Rapture: The End-Times Error That Leaves the Bible Behind (5 page)

But the Pope was not alone. The Anabaptists believed that
Luther
was the antichrist. (Many Catholics of the time agreed with this one teaching of the Anabaptists.) A little later, the Puritans thought King George III was the antichrist. Down through history, the list of those tagged for the role of the final antichrist has been long. It includes Attila the Hun, King Charles I, Oliver Cromwell, Stalin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Mussolini, Hitler, Henry Kissinger, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Ronald Reagan, to name a few.

Even in modern America, many rapturists believe that “somewhere, at this very moment, on planet Earth, the antichrist is certainly alive—biding his time, awaiting his cue. Already a mature man, he is probably active in politics, perhaps even an admired world leader whose name is almost daily on everyone’s lips”
(GPR)
. Rapturists postulate that “at all times Satan has had to have one or more antichrist candidates waiting in the wings, lest the rapture come suddenly, and find him unprepared. That is why so many malevolent world leaders have had names whose letters added up to 666 when combined in certain ways”
(ATF)
. Presumably if you want your child to grow up to be a good world leader rather than an evil one, it is essential to pick his name very carefully!

In 1593, John Napier of Merchiston published a book predicting the time of the Day of Judgment. Napier was no ignoramus. He is credited with the invention of mathematical logarithms. He approached his subject as a math problem that could be solved with sufficient study. He determined that the Bible predicted the end of the world within the century, sometime between 1688 and 1700.

In the mid-seventeenth century, the Fifth Monarchy Men arose in England. They believed that the four kingdoms of Daniel were about to be replaced by the fifth kingdom of Daniel—Christ’s Millennium. They sought to bring about Christ’s return through “fire and sword” and set up a supreme council called the “Synhedrin” (
CSP
, III, 479). Christ was to be declared the only King of England, and the only law was to be that found in the Bible.

These men sounded strikingly similar to rapturists of today. They pointed to current events as signs of the end times. “All the teetering and tumbling affairs on earth now, which is universally shaking into a new Creation, are a history of Christ’s coming to reign” (
FMM
, 26).

The Fifth Monarchy Men used the prophecies of Daniel, combined with the “thousand years for a day” proposal of Irenaeus, to determine that the end would be between 1650 and 1700. In preparation, they sought to begin the Kingdom of Christ by force in England and then “to go on to France, Spain, Germany, and Rome, to destroy the beast and whore, to burn her flesh with fire, to throw her down with violence as a millstone into the sea”
(ADH)
. They were convinced that the monarchies of Europe were the ten evil kingdoms of Daniel and The Apocalypse.

In 1694, the rector of Water Stratford in Buckinghamshire, John Mason, gathered a group of Englishmen who believed Christ would return on Easter Sunday, April 16. When nothing visible occurred that day, he convinced his flock that Christ had returned to begin His reign and would eventually become visible to all who were in Water Stratford. He died before that event occurred, but his followers continued to await Christ’s appearance for another sixteen years.

In 1733, Sir Isaac Newton’s study of the end was published posthumously. Although he set no definite date, of one fact Newton was quite certain: the blasphemous “little horn” of Daniel 7:8 was undoubtedly the papacy.

About a century later, Joseph Smith founded The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, also known as the Mormons. In 1832 Smith proclaimed that he was sure that he was in the final generation. He stated that “fifty-six years should wind up the scene” (
BET
, 25). Some readers may perhaps agree with me when I claim that this was not the only teaching of Smith that was dead wrong.

In the early nineteenth century, William Miller predicted that Christ would return in the twelve months preceding March 21, 1844. He then extended the deadline to October 22, 1844. Many Millerites lost all faith when even this attempt at a rolling end of the world failed. Other followers coalesced into what is now known as the Seventh Day Adventists.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses took “rolling end of the world” to a completely new level. On different occasions, they have set the date for Christ’s return in the years 1874, 1914, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975, and 1994. Amazingly, to this day they refuse to admit they were ever mistaken. Following the cue of John Mason, they teach that Christ really
did
return on these dates. Of course, any objective observer might point out that nothing visibly significant happened on any of them.

The nineteenth century was a hotbed of end-times speculation. Into this environment stepped a man who would change the Protestant movement in America. John Nelson Darby (1800–1882) was an ex-Anglican priest who founded the Plymouth Brethren movement, and his apocalyptic view appealed to a young nation that was just recovering from the trauma of the Civil War. Christians who adhere to his theology are known in some circles as the Darbyites, although they dislike this name.

Around 1830, Darby met fifteen-year-old Margaret Mac-Donald, who claimed to have had a private revelation of a secret rapture that would occur shortly. Not all Christians would be included in this rapture, however. Only certain especially faithful believers would be rescued.

From this beginning, Darby and his followers developed a system that taught that all true believers would be rescued in a secret rapture that was distinct from the second coming of Christ. Although they never state it in this manner, this amounts to two future comings of Christ, or at the very least, two stages of the second coming. They justified this novel doctrine by claiming that, in the first stage, which was the secret rapture of only believers, Christ would not actually set foot on earth. Believers would “meet Him in the clouds” and go back to Heaven with Him before He touched down. There would be a “judgment” of Christians’ works at that time.

Darbyites taught that the rapture would usher in Daniel’s seventieth week: a seven-year Great Tribulation that would end with the defeat of the antichrist and the judgment of his followers. Then the Millennium could begin: a thousand-year earthly reign of Christ for the benefit of ethnic Jews. After the Millennium, Gog and Magog would battle Christ one last time, and the final judgment would commence. This made for two to four judgments, along with a two-stage understanding of the second coming. Truly an innovative scheme!

