The rapture is an eschatological concept held by some Christians, particularly within branches of American evangelicalism, consisting of an end-time event when all Christian believers who are alive, along with resurrected believers, will rise “in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.”[1] The idea of a rapture is not found in historic Christianity, but is a relatively recent doctrine of Evangelical Protestantism.
In Paul the Apostle‘s First Epistle to the Thessalonians in the Bible, he uses the Greek word harpazo (Ancient Greek: ἁρπάζω), meaning “to snatch away” or “to seize,” and explains that believers in Jesus Christ will be snatched away from earth into the air.[2] The term is most frequently used among Evangelical Protestant theologians in the United States.[3] Rapture has also been used for a mystical union with God or for eternal life in Heaven.[4]
Pretribulationism traces its roots in the post-apostolic era as far back as The Shepherd of Hermas (ca. A.D. 140), which alludes to the idea that believers in Christ will not suffer the tribulation, suggesting a possible pretribulation view.[62] Other antecedents of pretribulationism can be found in The Apocalypse of Elijah, The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Ephraem, and The History of Brother Dolcino which present clear, early forms of pretribulationism though less refined.[63] Modern pretribulationism gained rise in the seventeenth century with the Puritan preachers Increase Mather and Cotton Mather. It was popularized extensively in the 1830s by John Nelson Darby[64][65] and the Plymouth Brethren[66] and was further promoted in the United States through the wide circulation of the Scofield Reference Bible in the early 20th century.[67]
The pretribulation position advocates that the rapture will occur before the beginning of a seven-year tribulation period, while the second coming will occur at the end of it. Pre-tribulationists often describe the rapture as Jesus coming for the church and the second coming as Jesus coming with the church. Pre-tribulation educators and preachers include Jimmy Swaggart, J. Dwight Pentecost, Tim LaHaye, J. Vernon McGee, Perry Stone, Chuck Smith, Hal Lindsey, Jack Van Impe, Chuck Missler, Grant Jeffrey, Thomas Ice, David Jeremiah, John F. MacArthur, and John Hagee.[68] While many pre-tribulationists are also dispensationalists, not all pre-tribulationists are dispensationalists.[69]
John Nelson Darby first proposed and popularized the pre-tribulation rapture in 1827.[70] This view was accepted among many other Plymouth Brethren movements in England. Darby and other prominent Brethren were part of the Brethren movement which impacted American Christianity, especially with movements and teachings associated with Christian eschatology and fundamentalism, primarily through their writings. Influences included the Bible Conference Movement, starting in 1878 with the Niagara Bible Conference. These conferences, which were initially inclusive of historicist and futurist premillennialism, led to an increasing acceptance of futurist premillennial views and the pre-tribulation rapture especially among Presbyterian, Baptist, and Congregational members.[71] Popular books also contributed to acceptance of the pre-tribulation rapture, including William E. Blackstone‘s book Jesus is Coming, published in 1878,[72] which sold more than 1.3 million copies, and the Scofield Reference Bible, published in 1909 and 1919 and revised in 1967.[73]
Some pretribulation proponents, such as Grant Jeffrey,[74] maintain that the earliest known extra-Biblical reference to the pretribulation rapture is from a 7th-century tract known as the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Ephraem the Syrian. Different authors have proposed several different versions of the Ephraem text as authentic and there are differing opinions as to whether it supports belief in a pretribulation rapture.[75][76] One version of the text reads, “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.”[77][78] In addition, The Apocalypse of Elijah and The History of Brother Dolcino both state that believers will be removed prior to the Tribulation.
There exists at least one 18th-century and two 19th-century pretribulation references: in an essay published in 1788 in Philadelphia by the Baptist Morgan Edwards which articulated the concept of a pretribulation rapture,[79] in the writings of Catholic priest Manuel Lacunza in 1812,[80] and by John Nelson Darby in 1827. Manuel Lacunza (1731–1801), a Jesuit priest (under the pseudonym Juan Josafat Ben Ezra), wrote an apocalyptic work entitled La venida del Mesías en gloria y majestad (The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty). The book appeared first in 1811, 10 years after his death. In 1827, it was translated into English by the Scottish minister Edward Irving.[citation needed]
During the 1970s, belief in the rapture became popular in wider circles, in part because of the books of Hal Lindsey, including The Late Great Planet Earth, which has reportedly sold between 15 million and 35 million copies, and the movie A Thief in the Night, which based its title on the scriptural reference 1 Thessalonians 5:2. Lindsey proclaimed that the rapture was imminent, based on world conditions at the time.
In 1995, the doctrine of the pre-tribulation rapture was further popularized by Tim LaHaye‘s Left Behind series of books, which sold tens of millions of copies[81] and was made into several movies and four real-time strategy video games.