NOTES ON THE GLORY OF THE REBUILT CITY: POSTSCRIPT ON NEHEMIAH’S RESTORED WALLS & BULWARKs PART II:

PART II: “THE WAY OF SAFETY I”

SCRIPTURE. “Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.” – ISAIAH 26:20-21, KJV

QUOTATIONS

“If I am drowning in a rapid river, a man who still has one foot on the bank may give me a hand which saves my life. Ought I to shout back (between my gasps) ‘No, it’s not fair! You have an advantage! You’re keeping one foot on the bank’? That Advantage—call it ‘unfair’ if you like—is the only reason why he can be of any use to me. To what will you look for help if you will not look to that which is Stronger than yourself?” – C. S. LEWIS, ‘Mere Christianity,’ 1952; edited

“Being content to Walk with God brings peace in the midst of uncertainty. It brings wisdom in the unknown. It brings contentment in any situation and grace in every circumstance. It brings mercy and forgiveness in sin and blessed assurance in condemnation. It brings freedom from captivity. Walking with God brings light and air into the pit, as God reaches down to Rescue us when we fall.” – TERESA SCHULTZ, ‘The Bible in Poetry,’ 2017; edited

“‘War must be, while we defend our lives against a Destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend: The city of the Men of Númenor.’- Faramir .” – J.R.R. TOLKIEN, ‘The Two Towers,’ 1954; edited

1. FIRST THOUGHTS

I have written, more than once, that my favorite name for our King is, “Lord of the Rescue.” After 40 some years of sojourning with Him, watching Him, listening to His every Word, carefully observing His approach to the hurting and the broken, and the proud, I believe this name captures His Essence like no other.

Such a Model, if you will, implicates the tenderness of a Florence Nightingale, while demanding the courage of a David, and the wisdom of a thousand Solomons and more. 

RESCUE. Noah Webster important word in this way: “To free or deliver from any confinement, violence, danger or evil; to liberate from actual restraint, or to remove or withdraw from a state of exposure to evil.” – ‘American Dictionary of the English Language,’ 1828

But now here’s the rub: We must WANT to be rescued. As simple as that sounds, there appears to be a hundred hesitations, and namely one, that keeps us from such Rescue. Which is operationally defined as:

Being set free from some captivity.

FREEDOM. Which brings us to this powerful ancillary idea: God’s Design for us is to be Free, to be, ‘Rescued.’ Makes me think of the iconic scene from the movie, ‘Braveheart’ (1995), when the Scot freedom fighter, William Wallace, was on the butcher’s block being disemboweled. When asked if he had any final words of retraction, he courageously, in unspeakable agony, mustered the raw courage to shout one word to the gathered crowd:

“Freedom!”

At least in the movie depiction. Yet the Historical Record shows that as Wallace was lying there, laboring to remain composed, he requested permission to have his spiritual mentor read to him from the Psalms. The request was granted, and thus he died. For the Freedom of his homeland from the brute oppression of the rule of the English Crown.

He died with honor, so that those who followed could be free. Remind you of Anyone?

So yes, God calls us all to be Free, and though we may not have to pay the price of a William Wallace for it, how easily we are torn from that Divine Mandate, to lower things, base things, selfish things. 

Paul teaches it this way.

GALATIANS 5:13. “For you, my brothers, were called to freedom; only do not let your freedom become an opportunity for the sinful nature (worldliness, selfishness), but through love serve and seek the best for one another.” – Amplified

• FREEDOM. From the Greek, ‘Eleutheria’ [ἐλευθερία]: “Freedom, liberty, especially: a state of freedom from slavery; generosity; independence from any state of dependency or having to follow some proscribed course; presented as a distinctive blessing of the economy of grace; the Perfect Law of Freedom is James 1:25, ‘He who obeys God’s Law’ become truly free by inner compulsion rather than by external demand, fully blessed, able for action.’” 

• FROM FLESH. The great human antagonist to Liberty is found in the Greek term, ‘Sarx’ [σάρξ]: “The body, human nature, materiality; merely of human origin or empowerment; making decisions and forming actions based on self; done apart from faith, carnal; implicates unnatural desires leading to death; the corrupt nature of man, as found in our descent from Adam; the utter corruptibility of carnality, without implication of following after fleshly lusts.”

