Four Unities Prove 1st Century Rapture: Good News for all Christians

[AustinC]

No, it isn't. You're following the Dispensationalist playbook to the letter with this, which destroys the marvelous underlying continuity of the scriptures. 'You people' do great violence to the scriptures and God's truth by chopping it up into little pieces like this. Minutes earlier He announced in Mt 23 an awful judgment to come upon the Jews of that generation:

33 Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell?
34 Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: some of them shall ye kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city:
35 that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel the righteous unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar.
36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. Mt 23

Minutes later in the Olivet Discourse He reiterates the very same judgment to come upon the very same generation:

22 For these are days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
23 Woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days! for there shall be great distress upon the land, and wrath unto this people.
32 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all things be accomplished. Lu 21

There is no 'thousands of years leap AND STILL WAITING' in His prophecy, only in the dispy imagination. It's done, over, fulfilled.

This, passage does not, however, present any form of rapture or return of Christ in 70CE.

 

[kyredneck]

At least you said OK to my assertion...

Are you that hard up for recognition? ...sheesh...

 

[AustinC]

Are you that hard up for recognition? ...sheesh...

No. I do find conspiracy theory as the method of interpretation quite silly however.

 

[rlvaughn]

The "mainstream" view, which I disagree with strongly, believes that the rapture was just a positional change of the redeemed. After the "coming" the living saints went on living on Earth - as if nothing happened. My view is that it was a real rapture. For a very short while there were no Christians on Earth. My sharing this view has caused me problems on a couple FB groups. To this day I cannot share my blog articles on FB because I have been deemed "offensive" by FB.

Yes, I believe all of the Bible was completed by the mid or late 60s.

Thanks.

I have no problem believing the Bible/New Testament could have been completed by AD 70. On the other, if I understand your position correctly, it must have been completed before AD 70 to square with your view.

Concerning a real rapture circa AD 70, do you mean the catching up of all saints living at that time, and do you include the resurrection of the dead saints? Have you ever run across any early church fathers or period historians who wrote of the missing saints around this time?

 

[robycop3]

John wrote before 70 AD. See earlier post in this thread on that. Irenaeus, writing a century after the fact,blundered on the dating. The seeming multiplicity of ancient testimony on the later date is strictly from those who simply accepted his erroneous date as fact.

So some pret author has told you. But regardless of when he wrote, the events he wrote down haven't occurred yet.

 

[robycop3]

No, it isn't. You're following the Dispensationalist playbook to the letter with this, which destroys the marvelous underlying continuity of the scriptures. 'You people' do great violence to the scriptures and God's truth by chopping it up into little pieces like this. Minutes earlier He announced in Mt 23 an awful judgment to come upon the Jews of that generation:

33 Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell?
34 Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: some of them shall ye kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city:
35 that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel the righteous unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar.
36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. Mt 23

Minutes later in the Olivet Discourse He reiterates the very same judgment to come upon the very same generation:

22 For these are days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
23 Woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days! for there shall be great distress upon the land, and wrath unto this people.
32 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all things be accomplished. Lu 21

There is no 'thousands of years leap AND STILL WAITING' in His prophecy, only in the dispy imagination. It's done, over, fulfilled.

Everything ALREADY WRITTEN did come upon that generation. But then a greater punishment came a coupla generations later-the Jews were booted outta their land by Hadrian in 135-136 AD, a punishment that lasted until the nazis fell in 1945. Beginning late that year, the fortunes of the Jews began to improve considerably as God at last began to lift their punishment. All this is plainly recorded in history.

 

[asterisktom]

So some pret author has told you. But regardless of when he wrote, the events he wrote down haven't occurred yet.

Don't be tiresome. "Some pret author" did not tell me. I first was convinced of the early date by Philip Schaff in his History of the Christian Church. He was not preterist. In the first edition of his books he had assumed a later date for Revelation. But later, upon further study, he did what very few authors had the courage to do - he published a retraction in the next edition. He convinced me while I was still Amill.

 

[asterisktom]

Thanks.

I have no problem believing the Bible/New Testament could have been completed by AD 70. On the other, if I understand your position correctly, it must have been completed before AD 70 to square with your view.

Concerning a real rapture circa AD 70, do you mean the catching up of all saints living at that time, and do you include the resurrection of the dead saints? Have you ever run across any early church fathers or period historians who wrote of the missing saints around this time?

Thank you for the response. First, concerning the dating, see my answer to RobyCop.

Yes, I believe, acc. to Thess. that both groups, dead and surviving saints were caught up.

I hope to answer the rest of this after my walk.

 

[robycop3]

Don't be tiresome. "Some pret author" did not tell me. I first was convinced of the early date by Philip Schaff in his History of the Christian Church. He was not preterist. In the first edition of his books he had assumed a later date for Revelation. But later, upon further study, he did what very few authors had the courage to do - he published a retraction in the next edition. He convinced me while I was still Amill.

