The Dispensationalist program for the end
Daniel’s vision of the 70 weeks (Dan. 9:24-27) is seen to be a key. Sometime toward the end of the 69th week the anointed one will be cut off – this being a reference to Jesus. There then ensues a gap in the time sequence with the 70th week yet to be fulfilled in the future. (Each of these 70 ‘weeks’ being a period of 7 years, 69 ‘weeks’ are past but there will be a final 7 year period that has not yet begun.)
[This parenthesis – the break between the 69th and the 70th week – is absolutely key to the Dispensational pattern, although nothing in the text gives this indication.]
In the parenthesis the church age is experienced.
- At the end of the church age there is the secret rapture (church being taken to heaven), and then the final week begins to unfold. [There are some who hold that the church is raptured half way through this final week, so 3½ years into this final period.]
- The Supper of the Lamb will take place in heaven during these last 7 years, the presence of the Spirit is removed from the earth, and in this setting antiChrist appears and in the middle of this final week he comes and destroys the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem.
- He will then gather the armies together to fight Israel and the battle of Armageddon will take place.
- Then we have the Second Coming of Jesus who destroys these forces that have gathered against Israel (and this is understood as a literal battle).
- Through the persecution that took place Jews will now be able to receive Jesus as Messiah.
- Following this battle the Millennial kingdom of 1000 years will be established with all nations subject to the Davidic king, Jesus.
- During this millennial reign people will be born and also die, and some will not turn to Jesus, so that at the end of the period when Satan is released one more time he is able to deceive the nations, and there is a final battle (Rev. 20:7-9).
- Following this there is a final judgement, and eternity then dawns with the church enjoying God”s Presence in the new heaven and Israel the promises to David in the kingdom on the new earth.
[There are variations on the scheme I have laid out here, but this is sufficiently typical that when there is another pattern that differs, it can still be seen to be shaped Dispensationally.]
The influence of Dispensationalism is strong and although there are those who no longer hold to a ‘secret rapture’ other aspects ‘hang on’. Under Dispensationalism: the return of Christ is said to take place in 2 stages. First a whisking away of the believer to heaven – some 7 years before the end and during those 7 years the Supper of the Lamb takes place in heaven while on earth great tribulation and persecution of the Jews as the world ruler, the Antichrist sets up his one world government. Only after those 7 years does Christ appear visibly to set up the millennial kingdom, having dealt with Antichrist at the battle of Armageddon.
(Please remember that there is no evidence for a teaching about a secret rapture that will occur either 7 years before the Great Tribulation (the so-called pre-Trib view) or half way through the Great tribulation (the mid-Trib view) before 1830.)
The central ‘Rapture’ Scripture – 1 Thess 4:13-18
Once we read this we will see how weak the biblical basis for the rapture (as well as the forced Dispensational grid) is.
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
In Dispensationalism this text is supposed to teach that believers are caught up to meet the Lord in the air some 7 years before there is a public ‘appearing’ of the Lord. However!
This whole passage is to answer the question that Paul frames as ‘about those who have died’. He answers it saying that although grief is present there is hope, and that they are to ‘encourage one another with these words’.
He does not answer it with ‘no worries they are in heaven’ (this could be true but is not the hope of Scripture!) nor does he answer it with ‘we will be secretly raptured’. The question is not about ‘us’ alive at his coming but about those who had died. We have to align the answer to the question rather than impose a system on the text that gives a non-answer to the question!
Why the question?
A Hellenistic approach would not ask such a question, for the hope that was expressed in that world-view was that anyone who had died had escaped the prison of materiality. (A phrase that summarised that view was ‘soma sema’, the body is a tomb, hence death was an escape!) Sadly this has infected so much of Western theology and been exported around the world.