• COMMENTARY. “The idea is, ‘You are called to Liberty, but it is not liberty for an occasion to the flesh. It is not freedom from virtuous restraints, and from the Laws of God. It is Liberty from the servitude of sin, and religious rites and ceremonies, not freedom from the necessary restraints of virtue.’ It was necessary to give this caution, because: There was a strong tendency in all converts from Paganism to relapse again into their former habits. Licentiousness abounded, and where they had been addicted to it before their conversion, and where they were surrounded by it on every hand, they were in constant danger of falling into it again. A bare and naked Declaration, therefore, that they had been called to Liberty, to freedom from restraint, might have been misunderstood, and some might have supposed that they were free from all restraints.” – ALBERT BARNES, ‘Notes on the Whole Bible,’ 1834; edited

An apparently popular view among today’s American Evangelicals, at least for that loathsome, still immovable 83%. I do not exaggerate one bit here. Not one bit.

ON OBEDIENCE, TRUTH AND LOVE. In all of this otherwise sumptuous doctrinal table set by the Apostle Paul, there is this lovely insight that WILLIAM MACDONALD presents in his typical, old school eloquence.

“Christian Liberty does not permit sin; it rather encourages loving service. ‘Love’ is seen as the motive of all Christian behavior, whereas under Law, the motive is fear or punishment. Findlay says: ‘Love’s slaves are the true Freemen’… A. T. Pierson says: ‘True Freedom is found only in Obedience to Proper Restraint. A river finds liberty to flow, only between banks: Without these it would only spread out into a slimy, stagnant pool.’” – ‘Believer’s Bible Commentary,’ 1995, pp. 1892-1893; edited

THE CRISIS. Now consider the Current American Crisis in the Nation and the Church in light of these truths, and you will gain a most profound, if painful, grasp of it. IF you will admonish yourself to see it for what it truly is:

Rebellion!

2. THE ULTIMATE RESCUE

I have always been a bit of a space nerd, ever since I was a kid in the 50s, reading about and watching the spellbinding scientific developments in the American Space Program back then. A magnificent Sonnet by a 19-year old World War II American airman volunteer for the Canadian Royal Air Force, once quoted by President Ronald Reagan, speaks my heart in this matter of ‘The Ultimate Freedom’ magnificently.

“Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds–and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of–wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark, or even eagle, flew;
And while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.” – JOHN GILLESPIE MCGEE, JR., ‘High, Flight,’ killed in action near Great Britain, December 11, 1941

THE POINT. I think most of us can report, at least when we were kids, the ultimate Fantasy of Flight – to be completely set free from Newton’s inexorable Law of Gravitation (1687), and just explode upward, to pierce the cloud banks and then beyond, into the very Starfields of Yah.

Okay, so I was a strange sort of kid. But truly, Mankind has been driven by both good and dark offices to somehow – wait for it- ‘Go where no man has gone before.’ I know. But I venture to declare it is in our very God-given DNA, to Freely Explore uncharted seas, visit and study unknown landscapes, in the nearly absolute thrill of ‘The Quest.’

Yet I tell you this: Almighty God has already articulated ‘The Plan’ for such heady Freedom, all wrapped up in the richness of Sound Doctrine, the Call to Obedience in these Last Days, and the Ultimate Deliverance for every human being who dares to follow Him, even to the End of the Age.

THE RAPTURE. Yes, beloved: The Rapture, the nothing less than stupendous and physics shattering Event of all Human History that will be the Last Days Game Changer for what I believe is this present generation of Christ believers.

Jesus left much of it on the field when He Declared:

“Truly I tell you, this generation (the whole multitude of people living at the same time, in a definite, given period) will not pass away till all these things taken together take place…But take heed to yourselves and be on your guard, lest your hearts be overburdened and depressed (weighed down) with the giddiness and headache and nausea of self-indulgence, drunkenness, and worldly worries and cares pertaining to [the business of] this life, and [lest] that day come upon you suddenly like a trap or a noose.” – MATTHEW 24:34; LUKE 21: AMPC

Which is precisely what shall surely happen to many in the Church in that Hour – caught completely unawares, unprepared, and untaught about it in their houses of worship.

In this section then, I am going to lead us into some of the deep structure theology of the ‘Catching Away’ of the Bride of Christ, that must take place in order for the Antichrist to be fully revealed, and for God’s Wrath to explode across the entire earth in stepwise increments, til the very world is all but consumed in fiery Judgment.

Selah. Selah.

