Rapture: The End-Times Error That Leaves the Bible Behind (10 page)

Perhaps unfortunately, these three books contain literature of the genre called “apocalyptic.” This is unfortunate in that this type of writing is rather foreign to the twenty-first-century reader. Because the imagery is vivid and symbolic, apocalyptic literature can lead rather easily to misunderstandings.

In this type of writing, special rules apply. Apocalyptic literature must be interpreted with the full awareness of
how it was intended to be understood when it was written
. This is a basic rule of hermeneutics (rules for interpreting the Bible). Poetry should be understood as poetry, history as history, and apocalyptic writings should be understood in the larger framework of apocalyptic literature.

Moreover, apocalyptic text in the Bible does more than use vivid, symbolic imagery. It also purports supernaturally to inform readers about future events. In this sense, apocalyptic literature in the Bible is different from any secular literature of the apocalyptic genre. The best term I have encountered to describe this biblical literature is “prophetic-apocalyptic” (
ZPE
, I, 204).

It will be much easier to navigate the apocalyptic passages touching on the rapture and second coming of Christ if we have first clarified certain principles. These ground rules can be discerned from Scripture itself, so that a fair-minded Protestant should be able to agree with them.

After laying the foundation of these ground rules, we will take the passages in their turn, examining them on their own merits. We will discuss the passages in the order they appear in the Bible, in order to keep them in approximate chronological order. That is how God revealed these truths to His people. First Daniel and Zechariah were available. Much in these books was difficult to understand until Jesus taught more truth in the Olivet Discourse (Matthew) about six hundred years later. At least three more decades transpired before the Church was finally given the perspective of The Apocalypse.

By following the order of God’s unfolding revelation, we can learn from the earlier passages before we attempt to discern the meaning of the later ones. It is essential to remember that the later books presuppose a familiarity with the earlier books. If I follow this general scheme properly, at the end of Daniel you will have been introduced to some concepts of which you are not yet fully convinced. By the end of The Apocalypse, however, we should be able to look back in awe at the wondrous revelation of God through the ages.

Prophecy inspired by God can foretell events in advance of any possible human foresight

Like most people, I have vivid childhood memories of Christmas. One of my family’s traditions was the reading of the Nativity story every Christmas morning before we opened any of our presents (which made us very willing to sit still so as not to create any delay!).

One of the passages giving us the details of Christ’s birth can be found in the first two chapters of Matthew’s Gospel. We read that after the birth of Jesus, “wise men from the East came to Jerusalem” (2:1) inquiring about the location of the new baby King.

This inquiry certainly piqued the interest of the reigning ruler in Judea at that time, Herod. King Herod was not a Jew, but an Edomite. He had been recently installed on the Jewish throne by the Romans, at the expense of the Jewish Hasmonean dynasty. It is quite certain that he knew of the prophecy of Balaam, recorded in Numbers 24:17–18, which foretold the ascendancy of Jacob’s star (a Jewish King) at the expense of the Edomites: “A star shall come forth out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel; it shall crush the forehead of Moab.…
Edom
shall be dispossessed.”

Herod was so troubled that, “assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet: “And you, O Bethlehem … from you shall come a ruler who will govern my people Israel” ’ ” (Matt. 2:4–6). In answering Herod’s question, the leaders of Israel referenced Micah 5:2.

In this exchange, we can ascertain Ground Rule 1:
Prophecy inspired by God can foretell events in advance of any possible human foresight
(GR1). Modernist objections notwithstanding, Scripture is sprinkled liberally with prophecy that has been fulfilled in a way that no human being could have foreseen. It has been estimated that about one-quarter of the Bible was prophetic when penned.

Some 150 years before his birth, the Persian king Cyrus was named and described in Isaiah 41:25–45:4. He merited this mention because he paved the way for the Messiah when he decreed the rebuilding of Jerusalem. In 1 Kings 13:1–3, the name and actions of King Josiah are predicted almost three centuries before his birth. He stands as an important type of Jesus the Messiah as the reforming king, killed by Egypt. While modernist Catholic commentators refer to these as later glosses, added after the events, able Evangelical scholars have proven them wrong. These truly were prophecies, uttered before the fact.

This principle stands in direct opposition to a basic assumption of modern higher criticism, as adopted first by Islamic scholars, then by Protestants, and then by Catholics. Many laymen are not aware of the roots of modernist theology as it relates to New Testament studies, much of which can be traced to a Lutheran scholar by the name of Rudolf Bultmann.

One of Bultmann’s basic assumptions was his total rejection of the supernatural. All miracles are automatically ruled out as impossible, whether they are found in the Old Testament or the New. The stories of the Old Testament about Noah, Moses, and Elijah are reinterpreted to fit the prejudices of a modern, rationalistic mindset. Likewise, the New Testament accounts of the Virgin Birth, the feeding of the five thousand, the raising of Lazarus, and the Resurrection of Jesus are explained, or rather, explained away, in modern rationalistic terms.

Since looking into the future and predicting it with an accuracy that human foresight cannot explain is certainly a miracle, true prophecy is impossible according to modernist theologians. This is an
a priori
article of faith for them. A favorite approach to any text containing a prophecy that was fulfilled is to strive to re-date its authorship to a time after the event occurred. Scholars call this “antedating” the authorship of Scripture. This makes it possible to explain away the prophecy. In their view, it is really history written in the style of prophecy.

