What's Real About the Rapture? (page 2)

Phizzy

"they sure know how to create, feed and then exploit people's fears" true of nearly all religions that.

Think About It

The rapture belief is just as kooky as some of the JW beliefs, and with just as many failed predictions by various ones.

poppers

"they sure know how to create, feed and then exploit people's fears" true of nearly all religions that.

I agree. Televangelists are the most brazen about it though.

The non-event "happened" in 54 AD as Paul himself thought it would. Period! This, with a long line of other Bible passages have been appropriated by modern abusers. Here's the passage and my own translation and notes, which Are part of a new translation of Pau l's letters I'm working on (don't fret I have been schooled for this and have me credentials).

1 Thess 4:15 For this we say to you in the word of the Lord: that we1 who are alive, we who are left at the Lord’s coming, will not precede those who have died; 16 that the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet-blast of God,2 and the dead in Christ will rise first, 17 then we who are alive, who are left, will be snatched up3 together with them in the clouds at the meeting of the Lord in the air;4 and thus we will be with the Lord forever.

1. The use of the 1 st person plural "we" here and in verse 17 clearly displays that Paul believed that he himself would be "one of the living," "one of those who were left standing" at Jesus’ parousia. It was that imminent for Paul, and thus perhaps why the death of some of the Thessalonians were surprising given the shortness of time believed to be left before Jesus was to come.

2. Paul accesses current apocalyptic imagery that would have been available to him through the apocalyptic literature already penned in the first-century or the apocalyptic fervor "in the air." For the latter, see Josephus.

3. The Greek verb ?ρπ?ζω (harpazo) can mean: ‘to take away,’ ‘to catch up,’ or ‘to snatch.’ In Jerome’s Latin translation the verb is raptio, ‘to seize’ or ‘to take,’ whence the modern (mis)appropriation as ‘the rapture.’ What is, however, perhaps more significant is that Paul uses this phrase (or image) for the living. The term was typically used in the Greco-Roman context for mourners to lament how the deceased was "snatched away" by Death. So in a consolatory manner, Paul has combined the fates of the already dead Thessalonians and those who are living—both of whom will be "snatched away" from death! It might be argued, furthermore, that those who are living, those who remain alive at Jesus’ parousia, are nonetheless reckoned already ‘dead’ via the rite of baptism, which has buried them with Christ (see Rom 6:1-5).

4. The image is rather bizarre, but there are precedents in Jewish apocalyptic literature. Those who have been "snatched away" from death are also, in the apocalyptic event, snatched away from the "wrath of God" (5:9) that will presumably scourge the earth.

http://contradictionsinthebible.com/

Londo111

I'm guessing that IFB means Independent Fundamental Baptist?

LV101

ahhh, thank you Londo. I guickly googled last night and that's read a few headlines w/word "independent" thrown around.

thanks.

scotoma

It doesn't matter what JW's teach. The "rapture" is a the perfect word to describe what is referred to at 1Cor 15:50-57 and 1Thess. 4:14-18

JW's don't like the word rapture. But in 1994 they pretty much fell in line with that concept.

There was a big article about what happens "immediately after the tribulation". They dropped one shoe and admitted that the gathering of the chosen ones is not the door-to-door work.

Early in the conclusion of the system of things, these anointed disciples of Jesus were brought into theocratic unity. However, according to the sequence employed, Mark 13:27 and Matthew 24:31 describe something else. “With a great trumpet sound,” the remaining “chosen ones” will be gathered from the ends of the earth. How will they be gathered? Unquestionably, they will be “sealed” and clearly identified by Jehovah as part of “those called and chosen and faithful.” And at God’s designated time, they will be gathered up to heaven to be king-priests. This will bring joy to them and to their faithful companions, the “great crowd,” who will themselves be marked for ‘coming out of the great tribulation’ to enjoy blessings on a paradise earth.—Matthew 24:22; Revelation 7:3, 4, 9-17; Watchtower 94 Feb 15 Page 21 Paragraph 23

What's strange is this article involving new light about the gathering of the chosen ones to heaven makes no reference to the key scriptures that most Christians associate with the rapture. Yet those scriptures are clearly parallel to the ones in Matthew about the trumpet and the rapture.

The most incriminating thing about this is that it is one of those doctrines that devastate their teaching that the resurrection of the annointed who have died has already occurred. "But shun empty speeches that violate what is holy for they will advance to more and more ungodliness, and their word will spread like gangrene. Hymenaeus and Philetus are of that number. These very men have deviated from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already occurred and they are subverting the faith of some." 2Tim 2:16-18

All of these lies are taught to cover up the fact that nothing happened in 1914.

heathen

I agree with the WTBTS on that one , Paul is talking to the LF and he's comparing the end time people to the ones of his time in regards to the resurrection, the end time people do not , "fall asleep", for any period of time , rather they merely have an instance of death which amount to a twinkling of the eye , It may have started already back in 1919 or something but I bet the last of the LF will not know a long intern of death , as to how the GC escape is yet to be seen if at all , could even be the mother ship coming for them ...LOL

garyneal

Sorry for not responding sooner. To answer the question about IFB, yes, it stands for Independent Fundamental Baptist. Until I watched that 20/20 special on them and learned that there was a group of former IFB's that existed, I just used the full name but it got lengthy saying Independent Fundamental Baptist over and over again.

There are many striking similarities between the witnesses and the IFB's. When I started attending the meetings with my wife, I felt those same feelings I used to feel back in my old IFB church. That was part of the reason why I could never embrace them as part of the Christianity that I came to know after leaving the IFB's (they were far too similar).

Anyway, indeed, televangelist like Jack Van Impe were always about stirring up fear and begging for money. Jack went as far as to predict that he believed a lot of the events predicted in the Bible would start coming to past around the late 1990's (around 1998 from what I recall him saying). Well, it is 2013, and no rapture unless it was invisible. I don't know if Jack and his wife were IFB's but my pastor approved of them so at the time I believed what he said. Of course, my pastor also preached that the beast in Revelations was a super computer in Belgium and that Captain Planet was another form of Satan, or that the smurfs were demonic, or that Proctor and Gamble was run by satanists.

Wierd, but until I watch that 20/20 special, I never took the IFB's for a cult. Now I know better.

What's Real About the Rapture?