I just finished Paul Maier's latest book, More Than a Skeleton, a theological mystery novel centered in the "rapture", a notion quite new in the Christian church.  Hardly anyone these days hasn't heard the word, though 30 years ago less than 5% of the Christian church worldwide was familiar with it.  Now everyone has an opinion about it, and worse yet, many have accepted it as a fact, including many Lutherans.  Let me assure you Lutherans really DO believe in the rapture; it's just NOT the rapture some other Christians think it is.  We believe God will one day snatch us up to heaven, and that's the rapture.  But we don't believe the rapture will be connected with an earthly reign of 1000 years by Jesus.  It will happen all at once, just before the end.

          Now why should we be concerned about the rapture just before Thanksgiving?  Surely we don't think the world is going to end soon.  But of course, we don't know that.  It could happen any day.  At times the world seems so shaky and the church so confused that we might even hope the end is coming soon.  But generally we must admit our world is no more shaky than it's ever been, and the church may even be less confused now than it was during the Dark Ages.  The main reason we speak about the End Times and the rapture now is because it's the end of the Church Year and that's the topic we always talk about now.  But another and better reason is because there's so many people believing the wrong things about it.

          Maybe you've seen the bumper sticker, "In case of rapture and the driver disappears, grab the wheel."  That comes from the idea that before the end of the world, there will be a lot of people disappearing into heaven.  Some Christians believe there will be a mini-resurrection before the real one, an intermediate raising, where everyone else is left behind to give them a second chance to accept Christ.  This is the basis for the "Left Behind" series of novels by Jenkins and LaHaye.

          Not only are people reading their books, but they're believing them.  But the only thing that's being left behind here is the truth.  There will be no mini-resurrection, just one final big one.  So, then, who came up with the notion of a millennium of Christ's rule on earth before the end of the world?  It began in 1830 with a little Scottish girl named Margaret McDonald who had a vision about it.  Her idea was picked up by J. N. Darby, a travelling evangelist who brought it to America.  American preachers, such as Cyrus Scofield and William Miller, amplified Darby's views and all this led millions of Christians down the blind alley of bad scripture interpretation.

          On April 3, 1843, a half million people, disciples of New York evangelist William Miller, awaited the end of the world.  Some of his disciples were on mountaintops, hoping for a head start to heaven.  Others were in graveyards, planning to ascend in union with their departed loved ones.  Some high society women clustered together outside town to avoid entering heaven with the commoners.  But when April 4 dawned, the Millerites were still there, though a bit disillusioned.  But they took heart.  Their leader had predicted several other dates for the end, dates that have, of course, also come and gone and the end is still not here.

          If you look at some verses in Matthew 24, however, you can see how they may have believed this.  It says, "That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.  Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left.  Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.  Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come." (Matthew 24:39-42)   But the whole point Jesus was making is that we should be ready at all times because the end will come so suddenly.  "One will be taken and the other left" is a literary term called "overstatement."  It's an exaggeration to make a point.  Jesus was saying the end will happen so fast, it will be like some are snatched away while others left.

          We know this because there's no other place in all the Bible that mentions this idea again.  A basic principal of interpreting the Bible is that any doctrine must be based in more than one passage.  If there's only one passage about an idea, there's another meaning to that verse.  But there are no other passages on this because that's not the point.  The meaning Jesus intended for us is that we be ready at all times, because the end will happen suddenly, and we won't know when that will be.  "No one knows about that day or hour," said Jesus, "not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." (Matthew 24:36)

          Now I did say Lutherans do believe there will be a rapture, but it won't be the kind Darby or Miller predicted.  The definition of "rapture" used here is "the carrying of a person to another place of existence."  Christian rapture means carrying believers to heaven.  St. Paul says that will truly happen, but only on Judgment Day, the one and only resurrection, not some intermediate mini-resurrection.  Paul says, "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.  And so we will be with the Lord forever."

          From the time of Christ until 1830, just 170 years ago, it was taught by nearly 100% of Christianity that the real rapture of all believers would be straight to heaven in that one great and final resurrection.  True, some segments of the reformed church had taught millennialism, that Christ would come to rule the earth for a thousand years, taking their ideas from Revelation 20.  But only in the last 170 years has there been a growing acceptance of the idea that a rapture would leave some people behind.  Let me assure you all that the only rapture we'll have will come at the last second of life on this earth.  Meanwhile, we will all remain here until the Lord Himself comes.  Just remember, Jenkins and LaHaye are writing novels, not truth.

          On that final day, Jesus will come down and with a loud voice.  He will raise the deceased believers first to heaven.  Then He will raise living believers.  Unbelievers will be raised but it won't be to heaven.  They will go straight to perdition, to eternal separation from God, where there's a sadness and pain that are unimaginable.  If you want numbers, only 5% of all Christianity believes in a literal "rapture", with about 15% believing in two resurrections with a thousand year rule by Christ on earth.  But 85% of Christianity believes in one resurrection only.  To them the "millennium" is the period between Christ's return to heaven and His coming again on Judgment Day.  Amillennialism may not sound as exciting as those others, but it's the truth.

          Meanwhile, what should we be doing?  Should we eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow may be Judgment Day?  At the height of WWII, Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was imprisoned for taking a stand against Hitler.  Yet he continued to urge fellow believers to resist Nazi tyranny.  A group of Christians, believing that Hitler was the Antichrist, asked Bonhoeffer, "Why do you expose yourself to all this danger?  Jesus will return any day, and all your work and suffering will be for nothing."  Bonhoeffer replied, "If Jesus returns tomorrow, then tomorrow I'll rest from my labor.  But today I have work to do.  I must continue the struggle until it's finished."  And Bonhoeffer's stand for the truth cost him his life.

          The Gospel of Jesus Christ is that He alone will judge the world at the end of all things.  He came into this world that we might be forgiven.  He is the Eternal One in whom we trust.  The Bible is filled with the Gospel that only through faith in Him can we be saved.  We trust the Gospel.  We believe He is our Lord and that when the end comes, He will take all believers to eternal life.

          Any idea that takes away from the Gospel should be avoided.  There is only one life to live and we have only once chance to receive Jesus Christ.  There will not be a time of Christ's rule on earth so the ne'er-do-wells have a second chance.  The chance we have is now.  As Paul says, (2 Corinthians 6:2) "I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation."  May we all be ready by faith in Jesus Christ for that great and final day, whenever it may come.  Amen

Copyright © 2003 by Pastor Bob Tasler.  All rights reserved.