The dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall 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 Thess. 4:16–17)
The word Rapture, which means "to be raised up or caught up," is connected to the Latin word rapiemur, which appears in St. Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians in the Latin Vulgate.
The Catholic Church teaches that that those Christians present at the Second Coming of Christ will be gathered together with the dead in Christ to be with the Lord forever. On the other hand, most evangelicals believe in a literal Rapture before the Second Coming. This false doctrine had its origins in the writings of John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), an Anglo-Irish evangelist who is also regarded as the father of modern dispensationalism.
Dispensationalism follows a chronological interpretation of God's intervention in mankind through a series of Biblical covenants. Moreover, Dispensationalists see the Jews as the true people of God; thus, Christian Zionism -- the belief that the modern state of Israel plays a role in Biblical prophecy -- holds that the "ingathering" of the Jewish people is a prerequisite to the Rapture and the Second Coming.In August 22, 2006, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and a number of other Churches signed the Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism, where it condemned Christian Zionism for placing "an emphasis on apocalyptic events leading to the end of history rather than living Christ's love and justice today."
Using the Jews as eschatological pawns does not fit the Gospel of Redemption and Salvation. Indeed, Micah 6:8 states: "What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God."
[The following exposes a leading Christian Zionist pastor; I found it on Google. Rocky2]
ReplyDeleteTHE MOODY ERWIN LUTZER
by G. W. Rockwell
Pastor Erwin Lutzer at the famous Moody Church in Chicago is an outstanding preacher. But he can be moody at times - rapture moody.
Take July 29, 2012 for example. His "Moody Church Hour" sermon that day on "Philadelphia" (one of Revelation's seven churches) included the following:
"It is His coming, the rapture, that would keep the church from the hour of trial [a.k.a. the great tribulation] that is coming upon the whole earth. And isn't it interesting? He does not say 'I will keep you through the hour of trial but rather I will keep you out of - that's what the text [Rev. 3:10] says - I will keep you out of the hour of trial that is coming upon the whole earth.
"There is of course a disagreement as to whether or not we will go through the tribulation, or whether or not we will be raptured ahead of time, and we don't know all the details until it happens. But wouldn't it be wonderful if when we are going up in the sky we could look at all of those posttribbers and say with a smile 'I told you it was so'? Wouldn't that be wonderful to be able to do that?"
The congregation immediately applauded.
Note that Lutzer twice used the word "wonderful" when asking his audience how wonderful it would be to use spiteful pride against the only "rapture" view found in all theology books and organized churches before the year 1830: the posttribulation view!
On the "Moody Church Hour" web site the same day (July 29) Lutzer wrote that "great benefit was derived from John Stott's book WHAT CHRIST THINKS OF THE CHURCH when these messages [on Revelation's seven churches] were prepared."
Incredibly, the Stott that Lutzer leaned on disagrees completely with Lutzer. The same Stott book, p. 104, says this: "He would not spare them from the suffering [Rev. 3:10]; but He would uphold them in it."
It would be wonderful if Erwin Lutzer would visit Google and type in "Famous Rapture Watchers" and "Famous Rapture Watchers (Addendum)." Not only would he spot the very same Stott quote, but in the same summaries he would also discover that all of the greatest Greek New Testament scholars of all time have uniformly viewed Rev. 3:10 (the most important "proof text" for pretribbers) as teaching "preservation through" and not "escaping beforehand"! ("Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty" is another informative Google article.)
One wonders what will have to happen to change the Moody pastor's mood.