<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> About AD 60, Paul referred to it in 1 and 2 Thessalonians. About AD 95 or so, John referred to it in Rev 3:10. Both of those predate the 1800s by about .... oh ... 1700 years or so. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Its important in discussing the rapture (or any other subject, of course) that meaning of terms be agreed upon by all. That the rapture (catching up) is taught in Scripture should be clear to all; the
timing is what is up for debate. The idea of a pretrib, secret rapture did not exist before the early 19th century. It is an inferred doctrine, taught nowhere in Scripture.
Nowhere. Not one explicit text teaches a pretrib, secret rapture. It occurs at the second Advent, which is the blessed hope of believers, not some secret whisking away from tribulation.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> To call Satan the author of the confusion about the rapture is very perjorative and unproductive. That fact that you disagree on the interpretation of passages does not mean that Satan influenced them. I could say that Satan is behind the post-trib/amill/post mill/ theories because of the implications those position have for the Word of God. Yet that would not further the discussion. Invoking Satan does not help. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
George Eldon Ladd explains the rise of pretribulationalism in his book,
The Blessed Hope . That the first three centuries were characterized by a futurist, premil view is undoubted. The Middle Ages saw the rise of the historical view of eschatology, though still premil. This was so widely accepted in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries that it became called “The Protestant View”.
With the dawning of the 19th C, there was a return to futurism as a result of a backlash due to rising postmillennialism. This was in some sense a positive movement in that it brought focus back on the Second Coming of Christ, something that the postmils had downplayed (though not denied). Periodicals and prophetic conferences began to spring up.
Some of these conferences were at Powerscourt House in Great Britain. It was here that some aspects of Darbyism was first discovered. Darbyism altered the truth of futurism by teaching a coming of Christ to secretly rapture the church before the tribulation and before Christ’s coming in glory to establish the millennial kingdom.
This was completely foreign to historic belief, which had always rightly asserted just one Second Coming, not two.
Full-fledged Darbyism or pretribulationalism began of course with the Plymouth Brethren. Darby and other Brethren members attended the Powerscourt House meetings and began teaching their new interpretation.
Tregelles, himself a Brethren premil but who rejected Darbyism, relates that the idea of a secret rapture at a secret coming of Christ had its origin in an “utterance” in Edward Irving’s church. [ Ladd, page 41]. This was taken to be the voice of the Holy Spirit. Tregelles says “ It was from that supposed revelation that the modern doctrine and the modern phraseology respecting [the rapture] arose. It came not from the Holy Scripture, but from that which falsely pretended to be the Spirit of God”. Post-trib/amill/post mill/ positions never arose from a “spirit voice” revelation but rather from simple exegesis.
The problem with pretrib rapturism is that it is an inferred doctrine that is not taught clearly and explicitly anywhere in Scripture. It is not the Blessed Hope – the Second Coming of Christ is. If a secret rapture was so key to eschatology, why did Christ not mention it
once in his earthly ministry? Rather the Blessed Hope taught by Christ and all the disciples is the Second Coming, the destruction of the wicked, and the eternal state of believers forever with their Lord and God (John 14:1-3).
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> If a) the rapture is at the end of the trib, and if b) the rapture includes all the believers, and if c) all the unbelievers are destroyed at Armageddon, then who is left to populate the earth during the millennium? Points (b) and (c) are irrefutable. Point (a) is the point under discussion. Very simply put, if all three of these protases are true, then there is no one left to populate the earth during the millennium. In this case you are left with Christ ruling over nobody and Satan having no nations to deceive when he is released from the bottomless pit (Rev 20:7-9). The only way that there are people to populate the earth during the millennium is if there is a pre-trib rapture, then people saved during the tribulation who enter the millennial kingdom and populate the earth. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Or, that the millennium is now, as amills believe
But a post-trib, premill friend of mine said this:
The statement that point (c) is irrefuteable is simply false. There is no scripture that states that all the unbelievers in the World are destroyed at Armageddon. In fact Scripture explictly testifies to the opposite.
Zecariah 14:16
Then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that went against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Booths.
Daniel 7:11-12
"Then I kept looking because of the sound of the boastful words which the horn was speaking; I kept looking until * the beast was slain, and its body was destroyed and given to the burning fire. " As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but an extension of life was granted to them for an appointed period of time.
Ezekiel 36:36
"Then the nations that are left round about you will know that I, the LORD, have rebuilt the ruined places and planted that which was desolate; I, the LORD, have spoken and will do it."
Isaiah 2:4
And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples ; And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war.
Isaiah 14:1-2
When the LORD will have compassion on Jacob and again choose Israel, and settle them in their own land, then strangers will join them and attach themselves to the house of Jacob. The peoples will take them along and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will possess them as an inheritance in the land of the LORD as male servants and female servants; and they will take their captors captive and will rule over their oppressors.
All of these passaged depict nations surviving the Battle of Armageddon and entering the Millennium in their natural bodies. Nothing in scripture irrefutably prooves that all will be killed at that battle and these scripture testify to the explictly opposite affect.
Millennial repoplulation is not a problem for Post-Tribulationism.
[ August 01, 2001: Message edited by: Chris Temple ]
