keskiviikko 1. huhtikuuta 2020

The false doctrine of the Secret Rapture


The false doctrine of the Secret Rapture


Which is taken: the wheat or the tares? (A.K.A. The rapture of the church is a lie)

There is no rapture. At least not the way the Christian church defines it. Those who are taken away, according to Scripture, are those who are "the wicked and the treacherous" (Prov. 2.21-22). The tares and chaff will fly away on the wind and be burned. The wheat (righteous) will remain to rule and reign over the nations with Him.




The word ‘rapturo’ from the latin is where people get this idea. But Scripture was not written in latin. Scripture was written in Hebrew. The verse (1 Thes 4.17), where the latin translated ‘rapturo’, uses not as most would say ‘harpazo’ but ‘arpagesometha’ in the greek. You will need to note that this verse is in regard to the coming or appearing of the Messiah and not some secret event. Paul continued telling the Thessalonians in 2 Thess 2 that the coming of the Messiah would not occur until after the great apostasy has occurred and the man of lawlessness is revealed. Paul in 2 Thess. told us that those who would say that the day of the Messiah’s coming was imminent (that it could happen at any time – as do the ‘rapturists’) are trying to deceive us.

Yeshua said that His coming would not be in secret but that every eye would see it. He also said that His coming would be after the tribulation. He taught us to not believe those who say that He has come in secret. (Mat. 24)

If you look at the translations from the hebrew the word used is ‘yachdaw’ or ‘yachad’. The hebrew gives the meaning that we will be gathered or brought together as one. Which if we will study the entirety of the Scripture, we will know that this is what the first and the greater exodus are all about. We are going to be made one, one family, one bride, serving one HaShem.

If one wants to use the ‘harpazo’ greek word, as many do — then the closest hebrew word in the scriptures would be ‘natsal’. "Natsal" means to deliver, preserve, rescue. It can even be said to mean to snatch away. If you search it out in the Scripture you will find that it is used to describe our being brought out as one from Egypt as in Ex 3.8 where HaShem says that He has come to "deliver" from Egypt and bring us into the Land. Exodus 6.6 "I will deliver you from bondage"; Ex 18.8 where Moses tells his FIL how HaShem has delivered them.

Note that they were delivered not by some secret way but before the eyes of all. They were present during all of the plagues on Egypt and were present during the wrath being poured out on Pharaoh and his armies. They were present yet preserved (natsal) in the midst of it.

Also look at:

Devarim / Deut. 23:14 “Since the LORD your God walks in the midst of your camp to DELIVER you and to defeat your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy; and He must not see anything indecent among you or He will turn away from you.

Read Psalm 91 where HaShem in vs. 3 delivers (natsal) you. In vs. 7 many fall at our side and yet it does not approach us. In vs. 8 we look on (are able to see it) with our eyes.

Mattityahu / Matt. 13:24 Yeshua presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field.

Mattityahu / Matt. 13:25 “But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away.

Mattityahu / Matt. 13:26 “But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also.

Mattityahu / Matt. 13:27 “The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’

Mattityahu / Matt. 13:28 “And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ The slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’

Mattityahu / Matt. 13:29 “But he said, ‘No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them.

Mattityahu / Matt. 13:30 ‘Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”

Note that first the tares are gathered, not the other way around as is commonly taught.

Mattityahu / Matt. 3:12 “His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

Study what winnowing is. The winnowing fork is put to the grain (which was growing together with the tares). The tares and chaff will fly in the wind and the grain (the fruit that remains) will fall back to the earth.

HaShem will deliver and rescue us. HaShem will gather us and make us one. He will do this through the greater exodus not through the rapture. If you take the thought of being caught up from the earth and then taken away and search it through the Scripture you will find that that type of event always refers to the wicked.

So again, after taking the long way around, the tares and chaff will be taken off on the wind. The wheat will be what remains. The wheat, the upright, will live in the land and remain in it.

The history of the Christian Rapture

When we remember that the Secret Rapture theory was virtually unheard of and untaught until around 1830, it is essential to examine its origins first. Such a teaching was unknown to the early Church Fathers e.g. Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian, who were convinced that the Christian Church would pass through great tribulation at the hands of the anti-Messiah system before the return of the Messiah. Furthermore the Rapture theory was not taught by the great stalwarts of the Reformed Faith – Huss, Wycliffe, Luther, Calvin, Knox, Cranmer or even by the Wesley brothers in the 18th Century. Whence came this teaching therefore and where did this novel. idea arise?

A Chilean Jesuit priest, Emmanuel Lacunza wrote a book entitled ‘The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty’, and in its pages taught the novel notion that Messiah returns not once, but twice, and at the ‘first stage’ of His return He ‘raptures’ His Church so they can escape the reign of the ‘future anti-Messiah’. In order to avoid any taint of Romanism, Lacunza published his book under the assumed name of Rabbi Ben Ezra, a supposedly converted Jew. Lacunza’s book found its way to the library of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and there in 1826 Dr Maitland, the Archbishop’s librarian came upon it and read it and soon after began to issue a series of parnphlets giving the Jesuit, Futurist view of prophecy. The idea soon found acceptance in the Anglo-Catholic Ritualist movement in the National Church of England, and soon it tainted the very heart of Protestantism.

The Secret Rapture doctrine was given a second door of entrance at this time by the ministry of one, Edward Irving, founder of the so-called ‘Catholic Apostolic Church’. It was in Irving’s London church, in 1830, that a young girl named Margaret McDonald gave an ecstatic prophecy in which she claimed there would be a special secret coming of the Messiah to ‘rapture’ those awaiting His return. From then until his death in 1834 Irving devoted his considerable talent as a preacher to spreading the theory of the ‘secret rapture’.

However, it was necessary for Jesuitry to have a third door of entrance to the Reforrned fold and this they gained via a sincere Christian, J. N. Darby, generally regarded as the founder of the ‘Brethren’. As an Anglican curate Darby attended a number of mysteriously organised meetings on Bible Prophecy at Powerscourt in Ireland, and at these gatherings he learned about the ‘secret rapture’. He carried the teaching into the Brethren and hence into the heart of Evangelicalism. With a new veneer of being scriptural the teaching spread and was later popularised in the notes of the Schofield Reference Bible.

Written by Teresa Smith

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