by Ed Enochs
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
As 2006 fast fades into the distant past, there are several things I am resolved to do in 2007.
1. I am resolved to watch and sell popcorn for Saddam Hussein's execution that is supposed to occur within the next month. (They had better show that thing live on T.V. lest we have to download it off the Internet).
2. I am resolved to watch and sell popcorn for the coming winner take all WWF smack-down, drag out cat fight between Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump.
3. In the era of instantaneous credit checks and information retrieval, I am resolved to see the officials for the Miss America Pageant do a little better job at screening and doing background checks for its beauty queen contestants, lest it continue to select boozing and cocaine using Hooter girls as its pageant winners.
4. I am resolved to read my Bible on a daily basis, exercise and eat salads and or vegetables at least once a month. (You know you need to have major health issues and need prompt culinary intervention from an audience of your peers when the healthiest thing you have eaten all year is a Double Double Animal style with the secret sauce from In and Out Burger
5. I am resolved to actually bunker down and study to find out if the Bible really teaches a Pretribulational Rapture as I have been so forcefully indoctrinated throughout my twenty years as an Evangelical Christian.
On the subject of the Pretribulational Rapture, I have sat under some of the Evangelicalism's most staunch Pretriubulational and Premillenial Bible including David Hocking and my teachers at Biola, Moody Bible Institute and at the Master's Seminary and I am losing confidence that the Bible actually teaches that the Rapture of the Church and the Second Coming of Christ are two distinct events in eschatological history.
Over the last year, I have been seriously challenged by a friend we call "Count Duku" a pastor back east and a couple of guys in Whittier California to call into question if the Rapture and the Second Coming of Christ are in all reality two distinct events and are not in fact one and the same event.
The difficulty I am experiencing in my understanding and acceptance of Pretribulationalism is that when I read 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and 1 Corinthians 15: 52-54, I am just not certain any more if the Bible teaches that there will be a "Secret Rapture" and my eschatological confidence is seriously eroding in accepting that the "Rapture" and the Second Coming are two distinct events that occur seven years apart before and after the Tribulation Period.
Now, before any of you folks intend on sending me books and articles by John Walvoord, Hal Lindsey , Tim Lehay and other big time Pretrib and Premillennial teachers defending the Pretribulational Rapture, you have to understand that I have spent thousands of hours and thousands of dollars in college and in Seminary (where I took five different upper division elective seminary courses on eschatology) and I am still not certain the Bible teaches that the Rapture and the Second Coming are two different events.Over the years, I have carefully studied the origin of the Pretribulational Rapture doctrine within Dispensationalist Premillennial Eschatology and understand that John Nelson Darby and the Plymouth Brethren Bible teachers including William Kelly taught based on 1 Corinthians 15: 52-54 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 taught that there will be a "secret rapture" wherein the Christian Church will be snatched away from the earth by God before the start of the Seven Year Tribulation Period and that the Second Coming of Christ is supposed to happen at the end of the seven year Tribulation Period.
I understand that Darby and the Plymouth Brethren Dispensationalists taught this and later influenced Evangelical Bible teacher James Brookes to adopt Dispensationalism and the Secret Rapture concept of Eschatology, and that Brookes influenced C.I. Scofield who in turn influenced a century of American Evangelicals to adopt Pretriublationalism as an unquestioned doctrinal tenet of Dispensantionalist Evangelicalism. I understand, I am questioning a major point of dotrine within Dispensationalist teaching, but I am still left uncertain that texts in 1 Thessalonians 4, 1 Corinthians 15, Revelation and the Book of Daniel really teach this Secret Rapture doctrine.
I could be wrong, I hope I am wrong, lest I be deemed a heretic by my dispensationalist die heart friends and the Dispensationalists teachers are right all along, but I am just not sure anymore and I plan on getting to the bottom of the issue
