The Watchman’s Call

Guest (Male): Standing at the intersection of the word and the world, there is a clear sound for uncertain times. Welcome to The Watchman's Call. Join us as we stand on the ramparts of scripture to examine the intersection of biblical prophecy and modern culture. The headlines are changing, but the blueprint has already been written. Listen as Pastor Andy Woods uncovers the prophetic significance of the world we live in. The Watchman's Call starts now.

Dr. Andy Woods: We would love to wrap up our series in this installment on the whole subject of the Rapture: truth or fiction. Is this really a biblical doctrine? As we have explained from 1 Thessalonians 4:13 through 18 and 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 50 through 58, the Rapture is indeed a true doctrine. It's biblical. To think Rapture is simply to think biblically.

We have developed 10 points from those areas of scripture to defend the authenticity of the Rapture from the Bible. Number one, the Rapture is an important doctrine. Number two, it's distinct from the Second Advent. Number three, it will involve the catching away of all living believers. Number four, it's a reunion. Number five, it's a resurrection.

Number six, it will exempt an entire generation of Christians from death. Number seven, it is instantaneous when it happens. Number eight, it is a mystery, something veiled but now unveiled in the pages of the New Testament, particularly Christ in the Upper Room and then the writings of the Apostle Paul giving full bloom or color to that doctrine. Number nine, it's eminent, meaning it could happen at any moment. It's not near; it's next.

And then number 10, it's a traditional doctrine now being recovered. Many people say you can't believe in the Rapture because it really wasn't taught aggressively in church history until John Nelson Darby began to teach it in the 1830s. But I want to remind you of what the Apostle Paul said in Acts 20, verses 29 through 31. Paul, wrapping up his third missionary journey, stopped briefly in modern-day Turkey, Asia Minor area, a little port city called Miletus.

There he summoned the elders at the church at Ephesus, which he had already planted, to join him there, and he gives them leadership instructions. And this is what he said: "I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And even from among your own selves, men will arise speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore, be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years, I did not cease to admonish each one with tears."

Paul says that after I leave—in other words, after the apostolic age ends and the apostles begin to leave, primarily through death, most of which occurred through martyrdom—after that age is over, what's going to happen to the church is it's going to be infected and infiltrated with false teachers. So when Paul makes this statement, he's saying you're not going to find truth in church history because church history is going to be overrun by false teachers.

Truth is not determined by what this teacher said or what that teacher said; it's determined by what's in the Bible. Paul says the source of truth is apostolic revelation. So when people want to get into this whole discussion about, "Gee, no one could teach the Rapture today authentically because no one believed it prior to John Nelson Darby," they're dragging you into a discussion not about the Bible.

It's very skillful what they're doing. They're dragging you into a discussion not about the Bible—everything that we've talked about in this series comes from the Bible—but they're dragging you into a discussion of church history. You may not be comfortable with church history because a lot of people have never been taught church history and know very little about it. I enjoy the study of church history, but the truth of the matter is Paul tells me squarely that I'm not going to find truth in church history.

I'm going to find it in the Bible. When the great players of church history agree with the scripture, I'm with the church fathers. But when the church fathers depart from the scripture, as many of them have done, then I depart from the church fathers. So keep that in mind when people want to pull you into an argument about why you can't believe the Rapture because no one has taught it until the time of John Nelson Darby, 1830s.

The truth of the matter is, folks, there's a reason why church history is somewhat silent on the subject of the Rapture. It has to do with Alexandria in North Africa, in Egypt, and Antioch, Syrian Antioch, up north, the northern tip of Israel. Antioch of Syria is where Paul launched his three missionary journeys from. Alexandria, Egypt, by contrast, was a place where gnosticism, allegorization, taking things symbolically that were intended to be taken literally—where that mindset developed.

