"The Spirit of the Apostles is not a guide equal or greater than the Lord, thus Paul within his letters does not have as much authority as has Christ" (Carlstadt, Canonicis Scripturis (1520)
"The Spirit of the Apostles is not a guide equal or greater than the Lord, thus Paul within his letters does not have as much authority as has Christ" (Carlstadt, Canonicis Scripturis (1520)
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Jul 31, 2022
Slide 1 should be "Thess" not "Tim." So it is 1 Thess. 4:17.
In contrast to Paul, Revelation's end-time teaching did not permit any opportunity for a rapture of Christians before or after Jesus' Second Coming. Paul is the sole source of the idea that Christians are raptured when Jesus Christ returns. (1 Thess. 4:17.)
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What almost everyone thinks is Jesus is coming back to rapture the saved, and take them to heaven. Why? Because Paul says so.
16 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:
17 Then we which 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. 1 Thess. 4:16-17 KJV
Prior to the 300s, none of the early church leaders ever repeated Paul's theory of a rapture of Christians. Paul's Christian-rapture view never was mentioned as part of any end-time anticipation by anyone between 100-373 A.D. Not once! The early church believed in what can be termed in today's terminology a non-Christian rapture premillenialism. As Michael Vlach points out: "The earliest Christians looked for three things: (1) the return of Jesus Christ; (2) a cataclysmic end to the present age; and (3) a bodily resurrection [from the dead]." (Michael J. Vlach, Eschatology in Church History (2003).
However, in the late 300s, the first mention is ever made that Paul taught an initial rapture of Christians. The writer was Ephraem the Syrian. He is the only ancient source to cite Paul's passage to argue for such a rapture. His writing dates to 373 A.D. Up to that time, no one formulated any end time view based on Paul's teaching that Christians will be raptured into heaven away from earth at the Second Coming of Christ
Ephraem the Syrian's commentary on 1 Thess. 4:15-17 from 373 A.D. was recently translated. It is entitled On the Last Times, the Antichrist, and the End of the World. He states: "All the saints and elect of God are gathered together before the tribulation, which is to come, and are taken to the Lord, in order that they may not see at any time the confusion which overwhelms the world because of our sins."
Paul's idea of a rapture of Christians that leaves evildoers behind cannot fit into any scenario Jesus gave or which Revelation states. This is why we have all the conflicting versions of the rapture of Christians: pre-tribulation, post-tribulation, premillennial and post-millenial. Every solution to Paul's contradiction with Revelation has its rebuttal. These mutually repugnant theories are the direct result of trying to fit a square peg (Paul) into a round hole (inspired canon).
Jesus several times and in Revelation once says that when Jesus returns the evil are raptured out of the earth first, leaving behind the Christians. First, in Matthew 24:37-42, Jesus taught when He comes, it will be like in the days of Noah when the "flood came and took them [i.e., evildoers] all away." It is in that context Jesus says one will be taken and another left. The verb taken regarding the person at the mill is the same word as in the flood...took them all away. Just as the flood took all the evildoers away first, so will the evildoers be plucked out of the earth first and taken away at the Second Coming. Thus, Matthew 24:37-42 intends the reader to understand by a paralellism that the true Christian is left behind.
The evildoers are the ones taken.
What helps confirm this is the Hebrew Matthew -- the oldest version of Matthew upon which the modern Greek translation was built. We read in Matthew 24 the following additional language in red:
40 "Then if there shall be two ploughing in a field, one righteous and the other evil, the one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding at a mill; one will be taken and the other left. This is because the angels at the end of the world will remove the stumbling blocks from the world and will separate the good from the evil."
See also Matt 13:30, 40:
30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn. ... 40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
See also Matt 13:41-43
41 The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness,42 and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.4them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (NASB)
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