Rapture: The End-Times Error That Leaves the Bible Behind (7 page)

Then Paul corrects those Christians who thought the second coming had already occurred, and that they had been forgotten. “We beg you, brethren, not to be quickly shaken in mind … by letter purporting to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come” (2:1–2).

The Lord could not already have come, says Paul, because the antichrist must come first. Paul warns not to let anyone “deceive you in any way; for that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition” (2:3).

Moreover, we need not worry about who the victor in the final analysis will be. Later in the same passage, Paul tells us, “And then the lawless one will be revealed, and the Lord Jesus will slay him with the breath of His mouth and destroy him by His appearing and His coming” (2:8).

It will not be a long, drawn-out battle once Christ appears. Christ will win. The prophet Daniel likens Christ’s victory to a “stone … cut out by no human hand” that crushes the statue of this world’s governments. They become “like the chaff of the summer threshing floors” (Dan. 2:34–35).

Yet Paul tells us that before this final victory, “the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, [will take] his seat in the Temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thess. 2:3–4). The antichrist wants to be declared God in God’s Temple. This is the Temple in Jerusalem, the only temple God has ever inhabited.

This scenario described by Paul presupposes two realities. One has come to pass; the other has not—yet. First, the Jews must be in control of Jerusalem. That occurred partially in 1948 and completely in 1967. This is tremendously important for us to understand. We are living in the last days, and the fact that the Jews have come back into control of their land after almost nineteen centuries of exile is nothing short of miraculous. Only God could have made this possible. He is obviously preparing the world for its final trial.

The second reality concerns the Jewish Temple. It must be rebuilt. Otherwise how could the son of perdition proclaim himself to be God from a seat within that Temple? In fact, the prophet Zechariah informs us that “all the nations … shall go up … to worship.… All who sacrifice may come” (Zech. 14:16, 21). The Old Covenant animal sacrifices will be reinstated in the Temple, and it will once again become the center of God’s worship here on earth. This is why the antichrist will choose to desecrate God’s Temple in blasphemy.

Actually, there is one passage in the Bible more important than any other for understanding the end times. It is Daniel’s “vision of the seventy weeks,” found in Daniel 9:24–27. There Daniel also predicts that the antichrist will desecrate the rebuilt Temple.

Daniel relates a vision of future events he has been shown. First, he informs us that within a certain length of time, “seventy weeks,” there will be six blessings bestowed. It is decreed that these seventy weeks will be enough time “to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place” (9:24). Rather than spend a great deal of time determining what the seventy weeks signify, let us draw a simple conclusion. Since sin is still in the world, and everlasting righteousness is not yet realized, these seventy weeks are
not yet accomplished
. This means that at least some of the seventy weeks must still be future.

All of the early Church understood this passage to be Christological. From his perspective in the sixth century B.C., Daniel saw that the “anointed one,” the Messiah, would come. As Christians, we know that He did. Daniel also understood that Jerusalem and its sanctuary, or Temple, “shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time” (9:25). That, too, occurred. Jerusalem and its Temple were rebuilt, always under the threat or actuality of war. By about 10 B.C., the city and its Temple had finally been rebuilt and were in a state of relative peace under Herod.

Then Daniel’s prophecy, which started out with such hope and promise, turns dour. Sometime after Jerusalem and its Temple are completed, Daniel understood that the Messiah would be “cut off,” or killed. Sometime toward the end of the first sixty-nine weeks, “an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing” (9:26). This is an obvious reference to the Passion of our Lord. This has always been the most common Christian understanding of this vision. The Temple was to be rebuilt, and then the Messiah was to come and be killed. All of these events occurred in the first sixty-nine weeks of Daniel’s prophecy. This left only one week, the seventieth week.

But at this point, the time frame of Daniel’s vision shifts. There is a parenthesis inserted into Daniel’s vision of which Daniel is unaware. It is almost as if he were standing on a mountain, looking at two distant peaks. He sees both peaks clearly, but because of his perspective, he does not understand that there is a tremendous valley of hundreds of miles (thousands of years) between the two peaks. After Daniel sees the Passion of our Lord, he misses the parenthetical “Church age” that stretches between Christ’s first and second advents.

So, after the death of Christ, the next event Daniel sees is more than two thousand years later. He sees a prince who shall come and destroy the Temple, but is unaware that this occurs in the middle of the Great Tribulation, still in the future even to us. “The people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war; desolations are decreed” (9:26). This is a description of the antichrist and his attack on Jerusalem after the rapture.

How do we know? Because Daniel tells us that this prince shall desolate the Temple, “upon the wing of abominations” (9:27). What could be more abominable to the Jews than what Paul has already told us the future antichrist will do? The man of sin will enter the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem, sit down, and proclaim himself to be God. To any devout Jew, this would certainly be an abomination and desolation.

