What’s the Deal with the Rapture (Left Behind style)?

Encore Post: The rapture and host of other teachings about the end times spring primarily from the American theological quagmire of 1800s upstate New York. This area gave us Charles Grandison Finney, Joseph Smith, Charles Taze Russel, and William Miller among others. Those four respectively produced American Revivalism, the LDS church, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Adventist & Davidian churches.

There is some significant commonality of end times teaching (eschatology) between these groups. The belief in a millennium, a literal 1,000-year reign of Christ on Earth, is one such teaching. The rapture is a key feature of these millennial eschatologies. There will, no doubt, be additional questions in the future about the teachings from these groups.

Generally, the rapture is the notion that the righteous, the believers will be yanked away from creation into the air. Often, that also means they are removed from earth for a period of time, during which the tribulation occurs. There are numerous variations on the sequencing and chronology. But, that’s the thumbnail sketch.

One of the major proofs of the rapture is from Matthew 24. Jesus speaks at great length about the end of days. Verses 40 and 41 are often used in support of this “left behind” type rapture teaching.

Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. (Matthew 24:40-41)

That seems a fairly straight forward interpretation. The one taken is the righteous person, the believer. The one left behind is the unrighteous person, the unbeliever. Now, those verses do not indicate which might be which.

Is there a way for us to see that passage more clearly from its own context? Well, let’s look at verse 38 and 39. They immediately precede these two.

For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:38-39)

It’s unlikely that any of us would argue in favor of the righteousness of those taken in the flood. They were swept away. Noah and his family, eight souls in all, were preserved, left behind, amidst the destruction.

It seems quite clear that the unbelievers, the unrighteous are the ones who are taken. In the broader context of Matthew, the things taken, cut into pieces, burned by fire, and cast into the outer darkness are the wicked things. As Lutherans we also hold that all of this is part of the in-an-instant-ness of the day of salvation.

When the Son of Man returns in glory, the trumpet sounds, and all is accomplished at once. The day of judgement and all its events are one moment for all of creation. We are the ones coming out of the great tribulation, right now.

Thanks be to God for the salvation bought by the death of Jesus.

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Sole Pastor
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX

and

Mission planting pastoral team:
Epiphany Lutheran Church
Bastrop, TX