This, however, is extremely difficult for them to do with the prophecy of Micah, quoted by the chief priests to Herod in Matthew’s Gospel. This prophecy was fulfilled in the birth of Christ, yet we know that Micah’s prophecy was in existence hundreds of years before that event.

It is important to remember that true prophecy really can be found in the Bible. The Holy Spirit was able to direct writers of Scripture to foretell future events accurately, even when the writers themselves did not fully understand the implications of what they wrote. The Church throughout history has generally accepted an earlier date for other books of prophecy, such as Daniel. It is not that early Christians were uncritical, either. Textual criticism is not modern; there is evidence of robust textual criticism dating from the second century. Modern higher criticism wedded to antisupernatural prejudices is the problem.

This prejudice affects how modernists view even the Gospel account. Yet the Church states, “The Gospels were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who preserved their authors from every error”
(SME)
. With that said, it will surprise no one that I accept the historicity of the miracles of Jesus as presented in the Gospels, and even the virgin birth of that same Jesus. His Incarnation was possible because of the yes that His mother, Mary, gave to God’s plan as presented by the angel Gabriel. Yes, that means I accept the possibility of the supernatural. Along with Christians of every loyal faith tradition, I also believe that Christ will physically return to close the curtain on history. The focus of this book will be on how this last prophecy will occur.

Numbers in prophecy denote a symbolic meaning that trumps any empirical value

In the Old Testament prophetic book of Jeremiah, we encounter our second ground rule. The prophet Jeremiah lived just before the Babylonian captivity. He looked that catastrophe straight in the eye and stated that, although horrible in the suffering it caused, it would have an end. He predicted that the time of captivity for the Jewish nation would be seventy years: “Thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place” (Jer. 29:10).

The prophet Daniel lived through this captivity. When it started, he was a young lad in Jerusalem. He was taken captive to Babylon and rose in the ranks of royal advisors. Later in his life, he came across this prophecy of Jeremiah and realized that the seventy years was close to being completed (Dan. 9). Jeremiah’s prophecy was about to be fulfilled—but not with the precision that a modern Western reader might expect.

This prophecy of seventy years is one of the only instances in which we can compare the prophetic time of the Bible with our modern concept of historical time. Both the prediction and the fulfillment are recorded in the Bible. As a result, scholars and historians have struggled to make the historical events of the captivity fit the seventy years that Jeremiah predicted. It simply never works out exactly; rather, the events fit into either sixty-seven years or seventy-one years. Even a staunch literalist such as Walvoord admits this in
Daniel, The Key to Prophetic Revelation
.

If you assume that God is omniscient and omnipotent, the natural question is, “Why would God reveal to Jeremiah a nice round number such as seventy when the actual time period would turn out to be a little less or a smidgen more?” The answer turns out to be quite simple. As Catholic and Protestant scholars alike have long recognized, in Old Testament times, numbers had a symbolic meaning.

Often, this symbolic meaning bears more importance than the literal numerical value. The number
three
was the number of God. The number
four
was the number symbolizing earth.
Seven
(three plus four) and
twelve
(three times four) signified God working in the world.
Ten
was the number of completion. Even multiples of these numbers were important to ancient Jews. In the Jewish calendar, the seventh month was the most sacred, being the month of the Feast of Trumpets, Yom Kippur, and the Feast of Tabernacles. Numbers that relate to dates and times were particularly significant.

The Bible even uses two Greek words for two types of time. Chronological time is
kronos
(the root of the words
chronometer
and
chronology
), whereas symbol-laden, salvific time is
kairos
. This kind of time is described in Ecclesiastes 3:1–8: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under Heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted.…”

So what might be the symbolism of the seventy years in Jeremiah? Seventy is the result of multiplying ten and seven. These numbers signify the completion of God’s working in the world. In this case, that work involved the punishment of Israel. The captivity of Daniel and his fellow Jews was not exactly seventy years, but the judgment of God was complete.

This does not match our modern concept of chronological time, but it speaks to something more important—namely, symbol-laden, salvific time. The sixty-seven (or seventy-one) years of the Babylonian captivity was close enough to seventy years for an observer to notice the correspondence, yet the significant number
seventy
was preserved.
Numbers in prophecy denote a symbolic meaning that trumps any empirical value
(GR2).

We must remind ourselves of this ground rule every time we read a number in the Bible. What is its symbolic meaning, if any? For example, the importance of the number
one thousand
is immense. Jewish tradition teaches that this was the length of the Davidic kingdom. But when the Bible states that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, it is inappropriate to start identifying which hills are being included. One thousand is the product of ten times ten times ten; thus it is a complete and perfect number. The number represents something much more important than 999 plus one. God’s wealth is totally complete.

We see the ancient significance of numbers at work even outside of prophecy. In Matthew 1:17, the author organizes Christ’s genealogy around the number
fourteen
. There are fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the Babylonian captivity, and fourteen from the Babylonian captivity to Jesus. This splits the genealogy into “from promise given to promise fulfilled,” “from promise fulfilled to promise lost,” and finally “from promise lost to promise fulfilled eternally.” In addition, some scholars note that the number
fourteen
was the number of King David, which would remind a reader again and again that Jesus was the son of David. All of this is easily lost on the modern reader who does not study the ancient attitude toward numbers and their meaning.