Rapture: The End-Times Error That Leaves the Bible Behind (31 page)

Some of what this passage means will never be known for certain until it happens. But of one thing we can be certain even now: this passage does not teach a two-stage coming, nor the necessity of a rebuilt Jerusalem Temple. It does teach that Christians will still be here on earth when the battle with the final antichrist rages.

Many rapturists nonetheless refer to the rapture as their “blessed hope.” They find this language in St. Paul’s epistle to Titus:

For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men, training us to renounce irreligion and worldly passions, and to live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world, awaiting our
blessed hope
, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Rapturists believe that the “blessed hope” refers to the secret, imminent rapture. (The Greek word here is not
parousia
, but
epiphaneia
[“appearing.”]) But the passage speaks of glory, and what is glorious about secretly stealing away your followers and shuffling them off to safety while your enemy runs rampant for seven more years?

No, when Christ comes in glory, it will be in the glory of “our great God.” The entire world will see Him, as we recognize lightning that blazes across the sky. The entire world will immediately know Him as the one the antichrist has led them to reject. The entire world will promptly be judged by Him. We already know these facts from other passages. The idea of a secret rapture does not fit this passage at all. Unless we see with double vision, this passage pictures a
victorious
return of the King as Judge at the final eschaton.

Catholics are well aware that we have the real presence of Christ even now, in the Eucharist. But His Real Presence with us now is veiled, requiring the eyes of faith to see Him. The “blessed hope” points our hearts to the moment when we will see Christ unveiled, as He is in all His glory and power (
CCC
, par. 1404).

In Daniel, the rapturists lost their future seven-year Great Tribulation. In the Olivet Discourse, they lost their signs for the generation of the fig tree, as well as their “left behind” language. In the epistles, the lack of biblical support for their system continued.

We will soon enter The Apocalypse, in which there is such tremendous interest today and about which there is so much sensationalistic speculation. But before we do, there are two epistles that will help us to “sober up” from any double-vision hangover we may still have from the rapturist view of the last few epistles.

St. Paul wrote his epistle to the Galatians to explain the relationship of the Christian Church to the Old Covenant Law. On the one side stands the Church with her freedom in Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit. On the other is the Law as practiced by the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem.

Galatians was written midway between the Passion and the destruction of Jerusalem. At this point, the Roman Empire viewed the Christian community as a small sect within official Judaism. From the perspective of the civil Roman government, the Jewish religious authorities in Jerusalem had a perfect right to influence beliefs within the Church.

Certain Jews had parlayed this Roman attitude into undue influence within the Galatian church. They claimed that Christians had to continue fulfilling the requirements of the Jewish ceremonial law.

St. Paul writes powerfully and persuasively to convince the Christians that this is not only untrue, but also dangerous to their faith. He reviews the first Church council in Jerusalem and his interactions with the Apostles to prove that the Apostles and bishops had determined that Gentiles did not have to keep the Jewish law to become members of Christ’s Church. He develops the theme that the gospel of Jesus Christ is superior to the Law because it is based on the faith of Abraham, which preceded the Law given to Moses.

He then takes the argument a step further by telling a story:

Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and one by a free woman.… Now, this is an allegory: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai … Hagar.… She corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.… We, like Isaac, are children of promise. But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now. But what does the scripture say? “Cast out the slave and her son; for the son of the slave shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” So, brethren, we are not children of the slave, but of the free woman (4:22–31).

St. Paul reminds the Galatians that Abraham had two sons. The younger son, of Sarah, was the child of faith. The older son, of Hagar, was the child of slavery. Being older, this first son persecuted the second. This situation went on for years until Sarah finally convinced Abraham that it was no longer tolerable. The household of Abraham was not suitable for either son when both were there. St. Paul reminds the Galatians of the solution to this family discord by quoting the passage in Genesis 21: “Cast out the slave and her son; for the son of the slave shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.”

Now, here is the truly riveting aspect of this story. St. Paul tells the Galatians that this entire story “is an allegory” of their own situation (GR3). The Church is the child of faith, like the younger son. The Sanhedrin is the child of bondage, like the older son. The Sanhedrin (the earthly Jerusalem) is persecuting the Church (the heavenly Jerusalem). This situation would only worsen until it culminated in the Great Tribulation of Nero.

Like these two sons of Abraham, earthly and heavenly Jerusalem coexisted for quite some time, about forty years. But the situation could not go on forever.

The only solution was to cast out the son of bondage. This is precisely what Jesus had predicted in the Olivet Discourse. He had warned the Jewish leaders that their rejection of the Truth would be the cause of their destruction. But He had also implied that the two children of God, Old Covenant and New Covenant, would coexist for some time, a “generation” (Matt. 24:34). Before the end of that generation, about forty years, the earthly Jerusalem would be destroyed.

After the older son was “cast out,” the younger son of faith would be free to grow. Only then could the younger brother of faith, the Church, develop unimpeded by persecution and confusion. St. Irenaeus understood this well: “The law originated with Moses, [and] it terminated with John as a necessary consequence. Christ had come to fulfill it.… Therefore Jerusalem … must have an end of legislation when the new covenant was revealed” (
AG
, IV:4).