The Hebraic world-view is solidly focused on creation and the journey toward new creation. The hope was that God would indeed come to bring this world to its fulfilled state (the NT refers to the ‘restoration of all things’). This then presented an issue. Those who were righteous and have died clearly are not present, even though their bones were present, so what does this physical restoration mean for them? They are in very real danger of missing out when the great reversal / restoration takes place, except… God is faithful and they will not miss out, but will be raised from death. The Hebraic answer was ‘resurrection of the dead’; this was the hope, that hope being expressed very eloquently by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.
Paul in this Thessalonian passage follows this same Judeo-Christian path.
Why the hope? Because ‘we believe that Jesus died and rose again’. The resurrection of Jesus marked that he overcame the final enemy and so those who are in him will likewise be resurrected. When he comes the dead in Christ will come also.
God will bring with him those who have died.
And this coming with him will be anything but secret! For it will be,
with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet.
And those who have died at that coming will rise (first) and those who are in Christ but have not died prior to the coming (parousia) of the Lord will be transformed (here I borrow from 1 Cor. 15) in a moment at the last trumpet. In 1 Corinthians Paul does not separate in time the resurrection of those who have died and those alive at the parousia,
but we will all 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 imperishable, and we will be changed (1 Cor. 15:51, 52).
In 1 Thessalonians he puts in a time sequence, but when it all happens in the blink of an eye is he really trying to distinguish or simply underline that God will take care of those who have died in Christ.
Thus far I have focused on the answer to the question, but what about that verse,
Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will be with the Lord forever (1 Thess. 4:17).
The phrase that contains the preposition and noun (εἰς ἀπάντησιν: eis apantesin) was part of vocabulary and culture of that time. When the emperor visited a city, colony or province, the dignitaries of that location would go to meet him at some distance from the city. This was a mark of their respect so that the emperor did not arrive at the gates as though his subjects couldn’t be bothered to greet him properly. When they met him, they would not then stay out in the open country; they would escort him royally into the city itself. The emperor came with him into the city. He had left Rome and was arriving at (e.g.) Thessalonica and they would then complete the journey with him to Thessalonica. Pau is using language that would be understood – those in Christ who were alive at his coming would meet Jesus in the air… and then return with the one who had left heaven and was coming to this planet.
We see the same use of the preposition and noun in Acts 28:15, 16:
The brothers and sisters from there, when they heard of us, came as far as the Forum of Appius and Three Taverns to meet (εἰς ἀπάντησιν: eis apantesiin) us . On seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage.
When we came into Rome.
The final destination? Rome. The brothers and sisters did not stay out at the ‘Three Taverns’! The meeting will be ‘in the air’ and the instant final destination will be planet earth!
Is Paul thinking literally (an ‘up’ and then an instant ‘down’)? Perhaps but given this is all instantaneous any idea of a literal up and a literal back down is not something we should push. The heart of it is that those who have died will not ‘miss out’, indeed if pushed they will be raised then instantaneously any who are alive will be transformed and all together will be one. The Lord is not snatching them to heaven, but the Lord who has descended from heaven (like the emperor who left Rome) will continue that triumphant journey to the final destination. In Johannine language,
See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them and be their God;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away (Rev. 21: 3, 4).
God’s dwelling place with humans (not described as humans dwelling with God) and death being no more (resurrection and transformation) lines up with what I have suggested is what Paul is presenting in 1 Thessalonians 4 and in 1 Corinthians 15 where at the last trumpet death is swallowed up (1 Cor. 15:51-56).
Beyond the exegesis of the passage in 1 Thessalonians we encounter an immediate problem for the Dispensationalist ‘secret rapture’ view when we turn a few pages to the later letter of 2 Thessalonians. The believers had received a report that the day of the Lord had already come, but under the Dispensationalist view the day of the Lord will take place some 7 years ( some say 3½) after the rapture! If Paul taught a rapture the response is easy – it has not arrived because you have not been raptured! This is not the response he gives. This would be similar to receiving a letter in August 2009 saying that October 2019 has already occurred! Not too convincing – and quite easy to refute!
