The Urgency of Eschatology and Why I WANT to be Left Behind

A lot has changed. Well, maybe not changed, but rather developed or matured. My social conscience has been pricked. Actually, pricked is too light a term; more like kicked in the head. Past conversations have launched me into a newly invigorated search in to how I am to live according to the Scriptures, in keeping with the new creature that I am since Christ has caused old things to pass away (2 Cor 5:17), how I am to serve as a slave freed from the bond of sin and bound to righteousness (Rom 6), how I am to think with a renewed mind that is not to be conformed to the world (Rom 12:1-2), how I am to function in the world but not be of it (Jn 15:19; 17:6-20) , how I am to run and not grow weary (Isa 40:31), how I am to stand as one who's citizenship has been transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of God's Beloved Son (Col 1:13). There have been so many things that I've wanted to talk about, so many social issues that I've wanted to comment on, but I figured I needed to lay down the foundation of where I was coming from in addressing not just those issues, but all of life.

I've been kind of struggling with how to start this, how to get it all down, but I have come to realize that I'm not writing a dissertation or a doctoral thesis here, I'm trying to communicate some basic points; the details will be filled in through discussion on this and future posts. So let me start at the beginning, which is actually the end.

Eschatology has historically been for me one of those subjects that I've been content to not spend too much time on, to be willing to agree to disagree about. After all, whatever is going to happen is going to happen, right? However, as my understanding of the consequences and requirements of our convictions and the idea of our lives being parts of a whole developed, I began to see the necessity of having something to connect with in the future, an event for my actions to attend to. We all ask the question 'Why are we here?', and no matter how often we answer 'to glorify God', and if we are honest with ourselves, we feel lacking. How do we glorify God? Certainly we model our actions to reflect the character of Christ, to convey the way of living set forth through the Scriptures, but we are still left with the question 'WHY ?' Why does God, by means of grace, embrace us into a salvation that requires fruit, works fitting for salvation (Eph 4:1, Php 1:27). As bond slaves with God as our master, we are required to work, but to what end? Does God need our service? Is He lacking or dependent upon us in any way? As the Psalmist tells us, surely not (Psalm 50:1-15). So why require us to work? To what whole are our good works, prepared before hand by God Himself (Eph 2:10), parts of? To answer this question, we must deal with Eschatology; what comes about at the end. In this post, I will attempt to explain the eschatology which I believe is most congruent with the Scriptures, and get to some of the more specific applications in the future.

Matthew 24:40-42 is one of the pillar texts of the doctrine of the Rapture.

40 "“Then there shall be two men in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. 41 "Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken, and one will be left. 42 "“Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming."

We've all seen the pictures of the souls being caught up in the clouds with Christ while the planes they were flying and cars they were driving crash and burn (There's a rather large painting of this in the lobby of a church in Concord, NH where we used to go for different events when I was a kid. It freaked me out). The saints are caught up in the clouds, taken away to Heaven with Christ until the day He comes yet again, after the Tribulation, to sit on His millennial throne. This is what I had been taught all through my childhood and later teen years. However, I have since come to believe that the Scriptures teach otherwise. Let us look at the Matthew text in context.

37 “For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. 38 “For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, they were marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so shall the coming of the Son of Man be. 40 “Then there shall be two men in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. 41 “Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken, and one will be left. 42 “Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming.

When reading this passage, we must come to it empty handed, leaving our eschatological presuppositions at the door, and, of course, read it carefully. When we do this, we see that key to this text is the context which it itself defines: the days of Noah (24:37). This should prompt us, as it would have Christ's audience here in Matthew 24, to recall what the Scriptures have already told us of the days of Noah. It would be helpful here to go back and look at Genesis 6 and 7.

A quick run through of Genesis 6 and 7 Tell us this: Through inappropriate (perhaps even ungodly) intermarriage, man and his wickedness began to multiply in the land. God saw this wickedness, it grieved Him, and He declared He would blot them out, all except for Noah. Noah was a righteous man in whom God found favor and to whom God gave instruction to build and fill the ark so that he and his family, the birds of the air, and the beasts of the field could escape the flood waters and the judgment to come. Noah did all the Lord commanded him, and on the seventeenth day of the second month, Noah and his family entered the ark, the heavens opened, the fountains of the deep burst forth, and waters covered the face of the earth, blotting out everything and everyone that was not securely shut up in the ark.

As we read previously, Matthew 24 summarizes Genesis 6 and 7 this way: “For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, they were marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away." Of particular importance in this passage is the use of the pronoun "they". Who is Christ referring to when He says "they"? It was "they" who were eating and drinking, "they" who were marrying and giving in marriage, and, in the end, it was "they" who did not understand until the flood came and took them all away. Genesis helps us to define "they" in that it clearly tells us how God saw the wickedness of man in their marriages and their carrying-ons (6:1-4ff). I don't think many would disagree with this, however the sticky part usually comes with the phrase "the flood came and took them all away". The act of being "taken away" (which is the very meaning behind the word "rapture" as well as the theology of the Rapture) appears two more times in Christ's discourse, and He here defines how He is using it, and to whom He is applying it. Noah and his family were safe in the ark. The wicked masses stood outside, going about all their wickedness, and the flood waters rose and "took them all away," (24:39). Jesus is saying that it is not the righteous in whom God finds favor that are taken away, but rather the wicked who do not understand. Noah stood in judgment and remained on the earth. And this is how it will be at the return of our Savior:

40 “Then there shall be two men in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. 41 “Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken, and one will be left. (emphasis added)

Which man will be taken? Which woman will be taken? Who was taken away in the days of Noah? It is not the believer that will be taken in Matthew 24, but the wicked men! The parallel text in Luke 17 is almost word for word in spots (17:26-27, 35-36), but adds the example of Lot.