Confusion over loyalties could be a serious problem in the early Church. This was the point of St. Bede in his comments on Mark 13:2: “It was ordered by divine power that after that the grace of the faith of the Gospel was made known through the world, the Temple itself with its ceremonies should be taken away; lest perchance someone weak in the faith, if he saw that these things which had been instituted by God still remained, might by degrees drop from the sincerity of the faith, which is in Christ Jesus” (cited in
GCC
).

If we keep this allegory from the life of Abraham in mind when we examine the conflict between the Old and New Covenants in the first century, we will understand the entire New Testament more clearly. For example, The Apocalypse is primarily a prophecy that describes the complex process of casting out the Old Covenant system. Because it illustrates how God keeps His promises to His children, we can trust its promise of the second advent. But much of The Apocalypse does not predict the future to us in the twenty-first century, but tells of the past. We must remember, of course, that even these past events may themselves be a foretaste of the future, just as Sarah and Hagar were a foretaste of the events surrounding 70 A.D. (GR3).

This theme runs throughout the Bible. We find another example in the reign of King David, who was a type of Christ. He was anointed by Samuel, just as Jesus was baptized by John the Baptizer. David was rejected by the leadership of Israel, just as Jesus was. Eventually, the faithful remnant of Abraham’s seed, Judah, acclaimed David as their king after the death of King Saul. So, too, the believing remnant of Old Israel accepted Christ as their Redeemer King after the King’s death on the Cross. There was a period of warfare between those who accepted King David’s authority and those who did not. Eventually, King David’s followers were victorious over those who rejected him, and David sat upon the throne. Just so, Old Covenant Israel made war upon the New Covenant followers of King Jesus. Eventually, however, the followers of King Jesus were victorious, and the King was publicly recognized as seated on the throne of David in the New (spiritual) Jerusalem.

Please keep in mind that these parallels are not simply my idea. Nor is it just the idea of some other theologian. St. Paul wrote under divine inspiration when he outlined this conflict between biblical Judaism and Christianity in Galatians. Jesus predicted the “casting out” in the Olivet Discourse. The first nineteen chapters of The Apocalypse relate the details of the conflict between these two children of God, the Old versus the New. We will see the persecution, and we will see the casting out of the older brother in vivid detail.

In the epistle to the Hebrews, the author develops some of the same themes we found in Galatians and will find foundational to The Apocalypse, especially this: Christ and His New Covenant are better than physical Jerusalem and its Old Covenant.

Hebrews was probably written toward the beginning of the Great Tribulation, before the Roman Empire turned its fury on Jerusalem. Hebrews gives evidence, as does The Apocalypse, that the religious leaders of Jerusalem instigated and participated in the Christian persecutions.

As an aside, rapturists sometimes claim that Hebrews criticizes Catholic belief in the sacrifice of the Mass. Out of the other side of their mouths, they try to claim that belief in the Mass as an unbloody sacrifice did not appear in the Church until as late as the Middle Ages. Of course, they cannot have it both ways! How could the author of Hebrews be criticizing the sacrifice of the Mass if it was not believed to be a sacrifice yet? But more to the point, Hebrews has the Mosaic sacrifices, not the Mass, in view when it refers to sacrifices. The Jerusalem Temple was still operational, performing the endless series of daily animal sacrifices.

It is interesting that in Hebrews 8:13, written just before the destruction of Jerusalem’s Temple, we find this statement: “In speaking of a new covenant, He [the Lord] treats the first [covenant] as obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.” Although this verse is not usually treated as a prophecy, that is exactly what it is! The author of Hebrews is looking for the destruction of the Old Covenant system as Jesus had foretold it in the Olivet Discourse. When we get to The Apocalypse, we must keep in mind that its message is not unique. We saw it predicted in Daniel. We saw it predicted by Jesus. We saw it in Galatians. It keeps popping up throughout the Scriptures. It was even a common topic when St. Peter and St. Paul preached in Rome. Yet we have somehow forgotten this pivotal event in modern theology. Keeping it in mind will help us recognize the double vision of the rapturist.

Hebrews also makes it clear that there is a heavenly Jerusalem, of which the earthly Jerusalem is only a type or precursor: “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites [animal sacrifices], but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these [Christ’s Sacrifice]. For Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into Heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Heb. 9:22–24). We will be introduced to the New Jerusalem in The Apocalypse. The tension between the New Jerusalem in Heaven and the Old Jerusalem on earth will be developed in depth there. But this theme is essential to our understanding.

Hebrews 12:22–24 could actually be viewed as a rather good summary of the climax of The Apocalypse. In contrasting the New with the Old Jerusalem, the passage states, “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in Heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.” Every time we celebrate the Mass, we join our voices to the realm of this heavenly Jerusalem. We get a foretaste of what God has in store for us in eternity. When we examine The Apocalypse, we should remember that this message is not unique to the last book of the Bible.

The Apocalypse, also known as the Revelation of St. John, or simply Revelation, is perhaps the most misunderstood—and misused—book in the Bible. Certain groups within the early Church so misconstrued its message that the early Eastern churches even questioned the book’s canonicity. Wiser heads eventually prevailed, and its canonicity became universally accepted.

From the outset, St. John informs us of his purpose. He hopes to encourage an appropriate Christian response, “patient endurance” to the “tribulation,” which they are undergoing (1:9). It will become apparent that an integral part of “patient endurance” is the celebration of the Eucharist. Finally, John will investigate the mysterious nature of the Kingdom that Christ established by His blood during His first advent (1:6, 9).