The Rapture

Coming up next on Renewing Your Mind... ... Through this series of lectures on the end times, we've been looking at those New Testament prophecies that in one sense or another perhaps were fulfilled within the first century time limits, particularly in and around the destruction of Jerusalem and of the temple. And those who believe that these prophecies of the Olivet Discourse were fulfilled in the first century are usually described as being preterists or adopting the theory that is called preterism, meaning that these future prophecies have already been fulfilled in the past. But we also have to be careful to distinguish between two various and different forms of preterism. There's that group which call themselves full preterists and those that would call themselves partial preterists. Now, what's the difference between full preterism and partial preterism? Well, full preterism, as the name suggests, believes that all of the specific future events that are prophesied in the New Testament regarding the end times have already taken place in the first century. So, that would include not only the destruction of the temple and the destruction of Jerusalem and the return of Jesus, but also the great resurrection, the rapture, and all other matters that pertain to future prophecy. Partial preterism, however, differs from full preterism in this respect that the partial preterists believe that though the return of Jesus in 70 AD was a return of Christ in terms of a return in judgment over Israel, it was not the parousia or the final coming of Jesus at the end of history.

The partial preterists would say that Jesus came in 70 AD at the end of an age, namely the Jewish age, but not at the end of all history, that the destruction of Jerusalem and the visitation of God's wrath upon His people there was a significant day of the Lord, but not the final and consummate day of the Lord, which remains yet to occur in the future. But most significantly is the difference on understanding the future resurrection of the saints and the rapture and last judgments that are predicted in the New Testament. Now, let's look first today at the difference with respect to the resurrection. When we turn to 1 Corinthians 15, where we have Paul's most lengthy and complex teaching regarding the resurrection of the bodies of the saints who will participate in the glorified body of Christ in line with his resurrection, Paul concludes that study in 1 Corinthians 15 with this teaching beginning at verse 50, "'Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption.

Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality, so that when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your sting? O death, where is your sting?

O hell, where is your victory?' The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." Now, prior to this section of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul talks about our being raised with glorified bodies after the similitude of the resurrection body with which Christ rose from the dead.

Now, up to this point in our discussions about the future prophecy, the most central controlling factor in our consideration has been the timeframe references that Jesus gives or the author of the book of Revelation gives with respect to the time in which we can expect the fulfillment of these prophecies. Now, we understand that in the early church, one of the very first Christian creeds that was formulated is that creed called the Apostle's Creed. And in the Apostle's Creed, there is a phrase, in the original Latin it reads, resurrectionis carnus, in which we affirm as Christians our faith in the resurrection of the body. We say, I believe in the resurrection of the body. That profession of faith that comes from the early church was not simply a profession of faith in Christ's resurrected body, but rather in our resurrected bodies. As Christ is promised to be the firstfruits of those who will be raised from the dead, so we are told in the New Testament that in the resurrection we will have glorified bodies, that we will not be disembodied spirits wandering through eternity in that state. But there will come a time when our souls will be reunited with our bodies, our bodies will be raised, and the new bodies that we will enjoy will be incorruptible and immortal, so to speak. And so that's always been a major hope of the Christian community that we look forward to that day where we will participate in the resurrection of the body. Now, full preterists argue that that prophecy about the future has already been fulfilled, which is a startling and astonishing conclusion.

Well, let's see first why they argue for its past fulfillment, and then we'll look at how they present that argument. If you notice when I was reading from 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says these things, "'Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet,' etc."

And then he goes on and said, "'We shall be changed.'" Now, we notice that in this text, unlike the Olivet Discourse, there are no specific explicit time frame references. Paul doesn't say this is going to happen before this generation passes away, nor does he say these things must take place shortly or that they are near at hand.

So why then would somebody find in here a future prophecy that one would expect to take place in the near future? Well, those who hold to full preterism seize upon the use of the word we in this text. Three times in the passage that I just read, Paul uses this term we.