Antioch, for the first two centuries of the church, they reigned, their school of thought in Antioch. They wanted to take Bible prophecy literally. But they were eclipsed by the school of Alexandria, which basically said Bible prophecy needs to be understood allegorically. While the Antioch sentiment reigned for the first two centuries of Christianity, it was eclipsed by Alexandria, allegorization from Alexandria, Egypt.

By the time you get to the fourth century, you have a man named Augustine who wrote his book, *The City of God*, which is the first formal treatment of amillennialism in church history, meaning don't take Bible prophecy literally. Essentially, what happened is the Alexandrian mentality reigned supreme from the fourth century onward. The church as a whole didn't even start clawing its way out of that until the days of the Protestant Reformation.

It was during that period of time that the church leaders said to approach prophecy allegorically, symbolically, non-literally, which means you can make prophecy mean whatever you want it to mean if you depart from the ordinary principles and laws of logic and language. Beyond that, there was rampant illiteracy during this time period. This is why Luther, when you get to the 16th century Protestant Reformation, placed such a high emphasis on translating the Bible into the vernacular of the common person.

Luther placed such an emphasis on raising literacy rates, literacy standards, so people could read the Bible on their own. But that's not until the 16th century. What you have taking place in church history is a period of time where Augustine's mentality reigned: prophecy is meant to be understood allegorically, and there was just rampant illiteracy. This is why the wonderful subject of Bible prophecy, this is why the wonderful subject of the Rapture, fell on hard times.

So when people come along and they say no one ever taught this doctrine until the 1830s, they're not telling you the history that I'm giving you here. There's a reason why it was not taught prominently until the 1830s. The church was in the Alexandrian, Augustinian, Roman Catholic Dark Ages where people were told you can't understand the Bible on your own.

You know what? The Bible all over Europe was chained to the pulpits. People did not have their own Bibles, and they were told that only the priests could interpret the Bible. Even then, the mass was given in Latin still and wasn't even understandable to the masses. This is a time period that the church is in for over a thousand years. You have to understand that.

It's the Protestant Reformers that started crawling out of that dark Augustinian spell or shadow. What I'm trying to show you is this becomes the reason why Rapture teaching disappears from church history. "No one ever taught this doctrine until the 1830s." My comeback is, "Hey, there's a reason for that." It's called the Dark Ages, the triumph of Alexandria over Antioch.

I'm trying to give you the reason for that, and people just glibly say no one taught this until the 1830s without giving you this historical background that I'm providing for you. So the Protestant Reformers started climbing out of that in the 16th century. They restored certain doctrines like Sola Fide (faith alone), Sola Scriptura (according to the scripture alone), Sola Gratia (grace alone), Solus Christus (Christ alone), Soli Deo Gloria (to the glory of God alone).

How did they recover those doctrines from the Dark Ages? Through the literal method of interpretation, taking the text at face value unless there is some reason that a major figure of speech, something to that effect, is being employed. Essentially what happened is once God started to raise up people like John Nelson Darby, C.I. Scofield, other names prominent during that time period—I'm thinking of names like W.E. Blackstone, Lewis Sperry Chafer, others—as God started to raise up people in that time period, they took the Reformers' method of interpretation that they used to rescue the church in the area of the Solas, and they started to apply it to the whole Bible, including prophecy.

You know what came roaring back post-1800s? Premillennialism, that there's coming a kingdom upon the earth after Jesus returns, and pretribulational raptureism, which I'm speaking of here. The creeds and the confessions of the church were formulated, many of them, before this renaissance that I'm trying to describe here transpired. So there becomes a reason why Rapture teaching is not picked up in the creeds and the confessions of the church.

It's before the church started to get rescued by the Reformers, and then God raised up men like Blackstone, Darby, Scofield, Chafer to take the Reformers' method of interpretation and apply it to Bible prophecy. That's why pretribulational raptureism starts showing up in the 1800s. The church had to be rescued from the Dark Ages first. Now this all becomes very significant background to answering the objection: no one ever taught the Rapture until Darby in the 1830s.

