that this so called heresy will cause the church not to be prepared for the Tribulation but in reality the nay sayers will cause people to fall asleep spiritually so when he comes like a thief in the night they will miss his coming and be LEFT BEHIND.

 

This article fails on a number of bases.

1. It assumes that Paul's shipwreck story was written to teach us something about eschatology. However, it wasn't. It has nothing to do with eschatology. Therefore, to twist it to make it talk about eschatology is exegesis of the worst sort.

2. It assumes that pretrib believers are trying to miss something or get out of tribulation. They are not. They are simply understanding the various Scriptures in a different way than the author does. There is no "dereliction of duty" in pretribulationism. There is a tremendous desire to be faithful to the text of Scripture.

3. It fails in several exegetical points such as the "wrath of God," the identification of "elect" in its various uses, use of the word "aion" in Scripture, etc. In other words, it seems someone with a view has set out to prove using whatever means necessary, without regard for authorial intent and the theology of Scripture as a whole.

In short, whoever this author is, he is not familiar with the real arguments of those who are pretrib. It is disappointing to see stuff like this written because it is misinformed as to the reasons and bases for pretribulationism.

[ July 09, 2002, 11:08 AM: Message edited by: Pastor Larry ]

 

If we deal with Scripture in this way by taking typical ideas from every narative passage, we have lost the truth, so that it can come to mean anything we want it to mean. The covenant theologians have been doing that for years, taking biblical doctrine and refusing to believe it in its simplest meaning.

This article equates biblical dispensationalism with Hyper-dispensationalism and then casts doubt upon both. While hyper-dispensationalism has, indeed, gone beyond a normal interpretation of Scirpture, Biblical dispensationalists uses a literal hermeneutic (If the plain sense makes sense, seek no other sense) to take the Bible as a direct statement of truth. Biblical dispensationalists make a distinction between Israel and the church, and they realize that these two groups are inter-connected in the purpose of God and will be together for eternity.

The pretribulation rapture is the hope of the NT believer (I Thess 4; Titus 2:1-13), guaranteeing that we shall be saved from the judgement and wrath of the Tribulation Period (I Thess 1:10; 5:9) when God judges the nations of the world and purges Israel for their final redemption (Dan 12:1).

"But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day...but let us watch and be sober...for God hath not apppointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ."

 

The problem is that once you start down that path, there is no end. There is no guiding principle of interpretation. To see the beloved at the door in SoS and the passage in Rev 3 as parallel is not based in any discernable authorial intent from Scripture. Why would you not connect the beloved in SoS with teh man who comes in the middle of the night to ask for bread? Or with Peter at the door in Acts 12 after being released from prison? The answer: It doesn't preach as well. You see the issue for most in this matter is not what the text says, but rather "What do I want to say from this text?" That is a problem.

Why did God spend a chapter telling us this story? Because he considered it important I supposed. He also devoted a lengthy section of the OT to genealogies but you are not running to those to look for deeper meaning. Why? Because you understand the fallacy of it there I would imagine.

The general rule of hermeneutics is that language is univocal -- that is, a given word in a given context only has one meaning, and that meaning is governed by authorial intent.

The second rule is like unto it: A text cannot mean what it never meant. In other words, the meaning is determined by what the original reader in the historical context would have understood the words to mean.

 

Someone who believes the rapture is after the tribulation at the coming of Jesus (Matthew 24:29-31; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-8) in no way scoffs at his coming (2 Peter 3:2-4).

Note the "if" in the following verse: "IF therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee" (Revelation 3:3). Paul confirms that if we watch for that day it will not overtake us as a thief: "Yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night... But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief... let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch" (1 Thessalonians 5:2, 4, 6).

Regarding "one taken, one left," note that Matthew 24:37-44 refers to the same "coming of the Son of man" as Matthew 24:29-31. There's no 3rd coming of Christ. Jesus is speaking to the same people in Matthew 24:15 that he is speaking to in Matthew 24:42.

How can "one taken, one left" refer to a pre-trib rapture and not an event at the revelation of Christ, when "Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed... Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left" (Luke 17:30, 36).

I believe the ones "taken" at the 2nd coming are unbelievers who are killed, just as Noah’s flood "took" evil men away (Matthew 24:39-40). The carcasses of the ones "taken" are eaten by eagles and other birds (Luke 17:36-37, Job 39:30, Matthew 24:28, Revelation 19:21).

