"Left Behind"

[NorrinRadd]

Question for anyone who has seen the movie(s) or read the books:

I understand they dramatize the "Pre-Trib" view. I'm curious about the exact form they present. Do they teach that all Xians get Raptured? Or do only those who meet some standard of "righteousness" or "holiness" or doctrinal purity get taken up?

 

[Interplanner]

This whole area of thinking is a self-perpetuating mutation. There is no subsitute or 'bridge' doctrine for justification by faith. Justification is about whether we are considered righteous by God on the day of judgement and accepted by Him. It was earned for us by Christ, and available to us by faith in what he did. The issues are basic: God demands righteousness, and offers righteousness through Christ. The universe makes no sense unless there is a God like this, and there is no righteousness in humans good enough in themselves, it must be imputed to them. This is what Rom 1-5 is about.

Now enter the rapture issue. Paul was quite sure from what Jesus had taught in Mt 24A that the early Christian believers would be removed from the awful event unfolding in Judea in the 1st century. He spoke of the wrath of God on Israel as being in the past tense, prob because of Mt 23:38, which is already in present tense at the time of Jesus. Paul repeated that someone from that group of events in Judea would also stand in the temple and believe they were Messiah (which in Judaism is to claim to be God--cp. Jesus) and yet delude the whole country into battle with Rome and fail horribly.

But the believers would know that his arrival, not to mention the surrounding of the city by Roman military, meant it was time to get away.

The early generation of believers understood the total end of the world to be right out of the jaws of that event, Mt 24:29. The worldwide day of judgement. But believers, being justified in Christ, would not suffer this judgement.

As we now know, there was an allowance for a delay, right in Mt 24B. Christ said only the Father knew when the final judgment event would happen, and gave the parable of the attentive servants with its 4 options for the Master's return.

I don't think the rapture matters anymore in terms of events like the catastrophe that happened to Jerusalem, which is obviously history now. But I do think that on the last day, the believer is changed from corruptible to incorruptible, in the final day of judgement. "Those he justified, he also glorifed." Rom 8:30, I Cor 15 (note that lines from the very center of a passage about Israel's destiny from Hosea are about the Gospel of victory over death!).

Ie, it makes far more sense to read the final day of judgement event as one swift complete event than to try to break it down into a myriad of events over several years. One major problem with the several years is it ruins the 490 year period of Dan 9. It inserts a gap out of nowhere in a perfectly coherent prophecy, because Darby and Scofield (c. late 1800s) were 2P2P; they believed there is unfinished business to complete with Israel and "needed" to allow time for it. So they have their "literal" system (which has all its inserts--not very literal! Just expedient).

Finally, one of the "literal" issues is the "reign" of Christ. The thing the futurists were trying to solve was a "literal" reign of Christ on earth. This meant the suppression of things said in Acts 2, 3, I Cor 15 (v25) and Eph 1 about the reign of Christ now. This suppression or writing-off continues to today. The NT says the reign is seen by faith, but our futurist brothers want a "real" one. What the NT says is supposed to be a radical proclamation, the futurists have turned into a sequential chase that has no profound impact on our culture now (as it is supposed to). So they have developed a system with all its complicated and much-qualified charts that gets everything screen time which they think is supposed, mostly Judaic events. Including 1000 actual years of Christ reigning on earth. That is what 2P2P does because it won't accept that the promises to Israel find their fulfillment in Christ. That doctrine changes everything.

 

[bibletruth469]

Question for anyone who has seen the movie(s) or read the books: I understand they dramatize the "Pre-Trib" view. I'm curious about the exact form they present. Do they teach that all Xians get Raptured? Or do only those who meet some standard of "righteousness" or "holiness" or doctrinal purity get taken up?

I personally do not believe in the partial rapture theory . I wrote an op on this at CF . Is partial rapture theory true? I know that some will disagree with me, but it states in 1 thess 4 that ALL the dead and alive IN CHRIST will be caught up at the time of the rapture . I believe also that good works are not the criteria for the rapture. ( being saved is) . No one is worthy without being covered in His righteousness where we are proclaimed worthy because of becoming a true believer in Him alone for our salvation . Imo, yes, to answer your question , all true believers will be caught up in the rapture.