3. ORIGINS

Let me aim my first cannon straight down the throat of the flimsy, unscholarly myth that Irish churchman and theologian John Nelson Darby “invented” what is called the Pre-tribulation Rapture theory. While time does not allow me to report to you the volumes of careful historical research to refute that pernicious lie, I shall do some damage to it – with this in mind.

With the Proviso that I teach a position called, ‘Pre-Wrath,’ a somewhat nuanced version of the Pre-tribulation view. More on that later.

DOCTRINAL WARFARE. Enemies of the Doctrine of the Rapture have been around for a very long time, and their voices have virtually neutered the American Church’s legitimate ability to teach on it for some 20 years or more. 

So please prepare now for my prayerful decision to name names in what follows, as organic illustration of what has happened in so many churches today. I have waited nearly five years to do this, after having attended the church for most of our 20 years in Colorado Springs.

THE EXAMPLE. As I was completing my book, ‘The Sixth Seal: A Pre-Wrath Commentary on the End of History As We Know It’ (2017), I had planned to give a personally signed copy to my pastor at the time, BRADY BOYD, of New Life Church here in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He too is an author, his latest book entitled, ‘Extravagant: Discovering a Life of Dangerous Generosity’ (2020).

As I approached him in the Narthex of the burgeoning mega-facility sometime in spring 2016, he asked me about the contents, and I briefly reviewed them in just a minute or two. Here was his response to me, delivered with a light chuckle:

“Oh, I don’t believe any of that stuff.”

Apart from my being gob-smacked by his reply, I recall giving him a copy of the book later anyway, hoping he’d at least read it. Upon contacting his office sometime after that to request a meeting with him to discuss the book, I was told this by a secretary:

“We’re sorry, the pastor has lost the book. Would you care to drop another copy by the office?” I did not, beloved, though I did consider it and was clearly led to not do so.

THE SIN OF THE AMERICAN CHURCH. Like so many others today, New Life Church has consciously (or unconsciously) disinvited and suppressed the Spirit of Prophecy, and there is not a shred of it to be found anywhere in that house. 

In fact, the pastoral staff recently taught from a book by one of their pastors, BRETT DAVIS, entitled, ‘See the Strange: The Beauty of the Revelation’ (2020), the startling claim that ‘The Revelation of Jesus Christ’ is NOT primarily a Book of Prophecy:

“If seeing the future were God’s primary reason for inspiring John to craft this literary masterpiece, then Revelation is a big fat failure.” – Davis, 2020, p. 21

While you catch your breath from that last, clearly sacrilegious, possibly heretical charge, consider that Jesus Christ and John the Apostle at Patmos display a very, very different view.

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty [emancipation from bondage, true freedom] …Worship God [alone]. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy [His life and teaching are the heart of prophecy] …

And if anyone takes away from or distorts the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away [from that one] his share from the tree of life and from the holy city (new Jerusalem), which are written in this book.” – 2 CORINTHIANS 3:17; REVELATION 19:10, 22:19, AMP

NEW LIFE CHURCH. This church, founded by the controversial TED HAGGARD, has become tragic historical example indeed of the current American Spiritual Condition – Beautiful and Rich and Prominent in the community, but Barren of the vibrant Spirit of the Living God, that same Spirit that fueled a Prophetic Vision to give birth to America in the first place. 

The Point: Thereby Absent the necessary prophetic courage and wisdom to call her out when she fails, able to speak to it in the power and authority of The Christ. But cannot. It cannot utter a single word. 

Thus, a Nation continues to die alongside her Church, a most gradual and grotesque, Double Suicide. 

Selah.

4. SOME DEFINITIONS

Now to happier matters, here are a couple of Key Terms that will familiarize you with the core elements of the Doctrine of the Rapture of the Church.

• ‘PAROUSIA’ [παρουσία]: “A Presence, a Coming, an Arrival; especially referring to the Second Coming of Christ; refers to the royal visit of a king or emperor; i.e., the being beside or beyond; advent; esp. the future, visible, Return from Heaven of Jesus, the Messiah, to Raise the dead, and hold the Last Judgment; corresponds to ‘Apokalupsis,’ an unveiling, uncovering, revealing, revelation [of Jesus Christ and His Church at His Second Advent].”