I'm reading the words here of a scholar named George Gun, and he writes, "Interestingly, references to John 14, verses 1 through 3—remember, that's the first time the Rapture is unveiled in scripture—interestingly, references to John 14, verses 1 through 3 virtually disappear when perusing the writings of the Nicene and post-Nicene fathers. Now those were the church fathers that came into existence after the church had been functioning under the school of Antioch for its first two centuries."

Gun writes, "This is a bit surprising given the abundance of material in these latter writers when compared with the anti-Nicenes. I would assume with the rise of Augustinian amillennialism and its optimistic interpretation regarding the present arrival of the Kingdom of God, the kind of hope held out in John 14, verses 1 through 3 ceased to hold relevance."

In other words, when you go through the first two centuries of the writings of the church fathers, they believed John 14, verses 1 through 3 was a rescue operation for the church. These anti-Nicene early church fathers called John 14, verses 1 through 3 a heavenly and eschatological interpretation. Men like Papias, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian held to that view.

Papias, 110 AD; Irenaeus, 130 to 202; Tertullian, 196 to 212; Origen, 182 to 251; Cyprian, 258 AD. But it's interesting that as Augustine came out with his work *The City of God*, and everybody started to think, "Well, the Kingdom of God is here and now, there's no need for Jesus to come and rescue us out of this world because we're in the Kingdom of God now."

So what happened with the church fathers is they stopped holding to what we would call a Rapture interpretation of John 14, verses 1 through 3. That arrangement, that interpretation, was not recovered until God raised up men like Darby, Scofield, Blackstone, Chafer, and others to apply the Reformers' literal hermeneutic to prophecy, and the doctrine of the Rapture comes roaring back as a result and as a consequence.

Here's what Joseph Forest Silver in his work *The Lord's Return Seen in History and in Scripture as Premillennial and Eminent* says: "Concerning the apostolic fathers, they expected the return of the Lord in their day. They believed that the time was eminent because the Lord had taught them to live in a watchful attitude."

Concerning the anti-Nicene fathers, he says, "By tradition, they knew the faith of the apostles. They taught the doctrine of the eminent and premillennial return of the Lord." The early church fathers believed in an eschatological system that is very close to what I'm describing here. Maybe they used different names, different nomenclature, but it's the same kind of idea.

There's coming upon the earth a kingdom that will be inaugurated only by Jesus's return, and before that, there's the any-moment expectation that He's coming to take His own out of the world and take us to the Father's house. So that sentiment reigns under the literal school of Antioch for two centuries, but then it's eclipsed by the Dark Ages.

The Reformers pulled us out of that morass a little, but God raised up others, Scofield, Darby, Blackstone, Chafer, to pull us out further, and this is why Rapture teaching then becomes prominent once again in 1830. It was a doctrine that was lost in the Dark Ages but now is in a state of recovery.

Now what's exciting about this is even during the Dark Ages itself, there are some that seem to hold to Rapture teaching. Here is a quote from someone named Pseudo-Ephrem the Syrian. He wrote from the fourth to the sixth century AD, and this is what he said: "Why therefore do we reject every care of earthly actions and prepare ourselves for the meeting of the Lord Christ so that He may draw us from the confusion which overwhelms the world? For all the saints and the 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."

That is a clear pretribulational rapture teaching. So my point is even during the Dark Ages itself, it's so heartening to find some who still held to this doctrine, although it was not a majority opinion. So all of this history that I'm giving is lost in the trite assertion that nobody ever taught this doctrine until the 1830s with John Nelson Darby.

Let me take you to one more point about this that gets lost, and it's the doctrine of progressive illumination, I call it. It's spelled out in Daniel chapter 12, verse 4 and verse 9, which says, "But as for you, Daniel, these words are sealed up. Conceal the words and seal up the book until the time of the end. Many will go back and forth and knowledge will increase." Verse 9, Daniel 12, "Go your way, Daniel, for these words are concealed and sealed up until the time of the end."