 

[Danoh]

NorrinRadd, as is obvious from replies to your question thus far, the "Left Behind" films, and their ilk, in whatever its various notions of this and that are wide and varied.

You're left with relying on what you claim to be - a "Biblicist."

And the means of that is a very simple one consistently applied - the consistent application of basic, fifth grade elementary school principles of grammar - applied over and over and over until the passages yield their intended fruit.

This is a practice few appear to believe in. Its "replacement" dominating one's "study," thus, "every wind of doctrine."

But that is basically the key to solving for questions - how Scripture uses language and its basic principles of grammar vigilantly applied...

 

[BABerean2]

We could end much of the debate on this forum if we would just read and believe the witnesses in God's Word.

Will you believe what is portrayed on the big screen by Hollyweird or will you believe the words of an angel of God?



Act 1:9 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

Act 1:10 And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;

Act 1:11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.


He will return visibly, in the same way that he left.

It will not be a secret and it will not be silent as it is portrayed in many of the "Left Behind" movies. The main thing "Left Behind" in these movies, is the truth.

Substituted in it's place, is the doctrine John Darby brought to America.
.

 

[Interplanner]

It wasn't the coming that they were trying to portray... You must not have noticed.

But the rapture isn't really a very useful doctrine anyway.

 

[Hetta]

Question for anyone who has seen the movie(s) or read the books:

I understand they dramatize the "Pre-Trib" view. I'm curious about the exact form they present. Do they teach that all Xians get Raptured? Or do only those who meet some standard of "righteousness" or "holiness" or doctrinal purity get taken up?

I read the books a long time ago. Only those who are true Christians are raptured. So, not a pastor who had been paying lip service to the Bible or those of his flock who had been doing the same thing, and not a main character who had gone to church with his wife out of duty. Just those saved.

 

[Interplanner]

It's a doctrine that is out of steam as far as influencing a believer. Instead of motivating the believer to honor Christ for the Gospel, it's "spooking" the believer and jerking his nervous system around about a being left in a dreadful circumstance on earth. This does not 1, answer other dreadful circumstances which take place, and 2, there is no scaring the believer into service. Love casts out fear; fear has no place. Do not do things for Christ out of fear.

There are many questions about the passages in Thess that are really about 1st century situations and have been discussed here. In modern times, people's habit is to open up the Bible no matter where and think that it is first of all about us dealing with Obama, ebola and IS.

 

[NorrinRadd]

I read the books a long time ago. Only those who are true Christians are raptured. So, not a pastor who had been paying lip service to the Bible or those of his flock who had been doing the same thing, and not a main character who had gone to church with his wife out of duty. Just those saved.

Thank you so much, Hetta, for being the only one so far to actually address my question, rather than going nuts and giving opinions ABOUT the various doctrines.

 

[Biblewriter]

Substituted in it's place, is the doctrine John Darby brought to America.
.

I have already thoroughly disproved this false accusation, and disproved it to you.

The doctrine of a pre-tribulation rapture is older than the doctine of a post trib rapture.

 

[Biblewriter]

It's a doctrine that is out of steam as far as influencing a believer. Instead of motivating the believer to honor Christ for the Gospel, it's "spooking" the believer and jerking his nervous system around about a being left in a dreadful circumstance on earth. This does not 1, answer other dreadful circumstances which take place, and 2, there is no scaring the believer into service. Love casts out fear; fear has no place. Do not do things for Christ out of fear.

There are many questions about the passages in Thess that are really about 1st century situations and have been discussed here. In modern times, people's habit is to open up the Bible no matter where and think that it is first of all about us dealing with Obama, ebola and IS.

This is also false. Those who believe in the pre-tribulation rapture have always been the most active evangelists to be found anywhere.