I believe the ones "left" at the 2nd coming (Matthew 24:40) will be survivors of the heathen nations that came against Jerusalem, who will be forced to worship Jesus in the millennium (Zechariah 14:16-18), and whom we will rule "with a rod of iron" during that time (Revelation 2:26-29, 5:9-10, 20:4). They will be the ones who will populate the millennium.

The ones "gathered together" at Christ's 2nd coming are his elect (2 Thessalonians 2:1, Matthew 24:31). So I believe Christians won't be the ones "taken" or the ones "left," but the ones "gathered together."

Note that at the 2nd coming some of us elect will still be "alive and remain" (1 Thessalonians 4:15) on the earth: "And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect (eklektos) from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven" (Mark 13:27).

"Elect (eklektos) according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1:2).

Are the great multitude of us Christians in the tribulation "of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues" (Revelation 7:9, 14) all Israel?

Note that these scriptures don't promise us a rapture before the tribulation.

Jesus says he will come to gather us together "immediately after the tribulation" (Matthew 24:29-31), and Paul says Jesus' coming to gather us together must "destroy" the Antichrist (2 Thessalonians 2:1-8). We Christians must go through the coming tribulation (Revelation 13:7-10, 14:12-13).

Don't lose the blessed hope (Titus 2:13) when the rapture doesn't happen before the tribulation. Don't lose the hope even if you find yourself at the point of death in the great tribulation, for our hope for eternal life in Jesus Christ (Titus 1:2, 2:13, 3:7) goes beyond any suffering in this life and any dread of death (Philippians 1:21-23, 1 Corinthians 15:19, John 12:25, Revelation 2:10, Hebrews 2:15).

In the pre-trib view, will those who "obtain salvation" in the tribulation be "appointed to wrath?" How could that be when being "appointed to wrath" and "obtaining salvation" are mutually exclusive?

"God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thessalonians 5:9).

Note that during the tribulation nobody in heaven says God's wrath "is come" until after the 7th trumpet (Revelation 11:15, 18), in the 7 vials of God's wrath (Revelation 15:1; Revelation 16), not one of which is poured out on those of us who have obtained salvation; we are even blessed at the 6th vial (Revelation 16:15), that we might endure to the 1,335th day (Daniel 12:12).

How does the pre-trib view apply this rule to Revelation 3:10?

http://www.geocities.com/postrib

 

How does the pre-trib view apply this rule to Revelation 3:10?</font>[/QUOTE]The same way I took them ... that they would be taken out of the Tribulation if it were to come. That is why I took them that way.

[ July 10, 2002, 05:20 PM: Message edited by: Pastor Larry ]

 

I believe Revelation 3:10 could simply be saying that Jesus would keep the 1st century church of Philadelphia from the persecution by the Roman Emperor Domitian.

 

1. That would remove the prophetic nature of this since this was written after that time.
2. That would not account for the increased nature of the Tribulation over what they were already experiencing.

R. L. Thomas has an excellent discussion of this problem in his commentary. He shows why your understanding cannot fully account for the text and the historical context in which the church at Philadelphia lived. Have you read it?

[ July 10, 2002, 05:51 PM: Message edited by: Pastor Larry ]

 

There is no "if" in the verse. It says God "will" keep them. Yet they weren't raptured (as far as we know). Why would God promise them an "if" promise for something that God knew would never happen in their lifetime? Seems like an empty promise to me. There are several problems with this being a pretrib proof text, the primary one being that the verse had a different meaning for them as it does for us - which is what you just said is a no-no in hermeneutics.

 

I have not read it. Would it be possible to post some of the key points?

 

Brian,

Perhaps when I get some time, I will try to summarize some of it. However, if you are in serious study of the book of Revelation, Thomas is a "must have." It is well-documented, well-written, substantial in length and treatment of problem passages, etc. Sell your car and buy this book if you need to do.

This sounds a bit pious (no offense intended) and doesn't really help. How many people, with diametrically opposed interpretations, claim the leading of the Spirit? The answer is more than we can count. No one is going to come to a passage and say, "I got this without the Spirit." Everyone will say, "The Holy Spirit showed me this." And as I said, there is no guiding principle. When the
"Spirit" reveals two different, contradictory things, one of them has to be wrong. How do we decide? The words on the page.

