Refuting the Great Lie About Our Blessed Hope :: By Jonathan Brentner
It’s the most persistent lie concerning the Rapture. I have either read or heard it more times than I can count.
Though it’s been debunked countless times, a great many saints remain convinced that the doctrine of the pre-Tribulation Rapture originated with John Darby. Although they insist that no one believed in such a thing before him, it’s simply not true.
Let me be clear: If anyone tells you that this teaching originated with John Darby, they are either purposely misleading you or have themselves been the victim of someone deceiving them about the origin of our “blessed hope.”
If the Bible Is True, There Must Be a Rapture
Regardless of the timing of the Rapture, the teaching that Jesus will someday appear and catch up both dead and living saints to meet Him in the air is biblically based.
Scripture provides several details regarding the sequence of events that we now refer to as the “Rapture.” The late Dr. Ed Hindson, former professor at Liberty University, beloved Bible scholar, and author, put it this way:
If you disagree on the timing of the rapture, please don’t tell people, “There’s never going to be a rapture.” No, there must be a rapture or the Bible is not true. There must be a time when the archangel shouts, when the trumpet sounds, and the dead in Christ are raised, and the living are caught up (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). We may differ on the timing of the rapture but not the fact of the rapture.[1]
We find references to the “Rapture” in John 14:2-3, 1 Corinthians 15:50-55, Philippians 3:20-21, Romans 8:23-25, Titus 2:11-14, and Colossians 3:4. Putting these passages together, we arrive at a series of events that comprise our “blessed hope.”
If the Bible is true, there must be a still future time when Jesus appears, raises the dead in Christ, and catches living believers up to meet Him in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17; 1 Corinthians 15:47-55). Since the words of these texts have never reached fulfillment anytime in the past, they point to a yet future reality, which we call the Rapture. It’s the time the Lord gives us our immortal and glorified bodies, the essence of our future experience of eternal life.
Because the Bible is true, the event we now designate as the Rapture awaits a future and certain fulfillment.
The Origin of the Word
Many people object to our hope of meeting Jesus in the air because the word “Rapture” doesn’t appear on the pages of Scripture. However, that’s not true; it appears in a previous version of the Bible. Long ago, it appeared in a Latin translation from about AD 400 called the Vulgate. The Vulgate used the Latin word rapturo to translate the Greek word harpazo in 1 Thessalonians 4:17.
The words “caught up” in our English translations capture the essence of the Greek harpazo in the text just as the Latin rapturo, the origin of our word “Rapture,” did when Jerome and others translated the Bible into Latin.
In his book Dispensationalism Before Darby, Dr. William C. Watson lists ten instances of Bible scholars using the word “Rapture,” beginning with Joseph Mede in 1627 through the time of Thomas Broughton, an English pastor, in 1768.[2] In the centuries after the Reformation, the usage of the word “Rapture” to describe the event depicted below in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 became commonplace in many Protestant churches. In a letter that he wrote about these verses, Joseph Mede used the word “Rapture” six times when referring to this verse.[3]
Even though Joseph Mede didn’t place Jesus’ appearing before the start of the Tribulation period, his usage of the word “Rapture” establishes a four-hundred-year history of Bible students using the word “Rapture” to refer to the event that the Apostle Paul wrote about in 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17.
Two centuries before John Darby was born, the word “Rapture” was already commonly used in Bible-believing churches.
Early Beliefs in a Rapture Before a Time of Tribulation
The belief that Jesus would take His saints out of the earth before a time of Tribulation on the earth dates back to the first centuries of the church.
In AD 180, Irenaeus wrote Against Heresies to refute the errors of Gnosticism, which posed a great threat to the church at the time. In Against Heresies, Book 5, Chapter 29, he wrote:
“And therefore, when in the end the Church shall be suddenly caught up from this, it is said, “There shall be Tribulation such as has not been since the beginning, neither shall be.”[4]
In the above quote, Irenaeus used the same Greek word for “caught up,” harpazo, that Paul used in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 for the Lord catching up living believers to meet Him in the air. Irenaeus specifically placed the fulfillment of this verse ahead of the time of “Tribulation” that Jesus referred to in Matthew 24:21 and thus before the Second Coming, which the Lord said would happen after this time of judgment on the earth (Matthew 24:7-29).
This highly respected theologian of the early church envisioned a fulfillment of the harpazo followed by a time of extended Tribulation on the earth. He regarded the Rapture and Second Coming as two distinct occurrences separated by at least the second half of the seven-year Tribulation.
