Rethinking The Rapture
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YOU’VE BEEN LEFT BEHIND…
At the zenith of my choral career, circa the late 1990s, I was chosen to perform a solo in front of my entire private Christian high school. Apparently, the talent pool was a bit low that year. Either way, I was given the unenviable task of alerting all the would-be tares, sown into a Christian School wheat field, to repent or face their eschatological doom… With a Brady-bunch quiver ready to strike at my undeveloped teenage vocal cords, I crooned out the following warning to my classmates: “There’s no time to change your mind, the Son has come and you’ve been left behind”. If you are blanking on the reference, take a moment to enjoy some dispensational cringe and then come back for the article proper.
WONKAVATOR IN THE SKY
When it comes to eschatology, the most common view bumbling around pulpits and popular Christian literature these days asserts that at some point in the immediate future, believers will be whisked away from the world in a secret rapture. Christians will apparently vaporize, leaping invisibly into the heavens, leaving clothing, dentures, and plastic surgical additions piled neatly behind them. Planes will fall out of the sky. Unmanned cars will careen over cliffs. And all the world will be thrown into the kind of panic that only a cavalier Antichrist could rectify, which will jumpstart a seven-year tribulation that ends in Armageddon.
This kind of murky reasoning once seemed rational to me. That is until I left the eschatological bog of big Eva publishing swamps and started reading the Bible for myself. It is amazing how such a simple action can clear up so much confusion. Who would’ve thunk it?
With that, today, I want us to explore what the Bible says about the rapture in Matthew 24. Is it God’s heavenly dispensational wonkavator that is meant to zap us out of here before the world gets really crazy? Or, have we misunderstood what the Scriptures are saying about these things and need to adopt a better view? Let us begin!
A BRIEF DISCLAIMER
As I have mentioned before. Jesus is going to return at the very end of human history. The dead in Christ will rise. The living and the dead will be judged. Some will be thrown into the lake of fire where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. And some will enter into the eternal kingdom with Christ in the new heavens and the new earth. All of that is true and is still in our future.
But, what we have also shown in this series, is that many of the most popular eschatological fantasies, peddled as the Gospel today, will not happen in the future, because they have already happened in the past. For instance, over the last several weeks we have shown that the rise of False Messiah’s, Wars and Rumors of Wars, Earthquakes and Famines, Tribulations, Signs of the Times, the Abomination of Desolation, The Great Tribulation, and the “Second Coming” (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3), all occurred in the events that happened in the Church’s first tumultuous forty years.
If you are all caught up on the series, today, we will examine how the events of Matthew 24:36-41, are not referring to a pre-trib, mid-trib, or post-tribulational “rapture”. But, instead is more evidence that Jesus was describing events that would happen in the first century. If you are not caught up, this post may be interesting, and I feel sure you will get something out of it, but, I would suggest reading the previous articles in the series for a fuller treatment. You can find those in blog form here, or in podcast form here.
THE TEXT:
“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left. - Matthew 24:36-41
A PAST DAY IN VIEW
While many believe this section of Scripture is referring to a future rapture of a righteous church, the context of Matthew 24 makes it abundantly clear that Jesus is referring to events that have already happened in the past to the unrighteous nation of Judah. We know this for at least three reasons. First, the context bears it out. Jesus is answering the disciples' questions about when the temple will be destroyed, what will be the sign this is about to occur, and how will that factor into the end of the Jewish age of redemption (Matthew 24:1-3). From verse 3 onward, Jesus is giving an unbroken answer to their question, describing events that must soon take place in their lifetimes, without deviating from that objective. There is not a single moment in verses 1-35, where Jesus jarringly shifts away from His audience to the distant future, to somehow wax proleptically. He stays on task and so should we.
Second, Jesus said a mere two verses earlier: “This generation will not pass away until all these things take place” (v. 34). This tells us unequivocally that Jesus believed everything in this prophecy would occur within a forty-year window. That alone should end the debate, right? Do we believe Jesus or not?
Third, whenever Jesus uses the word “day” in this chapter, He is not referring to an indeterminate day that will occur sometime in an undisclosed future. Instead, He is referring to a well-defined day, known as the “Day of the Lord”, which makes its Biblical appearance in the Old Testament prophetic writings. According to the prophets, the “Day of the Lord” was a special day when God uniquely brought His covenantal fury against His enemies. According to Jesus, that day had come in full when Judah rejected the reign of God (See Matthew 23:35-36). This undoubtedly served as the chiefest of all betrayals and pitted the Jews as mortal enemies with God. This is why Jesus alludes to, quotes from, and appeals to the very prophets who refer to this awesome and terrible day because that day would afflict the very generation He was speaking to (See for example Joel 1& 2; Amos 5; and Malachi 3 & 4).
JESUS KNEW HOW TO TELL TIME
In addition to what we have spoken about the word “day” above, we cannot fall into the same eisegetical category as “Old-Earthers” here. We cannot make “day” mean “non-day” and we certainly cannot substitute large quantities of time into non-existing gaps in order to come up with theories that fit more easily into our worldview. Jesus was telling His disciples that He willingly limited Himself in His human nature so that He would not know the day or the hour of His return. In effect, He is saying, “guys, I am not going to tell you if it will be on a Wednesday or Tuesday. I won’t be sharing if my return will happen just after breakfast or on into the evening. That is what “day” and “hour” mean.
Remember, Jesus did not say: “I do not know what century or millennium I will be returning” because He did know that! He had already told them that His return would happen within forty years (Mt. 24:34). Let us not bring unnecessary confusion where Jesus has made things irrevocably clear!
JESUS WASN’T A DISPY
That’s right. Jesus did not teach a “left behind” rapture. He did not promote the teleportational escape of the righteous to heaven while the wicked remain in suffering. And the passages we are looking at prove that to the utmost. How so? Follow Jesus’ argument.