He says, "'We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, and we shall be changed into this incorruptible situation.'" Now, elsewhere with respect to the rapture, Paul speaks in similar terms, and this is linked to the rapture text, where Paul says in 1 Thessalonians that those of us who are alive at His coming, that that indicates that the us and the we would include the apostle Paul. So that Paul seems to be saying that these things are going to happen while he is still alive, since he is including himself in the group that is designated by the word we or the word us. Now, notice that this is not a statement whereby Paul says, I will be alive explicitly and concretely, but rather he just says in passing, those of us who are alive at that time, and here in 1 Corinthians, we shall be changed, and so on, does not necessarily mean that the apostle expected that he would be alive when these prophecies would be fulfilled. Now, the advocates of full preterism argue that the we implies that Paul expected these things to take place during his lifetime. And I have to say at this point that the preterists are not the only people who assume that Paul is indicating his own personal expectation of being included in those who were still living when these prophecies would be fulfilled, because this is a point that the higher critics of the New Testament have also seized upon, arguing that Paul certainly expected the final consummation of the kingdom in his lifetime, including the great resurrection and the rapture. And they argue on the same basis that the preterists do from inferences drawn from the inclusive language that the apostle uses when he says we or those of us who are still alive. But those words, again, do not necessarily require that we assume that Paul was trying to communicate to his people that he personally would be alive. But he was speaking to the Christian community, not only to his contemporaries but to the whole body of Christ from that day forward. And certainly, Paul would be included in the resurrection whenever it would take place, whether it was in the first century or in the third millennium.

Who knows? He would still be included in the we because all of the believers will participate in the resurrection and all will participate in the rapture. And of course, in the rapture thing when he says those of us who are alive, again, does not require that it includes that he be living on the earth at that time. Now, what I'm saying again is that those inferences drawn from the preterists, the full preterists, are possible inferences from the text but not necessary inferences from the text.

And so, we look at this in terms of how they see the fulfillment of these things in the first century. In order to take the position that both the resurrection and the rapture took place in the first century, one has to spiritualize the texts in terms of the descriptive ideas and concepts that are used about this resurrection. And if there's any place where it's a serious problem to begin spiritualizing something is when that which you're spiritualizing is discussing something that is supposedly physical and bodily. It's very difficult to spiritualize the bodily resurrection of the saints without at the same time actually denying the bodily resurrection of the saints. Because if it's only a spiritual resurrection, then manifestly it's not a physical resurrection.

But advocates of full preterism such as Stuart Russell and Max King do precisely this. They say that the resurrection of which Paul speaks did take place in 70 AD, but it was a spiritual resurrection of those who have died. They were spiritually raised and are now in heaven, and they are not to be understood in physical categories. Not without reason, this position has been charged with being a form of Gnosticism because as the Gnostics denied the full reality of the physical resurrection of Jesus and even of His physical incarnation, this would seem to be denying a real physical resurrection of the saints since in order to have taken place in the first century without anybody's knowing it, and nobody in the early church recording the resurrection of those who had died before them, that this would force them to this idea of a spiritual resurrection. Now, the same type of thing happens with respect to the treatment of the rapture which Paul describes in his correspondence to the Thessalonicans. In chapter 4 of 1 Thessalonians, we read the following account of the rapture, which has gained so much attention in Christian eschatology that it warrants that we read the text. In verse 13, we read these words in chapter 4 of 1 Thessalonians, "'But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.

Therefore, comfort one another with these words.'" Now here the apostle is addressing a concern that was a vital concern of early Christians. The early Christian community had the hope for the future resurrection and for the return of Christ in clouds of glory, and yet before these things took place, many of the Christians of the early community died. And so the obvious question that their relatives were asking was this, does this mean that our relatives and our friends who have passed on will miss these great eschatological events that have been promised to us? And Paul is answering the Christian community by saying, by no means. In fact, not only will those who have died not miss the return of Christ at the end of time and the great resurrection, but they will be front row seats participants.

They will be at the head of the line because the apostle says the dead in Christ will rise first, and they will be taken up into the air, and we who are alive at His coming will also be taken up to join the Lord or to meet the Lord, as the language the apostle Paul says, in the air as he descends with the trumpet sound and that sort of thing. Now, the full preterists have to speak again of a secret rapture, a rapture that was spiritual, that was silent, and that was invisible. To argue that the rapture has already taken place means it occurred, nobody heard it, nobody saw it, and no one was aware of it.

