Disciples Digital Library

After decades of disappointed expectations and false predictions, it is time to reexamine popular ideas about the last days and the return of Christ . In my youth, I was greatly impressed by the book, ‘ The Late Great Planet Earth ’, authored by Hal Lindsey . It was exciting to discover that Bible prophecies were being fulfilled before our eyes and reported in the daily news headlines, or so we were told.

Après des décennies d'attentes déçues et de fausses prédictions, il est temps pour les croyants de réexaminer les idées populaires sur les Derniers Jours . Il y a cinquante ans, j'ai été grandement influencé par le livre, ‘ La Défunte Grande Planète Terre ’, par Hal Lindsey. J'y lisais comment les prophéties des derniers jours s'accomplissaient sous nos yeux dans les manchettes quotidiennes. Tous les “signes” indiquaient que j'étais membre de “la dernière génération” de l'Histoire. Moi, et beaucoup d'autres, verrions le retour de Jésus. L'Antéchrist, Harmaguédon et le Millénium approchaient à grands pas.

The doctrine of the ‘Rapture’ is an interpretation of Paul’s description in 1 Thessalonians of both resurrected saints and those believers still alive at the time “ meeting Jesus in the air ” as he descends from Heaven. According to this view, the church is physically removed from the Earth and transported to Heaven by the Lord, presumably to a nonphysical and timeless reality outside the space-time continuum.

Discussions on the doctrine of the Rapture normally revolve around the question, ‘When the Rapture will occur?’ That is, for example, before the “ Great Tribulation ,” at its midpoint, or at the end of the Tribulation? But this question misses a fundamental point. Nowhere does the New Testament even mention any ‘rapture’ at all, or at least, not by that term if by it we mean the physical removal of the church from the Earth and its transportation to “heaven,” presumably, someplace outside of the present space-time continuum.