26 “And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it shall be also in the days of the Son of Man: 27 they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. 28 “It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building; 29 but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. 30 “It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed. 31 “On that day, let not the one who is on the housetop and whose goods are in the house go down to take them away; and likewise let not the one who is in the field turn back. 32 “Remember Lot’s wife. 33 “Whoever seeks to keep his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life shall preserve it. 34 “I tell you, on that night there will be two men in one bed; one will be taken, and the other will be left. 35 “There will be two women grinding at the same place; one will be taken, and the other will be left. 36 “Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other will be left.”

The gist here is that the wicked men of Sodom were destroyed, and Lot and his family were spared, they remained while the others were taken away. Luke also adds a defining question/answer that really sums up Christ's meaning.

36 “Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other will be left.” 37 And answering they said to Him, “Where, Lord?” And He said to them, “Where the body is, there also will the vultures be gathered.”

This text is particularly helpful in working through the pronoun/"they" argument which I offered earlier. The pronoun usage is, admittedly, easier to work through in the English translation. One might go back to the original Greek and point out that the pronouns are in a way "built into" the syntax and may refer to either the ones eating, drinking, and marrying or Noah and his family who entered the ark. After all, the ark was "taken away", or "swept away" according to some translations, by the flood waters. This may be true in concept, however these verses in Luke make it clear that those taken away were taken to a place where vultures, scavengers who feast upon the flesh of dead things, gather. Is this a fitting picture of the safety and security, indeed the salvation in which Noah and his family were preserved? Surely not. Being "taken away" is surely reserved for those wicked men who neither understood nor loved God.

This concept is built upon back in Matthew 24, where Christ continues with a parable about slaves.

45 “Who then is the faithful and sensible slave whom his master put in charge of his household to give them their food at the proper time? 46 “Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. 47 “Truly I say to you, that he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 48 “But if that evil slave says in his heart, ‘My master is not coming for a long time,’ 49 and shall begin to beat his fellow slaves and eat and drink with drunkards; 50 the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour which he does not know, 51 and shall cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites; weeping shall be there and the gnashing of teeth.

If the sensible slave was to be "raptured" away, why would the master put him in charge of all his possessions (24:47)? Also, take note of the action taken against the evil slave in vs 51. He will be cut into pieces. He will be assigned to, or taken away from where he is and put into a place with hypocrites where there will be "weeping" and "gnashing of teeth", while the faithful servant remains in the safety and salvation of the master's house.

Where will those who are taken be taken to? Well, wherever it is, the vultures will be gathered there (Lk 17:37) , and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mt 24:51). It is clear that the texts here in Matthew and Luke, when read in context, speak against the all to prevailing teachings of a Rapture. The Scriptures here show that Jesus Himself tells us that the woman in the field who will be taken is the wicked woman, just as in the days of Noah, that the man that shall be taken from the field and the bed will be the wicked man, just as in the days of Noah, and the place they will be taken to is one of final judgment. Jesus the Christ tells His Church that she will stand in judgment and remain to dwell in the Kingdom of God.

Revelation 21 tells us of the Kingdom, the Holy City, the New Jerusalem.

1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them, 4 and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away." 5 And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.”

There are a few things that need to mentioned about this passage. First, notice verse 2. The New Jerusalem is, at very least metaphorically, the bride of Christ; it is the Church joined to her Savior, her Bridegroom. Verse 3 reveals an imperative truth about the character of the Kingdom. Look again at God's word:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them,"

"The tabernacle of God is among men," "He shall dwell among them,"God Himself shall be among them." Do you see what the holy, infallible, inerrant Scriptures are telling us? At the end, man doesn't go up to be with God, God comes down to be with man! The Kingdom is here on this earth! We will live in glory on this earth, with God for all eternity! Hold on, Hold on...let's not forget about verse 1. John says he saw, "a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away. So he does. However, let us look at what he wrote, not necessarily what we read. The Greek here tells us what's going on. In the original language there are a few words that can be translated as "new", but the word John uses here, in both vs 1 for "new heaven and new earth," and vs 2 for "new Jerusalem", is "Kainos". Kainos carries the primary meaning of quality, qualitatively new. This word is directly contrasted with the word "Neos", which means temporally new. As used in other Scriptural texts, the differences between the words can be seen. For instance Mark 2:21. From Spiros Zodhiates' New Testament edition of The Complete Word Study Dictionary:

In Mark 2:21, the word "new" occurs twice, but is two different words in Greek, the first being agnophos, one that has not been washed and properly shrunk. The second "new" is kainos, in the neuter, to kainon, which means another patch but derived from cloth that has been washed and shrunk. Therefore it will not shrink when used as a patch and thus tear the garment.... A new patch is needed, but that patch must be of shrunken cloth. Thus it is qualitatively different from just any new (neos) piece of cloth that has not been shrunk.

Neos on the other hand, as I mentioned before, refers to temporal newness, "that which has recently come into existence or become present," according to Zodhiates, and is used in passages such as Matt 9:17, Mark 2:22, and Luke 5:37-39 to speak of newly made, fermenting wine.

Neos refers to something newly made, newly created. Kainos refers to something new or better in quality, something of superior quality, not of new existence .

John's "new heaven and new earth," are not a newly created heaven and earth, but a new in quality heaven and earth, a renewed heaven and earth, a redeemed heaven and earth. When we start at the end and look back from the victory that we know is ours, and how it will be manifested, it gives us the context in which to determine how we live now. At the end, God will come to dwell with His redeemed people in a Kingdom ruled by Christ on this earth in its redeemed state, this is what frames my works and gives purpose to my actions, this is why the teaching of the Rapture can not stand under the weight of Scriptures, and this is why I want to be left behind.