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truth of the "rapture"

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CityOfGod

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AV1611VET said:
What about a 3½ year Great Tribulation then?
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No, I don't believe in it. What I believe is that there has been tribulation for the Church since the time of Christ. This tribulation will increase and become great up unto the time of the end. But no...I don't believe in a 7 or a 3 1/2 year tribulation.
 
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AV1611VET

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Okay, just wondering.
 
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thereselittleflower

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This has been fulfilled. The Book of Revelation, while being an apocalyptic work and so highly symbolic, has a preface . .the apocalyptic portion does not start till verse 9. So the first 8 verses are not in apocalyptic language.

In these first 8 verses we see this prophecy has been fulfilled:
Rev 1:4-5
John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne,
and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood--
​
As we see here, at the time John wrote this, Jesus is already ruler over the kings of the earth.

The word here for "ruler" is
archōn
which means:
1) a ruler, commander, chief, leader
​
It is the PRESENT Participle of of ἄρχω which means to lead, to rule. So this means JESUS is, in the present, ruling over the kings of the earth. It is not something yet to happen in the future. It was now, at the time John penned those words - the same as he was, and is, the first begotten from the dead, the faithful witness. . all currently, in the present, both then and now, who and what Jesus is.




This can apply to the time of Antiochus - the "anointed one" does not have to refer to Christ. There is nothing in the text that we understand this has to be Jesus.

There have been many annointed ones - messiahs - in Jewish history.

The key to understanding this is looking to see if there was another annoited one after the time this was written and before Christ.

There was. Please follow me as I outline this:
Dan 9:25 "Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven 'sevens,' and sixty-two 'sevens.' It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble.
Dan 9:26 After the sixty-two 'sevens,' the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.
Dan 9:27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one 'seven.' In the middle of the 'seven' he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing [of the temple] he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him."
vs 25: From the utterance . . . to be rebuilt: from the time of Jeremiah's prophecy. One . . annointed and a leader: either Cyrus or the high priest Joshua, who presided oer th rebuioding of the altar of sacrifice after the exile (Ezr 3:2). Seven weeks: forty-nine years, an approximation of the time of the exile. During sity-two weeks . . . rebuilt: aperiod of 434 years, roughly approximating the interval between the rebuilding of Jerusalem after the exile and the beginning of the Seleucid persecution.

vs 26 An anointed: the high priest Onias III, murdered in 171 BC, from which the author dates the beginning of the persecution. Onias was in exile when he was killed. A leader : Antiochus IV.

vs 27: One week: the final phase of the period in view, the time of Antiochus' persecution; he is Antiochus himself. The many: the faithless Jews who allied themselves with the heathen; cf 1 Mc 1:1ff. Half the week: three and a half years; The temple was desecrated by Antiocuhs from 167-165 BC. The temple wing: probably the main portal. The horrible abomination: Antiochus profaned the temple with the statue of Zeus.
​
All of this, known as the Classical Interpretation, is understood to have been fulfilled before Christ. The notes are from the NAB. The Spirit Filled Life Bible also presents the Classical Interpretation which agrees with the above.

This prophecy has been fulfilled.
 
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cajunhillbilly

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Amen and Amen
 
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seeking Christ

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Well to be fair, Revelation can be read to support Darby's ideas that after the Church is gone, earth becomes a rather nasty place to try to live. Except that has never been at all related to anything our Lord has revealed to me about the book of Revelation. To me it rather seems to be a re-telling of the Gospel in graphic terms, and encouragement to endure to the end.
 
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thereselittleflower

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Koakku said:
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."
Click to expand...
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.



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 "that 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
Click to expand...

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.
Click to expand...


Could you give specific verses?



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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
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seeking Christ

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Purge187 said:
One other point: the Tribulation primarily serves to punish the world for rebelling against God, so it would stand to reason that the Church would be excluded somehow.
Click to expand...

thereselittleflower said:
No, there is no great tribulation. The tribulation Jesus fortold already happened. See my post above. It is a myth, created by Darby. Why run after myths and fables?
Click to expand...

How does this differ from preterism?
 
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thereselittleflower

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seeking Christ said:
Well to be fair, Revelation can be read to support Darby's ideas that after the Church is gone, earth becomes a rather nasty place to try to live.
Click to expand...

Only if one ignores what the book of Revelatin is, an apocryphal book, written in the apocryphal genre, highly symbolic in its language and intended to convey, not some detaile prophetic list of events, but a generalized depiction of the triumph of God over the evil of sin and satan.

Darby on the other hand, twists this and makes what is symbolic, literal .. there is no end to the wild ideas one can come up with when ones tries to make symbolic language literal.

Darby misused this book and other apocalyptic language in the bible. That is not how one arrives at truth.

Except that has never been at all related to anything our Lord has revealed to me about the book of Revelation. To me it rather seems to be a re-telling of the Gospel in graphic terms, and encouragement to endure to the end
Click to expand...

That is EXACTLY what it is.
 
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thereselittleflower

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seeking Christ said:
How does this differ from preterism?
Click to expand...

Well first of all, there is full preterism and partial preterism.

Partial preterism does not deny the second coming of Christ and so the two are compatible.

Full preterism does deny the second coming of Christ which this does not.
 
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AV1611VET

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thereselittleflower said:
That is not something good to base doctrine on.
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Neither is supporting doctrine by slicing-and-dicing the Bible up with that Greek & Hebrew stuff.

That's why I'm KJVO.

1 Corinthians 14:19 Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.
 
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thereselittleflower

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Excuse me? The bible was not written in KJVO.

It is best to understand the underlying language. . the KJV is not perfect by a long shot.

Anyone who limits themselves to one translation of scripture to the exclusion of all else, including the original language cannot be taken as having an intellectually honest approach to scripture.
 
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Koakku

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Exactly, people should be able to explain within the context of the bible and just that. Not modern history or doctrines from people who read the bible.
 
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AV1611VET

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thereselittleflower said:
Anyone who limits themselves to one translation of scripture to the exclusion of all else, including the original language cannot be taken as having an intellectually honest approach to scripture.
Click to expand...
Then call me a dum-dum, but call me a KJVO too!

I don't want to derail this thread, but if you're wondering why the KJVO movement ever got started, your post is a good example why.

(No offense now. Let's not take this to a personal level, please.)
 
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AV1611VET

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MoreCoffee said:
One feels a strong temptation to rapture this thread into another forum
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Well, like I said, I don't wish to derail this thread.

(LittleLamb invited me here! He's behind all this! )

I almost never post up here!
 
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thereselittleflower

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AV1611VET said:
Then call me a dum-dum, but call me a KJVO too!

I don't want to derail this thread, but if you're wondering why the KJVO movement ever got started, your post is a good example why.

(No offense now. Let's not take this to a personal level, please.)
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, the KJVO is simpy not an intellectually sound position. But just because we disagree on that is no reason not to post here.
 
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Koakku

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thereselittleflower said:
And that context doesn't include the original language?
Click to expand...
I mean, just because one word doesn't fit with the scripture doesn't mean you have to look up the original greek or hebrew meaning of the word for it to make the whole passage true. Shouldn't the Word of God be the same yesterday, today and tomorrow just like God is no matter how it was written? Also with using history outside of the bible to compare with the truth in the bible to complete things doesn't seem right to me but i guess everyone is entitled to their own opinion as stated earlier.
 
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