And so if it were simply spiritual and invisible and silent, we wonder how we can do justice to the language of this text and others. Well, again, Russell and others fall back on the symbolism that is frequently used in prophetic prophecies that say you don't have to make a literal interpretation of these things. But to me, it involves a serious bending of the words of this text to talk about a secret which, according to the language of the apostle, will be the worst-kept secret in history and hardly a silent event as all heaven will break loose. Now, on the other hand, there's all kinds of debate about what actually is going to take place in the rapture and, again, when the rapture will take place. Those who hold a completely future interpretation of New Testament eschatology, particularly in dispensational premillennialism, expect the rapture to take place before the tribulation.

And you'll hear people talk about the pre-trib rapture. The idea here is that there's going to be a great tribulation at the end of history, but prior to that tribulation, the church will be caught up to meet Jesus, and Jesus will sort of come halfway back to the earth. He'll take up His saints out of the earth to meet Him in the air, and then He will stay with His saints aloft either for the whole seven years of the tribulation or however the schema is worked out. And then at the final time, He will come back again for His final manifestation, returning with the saints that He had taken up out of the world before the tribulation. So this scheme has two returns of Jesus at the end of the times.

One, the secret return first just for His saints who were taken up out of the world, who meet Him, and then His final return after the tribulation, and so on. I think this fundamentally misunderstands the imagery that is used here by the apostle with respect to the rapture and its meaning. Paul does not say that the Christians will be caught up in the air and then stay up in the air with Jesus. The imagery of the rapture is of Jesus. The imagery here is of meeting Christ as He is returning in glory so that the Christians are participating in His victorious return to this world.

It's not that He'll come so far, catch up the church, and then stay there and go back to heaven until a later time. But the whole point of the imagery here echoes and reflects something that was commonplace in the contemporary world in which Paul wrote, namely the pattern and practice of the triumphal return to Rome of the Roman armies. Whenever the Roman armies would come back from a campaign, before they would enter the city of Rome, they would camp outside the city, about a mile outside the city, and there would be all of the soldiers plus all of the captives that they had brought from the campaign. And then they would send a messenger into the Senate to announce their arrival. Remember they carried the banners of SPQR, the Senate and the people of Rome, and that would give the time for the city planners to erect an arch of triumph and to decorate the city, much as we would for a ticker tape parade for conquering heroes. They would spray garlands with the sweet aroma throughout the city to cover up the smell of slaves and their odor and so on. And then at a prearranged time, a signal would be made whereby the trumpets would be blown, and that was the signal for the armies of Rome to march in triumph into the city.

But before they began their march, at the single of the trumpet, everyone who was an actual citizen of Rome was invited to come outside the city to join the parade, to march back in through the arch of triumph with the victorious army so that they participated in the victory and participated in the triumph. And I think if you see throughout Paul's writings, he frequently borrows the imagery of the Romans from this. And what I hear Paul saying is that when Jesus comes, he's going to come back to this earth with his whole church. The church will be caught up to meet him as he descends, and he will continue to descend along with his whole entourage of believers.

Now, when this will occur depends on what your views of the millennium may be and so on, and we'll look at those things in our next and final session. That's Dr. R.C. Sproul helping us understand the rapture. And you're listening to Renewing Your Mind on this Thursday.

I'm Lee Webb. Thank you for being with us. We've learned so much this week as we've made our way through R.C. 's series, The Last Days According to Jesus. When we study the end times, the sheer number of opinions and theories can seem overwhelming, and that's one of the reasons that Dr. Sproul taught this series. The book of Revelation is a mystery, and we will never have all of our questions answered when it comes to this book.

But R.C. really wanted to help us understand the context and gain greater clarity about Revelation. And we'd like for you to have all 12 messages from his series. Just contact us today with a donation of any amount. We'll send you the two-DVD set. Again, it's titled, The Last Days According to Jesus, and you can make your request and give your gift online at renewingyourmind.org, or you can call us.

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Find out more about that when you go to renewingyourmind.org. Well, tomorrow we're going to wrap up this series, and we're going to take a look at what's described as the millennium. Throughout history, there have always been those who maintain that Christ would come back before the millennial and would establish a kingdom for a thousand years, after which there would be the great tribulation and the final battle.

But is that what we find in Scripture? R.C. will address that tomorrow here on Renewing Your Mind. R.C.