Question:

I’ve been reading the Left Behind books by LaHaye and Jenkins. The authors propose that there will be a rapture of the saints before the tribulation begins. Do you know of any Bible scriptures that support this theory?

Thank you!

Cheryl

Answer: Dear Cheryl,

The rapture idea is part of a system of understanding the Bible – and specifically what the Bible has to say about the end times – called dispensationalism. Dispensationalism was virtually unknown to Christianity until a man named James Nelson Darby. Darby was born over 200 years ago to an Anglo-Irish family in 1800 in London. He was ordained as a priest in the Church of England (Anglican church) and was assigned to Dublin, Ireland. In 1827, as he was recovering from surgery, Darby became disenchanted with organized Christianity. He left the Church of England and became a leader in a movement that eventually was called the Plymouth Brethren.

It was at this time that Darby "organized" the Bible (question – does it need organizing?) into what became known as dispensationalism. Dispensationalism proposes that God deals with the human race differently in different ages – and dispensationalists speak of these dispensations as "God’s great plan." And always, for the dispensationalist, those who adhere to dispensationalism are living in the last dispensation – the end times. If we are to believe dispensationalism, we have been living in the last days since about 1830 or so.

Darby became preoccupied with the end times, because it seemed to him that the end of the world was near. And it seemed that way to many others, leading to what has been called the "Great Disappointment of 1844" – when a specific date, possibly based upon calculations from Darby’s system of dispensationalism – was set for the return of Jesus Christ.

When Christ did not come back as predicted, there was a great disappointment – but unfortunately, dispensationalism did not end, but continued to flourish. It eventually inspired a study Bible (the Scofield Reference Bible) that actually served to interpret the Bible according to dispensationalism, many other dates to be set for Jesus’ return (all, of course, have been wrong).

Dispensationalism has been proven wrong over and over again – whether the writer is Hal Lindsey (Late Great Planet Earth) or Tim LeHaye with his Left Behind series of books, movies and other products, two things are clear: 1) dispensationalism sells lots of books and 2) dispensationalism is fatally flawed.

As for the rapture, Darby’s followers came up with the rapture as a kind of two-stage return of Jesus – something the Bible does not support at all. For those who avidly support the rapture, the Bible is forced into a mold that will fit their preconceived notion that there is a rapture.

One of the things that dispensationlism appears to do is to give exact and precise information, plans, schedules and timetables for events and issues that the Bible leaves in a more general and non-specific category. Dispensationalism is thus extremely attractive, but what attracts humans is not necessarily a priority for God (Adam and Eve would be the earliest case in point that the Bible offers).

The Bible is clear – Jesus Christ will return, bodily, in glory to this earth. When, how, what events will happen before, during and after – all of that is not clarified. In becoming fixated on some of these details many Christians have become unbalanced, fearful, concerned primarily about saving their own physical lives -- and some Christians have either lost sight of the gospel or the gospel itself has been relegated to a less important issue in their lives.

In Christ,
Greg Albrecht