Subject: Pretribulation or slightly after ? |
Bible Note: You wrote: 'What if the understanding of the "glorification and rising of the saints" (see why we use 'rapture') was clearly laid out in the 19th century. Would that make it unbiblical?' Not necessarily, but I think it makes it suspect. Do you think that a sovereign God would make his revelation so obscure that the greatest teachers in the church, gifted by the Holy Spirit as they were, would completely overlook something like a pre-tribulational rapture for 1800 years? You wrote: "I mean do you think all things eschatological has been explained prior to recent time." Of course not. People have been debating about the timing and nature of the Milennium throughout all of church history, for example. However, if a novelty comes up like pre-tribulationalism, with no historical basis whatsoever (even from those who were themselves taught by the apostles), then we have to wonder if that interpretation of the Bible is truly reflective of the apostolic tradition that we see in Scripture. Another problem I have with it is that it is tied so heavily to Darby and his dispensationalism, which is fraught with all kinds of theological problems, so much so that one has to start playing the "what-part-of-the-Bible-is-for-us-and-what-part is-for-Israel" game. Darby just didn't teach the secret rapture; he denied the very understanding of Scripture the church has had since its earliest days. Can it really be that a sovereign God let ALL of His people get so far off track, from the word "go"? Nope. "So it stands to reason that there are many truths buried in the Scripture that were not dealt with by your favorite teachers. :)" Actually, most of my favorite teachers spoke at length about the end times. It was far from ignored in antiquity and in Reformation theology. They just didn't make up something completely new like Darby and Scofield and company. "but there are many truths in the Bible, especially the prophets of the OT that have been ignored by the ignorant masses of the church who are too busy to study the Bible." I agree with you there, Scribe. But to say that the masses have ignored them is not to say that they have been ignored completely by the church. You can go all throughout the history of the church and find commentary and exposition of the major and minor prophets. I would even argue that a big reason why those books are so neglected today is that so many people are taught that the OT is "not for us." You wrote: "Some of these truths are waiting to be rediscovered, not because they are new truths but becuase they have been ignored while men squabble over whether they have free will or not, or because they have been lost when once they were embraced prior to the age of the Catholicsim which lasted hundreds of years. We are still having to recover that fervency of spirit seen in the Book of Acts." First of all, men "squabbling," as you put it, is how we got definitions of every major doctrine that is considered orthodox today. They were called "church councils," and they go back as far as Acts 15 at least. See? The way you put this is one of the reasons I dislike the "end-times fever" we have seen in the last century and a half. Everything else but receiving Christ through faith alone has taken a back seat to the supposedly "important" doctrines of figuring out when and how Jesus is coming back to get His bride. Paul thought that a lot of issues such as the role of God in salvation were important enough to elaborate upon at length (read Romans and see how much eschatology you see there). But what is on the best seller list as Christian Bookstore, Inc.? Books which show how the President's coughing during a press conference fits into the Antichrist's plan to propel us into martial law. Of course, this book will contain detailed charts in full-color to show that the 70th week of Daniel will begin next Thursday at precisely 7:24 p.m. And you better not get left behind! That would be worse than...well, hell itself! Please excuse my hyperbole. I know that I am exagerrating, but only ever-so-slightly. But you are subscribing to the view that there was some view that everyone held, but then was lost. You have yet to show me where in the early church, before the "Catholic Age," whatever that means, began. Emmaus can attest to the fact that I am very much in opposition to a lot of Catholic theology, but it is simply a mistake of history to assume that the true church of Christ disappeared in the early fourth century, only to mystically be re-born centuries later. The errors of Rome came about very gradually (we are talking on the order of centuries here), and the people of God by and large were members of the church of Rome (and some still are), because in the West that WAS the visible church. --Joe! |