• CAUGHT UP. From ‘Harpazó’ [ἁρπάζω]: “To seize, catch up, snatch away; obtain by robbery; take by force, suddenly and decisively; to catch away by an open display of [great power] (i.e. not covertly or secretly); to seize on, claim for oneself eagerly; to pull or pluck [up or out of]; it is especially used in relation to The Rapture of the true Church, or ‘rescue from hellfire’ (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:17; Jude 1:23).”

From these terms we understand that there will certainly be this, well, MEGA-EVENT, for lack of better phrasing, at some point in the near future. You should note early in our discussion that the Rapture will be a violent occurrence, such as the world has never before witnessed. 

Not the quiet little ‘Poof’ that so many have erroneously taught. More on that later as well.

THE CONTROVERSY. Most of the Dispute over this entire Doctrine of the Parousia and ‘The Catching Away’ of the true Church, occurs over two, frankly spurious Arguments: 

• NO RAPTURE. As with the early heresy of Hymenaeus, Philetus, and Alexander the Coppersmith countered directly by the Apostle Paul’s multiple admonishments to young Timothy, and eventually “handed over to Satan” for the shipwreck of their faith, contaminating many others. This is not unlike today where the Rapture Doctrine is often mocked and scorned. – cf. 1 Timothy 1:19-20; 2 Timothy 2:17; 4:15-16 

• POST-TRIBULATION RAPTURE. Or, by contrast, IF there is a Rapture, it takes place after the grueling, seven-year long Great Tribulation, or what the Jews call, “The Time of Jacob’s Trouble.” This violently contradicts God’s Promise in both Testaments that God’s people ‘are not appointed to [His] Wrath.’ For me this is bluntly, inarguable, since it would change the entire Nature of God’s Covenant with man, and Christ’s work at the Cross. – cf. Jeremiah 30:7; 1 Thessalonians 4:17

A ‘NEW DOCTRINE.’ From each position has come the widely advanced idea that Rapture theology was a recent invention. 

“The Rapture was popularized in the 1970s by Hal Lindsey’s writings (The Late Great Planet Earth, etc.) and more recently by Jim Jenkins and Tim LaHaye in their Left Behind fictional books and films. But where did the idea of the Rapture originate?…Credit for its origin generally goes to John Nelson Darby, a 19th-century theologian.” – CECIL MARANVILLE, “The Rapture: A Popular but False Doctrine,” Beyond Today, August 1, 2008; edited

In an excellent, thoroughly documented commentary by DR. S. DOUGLAS WOODWARD, he accurately assesses that Maranville’s claim is ludicrous on its face.

“In his paper, Dr. [Thomas] Ice provides a sound analysis of prophetic writings that precede John N. Darby (1800-1882). In fact, some references originated almost 1700 years before Darby. Altogether, these writings support Ice’s view (and mine) that the rapture of the Church takes place before and separate from a visible return of Jesus Christ with His saints to the Mount of Olives (as tradition holds and scripture asserts, see Zechariah 14:4; Acts 1:12). This view is, however, at the center of considerable controversy.” – “Nope, Sorry: Darby Did Not Invent the Pre-Trib Rapture,” ‘Faith Happens,’ May 18, 2016; edited

SLOPPY EXEGESIS. So much shoddy ‘scholarship’ and utter ignorance of the historical record has been swallowed by our pastors for decades now, most choosing to avoid doing their own prayerful and diligent research. The Impact has been nothing short of devastating for the people of God, who have been shorn of their ‘Blessed Hope,’ for lack of accurate and frequent teaching on this crucial matter.

5. THE EARLY CHURCH

In 2018, I wrote a detailed Commentary on much of this, based on the exquisite research by three scholars who independently – and persuasively – argue that the Early Church believed in the stupendous ‘Catching up’ of believers, prior to the Lord’s Final Return to Judge all things at the very ‘End of history as we know it.’ 

I borrow considerably from that Essay in what follows, entitled: “Note on the Parousia of Christ: Satan’s Private War Against ‘The Blessed Hope’” (2018). I begin by quoting author, Bible scholar and Regent University colleague, JOHN WHEELER, JR., whose historical manuscript still seeks a publisher – not uncommon for those of us who, ‘still believe’

“The First Century era of the Apostolic Fathers lasted until around A.D. 150. Their emphasis was on Edifying the rapidly growing body of believers, and primarily through a typological interpretation of Old Testament texts. The main Christian leaders of this time period were Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, and Papias. There were also several writings of unknown authorship, which give us a feel for the general spirit of the time.” – JOHN WHEELER, JR., “Prophecy and Heresy,” 2018, p. 48; edited

THE KEY: IMMINENCE. Both Wheeler and an excellent historical review, entitled, “What Did Ancient Church Fathers Believe About the Rapture?” (‘Beginning and End,’ August 22, 2013), propose this key concept of ‘Imminence,’ with which I strongly concur.