Now that we know that Daniel is describing the future antichrist, we can learn other events that will surround this son of perdition. He will make a covenant with the Jewish people at the beginning of the one week. “He shall make a strong covenant with many for one week.” The one week is Daniel’s last week, the seventieth week, which is best understood as seven years. This is how we know that the Great Tribulation will be for seven years. Daniel told us almost three millennia ago!

The strong covenant of the antichrist is a Middle East peace treaty (for which anyone who reads the newspaper today can understand the urgent need). He will establish peace between Israel and its neighbors at the beginning of these seven years. He will be internationally acclaimed as a peacemaker, and his power and influence will be unprecedented.

Then halfway through the seven years, the man of sin will break the covenant with the Jews and desecrate the Temple with his blasphemy. “For half of the week [three and a half seasons] he shall cause sacrifice and offering to cease” (9:27). This is the same event that is mentioned in Thessalonians. For the remaining three and a half years of the Great Tribulation, the antichrist will seek to destroy the Temple and Jerusalem after his abomination of desolation.

This antichrist will gather all nations together to destroy Jerusalem and its Temple. God predicts in Zechariah, “All nations of the earth will come together against [Jerusalem].… I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses plundered.… Then the Lord shall go forth and fight against those nations as when He fights on a day of battle. On that day His feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives which lies before Jerusalem.… Then the Lord your God will come, and all the holy ones with Him” (Zech. 12:3; 14:2–5).

Daniel, too, assures us that the antichrist will be defeated in the end. “The decreed end is [to be] poured out on the desolator” (9:27). This refers to the second coming of Christ that we already learned about from Paul. When Christ comes at the end of these seven years, he will utterly defeat the antichrist and all his forces.

This battle in which Christ will defeat the antichrist and his false prophet is called “Armageddon” in The Apocalypse: “I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against Him who sits upon the horse [Christ] and against His army. And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet.… These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with brimstone. And the rest were slain by the sword of Him who sits upon the horse” (Apoc. 19:19–21). Such is the fate of all those who disobey Christ. Every evil person from the Great Tribulation will be killed in this battle with Christ.

Then the first resurrection occurs. This is the resurrection of all the righteous who died under the Old Covenantal system. This system was operational for the centuries before Christ’s first advent and again during the seven-year Great Tribulation. While speaking to the Jews before offering the world His Church, Jesus said, “You will be repaid [for your good deeds] at the resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:14). This was in reference to those righteous people who lived under the Old Covenant, and so never made it into His Church.

We see this resurrection described in The Apocalypse: “I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands [during the Great Tribulation]. They came to life, and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection” (Apoc. 20:4–5).

Those raised in the first resurrection are judged along with the Gentiles who survived the Great Tribulation. “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2). This is called the second future judgment (we will return to the first judgment in a moment). These souls will be judged according to their good deeds, particularly in their treatment of Israel. Jesus taught that those who practiced the corporal works of mercy would be shown mercy at this judgment. “You gave me food.… You gave me drink.… You clothed me.… In prison you came to me” (Matt. 25:31–46). Since people are judged by their works, and not according to their faith in Christ’s finished work on the Cross, it is obvious that no Christian will be judged at this time. I repeat,
this is not how or when Christians will be judged
.

At this time, Israel will be judged as a nation in regard to its loyalty to the Old Covenant Law. “I will enter into judgment with you, says the Lord God. I will make you pass under the rod, and I will let you go in by number. I will purge out the rebels from among you, and those who transgress against me; I will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, but they shall not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord” (Ezek. 20:36–38). This third judgment happens at the same time as the second judgment.

The third judgment makes clear the purpose of the Great Tribulation. During this seven-year period of trial, God will return to the Old Covenant. The first time the Jewish Messiah came, He was rejected and crucified. This seven-year period gives Israel a second chance to recognize Jesus as its Messiah. This time, because of the antichrist’s persecution, the Jewish nation will finally recognize Jesus as their Messiah and call on Him for help in their need. Zechariah tells us that “the inhabitants of Jerusalem” will finally recognize Jesus as Messiah and repent of their rejection of Him. “When they [Israel] look on Him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for Him” (Zech. 12:10). When the Jews call upon Christ at the end of the seven-year Great Tribulation, He will return in the glory of His second advent.

“But wait,” you may ask. “In all this, where is the Church? All of these events relate to ethnic Israel and the Gentiles. Nowhere have you mentioned Christians even once.” There is actually a very good reason for that. During the seven-year Great Tribulation in which the antichrist rules the world, Christians will not be here on earth. They will have been raptured!

Just before the seven years start, all true believers will be taken out of harm’s way by Christ. This rapture is imminent; it can occur at any moment, perhaps even before you finish this paragraph. There is nothing else in history that must occur before it.

Paul writes to the Thessalonian Christians about the end times more than once. They seem to have been quite confused and were concerned that those who had died as Christians might not be raptured with the living Christians. Paul assures them this is not so. In doing so, he gives us the clearest description in the Bible of the secret rapture of believers: “But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep [dead].… We who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from Heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them
in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air;
and so we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:13–17).