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Dear Reader:
Two weeks ago our brothers and
sisters in Christ living along the gulf coast in Louisiana, Alabama,
and Mississippi were dealt a devastating blow in the form
of hurricane Katrina. Many people lost their homes, places of
worship, friends and family to this deadly storm. Please keep
all of those affected by this disaster in your prayers and support
organizations like IOCC who
assist these people in their greatest hour of need. Thank you
again for your continued interest in this newsletter. We have
enjoyed your feedback and hope that it has proven to be a valuable
resource. As always, we invite you to continue sharing your questions
or comments on any issue facing us as Orthodox Christians by
e-mailing: info@light-n-life.com.
Sincerely
in Christ,
The Staff at Light & Life Publishing
By Anthony M. Coniaris
As I was driving one day I encountered a bumper sticker admonishing
me: “WARNING! In the event of Rapture, this car will
be driverless.”
The strange belief in the Rapture teaches that some day (sooner
rather than later), without warning, born-again Christians will
begin to float up from the freeway, abandoned vehicles careening
wildly. There will be airliners in the sky suddenly with
no one at the controls! Presumably, God is removing these
favored ones from earth to spare them the tribulation of the
Anti-Christ which the rest of us will have to endure.
Unfortunately the Rapture has been promoted widely by the Left
Behind series of books that have sold over 70 million copies.
The Rapture represents a radical misinterpretation of Scripture.
I remember watching “Sixty Minutes”a year ago and
was appalled to hear the announcer say that “the Rapture
is an unmistakenly Christian doctrine”. It is not!
It is a serious distortion of Scripture. It is astonishing
that a belief so contrary to Scripture and the tradition of the
Church could be propagated by so-called “Christians”.
According to the Bible and according to the belief not only of
Orthodox Christians but also of the Roman Catholic and most Protestant
mainline churches, the true Rapture will not be secret; it will
be the great and very visible Second Coming of Jesus at the end
of the world. That is the one and only “Rapture”.
It will not be a separate, secret event but one that every eye
shall see (1 Thess. 4:16-17).
The word rapture is not found in Scripture but hearkens to 1
Thess. 4:17 where St. Paul says that when the Lord comes again
“we who are alive…shall be caught up…in the
clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” This “being
caught up…in the clouds”—arpagisometha
in Greek, is translated by some as “raptured”.
The word itself is not found in Orthodox theology.
The notion of a rapture in which Christ comes unseen to take
believers away secretly, and only later comes back again for
everyone else publicly—this whole teaching is quite
novel. It was almost unheard of until John Nelson Darby
formulated it in the 1800s as part of a new approach to the Bible,
sometimes called “dispensationalism”.
The purpose of the “Rapture” is to protect the elect
from the tribulations of the end times. Yet Jesus said
nothing about sparing anyone from tribulation. In fact,
He said, “In the world you have tribulation, but be of
good cheer. I have overcome the world.” Nowhere
did Jesus ever say that He would return secretly to rapture the
elect. Rather, He promised to be with His elect in all
tribulations. “Lo, I am with you always. I
will never leave you or forsake you.” He even had
something good to say about being persecuted: “Blessed
are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:10).
Those who espouse the Rapture claim that Matthew 24:40-41 refers
clearly to the rapture of the just, “Then shall two be
in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken,
and the other left.” The entire passage, however,
refers to Christ’s second coming where He will judge the
living and the dead and separate the just from the unjust.
Darby taught as dogma that when the Scriptures reveal that the
Lord will reign on earth for a thousand years (Rev. 20:4), this
figure is to be taken literally, rather than as a symbol for
eternity as we believe. The Council of Ephesus in A.D.
431 condemned as heresy this teaching which is called chialiasmos
(millenianism or 1000 years). In fact, the Seven Ecumenical
Councils (325-787 A.D.) in which the essential truths of the
Christian faith were defined never mention a rapture. Yet
evangelical Christians and Pentecostals keep using obscure passages
of the book of Revelation which purport to give a detailed timetable
of what will happen at the end of the world, despite the fact
that Jesus Himself warned that no man knows either the day or
the hour when the Son of Man shall return.
A major problem with the Rapture is that it ends up teaching
not two but three comings of Jesus—first His birth in Bethlehem;
second, His secret coming to snatch away (rapture) the “born-again”;
and third, His coming at the end of the world to judge the living
and the dead and to reign in glory. Yet only two not three
comings of Christ are mentioned in the Bible. We have the
clearest definition of this in the Nicene Creed when we confess
that “the Lord Jesus Christ…will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead. His Kingdom will have
no end…. I expect the resurrection of the dead.
And the life of the ages to come.” There is no mention
of a “Rapture”.
As already stated, most Christians, Orthodox, Roman Catholics
and Protestants do not believe in the Rapture. In fact,
one Protestant pastor, John L. Gray, summarized magnificently
what we Orthodox and most other Christians believe about the
Rapture when he wrote these remarkable words,
Though many believe and teach this “Pre-Tribulation
Rapture” theory, they erroneously do so, because neither
Jesus, Paul, Peter, John, nor any of the other writers of the
Bible taught this. Nor did the early church fathers, nor
any others for many hundreds of years…. Did you
know that NONE of this was ever taught prior to 1812, and that
all forms of Pre-Tribulation Rapture teaching were developed
since that date? …. If I were to preach something,
or believe something, supposedly from the Bible, but cannot find
that ANYONE ELSE before 1812 ever believed it or taught it, I
would seriously question that it is based on the Bible.
Thus the Rapture is foreign to the Bible and to the living tradition
of the Church. It is what we call a heresy, a false teaching.
False teachings, such as this, happen when people—like
John Darby—believe that they have the right to interpret
the Scriptures individually apart from the Living Body of Christ—the
Church—where the Spirit of Truth abides and leads us to
all truth.
I can think
of no better words to conclude than those of Jesus when He speaks
of the one and only “Rapture”, the Second Coming:
“Be on guard. Be alert! You do not know when
that time will come…keep watch…if he comes suddenly,
do not let Him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I
say to everyone: Watch!” (Mark 13:32-37).
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