Most people think when they read books like "Left Behind," they're getting a blow-by-blow description of Revelation. This, however, is not the case. They're following a "system" that has been developed by taking various parts of scripture, and plugging them into a "script" regarding how the end-times will unfold.
The Script
The script was developed by a man named John Nelson Darby in the early 1890’s and is known today as the father of modern day fundamentalism. He was on track to become a successful lawyer when he began a spiritual struggle and became an ordained priest in the Anglican Church in 1826. Troubled by the condition of the established church, however, he began what is known as the Plymouth Brethren, a ministry based on the call of Christ rather than the ordination of men. Obsessed with prophesy, Darby began delving into Revelation and came up with the idea of the rapture, where all of Christ’s faithful will be snatched from the earth, a seven year tribulation followed by the thousand year reign of Christ on earth.
Darby’s ideas were brought to America shortly after the time of the American Civil War, and became extremely popular. During such a dark period in our country’s history, it’s easy to understand why this idea of being spared the “really bad stuff” was so appealing. Nearly one-fourth of the male population in the South was killed off during the American Civil war and while we think September 11th was the bloodiest day on American soil, it doesn’t compare with the 15,000 that died in a single battle during the war between the states. So this idea of being spared a time of intense tribulation caught on like wild fire and quickly spread across America.
In the early 1900’s, a man named Cyrus Scofield, a layman with no theological training, took Darby’s initial system and expanded upon it and broke the Bible up into seven different “dispensations” of history:
1. Innocence (Genesis 1:28-3:6)
2. Conscience or Moral Responsibility (Genesis 4:1 – 8:14)
3. Human Government (Genesis 8:15 – 11:32)
4. The Law (Exodus 19:3 – Acts 1:26)
5. Promise (Genesis 12:1 – Exodus 18:27)
6. The Church (Acts 2:1 – Revelation 19)
7. The Millennial Kingdom (Revelation 20)
Scofield then wrote the “Scofield Reference Bible,” which was published in 1909 and Dispensationalism was born. These dispensations were then combined with Darby’s premillennialism to bring about our current “system” which gives us a timeline of events to follow throughout the end of time.
A key text for this scenario is Daniel 9:20-27, which describes a period of seventy weeks of years that will pass before the end comes (a “week” of years equals seven years). According to Darby/Scofield, all but one of these seven year periods elapsed prior to the time of Christ. After the Jews rejected Christ, God stopped the clock with just one seven-year period remaining, much as a referee might stop a football game with seven seconds left on the clock. For the past two thousand years, people have gone about their activities, as the players and spectators do during a time-out, waiting for the clock to start again so that the game can be played out. Thus, all of the time from the first century to the present lies in the gap between 9:26 and 9:27.
The “signal” that God’s clock is about to begin ticking again is expected to be the rapture of faithful Christians. The term “rapture” refers to believers being caught up to meet the Lord in the air, as Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. Since the first century, Christians have usually understood that Paul was referring to Christ’s second coming at the end of time. However, since Darby some have taken Paul to mean that the faithful will be snatched from the earth to spare them from the tribulation that is to occur before Christ’s second coming, much to the astonishment of the half-hearted Christians and unbelievers who will face the horrors of the tribulation.
Those who are "left behind" to suffer through the tribulation will go through this 7 year time period where a world leader known as the "Antichrist" (1 John 2:18) or "the Man of Lawlessness" (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4) and the beast (Revelation 13:18) forms a single world government comprised of ten nations (from the 10 crowns on the beast's 7 heads). The beast's supporters are expected to use computers to control the global economy forcing people to accept the "mark of the beast" (Rev. 13:18) - perhaps a social security or credit card number. The beast now promotes a new "global religion," pictured as the "harlot" (Rev. 17:1-18). During this time, a group of 144,000 Jews will convert to Christianity and bring others to the faith.
During the first half of this Great Tribulation, Israel will make a diplomatic pact with the Antichrist, thinking this will secure for them the peace and security needed to rebuild the temple so the sacrificial system can be reinstated. While there is no direct mention in the Bible of this temple being rebuilt, it is assumed it must be rebuilt so that the Antichrist can defile it and the Gentiles trample it. (Daniel 9:27, Matthew 24:15, Revelation 11) This is the "time of trouble for Jacob" (Jer. 30:7). Then comes Armageddon - the cataclysmic conflicts that are expected to occur a the end of the tribulation (Rev. 16:16). A common scenario involves Russia (Gog - Ezekiel 38-39) and the "king of the north" (Daniel 11) attacking Israel in order to gain control of the Middle East. This conflict escalates into global war when the Russians are joined by the kings of the South (an Arab confederacy) and the kings of the east, usually thought to be China (Rev. 9:13-19; 16:12). The battle culminates when Christ returns and defeats his enemies in Jordan (Isa. 63:1-6) at Megiddo (Rev. 16:12-16) in the Valley of Jehosaphat (Joel 3:1-2, 9-17), and at Jerusalem (Zech. 12:1-9) leaving behind the carnage described in Ezekiel 39:18). This ushers in the Millennial Reign, where Satan is bound for a thousand years (Rev. 20:1-6) and is thought to be when many of the Old Testament prophesies will be fulfilled. After the thousand years are over, Satan is released for a time only to be summarily destroyed, at which time eternity will begin.