The nearly air-tight reasoning here is that IF the Early Church taught that Christ’s Return was “Imminent,” then we could not reasonably conclude that it could come ‘After’ the Tribulation; its dramatic ‘signs’ would effectively nullify the ‘Surprise’ factor cited by the Messiah’s own use of the Word, “Soon,” described earlier.

As Wheeler (2018) clearly documents, here is a representative sample of those Early Commentaries.

• CLEMENT OF ROME. “Of a truth, soon and suddenly shall His will be accomplished, as the Scriptures also bear witness, saying, ‘Speedily will He Come, and will not tarry;’ and ‘The Lord shall suddenly Come to His Temple, even the Holy One, for whom ye look.’”

• THE SHEPHERD OF HERMAS. “Foolish man! Do you not see the Tower yet building. When the Tower is finished and built, then comes the End; and I assure you it will be soon finished. Ask me no more questions. Let you and all the saints be content…with my renewal of your spirits. You have Escaped from Great Tribulation on account of your Faith, and because you did not doubt the presence of such a Beast. Go, therefore, and tell the Elect of the Lord His mighty deeds, and say to them that this Beast is a type of the Great Tribulation that is coming.”

• IRANAEUS. “Those nations however, who did not of themselves raise up their eyes unto heaven, nor returned thanks to their Maker, nor wished to behold the light of Truth, but who were like blind mice concealed in the depths of ignorance, the word justly reckons ‘as waste water from a sink, and as the turning-weight of a balance — in fact, as nothing;’ (1) so far useful and serviceable to the just, as stubble conduces towards the growth of the wheat, and its straw, by means of combustion, serves for working gold. ‘And therefore, when in the End the Church shall be suddenly ‘Caught up’ from this,’ it is said, ‘There shall be Tribulation such as has not been since the beginning, neither shall be.’ (2) For this is the Last Contest of the righteous, in which, when they Overcome they are crowned with Incorruption.”

• CYPRIAN. “We who see that terrible things have begun, and know that still more terrible things are imminent, may regard it as the greatest advantage to Depart from it as quickly as possible. Do you not give God thanks, do you not congratulate yourself, ‘that by an Early Departure you are taken away, and Delivered from the shipwrecks and disasters that are imminent?’ Let us greet the Day which assigns each of us to his own home, ‘which Snatches us hence,’ and sets us Free from the snares of the world and Restores us to Paradise and the Kingdom.”

• PAPIAS. “‘The days will come in which vines having ten thousand branches will grow. In each branch, there will be ten thousand twigs, and in each shoot there will be ten thousand clusters. Each cluster will have ten thousand grapes, and every grape will give twenty-five metres of wine, when pressed…In like manner, a grain of wheat will produce ten thousand ears’…Papias (80–163), the Bishop of Hierapolis, was one who wrote explicitly about the coming Resurrection and afterwards the Millennium, ‘when the personal Reign of Christ will be established on the earth.’ A disciple of the Apostle John and others of that era, Papias claimed that his Millennial Doctrine came directly from Jesus himself.” 

• POLYCARP. “Let us therefore so serve Him with fear and all reverence, as He himself gave Commandment and the Apostles who preached the Gospel to us and the Prophets who proclaimed beforehand the Coming of our Lord; being zealous as touching that which is good, abstaining from offenses and from the false brethren and from them that bear the name of the Lord in Hypocrisy, who lead foolish men astray…For every one who shall not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is Antichrist: and whosoever shall not confess the testimony of the Cross, is of the Devil; and whosoever shall pervert the Oracles of the Lord to his own lusts and say that there is neither Resurrection nor Judgment, that man is firstborn of Satan.”

• EPHRAIM THE SYRIAN. “Believe you me, dearest brother, because the coming (Advent) of the Lord is nigh, believe you me, because the End of the world is at hand, believe me, because it is the Very Last Time. Or do you

not believe unless you see with your eyes? See to it that this sentence be not fulfilled among you of the prophet who declares: ‘Woe to those who desire to see the Day of the Lord!’ ‘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.’ And so, brothers most dear to me, it is the eleventh hour, and the End of the world comes to the harvest, and angels, armed and prepared, hold sickles in their hands, awaiting the Empire of the Lord.”

