ViaCrucis
Confessional Lutheran
- Oct 2, 2011
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I have read a lot about the pre-trib rapture being false because "no one taught it or believed it" until John Nelson Darby started teaching it in the 1800's. This view is promoted a lot by people who denounce the pre-trib rapture view.
It reminds me a lot of the view that Protestantism has no basis in the historical church up until the 1500's. Protestants believe that the church failed for 1500 years and that only because of Martin Luther and his fellow reformers, the "true church" was restored to its first century purity. However, there is no record of anything approaching today's Protestantism in the early church. Even Martin Luther believed in venerating the Virgin Mary and the doctrine of Communion being the literal body and blood of Christ. Most of Protestantism's evangelical denominations are pretty divorced from historical Christianity and that includes Reformed Christianity as it existed 400 years ago.
So, my question to those who say the pre-trib rapture is false because no one taught it or believed it until the 1800's, why are you Protestant? According to your logic, Protestantism is false, because no believed it or taught it until the Reformation? Seems like shaky logic to use if you're Protestant and post-trib.
You would do yourself a lot of favors if you studied a bit more about the Reformation.
This is from the Augsburg Confession, the statement of faith presented to Emperor Charles of the Holy Roman Empire, which outlined the Evangelical faith of Luther and the other Evangelical reformers.
"This is about the Sum of our Doctrine, in which, as can be seen, there is nothing that varies from the Scriptures, or from the Church Catholic, or from the Church of Rome as known from its writers. This being the case, they judge harshly who insist that our teachers be regarded as heretics. There is, however, disagreement on certain abuses, which have crept into the Church without rightful authority. And even in these, if there were some difference, there should be proper lenity on the part of bishops to bear with us by reason of the Confession which we have now reviewed; because even the Canons are not so severe as to demand the same rites everywhere, neither, at any time, have the rites of all churches been the same; although, among us, in large part, the ancient rites are diligently observed. For it is a false and malicious charge that all the ceremonies, all the things instituted of old, are abolished in our churches. But it has been a common complaint that some abuses were connected with the ordinary rites. These, inasmuch as they could not be approved with a good conscience, have been to some extent corrected.
Inasmuch, then, as our churches dissent in no article of the faith from the Church Catholic, but only omit some abuses which are new, and which have been erroneously accepted by the corruption of the times, contrary to the intent of the Canons, we pray that Your Imperial Majesty would graciously hear both what has been changed, and what were the reasons why the people were not compelled to observe those abuses against their conscience. Nor should Your Imperial Majesty believe those who, in order to excite the hatred of men against our part, disseminate strange slanders among the people. Having thus excited the minds of good men, they have first given occasion to this controversy, and now endeavor, by the same arts, to increase the discord. For Your Imperial Majesty will undoubtedly find that the form of doctrine and of ceremonies with us is not so intolerable as these ungodly and malicious men represent. Besides, the truth cannot be gathered from common rumors or the revilings of enemies. But it can readily be judged that nothing would serve better to maintain the dignity of ceremonies, and to nourish reverence and pious devotion among the people than if the ceremonies were observed rightly in the churches. " - The Augsburg Confession, Article XXI
For Lutherans the Church of the 1500 years before Luther is our Church. Because it's Christ's Church. It did not fail; it did not need to be restored. It needed to be reformed. That's why it is called the Reformation.
Bonus fact: The term "Protestant" has nothing to do with protesting the Catholic Church or Rome. The Holy Roman Emperor passed a law that said that the Elector-Princes of the Empire could choose for themselves which expression of faith could be practiced in their realms--whether Evangelical (aka Lutheran), Reformed, or Roman. However, the emperor later went back on that, at the 2nd Imperial Diet of Speyer the emperor told the gathered princes that they must enforce Roman religious practice on their subjects. In response to this, the Evangelical and Reformed princes said they would not obey that decree. Their protest of the 2nd Diet of Speyer became known as the Protestation at Speyer, and those who protested became known as "The Protestants". It is from these princes protesting an imperial decision that the term "Protestant" came to be applied to both the Evangelical and Reform movements of the Reformation. It would take time, but eventually "Protestant" came to be a catch-all term for not just the Evangelical and Reform sides of the Magisterial Reformation, but also applied to the Radical Reformation, and various later post-Reformation movements.
This is why the term "Protestant" covers just about anything that isn't Roman Catholic or Orthodox; and so Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and Pentecostals all fall under the "Protestant" moniker.
The term "Protestant", as a consequence, has all but become meaningless.
-CryptoLutheran
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