What does it mean here when Daniel says people are going to go back and forth and knowledge will increase? I think you can cross-reference that with Amos 8, verse 12, which says people will stagger from sea to sea and from north even to the east. They will go to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, but they will not find it. What Daniel is predicting is people in the end times will start to go to and fro, meaning they're going to start reading.

They're going to start reading prophecy, and they're going to start to figure out, "You know what? We're living in the generation, generally speaking, of the time period that the prophets spoke of." Prior generations wouldn't understand this because they're living in the wrong time period. But a lot of the prophecies in the Bible sure make a lot of sense to me that didn't make much sense to Daniel.

I can see the technology in play. I can see Israel in the land again. I can see the Israeli desire to rebuild their temple. I see it on my newsfeed constantly, and I start to say to myself, "You know what? I'm understanding Daniel's prophecies. I'm understanding what he is speaking of here," something that Daniel himself could not even understand. The truth has always been there in the Bible, but God has designed prophecy in such a way that it becomes more progressively understandable the closer and closer we get towards the fulfillment of these events.

I understand Daniel's prophecies better than Daniel himself. Now I'm not arguing for progressive revelation because the canon of scripture has been shut. Jude verse 3, truth has been once and for all delivered to the saints. Revelation 22, verses 18 and 19, very clear that we should not add or subtract from what God has said. What I'm saying is the things in the Bible are now more understandable to me than prior generations because not because I'm any smarter, but I'm living in the right period of time.

So this becomes the reason why eschatology, the study of the end, becomes the last major area of doctrine to be systematized. Here's a brief overview of the history of doctrine: the issues of canonicity the church was involved in around AD 180. Then they moved into Christology, AD 500. Then atonement controversies, AD 1100. Then salvation issues, the Protestant Reformation, AD 1500. And the last body of truth to be systematized by the church is eschatology, AD 1800.

Now why is that? Because that's what Daniel said would happen. As we drift closer and closer to the end of the age, the truth that's always been in the Bible would become more progressively understandable, particularly in the prophetic areas. Let me give you this quote from Sir Isaac Newton, a great scientist but also a Bible scholar. Most people don't know that.

He wrote all the way back in his life, 1642 to 1727, "About the time of the end, a body of men will be raised up who will turn their attention to the prophecies and insist upon their literal interpretation in the midst of much clamor and opposition." Isaac Newton studying Daniel said this would happen. It's a doctrine that we call progressive revelation.

And so since this doctrine is true, I don't expect a lot of Rapture teaching to be found in church history. People were living in the wrong area or realm of time. But people today can understand these prophecies better than the prophets themselves. All of this needs to be explained because you hear this accusation constantly that the Rapture is a new doctrine. I'm giving you the history behind this and how to answer that accusation.

Well, this wraps up our series on "What is the Rapture: Truth or Fiction?" We've seen that the Rapture is an important doctrine. It's distinct from the Second Advent. It will involve the catching away of all living believers. It will be a reunion, a resurrection. It will exempt an entire generation of believers from death. When it occurs, it'll be instantaneous. It's a mystery. It's eminent.

And then finally, number 10, we've explored in this installment and the last that the Rapture is a traditional doctrine that is now being gradually recovered. Well, I hope you've enjoyed this series on The Watchman's Call broadcast. We're going to be continuing on with subsequent series bringing you more prophetic truth. Thank you for praying for us. We love you and pray for you, and we'll see you next time on The Watchman's Call. God bless you.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to The Watchman's Call, exploring the intersection of prophecy and culture. This program is a ministry of Sugar Land Bible Church, a place where the Bible is taught and the times are discerned. Visit this Sunday in person or connect with them anytime at slbc.org. That's slbc.org. Until next time, may the Lord give you a spirit of discernment in the week ahead.