Rapture

This view holds that the rapture would precede the seven-year Tribulation, which would culminate in Christ's second coming and be followed by a thousand-year Messianic Kingdom.

[7] Instead they typically interpret rapture in the sense of the elect gathering with Christ in Heaven right after his second coming and reject the idea that a large segment of humanity will be left behind on earth for an extended tribulation period after the events of 1 Thessalonians 4:17.

[13] Linguist, Dr. Douglas Hamp, notes that Greek scholar Spiros Zodhiates lists harpagēsometha as the first-person plural future passive indicative of the Greek stem, harpagē (har-pag-ay),[14] “the act of plundering, plunder, spoil.” The future passive indicative of harpázō (although not used by Paul in 1 Thess.

Some proponents believe the doctrine of amillennialism originated with Alexandrian scholars such as Clement and Origen[36] and later became Catholic dogma through Augustine.

[50] Eusebius wrote, "To these [written accounts] belong his [Papias of Hierapolis] statement that there will be a period of some thousand years after the resurrection of the dead, and that the kingdom of Christ will be set up in the material form on this very earth.

[...] But it was due to him that so many of the Church Fathers after him adopted a like opinion, urging in their own support the antiquity of the man; as for instance Irenaeus and anyone else that may have proclaimed similar views.

"[51] The 19th-century scholar Schaff notes that, "The most striking point in the eschatology of the ante-Nicene age is the prominent chiliasm, or millennarianism, that is the belief of a visible reign of Christ in glory on earth with the risen saints for a thousand years, before the general resurrection and judgment.

[53] The Alexandrian school's roots can be traced back to the influence of Philo, a Hellenized Jew who sought to reconcile God's veracity with what he thought were errors in the Tanakh.

[62][63] Other 17th-century expressions of the rapture are found in the works of Robert Maton, Nathaniel Holmes, John Browne, Thomas Vincent, Henry Danvers, and William Sherwin.

[64] The term rapture was used by Philip Doddridge[65] and John Gill[66] in their New Testament commentaries, with the idea that believers would be caught up prior to judgment on earth and Jesus' second coming.

[68] In 1825,[69] Irving directed his attention to the study of prophecy and eventually accepted the one-man Antichrist idea of James Henthorn Todd, Samuel Roffey Maitland, Robert Bellarmine, and Francisco Ribera, yet he went a step further.

Irving began to teach the idea of a two-phase return of Christ, the first phase being a secret rapture prior to the rise of the Antichrist.

Pretribulation educators and preachers include Jimmy Swaggart, Robert Jeffress, J. Dwight Pentecost, Tim LaHaye, J. Vernon McGee, Perry Stone, Chuck Smith, Hal Lindsey, Jack Van Impe, Skip Heitzig, Chuck Missler, Grant Jeffrey, Thomas Ice, David Jeremiah, John F. MacArthur, and John Hagee.

Despite vague notions of this view existing in a few Puritan theologians prior to Darby, he was the first person to place it into a larger theological framework .

[81][82] One version of the text reads, "For all the saints and Elect of God are gathered, prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord lest they see the confusion that is to overwhelm the world because of our sins.

Manuel Lacunza (1731–1801), a Jesuit priest (under the pseudonym Juan Josafat Ben Ezra), wrote an apocalyptic work entitled La venida del Mesías en gloria y majestad (The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty).

In 1995, the doctrine of the pretribulation rapture was further popularized by Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series of books, which sold close to 80 million copies and was made into several movies and four real-time strategy video games.

[88] According to Thomas Ice a belief in the imminence of Christ's return, key to modern pretribulation theology, can be found in various Church Fathers and early Christian writings.

[89] The mid-tribulation position espouses that the rapture will occur at some point in the middle of what is popularly called the tribulation period, or during Daniel's 70th Week.

Midtribulationists hold that the saints will go through the first period (Beginning of Travail) but will be raptured into Heaven before the severe outpouring of God's wrath in the second half of what is popularly called the Great Tribulation.

Midtribulationist teachers include Harold Ockenga, James O. Buswell (a reformed, Calvinistic Presbyterian), and Norman Harrison.

This view holds that the tribulation of the church begins toward the latter part of a seven-year period, being Daniel's 70th week, when the Antichrist is revealed in the temple.

References from Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 are used as evidence that this tribulation will be cut short by the coming of Christ to deliver the righteous by means of the rapture, which will occur after specific events in Revelation, in particular after the sixth seal is opened and the sun is darkened and the moon is turned to blood.

Other proponents of this theory hold that only those who are faithful in their relationship with God (having true fellowship with him) will be raptured, and the rest resurrected during the great tribulation, between the 5th and 6th seals of Revelation, having lost their lives during.

A. Seiss, Hudson Taylor, Anthony Norris Groves, John Wilkinson, G. Campbell Morgan, Otto Stockmayer and Rev.

Authors and teachers who support the posttribulational view include Pat Robertson, Walter R. Martin, John Piper, George E. Ladd,[101] Robert H. Gundry,[102] and Douglas Moo.

According to Loraine Boettner "the world will be Christianized, and the return of Christ will occur at the close of a long period of righteousness and peace, commonly called the millennium.

They view the life of the church as Christ's kingdom already established (inaugurated on the day of the Pentecost described in the first chapter of Acts), but not to be made complete until his second coming.

This framework precludes a literal interpretation of the thousand-year period mentioned in chapter twenty of Revelation, viewing the number "thousand" as numerologically symbolic and pertaining to the current age of the church.

[104] The amillennialist viewpoint is the position held by the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican churches, as well as mainline Protestant bodies, such as Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians and many Reformed congregations.