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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Edellinen: Kirkkohistorian
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