 

[Biblewriter]

Question for anyone who has seen the movie(s) or read the books:

I understand they dramatize the "Pre-Trib" view. I'm curious about the exact form they present. Do they teach that all Xians get Raptured? Or do only those who meet some standard of "righteousness" or "holiness" or doctrinal purity get taken up?

No, the "Left Behind" series does not teach a partial rapture. It teaches the rapture of every person who has truly believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.

But the form of the doctrine they present needs to be discussed. They strictly follow the system of interpretation introduced in the twentieth century by Dwight Pentecost.

The pre-tribulationists of the nineteenth century saw a significantly different scenario. They saw "the Beast," the Roman ruler, as only becoming official leader of the revived Roman Empire, and saw "the Antichrist" as being the end time ruler of Judah, which is now called Israel. They saw the Russian attack as coming after the Lord comes, not before Daniel's seventieth week. They pointed out numerous "time stamps" in Ezekiel 38 and 39 that make this very clear. And they spoke at length about the many scriptures that describe the end time individual called "the Assyrian." These make it very clear that the great attacker that comes down on Judah at the middle of Daniel's seventieth week is the individual the scriptures call "the Assyrian."

Dwight Pentecost saw the scriptures about "the Beast" having control of all the world, and all the world worshiping "the Beast," and so concluded that "the Beast," whom he called "the Antichrist," would become the official leader of the entire world. (His error here was in failing to realize that the Greek language has two words for "all." The general one, "pas," means all in a general sense, much as in our expression "all over the place." This is the Greek word used concerning the rule and worship of "the Beast." But the absolute all, "hapas," meaning "absolutely all," is not used of "the Beast."

This error led brother Pentecost to assume, quite incorrectly, that the attack by Gog, the end time ruler of Russia, would take place before the time of "the Beast." Likewise, he simply assumed, without a single scripture to back it up, that the great attacker that comes down at the midddle of the week would be "the Beast." And this scenario simply left no room for "the Assyrian," so brother Pentecost completely ignored that individual, despite the fact that more scriptures speak of him than speak of any other two end time humans. He is found in Isaian 7, 10, 14, 30, and 31, in Micah 5, and is the entire subject of the book of Nahum. (He is also "the king of the north" and the male goat's "little horn" from the book of Daniel, but that is another subject.)

 

[Interplanner]

And we have the whole NT saying nothing about any of this. Why do we spend 95% of our time on things the NT says nothing about? Why don't we figure out why is 25 and Hos 13, which appear to be about Israel's destiny, are actually about the victory over death in the Gospel?

 

[BABerean2]

I have already thoroughly disproved this false accusation, and disproved it to you.

The doctrine of a pre-tribulation rapture is older than the doctine of a post trib rapture.

Brother Biblewriter,

It is good to see you are feeling better.

The one thing you taught me for sure is that some of the members of the early Church believed the futurist interpretation of Daniel 9.

However, when I went back and looked at their quotes that were purported to show their pretrib views, I could always find another of their quotes which showed the opposite viewpoint.

Pastor Tim Warner's article showed that Grant Jeffrey removed the posttrib viewpoints of many of the Early Church Fathers and printed only the part that showed Jeffrey's version. Jeffrey's dishonesty has been circulated widely on the web and continues at this point. I hope you will acknowledge Jeffrey's deceit found in the sourced link below by Pastor Warner. Pastor Warner used the original writings of the Early Church Fathers and included a complete bibliography to show the original sources.

Grant Jeffrey’s revision of early Church Posttrib viewpoints
http://www.answersinrevelation.org/Jeffrey.pdf

There is another aspect of this also. Based on the thousands of pages of sermons and commentary available from American pastors prior to 1820 we find the postrib view was the overwhelming viewpoint. The one exception would be the paper Morgan Edwards wrote while he was in seminary. It is my understanding that neither he nor his professor gave serious credibility to the idea at the time.