One author outta 1000.

 

[robycop3]

Thank you for the response. First, concerning the dating, see my answer to RobyCop.

Yes, I believe, acc. to Thess. that both groups, dead and surviving saints were caught up.

I hope to answer the rest of this after my walk.

Sir, no matter if John receivd the Rev immediately after Jesus' return to heaven, the fact remains that its prophecies have NOT yet been fulfilled.
I have a shelf full of encyclopediae & other works of history right in fronta me & the fulfillment of those events is NOT found in ANY of them. And there's simply NO valid reason to believe those events are anything but LITERAL.
I realize you may be writing pro-pret material to make money, but NO Bible-believer in his/her right mind who knows any world history is gonna believe preterism. The return of Jesus will be seen by all, as He said Himself, and will occur after the great trib, with the antichrist in power. Those things have VERY-OBVIOUSLY NOT YET OCCURRED 1 ! There's not one quark of **PROOF** they have!
So, isn't it about time to give up that false doctrine that you can't BEGIN to prove ?

 

[asterisktom]

One author outta 1000.

I doubt that. But even if it were true it would be moot. Truth is not something determined by consensus.

 

[asterisktom]

I realize you may be writing pro-pret material to make money, but NO Bible-believer in his/her right mind who knows any world history is gonna believe preterism.

This gave us quite a chuckle. I have not made a dime on my writings, not even my contribution to The Kingdom Bible (TKB). BTW, I also taught world history for many years, but I was always careful to interpret uninspired historians through the lens of inspired Scripture. Not the other way around.

 

[robycop3]

I doubt that. But even if it were true it would be moot. Truth is not something determined by consensus.

But it IS determined by REALITY.

 

[robycop3]

This gave us quite a chuckle. I have not made a dime on my writings, not even my contribution to The Kingdom Bible (TKB). BTW, I also taught world history for many years, but I was always careful to interpret uninspired historians through the lens of inspired Scripture. Not the other way around.

And Scripture says they WILL occur, so since they HAVEN'T occurred yet, they must be future.

 

[Yeshua1]

This gave us quite a chuckle. I have not made a dime on my writings, not even my contribution to The Kingdom Bible (TKB). BTW, I also taught world history for many years, but I was always careful to interpret uninspired historians through the lens of inspired Scripture. Not the other way around.

The Kingdom Bible?

 

[asterisktom]

The Kingdom Bible?

Yes.

 

[asterisktom]

Have you ever run across any early church fathers or period historians who wrote of the missing saints around this time?

By the very nature of the event there would, in fact, be no Christian writers at that time for the simple fact that they would have been raptured. The ones left behind to fill in the gap - or seeming to fill in the gap - would be the proto-gnostics, Essenes and other schisms and isms, so-called Christians, etc. More than one church historian had remarked on the paucity of Christian witness in the following couple decades. This ties in very well with what Paul foretold to the Ephesians, Acts 20, that there very soon be a rapid downgrade in spirituality after his departure. I dont think he was just speaking of Asia.

 

[rlvaughn]

The Kingdom Bible?

Yes.

Do you have a link to info on this Bible? I did not find it on Amazon. (I found a Kingdom NT by N. T. Wright, which I assume is not the same.)

By the very nature of the event there would, in fact, be no Christian writers at that time for the simple fact that they would have been raptured. The ones left behind to fill in the gap - or seeming to fill in the gap - would be the proto-gnostics, Essenes and other schisms and isms, so-called Christians, etc.

If correct, the historical claims that Papias and Polycarp were disciples of John, the apostle, would be spurious. He would no longer have been on the earth to have discipled them. If I thought it (John raptured before AD 70) could be proved from the Bible, then the historical claims would not really matter. However, it seems odd that Christians of the next generation after Papias and Polycarp would have believed their claims if there was knowledge of such a rapture.

More than one church historian had remarked on the paucity of Christian witness in the following couple decades.

What sources in particular would be some of these to look at?

 

[kyredneck]

Everything ALREADY WRITTEN did come upon that generation. But then a greater punishment came....

This was the curses of Lev 26 & Dt 28 which followed the Jews for centuries. Satan bound.

Starting with Napoleon they were progressively 'loosed' from those curses beginning early 19th century: Emancipation Satan loosed.

 

[robycop3]

By the very nature of the event there would, in fact, be no Christian writers at that time for the simple fact that they would have been raptured. The ones left behind to fill in the gap - or seeming to fill in the gap - would be the proto-gnostics, Essenes and other schisms and isms, so-called Christians, etc. More than one church historian had remarked on the paucity of Christian witness in the following couple decades. This ties in very well with what Paul foretold to the Ephesians, Acts 20, that there very soon be a rapid downgrade in spirituality after his departure. I dont think he was just speaking of Asia.

Sorry, Sir, the rapture hasn't yet occurred. Not one quark of **PROOF** it has.