What does 2 Thessalonians 2 teach about the timing of the Rapture?
| By: r. Renald Showers; Ā©1996 |
| Bible Prophecy Questions Answered by Leading Christian Scholars. |
What does 2 Thessalonians 2 teach about the timing of the Rapture?
Dr. Renald Showers: One of the passages that is often a question mark with regard to the timing of the Rapture is 2 Thessalonians Chapter 2. Paul in verse 1 says, āNow, we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto Him.ā Thatās definitely a reference to the Rapture, when Christ is going to come out of Heaven and gather His saints together with Him. Let me point out to you, the Greek language, what it says is: āWe beseech you, brethren, on behalf of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together unto Him.ā
Let me tell you why Paul was saying that. Paul had taught the Thessalonian Christians, we understand, that the Lord would come and rapture the Church saints out of the world before the future Day of the Lord would begin at the beginning of the seven-year Tribulation period with the outpouring of Godās wrath. But after Paul had taught the Thessalonians that and had left the city, somebody had sent a letter or had passed on words through some form to them to the effect that Paul now was teaching that the Day of the Lord had already begun and that they as Christians were already in the Day of the Lord. And obviously, that false teaching would completely contradict what Paul had already taught them about the Church saints being raptured to Christ: that theyād be raptured out before the future Day of the Lord would come.
The Thessalonian Christians were shaken by this because the false teachers said Paul himself is the one who has taught this, that the Day of the Lord has already started; youāre already in it. And they were using as evidence the fact that the Christians were already being persecuted and saying, āWell, look, the Day of the Lord is here.ā
So Paul is writing to rebut that false teaching, to try to drive home the point, āChristians, youāre not in the Day of the Lord. And Iām writing to you on behalf of the teaching I already gave to you about the coming of the Lord to gather us together to Him in the Rapture. Iām writing in defense of that teaching that weāre going to be removed from the earth before the Day of the Lord, and therefore, we as Christians will not be here when the Day of the Lord comes,ā and to drive home to them that the day of the Lord has not started. He says to them in verse 2, āthat you be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled neither by spirit nor by word nor by letter as from us as that the day of Christ is at hand.ā
Now, many of the Greek manuscripts which are regarded as very reliable say that āthe Day of the Lord is at hand.ā And literally, itās that the Day of the Lord, in essence, is already here. That was the problem. Somebody had said, āYouāre already in the Day of the Lord.ā And that contradicted what Paul had taught to the effect that Christians would be removed before the Day of the Lord began. So to prove to them that the Day of the Lord had not already started, Paul says in verse 3, āLet no man deceive you by any means, for that day [the Day of the Lord] shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perditionāāwho is the Antichrist. Heās saying that the evidence that the Day of the Lord isnāt already here and youāre not in it is the fact that two things that have to happen before the Day of the Lord will take place have not happened yet, namely, the apostasy and the revelation of the man of sin.
Paul is not teaching here that the apostasy and revelation of the man of sin have to take place before the Rapture takes place. What heās saying is, the apostasy and the revelation of the man of sin, or the Antichrist, have to take place before the Day of the Lord begins. The implication being that the Antichrist would already be on the world scene and in a position of power before the Day of the Lord and the seven-year Tribulation period begins. He would have to be that in order to make or confirm the covenant with Israel at the very beginning of the seven-year Tribulation period. Certainly Israel would not enter into a confirmed covenant relationship with this man if he werenāt in a position of authority or power to confirm such a covenant with him. So Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2 is not saying that here are two things that have to happen before the Rapture: the apostasy and the revelation of the man of sin or the Antichrist. What he is saying is, here are two things that must take place before the Day of the Lord begins, not before the Rapture begins.
Hello sir. I enjoy your show every Sunday night on Channel 30 WVCY Milwaukee. Iām confused as to what the Day of Christ is vs āDay of the Lordā which refers to the 7yr. tribulation. Iāve heard that āDay of Christā refers to the rapture and is the way this passage should be translated.
I also noticed that in vs. 3 and 4 Paul goes into detail about the antichrist sitting in the temple committing the abomination of desolation. I fear that if the Day of Christ is the proper translation and refers to the rapture, Paul is saying that the abomination of desolation must happen first, thus meaning we will go through the first 3 and 1/2 years of the tribulation. Please clarify.
The tribulation. The darkened sun and moon. Then the rapture. Then the Day of the Lord. What u r teaching will cause a holocaust. Christians need to be ready to suffer.
Exactly.
This does not make sense ā the text is equating the Day of the Lord AS the paraousia and catching away ā this is very clear only a few vss laterā¦. How can you possibly miss both the plain sense within v1 -4 ā then confirmed in text only a few vss later with reference to the parousia and the time as AFTER the great man of sin, etc.
Paul says āas that the day of Christ is at hand.ā-2Th 2:2 which is future tense, so itās impossible that they thought the day of the Lord had already begun. These stories are all nonsense to make us believe in a pre tribulation rapture, which wonāt happen. The same goes with people saying āfalling awayā means rapture, which would mean the rapture comes before the raptureā¦ yes there really are people teaching this.
Preaching a pretrib rapture is the same as playing russian roulette, so please stop doing it and preach the truth.
In that verse, the word ĪµĪ½ĪµĻĻĪ·ĪŗĪµĪ½ is the 3rd person single form of the verb where weāre reading, Its tense is PERFECT (which indicates a present-tense report of an action that has been completed but has effects in the now; like: āhe has doneā), its voice is active (which indicates that the subject performs the action, instead of receives it), and its mood is indicative (which describes a situation that actually is ā as opposed to a situation that might be, is wished for, or is commanded to be).
Good and accurate blog ā We can know more about the end times because weāre there. There are many signs and confirmations like the torahcalendar.com but I want to quote the servant. āā¦Since Jesus (or the Bible) never says exactly what the abomination is, Paul couldnāt very well use that as an example. Therefore, he used the āuprisingā that precedes the abomination, in Daniel 11:31, which he called āthe rebellionā because thatās the term that a āholy oneā uses, in Daniel 8:13. The holy one refers to the ārebellion that causes desolationā, which is obviously the uprising and abomination put together. Yet, since the uprising and abomination happen in such close proximity to the āgatheringā (rapture), prompting Jews in Judea to flee immediately for the mountains (Matthew 24:16-18), Paul had to add some other things that happen soon after the abomination, to strengthen his point.ā Thanks for the blog and allowing this post.