In verse 37, Jesus gives the paradigm. He says:
As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
Notice that Jesus is giving us a controlling hermeneutic for the metaphor He is advancing. He does not say: “What I am about to tell you will be the exact opposite of what happened in the days of Noah”. Instead, He tells us that His next statement will be just as it was in the days of Noah. Let us continue.
In verse 38, Jesus gives us the setting and characters for His metaphor. He says:
For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark;
Here we have two sets of characters. We have the ones who will be spared (i.e. Noah and his family on the ark). And, we have all those who will be destroyed in the flood of God’s wrath. If this seems easy so far, then you understand what Jesus is saying well. Moving onward!
In verse 39, Jesus sets the hook. He says:
and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
Let’s ask ourselves the question: who was taken away? Was it the righteous that Jesus is referring to? Or what He saying that the wicked were taken away, swept up in the fury of God’s flood? It is clear, is it not? The ones who are taken away are the wicked; not the righteous! Let’s seal the deal!
In verses 40-41, the metaphor is applied to Jesus’ generation: He says
Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
According to the dispensational way of thinking, there will be two men in the field when Jesus returns. The wicked one will be left standing there as the righteous one is "tractor-beamed" into heaven. But wouldn’t that be the exact opposite of what happened in the days of Noah? And since Jesus said that His metaphor was going to follow the rules of the Noahic flood, then wouldn’t it be the sweeping away of the wicked? Dare I say, a rapture event that takes away the wicked and leaves the righteous ones behind?
This simply will not work in the dispensational schema. It does not work in the way Jesus is answering His disciples. But, it does work if you forget all of the nonsense of Christians being vaporized in front of reprobate crowds and follow along with what Jesus is saying.
He is not being coy or complicated. He is saying, just as it was in the days of Noah, that wicked and adulterous generation would be swept away in the fury of God’s wrath. Their crime? They rejected their covenant God and killed His one and only Son! Like the people in Noah’s day, they heard the preacher of righteousness and hardened their hearts against their God and now the judgment was coming. They would be swept away!
THE FUNNY THING ABOUT DEFINITIONS. THEY MATTER
Finally, we need to understand what the words “taken” and “left” mean before we can close out our time today. In our text, the word “Taken” does not mean a helicopter ride to heaven for the righteous. While that sounds like fun, the word here means the opposite. When Jesus says that some will be “taken” He is not talking about what will happen to believers in a rapture. He is using a word that often refers to criminals being “taken into custody”. For instance, look at how this word is used a mere three chapters later in Matthew’s Gospel:
Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole Roman cohort around Him. They stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. And after twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand; and they knelt down before Him and mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” - Matthew 27:27-29
When Jesus was treated like a criminal by the Jews and was “taken” by the Romans, He was not raptured out of the earth and into heaven. He was placed into legal custody and punished brutally by the Roman lictors. That is the same kind of “taking” that was awaiting the Jews in forty short years.
With that, what are we to do about the word “left”? Surely it means someone left wondering how their friend just disappeared and left all his clothing lying on the ground, right? Wrong again.
The word that we translate as “left” in this passage, usually means “to leave”, “to depart”, or “to flee”. It does not mean to be left behind, which is a passive action, it means that you are the one actively leaving, running away, or fleeing, which is a very active action. Notice how Mark uses the verb to describe what happened as the Jews were arresting Jesus. In Mark 14:50-52, Peter tells us:
And they (His disciples) all left Him and fled. A young man was following Him, wearing nothing but a linen sheet over his naked body; and they seized him. But he pulled free of the linen sheet and escaped naked. - Mark 14:50-52
Here we have a gaggle of temple security guards coming to arrest Jesus. They “took” Jesus and placed Him into custody, as the disciples were able to “get away” by fleeing. Let’s put all our thoughts together.
When Jesus says that some will be taken, he is saying that some will be arrested, taken into custody, beaten, and killed when the day of the Lord’s wrath comes. This day happened just like Jesus predicted, within a single generation, when the Romans came into the city, murdered, raped, and killed the Jews, and took the remaining survivors “into custody”. There were some who fled the scene and got away, but those were undoubtedly few.
At no point in this paragraph is Jesus speaking about a dispensational rapture. He has employed the dialogical genre to describe what the Jewish downfall would be like (v. 3-28). He utilized the apocalyptic genre to emphasize the same reality (v. 29-31). He exercised the genre of parables to bring that point home even further (v. 32-35). And now, in verses 36-41, He is appealing to a historical narrative to illustrate the same judgment coming He has been speaking about all along. If nothing else, Jesus is repeating His point incessantly so that we dare not fall into the errors of dispensationalism.
CONCLUSION
Jesus will return one day to judge the living and the dead. He will separate the sheep from the goats at the same time. He will divide the wheat and the tares without a gap in time. He will put the wheat into His heavenly barns and He will curse the chaff to be blown into the fires of hell. All of these things happen at the very end of human history, without dispensationalism’s go-go-gadget rapture.
As you have seen from this passage, this is not a sweeping away of the righteous. When Jesus came in judgment, it was a day of reckoning for Judah who abandoned fidelity to their God. It was a day when Jesus would bring an end to the Jewish age and launch His Kingdom Church upon the world to go and conquer it for Him.
My friends, that mission continues to this day. Instead of worrying when a secret rapture is going to happen, set your affections on Christ! Give your efforts to build His Kingdom and extend His reign wherever your foot strikes the ground! Remember His Kingdom is advancing. His Kingdom will not be stopped by the world, the flesh, or the devil. The gates of hell will not prevail upon it and our part is to keep on marching, keep on building, always advancing, and never retreating!
God bless you and join us again next time, on the Prodcast!