IN SUM. The Early Church undeniably taught what we would today consider to be a Pre-Tribulation Rapture of the Body of Christ, with very few exceptions, such as Origin, who like Thomas Aquinas later, chose to Allegorize the entire structure of the Apocalyptic Texts – with, again, devastating consequences to the Church for centuries.

6. ‘HERETICAL PRETERISM’

John Wheeler again draws us back toward a healthy Orthodoxy in this summary conclusion following his review of the early Church Fathers.

“The rank and file membership of the Early Church in the Third Century continued to believe in the Imminent Second Coming of Christ and the establishment of an earthly Thousand-year Millennium. These beliefs were bolstered by the writings of Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Commodianus, Nepos, Methodius, Apollinaris, and Lactantius. However, the literal belief in Bible prophecy was undermined by the Allegorical interpretations of the Alexandrian School, led by Clement of Alexandria and later by Origen. Their Spiritualizing of the prophetic Scriptures was the result of both Gnostic and Neo-Platonic philosophical influences. Thanks to Origen’s prolific writings, many Christians came to accept the Allegorical approach to Scripture as proper, and the tide began to turn against those who expected a literal fulfillment of prophecy.”

Importantly, those who Allegorized Scripture and the Prophets devastated our present understanding of Eschatology. Starting with Clement and Origin, they included: Eusebius, Athanasius, Ambrose, and most especially the entire work of Augustine, who largely Redefined (and ruined) the Church’s Hermeneutic for a thousand years and more, away from Literalism to a largely intellectualized, Allegorical-Idealism. 

FROM ALLEGORY TO HERESY. Its later iterations came to be known as ‘Preterism,’ a widely accepted Interpretive Heresy that has that has found its way into both Catholic and Protestant theology for centuries. Here is my own Definition of it.

“The Preterist View argues that the events of the Book [of Revelation and other prophetic passages] already took place largely during the first century … relegating the entire Book to the realm of Symbolism found in the remote past. Given the clearly prophetic nature of Revelation, this view is quite inadequate to the proper understanding of Scripture.” – Kelly, The Sixth Seal, 2017, p. 27; edited

RADICAL PRETERISM. The ultimate form of this pernicious doctrine is found in what informed Bible scholars call, “Radical” or ‘HYMANAEAN PRETERISM,’ that dares to preach that “all Bible prophecy has been fulfilled. Nothing remains on the prophetic calendar.” – including the Rapture! – cf. WAYNE JACKSON, “The Menace of Radical Preterism,” Christian Courier, January 21, 2020

You getting this, beloved? Can you see its infiltration into the Modern Church over the centuries, to attempt to neuter or nullify the sacred Doctrine of the Parousia? I can. I can.

Finally, then, the online journal, Beginning and End (2013), summarizes what I consider to be a welcome and overdue death blow to the Heterodoxy of the Preterist Model by our most honored Church Fathers.

“Although there are not a great number of writings on the End Times from the early centuries of the Church, there is no question that there was a belief in the Rapture among the Church Fathers and they taught it with strong language and Scriptural support. 

WHEELER’S CONCLUSION. “In terms of the Timing of the Rapture, the early Church Fathers placed it ‘Before’ the ‘Day of The Lord,’ and its Great Tribulation. The writings of early saints in the Church are not Scripture and should not be treated on the same level of the Bible. These writings also do not ‘prove’ that the pre-Great Tribulation Rapture or the Beginning and End Rapture series are correct. Only rightly divided Scripture from the Bible can determine if a specific belief is accurate or in error.  

But the writings of Church Fathers can serve as useful Commentaries (just as we use Bible commentaries today in our studies) and certainly prove that the Rapture Doctrine existed well before John Darby, and has been a part of Christian belief since the earliest days of the Apostles.” – 2018, edited

THE POINT. Perhaps now you have a better feel for why the entire matter of the Literal Rapture of the Church at Christ’s Return has been savaged by centuries of Satan’s fervent labors to keep it obfuscated. He is understandably terrified of this Doctrine, and all those who hold fast to it, since its Truth devastates his future plans to rule over us.

Selah. Selah.

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