Rapture: The End-Times Error That Leaves the Bible Behind (30 page)

There is just no good reason to insert a secret rapture into this passage—unless you come to the text with pre-existing double vision. Look at the passage itself. The coming of Christ is anything but secret and silent. Christ will come with “a
cry of command
, with the archangel’s
call
, and with the sound of the
trumpet
of God.” These are descriptions of loud, public events.

Jesus is not trying to be discreet or secretive in His coming. This passage reflects the Olivet Discourse, when Jesus predicted His coming would be “as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west” (Matt. 24:27). Jesus Himself prophesied that everyone would immediately be aware of His coming. He was specifically contrasting His coming with the false Messiahs who would appear on the scene discreetly. Christ will not be discreet. Yet the rapturist claims that at this point, the rest of the world will not know what happened. The “cry of command,” “the archangel’s call,” and “the trumpet of God” make this impossible.

The phrase “the Lord will come like a thief in the night,” must be understood in this context of commands, calls, and trumpets (5:2). In addition, the next verse makes it clear that St. Paul is not speaking of the stealth of the thief, but the unanticipated suddenness with which thieves strike. He calls it “sudden destruction” (5:3). Notice the destruction comes suddenly on the
unbelievers
. This is the last judgment.

A further problem for rapturists appears when we examine the assumed time line of the passage. St. Paul clearly states that immediately after this event, eternity begins. He writes, “and so we shall always be with the Lord.” That is precisely the time line taught by the Church throughout her history. Yet rapturists teach that this coming (the rapture) will be followed by the seven-year Great Tribulation and then a thousand-year earthly Kingdom. Why does St. Paul not at least allude to these events?

But, rapturists respond, the details in this passage are different from those we encounter elsewhere in the New Testament, suggesting two entirely different events. But this is just a symptom of the preconceived conclusions, the deceptive double vision, that they bring to the passage.

Rapturists usually understand that this is a very bad method for handling Scripture. For example, the Bible talks about the Passion of the Lord on several occasions, each time giving us different details about one historical event. But they’d never interpret this to mean that there was more than one Passion. In like manner, various passages provide different details about the second advent. But this doesn’t mean they should be sorted into two piles—those about a rapture and those about the second coming. All the passages speak of
one and only one
more advent of Christ.

In this passage, St. Paul related a few new details about the second coming to encourage the Thessalonian church. Since he had founded the church in that city, he had already taught them the basics of the Faith, including the blessed hope of Christ’s coming. In this epistle, he clarifies something of which they already had some knowledge.

If there were two stages to the second advent, we would be able to find one passage that speaks of them both together, teaching us in one place of the differences. That we are not able to do so is a terrible handicap to rapturists. It is evidence of their deceptive double vision. Of course, we have not been able to find a passage that unequivocally teaches about a secret rapture at all, much less a passage that speaks of it side-by-side with the second coming.

Since none of these passages contains details inconsistent with the second advent, why not simply accept the simplest, most consistent understanding? There is only one remaining coming of the Lord, and the Bible uses three Greek words interchangeably to describe that coming. It will occur at the end of history, just before the final judgment and eternity.

Here St. Paul is again writing to the Thessalonians, probably shortly before the Jewish-Roman War began in 67 A.D. For this reason, some have tried to understand this passage as being fulfilled in the coming in judgment that we described surrounding the events of 70 A.D. But the passage mentions the “assembling” of Christians to meet Christ. This will occur at the second advent, so the only adequate understanding of this passage is that it speaks of the second advent. In addition, the Church has universally understood this passage as still future even after the destruction of the Temple (
CCC
, pars. 673–677).

Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our assembling to meet Him, we beg you, brethren, not to be quickly shaken in mind … by letter purporting to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.… That day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the Temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.… For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, and the Lord Jesus will slay him with the breath of His mouth and destroy him by His appearing and His coming. The coming of the lawless one by the activity of Satan will be with all power and with pretended signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are to perish, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.

This paragraph says a lot in a few sentences. We will examine it one piece at a time.

Rapturists agree that this passage focuses on the events leading up to Christ’s second advent. They believe the antichrist will appear after the rapture. When Christ comes, He “will slay [the antichrist] with the breath of His mouth.” Early Christians associated this statement with the sword that comes out of Christ’s mouth in The Apocalypse
(COA)
. The “breath” and the “sword” both signify the truth of the gospel. The power of Christ is in the truth that the Word proclaims. Truth will always win the victory, particularly at the final eschaton.

We do disagree over who is on earth when these events take place. Rapturists claim that Christians have been secretly raptured at the very start of the passage—three and a half years before the Temple worship is corrupted, and a full seven years before Christ returns to “destroy [the man of sin] by His appearing.”

Notice deceptive double vision at work. Rapturists place the one event (the rapture) at the very start and apply all the rest of the passage to the second advent. Yet if that is true, why does not St. Paul make it clear that his readers would not be present to see this antichrist “proclaiming himself to be God”? He is writing to encourage a group of Christians who are afraid they had been “left behind”! Why does he not explicitly speak of the “blessed hope of the rapture” to comfort the worried Thessalonians? Nowhere in this passage is there even a mention of the rapture. This would certainly have been more reassuring than a description of events that would transpire after they were gone! In this passage, the rapture is missing in action.

