Eschatology
is the study of end time events, which seems to be a popular topic today. It appears that the Catholic Church does not
have an official dogmatic teaching specifically on the topic of “the Rapture,”
but this topic does come up often in Catholic / Protestant discussions. What is the Rapture? It is the Christian belief that Jesus Christ
will return from Heaven in the clouds to take His church back to Heaven with
Him (1
Thessalonians
4:13-18; 1 Corinthians 15:51-53).
Those taken will include all true Christians who are living at that
particular time, as well as the bodies of those who have already died in
Christ. It is also known as the
Resurrection.
Problems
with the Catholic View
Some Catholics
believe that there is no Rapture at all, but many who do acknowledge it will consider
it to be the same exact event as the Second Coming of Christ. Closely related to all this is the Millennium,
or the one-thousand year period in which Jesus Christ reigns in peace and
righteousness. It will be a time in
which Satan is bound / chained and unable to deceive the nations (Revelation
20:3). But although the Bible
mentions a thousand year period, i.e., the Millennium (Revelation 20:1-7),
Catholics generally hold to the Amillennial (“no Millennium”) view. This view (CCC #676) teaches that
there is no literal 1000-year reign
of Jesus Christ on earth. They believe
in a more allegorical, or symbolic, view which says that we are living in the Millennium
now, and Christ is sitting on the
throne in Heaven, where He “reigns through the Church” (CCC #668). The church is the “kingdom” of His reign and
the devil is bound during this time. As
far as the meaning of the phrase “1000 years” mentioned in Revelation, they’ll
say it is just a term that is symbolic for “a long time.”
Ok, first of
all, if one wants to claim that the Millennium is happening now, then he would also have to believe
that Satan is now chained and is NOT deceiving the nations today (Revelation
20:3). But can any honest person
really believe this? There is more deception today than ever (2 Timothy 3), even
in many churches! 2 Corinthians 11:14 says
that the devil disguises himself as an angel of light, and is therefore a
deceiver by nature. Scripture is full of
passages demonstrating that he is still at work today, deceiving mankind. If he really were isolated and locked up (as
described in Revelation 20), the great majority of people on earth today
would be saved, and the world would be a far better place than it is. The idea that Satan is not deceiving the
nations today is itself a great deception.
Furthermore,
if the Millennium is happening today, then one is forced to ask, where is the
worldwide peace and righteousness promised during this period (Jeremiah
23:5-6; Isaiah 9:6-7)? Where
today can you find the wolf that dwells together with the lamb (Isaiah
11:6)? Or the bear and the cow
happily feeding together (Isaiah 11:7)? Or has anyone casually allowed their children
to play near the hole of the poisonous snake lately (Isaiah 11:8)? Do we see everyone in the Middle East beating
their swords into plowshares (Isaiah 2:4)? No, the world we live in today is full of
deception, danger, injustice and wars.
Just watch the evening news on any given day, and anyone can see that we
are certainly not living in the Millennium that the Bible speaks about.
Secondly, why
should anyone believe that the Bible’s prophecies of the First Coming of Jesus
Christ (a past event) were literal,
yet interpret so many of His Second Coming prophecies (future) as symbolic or allegorical? This is an
inconsistent hermeneutic (principle of interpretation) which causes much
confusion. A literal fulfillment of these prophecies (such as the Millennium)
would actually bring to pass God’s desire to restore His creation (e.g., Romans
8:18-23; Acts 3:21).
Third, for
God to keep His promises to Israel, there must
be a literal kingdom on earth for the Jews, according to these - Jeremiah
23:5-8; Ezekiel 47 and 48; Amos 9:11-15 - and many other
passages. The promises God gave to
Israel were not taken away from them and given to the church. Each has their own set of promises that must
be fulfilled. Notice that we are NOT
saying that each has a different way of salvation, because there is only one way that anyone will ever get saved…
by grace through faith. But what we are saying is that there is no
“replacement theology,” where the church replaces
Israel. Both have their specific time
and role; and after the church is raptured, God will surely again focus on
Israel (Romans 9, 10, 11).
These are
just a few of the issues we have with this Catholic view. See this article refuting the Amillennial
view in more detail:
Who Goes and
Who Stays?
Concerning
the Rapture, we would also like to address some verses about Noah and Lot (Matthew
24:36-42; Luke 17:26-29). There
seems to be some confusion with some Catholics over who is “taken” and who is “left
behind” in these passages. We’ve often
seen Catholics say that it was actually Noah
and Lot who were “left behind,” meaning that they survived God’s judgment; and those who perished in the flood and those
who perished in Sodom were “taken” (in death).
But lest anyone attempt to play word games here, we would stress that the
“taking” and the “leaving” was done by God BEFORE the wrath or judgment was
poured out. The point is that in both
cases one group (the believers) is removed from the “danger zone,” and the
other (the unrepentant) stays in the “danger zone.” One group is safely relocated, and the other
stays behind and suffers God’s wrath.
Also, interestingly, in Lot’s case the angel said that he couldn’t do anything (i.e., bring down the judgment of God) until Lot and
his family were safely removed (Genesis 19:22). Since Jesus gave us this as an example of His
return, this surely points to a Pre-Tribulation Rapture. See more details on this in our new blog
here:
http://theresurrectionstillspeaks.blogspot.com/2014_09_01_archive.html