Cyprian (AD 210-258), a bishop in the city of Carthage, guided his church through a period of intense persecution and suffering, during which time he also became a martyr.
In his book, Treatises of Cyprian, he wrote:
We who see that terrible things have begun, and know that still more terrible things are imminent, may regard it as the greatest advantage to depart from it as quickly as possible. Do you not give God thanks, do you not congratulate yourself, that by an early departure you are taken away, and delivered from the shipwrecks and disasters that are imminent? Let us greet the day which assigns each of us to his own home, which snatches us hence, and sets us free from the snares of the world and restores us to paradise and the kingdom.[5]
Cyprian believed in “an early departure” of the Church before further disasters occurred on the earth. He believed the time of additional trouble was “imminent” and thus also a “departure.” He believed that the Lord would take believers out of the world so they wouldn’t experience the troubling times ahead for those left behind. His reference to “snatches us” sounds just like the catching up of the Church in 1 Thessalonians 4:17. Cyprian’s beliefs signify a third-century AD belief in a pre-Tribulation Rapture as they coincide well with our imminent expectation of Jesus’ appearing.
Another unmistakable reference to the pre-Tribulation Rapture comes from Saint Ephraim of Edessa (AD 306–373), who was a monk, a poet, a writer of hymns, and a preacher.
The quote below comes from Ephraem’s sermon entitled “On the Last Times, the Antichrist, and the End of the World.” Some historians believe someone else wrote it in AD 622 and ascribed it to Ephraem in order to lend credibility to it. Dr. Grant Jeffrey, who did extensive research on this sermon and obtained a translation of it on his own from a Greek scholar, believes it’s more likely that Ephraem himself preached the sermon sometime around AD 323, just a couple of years before the Nicene church council.[6]
Believe you me, dearest brother, because the coming (advent) of the Lord is nigh, believe you me, because the end of the world is at hand, believe me, because it is the very last time. Or do you not believe unless you see with your eyes? See to it that this sentence be not fulfilled among you of the prophet who declares: “Woe to those who desire to see the day of the Lord!” For all the saints and 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.[7]
The above quote dates back to the early fourth century AD. Even if we concede that someone wrote this sermon in AD 622, as some maintain, we still have a definitive adherence to a pre-Tribulation Rapture 1,200 years before the birth of John Darby!
The above sampling of quotes are valid and accepted translations that clearly establish early beliefs within the church of Jesus taking His church out of the world before a time of great tribulation on the earth and returning to the earth with His saints after this time of trouble.
Back to the Bible
This attempt to discredit the Rapture by making it seem as though it’s a relatively new and thus an unfounded belief is an effort to divert our focus from what the Bible teaches us about our “blessed hope” (Titus 2:11-14). The witness of church history confirms that the scripturally sound doctrine of the pre-Tribulation Rapture existed in the earliest centuries of the church.
More important than that, however, is what the Bible says. The Rapture is a clearly defined occurrence in such passages as 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11, John 14:2–3, 1 Corinthians 15:50-55, Philippians 3:20-21, Romans 8:23-25, Titus 2:11-14, and Colossians 3:4.
The majority of Bible-believing churches during the twentieth century not only adhered to a pre-Tribulation Rapture, but its pastors also unashamedly proclaimed it to their parishioners. The widespread popularity of this belief resulted from the biblically sound teaching of a great many devout men of God during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. John Darby was one of many who taught and wrote about our “blessed hope.”
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In The Triumph of the Redeemed – An eternal Perspective that Calms Our Fears in Perilous Times, I provide a compelling defense of our belief in the pre-Tribulation Rapture, provide further examples of this belief from church history, and explore its wonders for the redeemed. The glory ahead for us exceeds all our fanciful imaginations of what it might be. In the last section, I explore five amazing truths of the wonders that lie ahead for us as saints.
Note: Please consider signing up for my newsletter on the home page of my website at https://www.jonathanbrentner.com/. Thanks!
[1] Ed Hindson, Future Glory (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2021), p. 14.
[2] William Watson, Dispensationalism Before Darby, (Navasota, TX: Lampion House Publishing, 2023), p. 177.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Irenaeus, “Against Heresies,” The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 10 vols., Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979), p. 558.
[5] Cyprian, Treatises of Cyprian, “On the Mortality,” section 25.
[6] Grant R. Jeffrey, Triumphant Return: The Coming Kingdom of God(Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2001), p. 174.
[7] Ibid., pp. 175–76.
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