Rapture

This article is about the Christian raising up of the faithful. For other meanings, see Rapture (disambiguation).

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The term rapture is most commonly used to describe an event in certain systems of christian eschatology (study of the end of the world) whereby all true Christians are taken from Earth into Heaven before other events associated with the end of the world take place. This belief is distinguished from another view which states that the end of the world would be experienced by everyone simultaneously.

Supporters of this doctrine are most commonly found among fundamentalist and conservative Protestants, especially in the United States. Belief in the rapture is particularly associated with the school of Biblical interpretation called dispensationalism.

The term "rapture" is also used by some groups to describe the concept of religious ecstacy, or a religious out of body experience. This article discusses the use of rapture as an eschatalogical concept.

Contents

1 The Rapture 2 Support 3 Criticism 4 Belief 5 The Rapture in media 6 See also 7 External links

The Rapture

According to this belief, believers will suddenly disappear from Earth in the "twinkling of an eye", while all others will be left behind to endure the tribulation. In some Christian circles this is known as a pre-trib doctrine, because the rapture rescues the faithful from Earth before the tribulation, rather than after, as some other Christians believe. The resurrection of the dead will occur at the same time. Almost all Christians believe that believers will be taken up to heaven, but the essence of the term "rapture" is that in some way non-believers will be left behind for at least some period of time before the world finally ends. This teaching revolves around the scripture passage in Matthew 24:40-41 which explains that "two shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left" (compare Luke 17:34-36), and also 1 Thessalonians 4:17 which teaches that believers will "be caught up together...in the clouds to meet the Lord Jesus Christ in the air"). Little attention was paid to these verses before the Protestant reformation, and consequently most Christian denominations who have beliefs concerning a rapture are those that appeared after the reformation.

Support

Supporters for this belief generally cite four primary sources in the New Testament:

• John 14:1-3
• In 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, the Apostle Paul writes: "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."
• In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Paul writes: "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."
• In Philippians 3:20-21, Paul writes: "For our conversation is in heaven; from where also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself."

Generally, an elaborate set of predictions about the end times are constructed from these sets of verses, together with various interpretations of the Book of Revelation and the predictions of Christ's return in Matthew 24:30-36. In general, believers in the rapture consider the present to be the end times, and offer interpretations of the various symbolisms in the book of Revelation in terms of contemporary world events. They believe that, because of the presumed imminence of the end of the world, they have a unique ability to correctly understand these symbols, which had seemed so cryptic to Christians in earlier times.

Criticism

Criticism of the rapture is usually based on the idea that it is a relatively new theory in the history of Christian belief, and also on the principle that the necessity of believing in Christ would be proven, by the events of the rapture, to anyone left behind. Thus anyone left behind who had knowledge of the rapture theory but previously did not believe in Christ would essentially be forced, by the proof of their own experiences, to believe. This would prevent any type of Antichrist from having any credibility. However, this may not be so, as God allows Satan to send them a deluding influence, backed up by many signs and false wonders (2 Thess 2:11).

Belief

Belief in the rapture became popular in some Christian circles during the 1970s, in part thanks to the books of Hal Lindsey, including The Late Great Planet Earth. Many of Lindsey's predictions in that book, which assumed that the rapture was imminent, were based on world conditions at the time. The Cold War figured prominently in their predictions of Armageddon, and other aspects of 1970s global politics were seen as having been predicted in the Bible. Lindsay believed, for example, that the 10-headed beast cited in Revelation was the European Economic Community, which at the time consisted of ten nations.

Many Christians continue to believe in the rapture, with their interpretations of biblical eschatology having been updated to reflect changes in world conditions.

The Rapture in media

• There was a 1991 film starring Mimi Rogers called The Rapture which was about one woman's experience of the rapture.

• Rapture is a major component of the premise of the Left Behind books and their various spin-offs. Again these books greatly revived belief in this concept.

See also

• Rapture, a Heavy Metal band from Finland.
• Antichrist
• Apocalypse
• Armageddon
• End times
• Tribulation
• Second Coming

External links

• Rapture prophecy
• Rapture Letters is a service that aims to send out letters to non-Christians whose loved ones have been taken up in the rapture.
• ReligiousTolerance.org A comprehensive encylopedic article