I do not believe the Spirit will work in contradiction to the words and intent of the author. After all, all Scripture is God breathed through the work of the Spirit. Therefore, our assurance is that whatever the words on the page say, that is what the Holy Spirit intended us to have. Had He wanted us to understand something else, He would have used different words.

For instance, if a parent wants a child to clean up his room, he says "Clean up your room" and expects the child to understand. He does not say, "Go cut the grass" because that is not what he intended. The point is that any author uses the words that he believes the reader will understand in the manner in which he uses them. We should expect no less from the Holy Spirit.

Yes but that is not the issue here.

 

Personally, the only general difference I see between dispensationalists and non-dispensationalists in devotional Scripture study and the use of allegory is what they call it.
Dispensationalists - use the phrase "this is a type of Christ" for instance whereas non-dispensationalists will use the term "an allegory which speaks of Christ"
I have also heard dispensationalist use this phrase "there is one interpretation but many applications" thereby followed by an "allegorical" or "typical" application of a Scripture.

Apart from the right or wrong of it, everyone does it from every Christian environment down from the earliest church fathers.

Why? Probably because Jesus did it. For example
"destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up".
"He that eats my flesh..."
"He that drinks my blood..."

Right or wrong its in our blood.

My opinion, of course.

HankD

[ July 11, 2002, 11:13 AM: Message edited by: HankD ]

 

The oft-repeated claim that "Dispensationalists treat the Bible literally, non-Dispensationalists 'spiritualize' it" is nothing but a smoke screen.

The real difference between the two groups is in their ecclesiology, not their hermeneutic.

Dispensationalists view Israel and the Church as distinct and God having separate redemptive purposes for them, and so they interpret the Scriptures in whatever fashion best supports their assumption.

Non-Dispensationalists view Israel as culminating in the Church, and so they interpret the Scriptures in whatever fashion best supports their assumption.

The Dispensationalists cast their "consistent literalism" to the winds when it comes to interpreting Rev. 2-3 as "seven church ages," or see Rev. 3:10 or 4:1 as picturing the Rapture, amongst other places. These passages aren't even obviously figurative (interpreting obvious metaphor as metaphor does fall under the rubric of "literal" interpretation). This is full-blown allegory.

 

Hi Ransom,

You are right, the dispensational alleorical interpretation of the seven churches of the Revelation are an example of what I was trying to say. These are seven historical literal churches which are allegorized by dispensationalists.

However and although I am not a "dyed-in-the-wool" dispensationalist, this futuristic interpretation of these seven historical churches seem to me to have some merit.

So what is wrong with the seven churches being both (literal-historical as well as allegorical-futuristic)? In my view the two views are not mutually exclusive. Each having (as the dispensationists say) its own proper application.
Paul used this interpretive method in Galatians concerning Sarah and Hagar.

In fact, I don't think anyone here who is a conservative Christian says that it has to be exclusively one or the other.

I believe only liberal (neo-orthodox) theologians say that either the literal-historical of the Scripture never really happened or its not of any importance whether it did or not.

HankD

[ July 11, 2002, 01:04 PM: Message edited by: HankD ]

 

What I don't understand is: Why believe in a allegorical-futuristic interpretation of the seven churches in the first place?

Brian

 

OK that's a good point. On the other hand, why not?
Didn't God say concerning Abraham (the father of the faithful), should I not tell Abraham everything I am going to do?
Why wouldn't God want his children to have a thumbnail of the historical panaorama of professing Christendom?

Doesn't the Book of Revelation talk about those who have ears to hear let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches (implying a hidden or difficult message)?.

Revelation speaks of "things which shall be hereafter" (future events).
The allegorical-futuristic interpretation of the seven churches fills in some of the blanks of the Matthew 13 parable of the wheat and the tares and the influence of the tares upon professing christendom as they increase from within it down through the centuries.

Are we not told "be not deceived" and therefore shouldn't we be forewarned as to what the characteristics of the Laodicean Church (for instance) will look like?

I speak as "the devil's advocate".

HankD

 

Our ecclesiology is the result of our hermeneutic, just as their ecclesiology is the result of their hermeneutic.

This is not dispensationalism. This is the view of a minority of dispensationalists who have been refuted numerous places by other dispensationalists.

This is not true. Rve 3:10 very clearly talks of a great time of persecution, greater than what that church was currently experiencing. Rev 4:1 -- who knows exactly what you are talking about there. In any case it is not fullblown allegory; it is not even minimalists allegory, unless allegory has a new definition I am not aware of.