This passage in 1 Thessalonians cannot support a ‘secret rapture’ belief and once this passage is taken away from such a position it is easy to dismiss other passages such as in Matt. 24 that ‘one will be taken and the other left behind’. Those verses are likened to how it was in the days of Noah when one was taken and swept away in judgement. Those chapters (Matt. 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21) are related to the Jewish war of 66-70AD when the Roman armies devastated the land and one was taken and the other left.
We could add into the discussion the parables Jesus speak of the wheat and the weeds both growing till harvest, and in his High Priestly prayer prays that they will not be taken out of the world but protected while in it. So there are no clear Scriptures of a removal of the church from here – indeed quite the opposite.
The evident thrust of Scripture is of his coming (not our going) and of our waiting (here) for a Saviour to come from heaven. Paul writes to the Roman city of Philippi using the analogy of the citizenship that those who were born in (or had obtained) that status, and they would certainly not have read it as a hope of escape from their location. He wrote,
But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ (Phil. 3:21).
Phillippian (free) inhabitants lived in a Greek city but they were citizens (πολίτευμα: politeuma) of Rome. Their ‘task’ in Phillippi was to bring the values and culture of Rome to Philippi. They were certainly not to live there hoping to get to Rome (and certainly not to hope that one day the emperor would come and ‘snatch them away’ to Rome!). Life might be tough, there could be opposition but the hope was for the emperor to come at some future time. That is the natural story that Paul is alluding to, and transforming it from a mere citizenship of an earthly city to that of being citizens of heaven.
When Jesus, the Saviour, comes from heaven a physical transformation would take place (3:21). Just as there was no encouragement to expect a movement from Philippi to Rome, Paul is not encouraging them with a movement from earth to heaven and if we take out the chapter divisions and continue to read the opening verse of chapter 4 it simply re-enforces that Paul was never encouraging those believers to hope for the ‘rapture’ but to be engaged within the city where they lived, to pray and work so that there might be some evidence of the culture and values of heaven entering the city (‘let your kingdom come…’).
Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.
We could describe movement from earth to heaven as temporary (death for the believer – for those who are united in Christ are joined eternally – and resurrection / ascension for Jesus (until… (Acts 3:19-21)), but the longing (hope) is for there to be a final movement from heaven to earth to bring about a culmination to the ‘project’ that God began.
Personal Conclusions
- I find no unequivocal support for a secret rapture that removes believers from earth in history prior to the early 1830s. It is of course possible that this belief was held by a few, but if it was what was developed by J.M. Darby cannot be found prior to his formulations. It is also telling that in no historical creed nor statements of faith is there any hint of a secret rapture.
- The dividing up of Scripture is not what is called for by 2 Tim. 2:15 and the divisions that make the various ‘dispensations’ are something imposed on Scripture.
- Eschatology is related to protology, or in simple language all things related to the ‘end’ have a connection to ‘the beginning’. Scripture is a story of God and creation, hence God creates and restores all that has been damaged; the end is of God making all things new (rather than God is making all new things). The redemption of God draws all that has been to completion.
- In this story from creation to new creation there is a people who are called to co-labour toward the eschaton. That one people are given various titles and descriptions and it is a false divide to seek to give a different destiny to Israel. All of Scripture is centred on Jesus, the truly human one, the Messiah of Israel.
- Likewise there is one coming, not divided into two stages. With resurrection / transformation as the outcome.
- We are not to confuse a historic pre-millennial approach with the pre-millennial approach of Darby et al. It is apparent that many in the early church held to a pre-millennial understanding; for example Irenaeus was one such person who sought to refute what has been termed an a-millennial view indicating that both views were present in the early centuries.
- Likewise a belief in (the) ‘great tribulation’ can be, and is, held by those who are not Dispensationalist.
- Regardless of how one works out their eschatological view we have to be intensely practical and engage with the here and now as opposed to being full of knowledge as to time-tables. The latter has a history of moving goalposts and watching history unfold from the side-lines. On many issues a better eschatology is probably ‘I haven’t got a clue’!