(September 13, 2015 at 10:29 pm)professor Wrote: Dr fuzzy, the Darby story is very popular but is false.
Notable Christians from history believed and wrote about the Rapture, long before Darby came along.
Prof-
It is true that Christians have written about the second coming of the Lord and being caught up to meet him - after all, that is stated plainly enough in Sacred Scripture.
But can you provide an example of an Early Church Father who taught that we would be raptured BEFORE the second coming of Christ? I don't think such teaching was known prior to Darby, but I'm interested to see who these "notable Christians" are. Irenaeus? Augustine? Aquinas? Who do you have in mind?
At this point, I'd like to share a few important points from an article which clarifies a few misunderstandings concerning the Rapture.
I appreciate that you anti-Catholic, but if you're still around on October 1, you might login and consider the excerpted points from the following article:
Raptured or Not?
A Catholic Understanding
By Michael D. Guinan, O.F.M., Ph.D.
http://www.americancatholic.org/Newslett...ac1005.asp
Origins of the Rapture
The Rapture seems to have been invented by a British religious figure named John Nelson Darby (1800-1882). He was ordained in the Church of Ireland and worked there to convert Catholics away from their folly. He was extremely pessimistic about what he saw as the state of the world and the state of the Church. He eventually left it, joining a dissident group called the Plymouth Brethren of which he soon became a prominent leader.
About 1830, he began teaching that Jesus’ coming at the end of time would be preceded by a “rapture of the saints.” Some members of his own Brethren community objected that this was not biblically founded, but Darby dismissed any criticism. It had, he claimed, been revealed to him by God.
He would eventually distance himself from this group and travel extensively in the 1860s and 1870s in Europe, the United States, and Canada, where his views were very influential. (Especially important is their appearance in the Scofield Reference Bible, which was printed first in 1909. The 1967 edition is still in print and is very popular in many Protestant fundamentalist circles.)
Despite Darby’s denials, scholars have suggested several possible influences on his Rapture views. In 1830, in Port Glasgow, Scotland, a 15-year-old girl, Margaret MacDonald, a follower of a charismatic Scottish preacher, Edward Irving, attended a healing service at which she saw a vision of a two-stage return of Christ. Darby adopted and expanded her vision.
Another suggestion traces the influence to a Jesuit priest, Manuel Lacunza (1731-1801), who was born in Chile but came to Italy in 1767 where he would spend the rest of his life. Posing as a converted Jew (under the pseudonym Juan Josafat Ben Ezra), he wrote, in Spanish, a large apocalyptic work entitled The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty. The book appeared first in 1811, 10 years after his death. In 1827, it was translated into English by none other than Edward Irving, an acquaintance of and possible influence on Darby. Given Darby’s hatred of Catholics, this possible influence adds an ironic touch!
The ‘Rapture text’ in Scripture
Those who propose the Rapture maintain that it is found in Scripture. From its first appearance, as we have seen, others have questioned this. What are we to think?
Written by Paul from Corinth, about 50 or 51 A.D., less than 20 years after the death of Christ, 1 Thessalonians is commonly considered the oldest book of the New Testament. It is clear that these earliest Christians were eagerly expecting Jesus’ return in glory at the end of the world. As time went on and this was delayed, two pastoral problems emerged that Paul addresses in these lines.
The first is the question of when. Paul tells them that they “know very well” that we do not know the time of the end; it will come like a thief in the night. This becomes a truism throughout the New Testament, appearing in the Synoptic Gospels (Mt 24:42,44; Mark 13:21-23, 32-33; Luke 12:39-40; 17:20-24; 21:34-35); Acts of the Apostles (1:6-7); the Letters (our passage and 2 Peter 3:9-10); and even in the Book of Revelation, not once but twice (Rv 3:3; 16:15)! Needless to say, this clear teaching has been consistently ignored by many up to the present day.
The second question seems more urgent. Since Christ’s coming was delayed, some of the community had died. Those who were left became worried: Would the dead lose out in some way at Christ’s return? Would they be at any disadvantage?
In describing Jesus’ return, Paul combines imagery drawn from two sources. From biblical apocalyptic (e.g., Daniel 7:13), he gets the coming on the clouds of heaven with the angelic trumpets. From his Greco-Roman experience, he gets the imagery of an arrival of a king on a state visit (in Greek, parousia); a joyful multitude goes out to meet him on the road and accompany him back to the city.
The dead will rise first and then we, the living, will be “snatched” up to join them in the air. Many pagan epitaphs of the time spoke of the living “being snatched” away by death. Here Paul speaks of our “being snatched” up to join the Lord and to welcome him at his return.
In the ancient world, the “air” was a scary place filled with unseen beings, many of them hostile. Together with Christ, there will be nothing to fear. Paul means this as a message of comfort and consolation for the Thessalonians. Christians do grieve the loss of their loved ones, but they should not do so “as others do who have no hope.”
The passage is about Jesus’ return in glory at the end of the world. The New Testament knows of only one such return. There is no “first” second coming!
Further, the passage says absolutely nothing about being “separated from” sinners; the whole thrust is exactly the opposite. It is about “being together with” the dead. There is no suggestion that once we meet Jesus “in the air” that he then turns around and goes back, taking us with him, to return later.
The conclusion is clear: There is no basis whatsoever in this passage for a doctrine of the Rapture. To see such a doctrine here is a complete distortion of the biblical text. If we were to examine other biblical texts often cited in support of this doctrine (e.g., Mt 24:40-41; Luke 17:34-35; Rv 3:10), the results would be the same.
What’s a Catholic to believe?
We began with several questions: What is the Catholic teaching on the Rapture? There is none; there is no traditional Christian teaching on the Rapture. It is a late, and rather suspect, arrival on the scene.
Will Catholics be raptured? No, of course not, but then neither will be anyone else. But we are left behind with one final—and most important—question. It is not about the future, the question, Will I be taken up by the Rapture? Rather, it’s more about a present question: Will I be taken in by it?
