STAND FIRM: End Time Views: Rapture Ruling on the Field

We’ve been walking through different views of events in the end times. In the previous article, we looked at the different views of the rapture, but I didn’t have room to tackle the “ruling on the field” concerning the rapture timing views. By “ruling on the field” I mean we need to address interpreting the Bible and selecting our biblical positions like NFL and college replay officials. Of course, the purpose of replay reviews in football is to make sure the call is right. If the call impacts your team, you want it to be correct. That should be our same heart in interpreting the Bible — we should want to make sure we’re rightly dividing the Word. When it comes to taking a biblical position, we want to make sure the view comes from the Word being rightly divided.

With football replay reviews, the rule is that the ruling made by the official on the field stands unless the replay footage shows clear and obvious evidence the call was incorrect. I believe we should apply the same rule to our interpretation of the Bible. With interpreting the Bible, the ruling on the field can be broken into two categories — textual context and historical context.

By textual context, the ruling on the field should be the plain reading of the Scripture in context. There should also be multiple witnesses to that plain reading within the Bible. For historical context, the ruling on the field is how the original audience understood the passage. For the New Testament, this original audience should begin with first-century Jews and then the first followers of Jesus — the early church.

Of the two rulings, the starting point should always be the textual context — what is the plain reading of the passage? In this discussion, I find it easier to start with the historical context. For the first time in this series, the predominant view in our churches is not on the side of the ruling on the field.

As challenging as that statement is to digest, we should want to make sure we are biblically correct, no matter the cost. So, we must ask what is the ruling on the field, and is our “new” evidence enough to overturn it?

The predominant view today is the pretribulation view, which holds that the rapture will take place before the final seven years of this age. This is the view found in the Left Behind books and movies. Though prevalent today, the view does not appear in Christian teaching until the 1830s when it is introduced by John Nelson Darby. He is one of the first credited with teaching that the rapture would happen before the final seven years. His views were novel, but the idea of a rapture before tribulation wasn’t new to him. He picked up on teachings done by Morgan Edwards, who publicized his views in a paper in 1742. Though Edwards did present a rapture before any tribulation, the timing of his view would be considered a Mid-Tribulation rapture. Until Darby, the tribulation time was only seen as the final three and a half years.

The acceptance of Darby’s ideas would shock many famous theologians and pastors of the past because well-respected leaders in his day called him a heretic. One of the most notable was Charles H. Spurgeon. Well-respected Pastor George Mueller also spoke out against them. Spurgeon and Mueller were adamantly opposed to Darby’s views. Though there was an outlash against these new views, Darby created groups called Plymouth Brethren who spread his teachings, and teacher William Kelly relentlessly promoted Darby’s views.

For a taste of the resistance the pre-tribulation rapture view faced at first, here are some published quotes from Spurgeon and Mueller:

“Mr. Grant has done real service to the churches by his treatise on ‘The heresies of the Plymouth Brethren,’ which we trust he will publish in a separate form. It is almost impossible for even his heavy hand to press too severely upon this malignant power, whose secret but rapid growth is among the darkest signs of the times.” (C. H. Spurgeon)

“My brother, I am a constant reader of the Bible, and I soon found out that what I was taught to believe did not always agree with what my Bible said. I came to see I must either part company with John Darby or my precious Bible, and I chose to cling to my Bible and part from Mr. Darby.” (George Muller)

These responses from such respected men like Spurgeon and Muller shocked me when I first dove into this topic a few years ago. No doubt they likely hit you the same. If Spurgeon, Muller and others had their way, Darby’s views would have died then, but they were picked up in the study notes of the famous Scofield Bible and caught on like wildfire.

So, if the pre-tribulation view was new, what was the view of the first-century Jews and the early church?

Remember from the previous article that the rapture isn’t an isolated event, rather it is just one part of a larger event that includes Jesus’ appearing, the last trumpet, the resurrection, the rapture and the gathering. Within the Old Testament and with first-century Jews, we don’t hear about the rapture, but the resurrection is at the forefront. One of the biggest debates in the Gospels is that the Sadducees don’t believe in a bodily resurrection. The predominant view of first-century Jews was that at the appearing of the Messiah, there would be a resurrection into eternal bodies and the establishment of the Messiah’s eternal kingdom. They saw the resurrection synonymous with the end of this age and the start of the next.

The early church view is often called today’s classical premillennialism. They saw that the appearing of Jesus was the same event as His physical return. They saw that at the return of Jesus, the dead would be resurrected and those alive in Christ would be raptured, then immediately they would return with Him. Their view would fall into a late pre-wrath view or post-tribulation view of the rapture. This view was predominant until the fourth century. At that time the futurist view began to fall out of vogue.

I was reluctant to write about this “ruling on the field” because it challenges our modern-day view, but we should all want to get the “call” right. The historical context doesn’t solve the question of the rapture timing alone, but it should cause us to pause and dive deeper into the biblical context. I will do that in the next article, but I encourage you to dive into the biblical evidence of the view you have.

— Jake is the newest state missionary and would love to share about the work in Northwest Arkansas and encourage your church to stand firm. (standfirmministries.com)