Sure.
1 John 2:18 "Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour."
We have been in the last hour since the beginning of the Church. The last hour has lasted for about 2000 years now. It is not future.
2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 "3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God."
This is a pretty obscure passage.
By examining this, we can see that the man of sin was alive in Paul's time.
"what withholdest" is in the
PRESENT tense,
ACTIVE voice.
That means what and who was withholding the man of sin was doing it right then, as Paul penned those words. . in THEIR time 2000 years ago.
It makes no sense to be witholding or restraining something that does not exist. That means that the man of sin existed then. Otherwise, there would be no need to restrain him, to keep him from being revealed if he wasn't there to be revealed.
2Th 2:6 And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.
Now, here is something very interesting, - he speaks about the falling away . . v3
"for (that day will not come) except there come a falling away first, "
Taking a look at the underlying Greek, this is what I found:
"there come"
erchomai
is in the:
5632
Tense - Second Aorist See
5780
Voice - Active See
5784
Mood - Subjunctive See
5792
Let's look at each of these:
Tense - Second Aorist - has the same meaning as the First Aorist:
5777 Tense - Aorist
The aorist tense is characterized by its emphasis on punctiliar action; that is, the concept of the verb is considered without regard for past, present, or future time. There is no direct or clear English equivalent for this tense, though it is generally rendered as a simple past tense in most translations.
Mood - ACTIVE:
5784 Voice - Active
The active voice represents the subject as the doer or performer of the action. e.g., in the sentence, "The boy hit the ball," the boy performs the action.
Now here is the important one:
5792 Mood - Subjunctive
The subjunctive mood is the mood of possibility and poteniality. The action described may or may not occur,depending upon circumstances. Conditional sentences of the third class ("ean" + the subjunctive) are all of this type, as well as many commands following conditional purpose clauses, such as those beginning with "hina."
That's quite a different thing from an absolute certainty.
Now, to top this all off, this passage is very difficult to translate and interpret and understand exactly what Paul was trying to say . . To give some sense of the difficulty, look at a more literal translation:
let not any one deceive you in any manner, because--if the falling away may not come first, and the man of sin be revealed--the son of the destruction,
The words "t
hat day will not come" are not in the verse itself at all . . .
This entire passage is relatively obscure. It can be understood to refer to the Day of Chirst as the Day they were currently in, and since they were in the Day of Christ they should not allow themselves to be deceived. The man of sin not referring to a future-to-us man of sin, but one that was present then, being restrained, but soon to be unleashed .. the very one who marched on Jerusalem and laid siege to it and destroyed the Temple in 70 AD after first trying to set up an image in the temple to be worshipped.
The one who did the restraining can be understood to be Claudius, a Roman Emperor between 41-54 AD, (2nd Thess was written 50AD) who governed during one of the saner eras of Roman history.
The point of this all is this passage is too obscure to establish a firm belief that it applies to a time still in our future.
Daniel's Vision.
Daniel Chapter 7
This does not mandate an understanding of an earthly kingdom. Do you have specific verse you want to look at?
Christ talking about the end times in the gospels and the end of the world.
Could you give specific verses?
1 Corinthians 15:51-54 "But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed!It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever. And we who are living will also be transformed.For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies."
This is at the second coming, we are taking away to be wth him forever. This is not the rapture Darby taught. This is the end when all are raised from the dead and appear before God for judgement.
There is nothing here that even suggests that there is anything that comes after on earth.
and probably many more if i'm not mistaken.
There are many verses used to try to support this teaching of a rapture, none mandate any interpretation that would support such a teaching. . all is ambiguous, or lends itself to more than one interpretation. Nothing is solid. It's all shifting ground. And no support for it in the history of the Church.
That is not something good to base doctrine on.
The tribulation Jesus fortold already happened. See my post above. It is a myth, created by Darby. Why run after myths and fables?
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