It is my understanding that even the majority of academic dispensationalists credit John Darby with bringing the pretrib doctrine to America about the time of the Civil War. I have seen a YouTube presentation that Tommy Ice did on the history of dispensationalism, where he makes the claim that Darby discovered pretrib while recovering from a fall from his horse in 1827. However, we have previously discussed Darby's 1829 paper which shows Ice's and Kelly's claim not to be accurate.

Darby, J. N., Reflections (1829), Prophetic No. 1
Reflections upon the Prophetic Inquiry and the views advanced in it

Even Tim LaHaye states on page 197 of his book "Rapture Under Attack" that ...

"the post-Trib position (in it's primitive form) is the oldest point of view."

Therefore, I believe I am on a firm footing in my statements within the last post, based on the writings and statements of the well known academics on your side.

Respectfully,

 

[Interplanner]

...and if it is post, then there is even more similarity to the view that is absent of all of that kind of later inserted 7 year stuff, ie, that Rev 20's millenium stands for the current reign of Christ but ends with trouble, that Dan 9's 490 years are intact as a unit and were completed in the mid 1st century. Most important no Judaic features 'come back to life' saving the sweeping declarations of the NT, esp. Hebrews.

 

[Interplanner]

BW,
since you didn't notice: I'm not counting the fear-based 'you'll be left behind' threat as Gospel. When you subtract that as worthless, your statistics will look different. anywya, you have that "personal salvation" category, in which the NT switches back and forth between things going on with Israel and "personal salvation" (ie, Acts 13 was a "personal salvation" message). It's nonsense. So I don't know what to make of your claim, because you don't know what the cosmic part of the historic Gospel is.

It is a declaration that the 'end of time' or 'judgement of God' has arrived in a sense in the Gospel event. That is what Rom 1-5 are saying. "personal salvation Romans Roads" are not worthwhile hermeneutics; they just ping from one sound byte to the next to 'try to put together something coherent' (which is what 2P2P theologians do as well). It is not at all how the text itself is constructing its message.

Bottom line: I only count those people who have been preaching the historic message of what God accomplished in Christ which is its own powerful appeal to a person to honor him as Christ and Lord of the universe, which is what God did. Then you don't have to have the 'evangelist' or 'special speaker' come along later with those people and help them make the step from Christ as "personal savior" to Christ as "lord" because that also was clear from the beginning.

 

[BABerean2]

Left Behind or Led Astray...


The link below contains the trailer of a new video being produced which shows the true origin of the pretrib doctrine. The video is to be released by the end of this year.


Left Behind or Led Astray? Examining the Origins of the Secret Pre-Tribulation Rapture

.

 

[Danoh]

Luther's, et al, recovery of Justification by faith ALONE some 1,500 years after it had basically been "lost," was declared "some modern innovation" by the RCC; its great enemy even now.

Some time after that, it mades its way into what would become the United States of America.

Sounds like Darby was not the only one to have "come up with some modern notion."

That its enemies are supposedly Protestant, well, that does not surprise me.

For the Protestant Reformation soon gave way to reasoning that is now so status quo, once more...

 

[Interplanner]

Danoh,
what are your examples of the 'soon gave way to reasoning'?

Yes, people properly reacted to Darby because it reintroduces Judaism after the fact of the Gospel, but in eschatological form. Have you researched British Adventism? We all know Adventism has quite a place for the Judaic law, right? But did you know that British Adventism is extremely similar to Darby, Scofield, Irvings because...it is a way of reintroducing Judaism. Its 2P2P. American Adventism separated with Ellen W and developed its doctrines of 1844 and the Great Disappointment (1844 was calculated to be the end of 2960 years or something...).

 

[ebedmelech]

This whole "Left Behind" idea is really an affront to scripture...especially when those who believe such an idea, CANNOT show it in scripture. They have to contrive it by torturing the scripture, or twisting it to their view.

The bible is very clear...when Jesus returns HE, will separate the sheep form the goats...and that is done in the resurrection ON THE LAST DAY...just as Jesus said.

Truly, I believe those who believe in this "pretribulation rapture" realize when they examine scripture, that's not what it says...but they like the idea of some "holy great escape".