Although it is questionable whether Darby himself was even aware of the full ramifications of his theology, his Millennium also forced his followers into a new view of the Church. It meant that the Church was not God’s main plan of redemption, but a parenthetical time—dubbed the “Church age”—that would eventually give way to God’s
primary
plan: a corporeal reign of the Messiah over the Jews. Jews who came to God in the Millennium would never become a part of the Church. They would be part of redeemed Israel, which would remain forever distinct from Christ’s Bride.

J. Dwight Pentecost wrote extensively from this perspective in the mid-twentieth century: “There are two new covenants presented in the New Testament: the first with Israel in reaffirmation of the covenant promised in Jeremiah 31 and the second made with the church in this age. This … would divide the references to the new covenant in the New Testament into two groups” (
TTC
, 124).

This idea, when developed, lays the foundation for the rapturist belief that
most of the teachings of Jesus do not apply to present-day Christians!
Clarence Lakin assured his readers that the Sermon on the Mount has “no application to the Christian, but only to those who are under the Law”; that is, those Jews who will come back to God during the Tribulation and the Millennium (
DT
, 26). Although this is gospel to rapturists, to many other Christians it sounds dangerously close to blasphemy.

While Darby’s ideas were originally taught by the Plymouth Brethren, they were spread in the United States by various means. Edward Irving introduced these ideas to the Pentecostal churches in the early nineteenth century. In 1883, the Niagara Bible Conference movement aggressively spread his teachings. W. E. Blackstone, Charles Erdman, C. I. Scofield, and J. Hudson Taylor were all involved, and any knowledgeable rapturist will recognize their names. Moody Bible Institute, Dallas Theological Seminary, and Talbot Seminary all trained new pastors and supplied Bible study materials that promoted the belief that this imminent rapture was at the very core of the gospel message.

During this time, the Scofield Reference Bible was becoming the most influential study Bible in America, and its notes always explained passages from the rapturist perspective. Scofield himself had claimed that World War I was the beginning of the Armageddon he saw predicted in The Apocalypse (
BET
, 6). Oswald J. Smith predicted that “the Battle of Armageddon must take place before the year 1933”
(IAH)
. Blackstone wrote that the rapture might very well be in 1934 or 1935 (
TWE
, May 13). Regardless of any failed predictions, however, by the mid-twentieth century, rapturists could be found in virtually every Protestant denomination in America. With the spread of Darby’s ideas, Protestantism in America changed dramatically as end-times frenzy took America by storm again and again with the help of rapturists in the Protestant pulpit.

The 1940s saw World War II and more predictions of the end. America was assured “that we are nearing the great battle of Armageddon”
(PE)
. The evil army of the north was the Soviet Union. “Stalin is now in the process of building the very Empire outlined in Ezekiel 38–39”
(RLP)
. After World War II failed to usher in the Great Tribulation, many rapturists saw the Cold War as the trigger mechanism for Armageddon.

Even someone of the reputation of Billy Graham has fallen prey to this fever. In a 1950 issue of
U.S. News and World Report
, Graham is quoted as claiming, “Two years and it’s all going to be over.” Granted there was tremendous world intrigue during that period, but we are well past 1952 and still counting. Much later, in April 1984, Graham proclaimed, “Anybody who’s anybody believes that global war is imminent.” Even as late as 1995, he wrote, “Each day, as we read our newspapers or watch the news on television, we are reminded of some of the signs Jesus told us to look for.… When will the end be? We don’t know.… But every indication is that it will be sooner than we think” (
DM
, September 1995).

In 1970, Hal Lindsey’s book
The Late Great Planet Earth
broke upon the American scene. Its entire message centered on the prediction that the rapture was due before the end of the 1980s. Its bestseller status revealed how widespread rapturist ideas had become.

In 1976, the United States elected its first avowedly Evangelical president. Rapturists rallied with more pronouncements of the impending end. In 1978, Chuck Smith, the pastor of a huge California Evangelical church, wrote, “The Lord is coming for His church before the end of 1981”
(FS)
.

In a 1978 edition of the influential Evangelical periodical
Christianity Today
, rapturist Gary Wilburn wrote, “The world must end within one generation from the birth of the state of Israel. Any opinion of world affairs that does not dovetail with this prophecy is dismissed.” This is a reference to the “generation of the olive tree” which we will examine in the Olivet Discourse. Rapturists claimed that this means the rapture must occur within forty years of the founding Israel in 1948.

The crucial year 1988 came and went. In the midst of this anxiety-ridden year for Evangelicals, Edgar C. Whisenant published and distributed his pamphlet
88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988
. He specified September as the month in which Christ would return. The pamphlet sold an incredible 4.5 million copies before the year was out.

Believe it or not, when the rapture did not occur in 1988, Whisenant wrote
89 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1989
! He claimed he had previously forgotten to include the extra year in 0 A.D. and confidently asserted, “It’s going to be in September 1989.” (He sold substantially fewer than 4.5 million copies of this second pamphlet.)

It is interesting to peruse the library at a seminary such as Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Before 1988, there were plenty of Masters’ theses being written about the rapture and its imminent arrival. After 1988, that choice of topic dropped off sharply.

To account for this failed prediction, rapturists have adopted the “rolling end of the world” technique used with such success by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Now rapturists claim that perhaps the year that Jerusalem was reunified, 1967, is the proper beginning of the forty-year “olive tree generation.” Others are proposing that 1993 might be the key year because of the Peace Accords. These proposals would give rapturists until either 2007 or 2033 to continue teaching their system without accountability.