The reason St. Paul does not mention the rapture as occurring before the appearance of the antichrist and before the second coming is simple: it never entered into his mind that anyone would believe Christ would rapture His Church before the final eschaton. The passage assumes that the Church will be around to witness the man of lawlessness revealed. That will be during the final confrontation between good and evil. In The Apocalypse, that is referred to as the battle with Gog and Magog. Christians will
participate
in that confrontation because there will be no secret rapture before it. Our comfort rests in Him who will emerge from that confrontation as the Victor.
That
is the reassurance St. Paul offers, not the promise of escape from the Great Tribulation.

The passage also describes a “restraining” force that prevents the antichrist’s power from taking full effect right now. Various alternative interpretations have been proposed. Rapturists claim the restraining force is the Holy Spirit within the Church. Tertullian, Cyril of Jerusalem, Jerome and Augustine all understood the restrainer as the rule of law as enforced by the state (
APO
, 32;
CAT
, XVII:12;
EPJ; COG
, XX:19).

Most important, we need to notice that this restraining force is active at the same time that Satan is “bound” in The Apocalypse. We are getting a little ahead of ourselves, but the restraint is taken out of the way at the same time that Satan is “loosed” just before the final battle with Gog and Magog (Apoc. 20:1–7). This does not happen twice, as rapturists assert, but once.

“Wait a minute,” rapturists might interject. “You are ignoring that St. Paul teaches here that the final antichrist will set himself up in the Temple: ‘The son of perdition … takes his seat in the Temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.’ ”

Because this passage predicts an attack on the Temple, in which the antichrist forcibly subverts its worship of the true God, rapturists believe that the Jerusalem Temple must be rebuilt before the antichrist can be revealed. How can the man of sin, the antichrist, proclaim something from a Temple that has not been rebuilt?

But unfortunately for rapturists, this is a poor proof text for their beliefs. The Greek word for
temple
in this verse is
naos
. Although
naos
is sometimes used to designate the physical Temple of the Jews in Jerusalem, it is used in the New Testament to designate other temples. But even more to the point, St. Paul, the author of 2 Thessalonians,
never once
uses this Greek word to designate the Jerusalem Temple of the Jews—always preferring to use the more common New Testament word for Temple,
hieron
(1 Cor. 9:13). Whenever St. Paul uses the word
naos
, he is referring to New Covenant temples. These include either the Church or the individual Christian, both of which are New Covenant temples indwelt by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16–17, 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:21).

St. Paul understood the word
temple
to have different senses (Appendix Five discusses some of them), but he always uses the word
naos
in a New Covenant context (GR3).

St. Paul was not alone in this understanding of the New Testament Church as the new Temple. The Fathers of the Church adopted his perspective. We encounter this in the Epistle of Barnabas (Appendix
One
). Clement of Alexandria also refers to the Church as the Temple of God (
STO
, VI, 14:114).

This makes eminent sense. St. Paul, along with all first-century Christians, believed that Christ had predicted the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple within their generation. But they never believed that this destruction would leave the world without any Temple. The new Temple was God’s spiritual Temple, the Church, for which Paul always used
naos
.

So if not in the rebuilt Jerusalem Temple, where will the man of lawlessness set himself up “to be God”? Although it may be difficult to ascertain in advance, as is true of most biblical prophecy, it will likely be very evident at the time. The crucial element is that he will claim to be God. This goes even further than what Antiochus Epiphanes did when he defiled God’s Old Covenant Temple with sacrifices to Zeus (Dan. 8:24; 11:36–38). It goes beyond what Pompey did when he defiled the inner Temple with his visit. It goes beyond what the Romans did in 70 A.D. when they introduced pagan worship in the Temple. It is reminiscent of Caligula’s intention of being worshiped within the old Temple in 40 A.D., although he died before he could implement his plan. Each of these events points to the final antichrist (GR3).

A clue to our understanding of the final antichrist is his title, the “son of perdition.” In His prayer for the infant Church, Jesus gives this very title to Judas Iscariot (John 17:12). Does this mean that St. Paul believed the antichrist would be someone who had been privileged to know the entire truth about Christ and had purposefully rejected it? Or perhaps, like Judas, the man of perdition would attempt to bring in the fullness of God’s Kingdom through his own machinations. Perhaps the antichrist will thrust upon the world a hope for a secular Millennium, as was attempted in the century just past. We do not know for sure, but it can make for interesting discussion (
CCC
, pars. 675–677).

My belief is that the man of sin will somehow try to insert himself or his symbols into the worship of the Church, the new Temple. Perhaps it will even involve the Mass in some way. The word
naos
can be translated as “sanctuary,” which is a place within every Catholic Church in the world. Will the final antichrist somehow use these sanctuaries to proclaim “himself to be God”? Perhaps. This would fit in with his being called a “son of perdition,” a “Judaspriest” perhaps.

We can be certain, however, that even though the antichrist might be a priest, he cannot possibly be the Pope. In Matthew’s Gospel, Peter and his successors are promised that “the gates of Hades” will not prevail against Christ’s Church (16:18). This includes an assurance that, although the Pope may not be the best leader possible, he will never
teach error
. Since proclaiming “himself to be God” would certainly qualify as error, we can be sure the Pope cannot be the antichrist.