Essentially, what premillennial dispensationalism does is it treats the Bible like a jigsaw puzzle, weaving together pieces of Revelation with other parts of scripture.
Authors like Hal Lindsey and Jerry Jenkins/Tim LaHaye ran with this idea, and wrote their books outlining a frightening vision of end-time events.
Problems With The Script
This script, however, is fraught with all kinds of difficulty and problems. First, what if one of these “pieces” of the puzzle isn’t in the right order? Then the “scenario” of events looks very different. Current dispensationalists are already facing problems with the script as they watch current events that aren't supposed to happen until the time of tribulation. The attack on the World Trade Center has frequently been referred to as the fall of Babylon. Yet, the fall of Babylon doesn't occur until Revelation 19 - well past the time when all the Christians should have been raptured from the earth.
Furthermore, Revelation itself defies a chronological reading. In one series of plagues and cataclysms, celestial orbs are displaced and portions of the earth destroyed, only to have them reappear unscathed in another round of plagues to be destroyed all over again. In Revelation 19 & 20, John describes almost the exact same scene as Ezekiel 38 & 39, but in the opposite order. John's feasting on the slain (Ezekiel 39:17-20; Revelation 19) occurs prior to the Millennial Reign, but envisions Gog and Magog's attack on the saints (Ezekiel 38:1-16; 39:5) and their destruction after the Millennium (Rev. 20).
Another “piece of the puzzle” that this system leaves out as well is the Christian life as a whole. The Left Behinders hide out in bunkers and retreat from the world as much as possible, rather than being in the world, helping the needy, the poor, and the suffering. All of these messages are completely forgotten in this end-times scenario. Spending money on large SUV's and not worrying about our planet because “it’s all going to get destroyed anyway” is contradictory to the vast majority of what God has commissioned humanity to do: care for his creation.
The Rapture
Until Darby, the "rapture" was an unknown concept within Christianity. In fact, "the rapture" is not even mentioned within the pages of Revelation. The only place in Revelation that even remotely passed for "the rapture" was in Revelation 11, where the two witnesses are killed and then raised from the dead, and like Christ, then ascend to heaven.
Hal Lindsey attempts to argue that when John is told to "Come!" in Revelation 4, that is when the rapture of the church occurs since the word "church" is not utilized again and it is the command utilized to call the two witnesses out of the grave and into heaven. However, this argument falls apart on a few levels. First, the word "saints," a frequent description of the faithful utilized throughout the New Testament to describe "the church," is mentioned throughout Revelation. Second, if the "rapture" of the two witnesses is to be used as a model, then the members of the church must first be killed in order to be raptured up to heaven.
As pointed out earlier, to find the so-called "rapture" one must go outside Revelation, to scripture references like Matthew 24 and 1 Thessalonians 4.
In the Matthew text, what Left Behinders do not realize is that in Jesus' day - to be "taken" or "swept away" was not a good thing. First, to be "taken" would bring up reminders of how people just 'disappeared' when the Roman army would come and take them away (similar to how people just 'disappeared' in Nazi Germany when the Gestapo came calling). They were being taken to be imprisoned or executed. Second, the people who were "swept away" and "taken" were those who were taken by the flood and being taken in judgment.
As for the 1 Thessalonians text - well one just has to actually read it in order to see the problems inherent in applying it as a proof-text for the rapture. Paul states: "The dead in Christ will rise first." The resurrection precedes the "rapture" of being caught in the air. And when put back into the context of the rest of the letter, Paul is trying to give edification to those who have been worried about those who have died prior to Christ's coming. Paul is saying, "Don't worry - the dead will rise first and get to see Jesus even before you do!" Additionally, the rapture "system" states there will be 7 years of tribulation following this rapture.
Yet, such an idea is foreign to Paul and absent from any of his writings and instead implies an almost immediate series of events that starts with the resurrection of the dead and the living being joined with those who have been resurrected. And instead of warning about there being a time of increased tumultuousness in the lives of believers, Paul warns that people need to be wary of being lulled into a sense of complacency, stating in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-5:
Revelation also speaks to a similar audience - though in John's case, the Christians he spoke to were a diverse group of seven different communities facing a variety of problems: persecution, complacency and assimilation. If we turn our attention to those seven churches and the book of Revelation for a moment, we will see that much like Paul, John is offering up both a warning and a promise to these communities.
Most Left Behind/Dispensationalist proponents like to skip the first five chapters of Revelation, jumping straight into chapter six and the four horsemen, but the first five chapters lay down the groundwork for what Revelation is all about. It identifies for us the problems the churches were facing, and when we understand their challenges, we understand more readily how Revelation would have been understood by the people it was originally written to.
About the only part of the first five chapters that Left Behind/Dispensiationalists like to use is in chapter three, where the church in Philadelphia is being addressed and told that it will be spared the coming tribulation. In defiance of their usual "literal" reading, they choose to view the promises made to the church in Philadelphia as describing the "future" church that will be raptured, not the church that was present in John's day and facing persecution, having held fast to the word of God despite the affliction that they had come under.
Yet, apparently, no such luck for the church in Smyrna. Another faithful church that stayed true to the word of God, but they were going to come under the sway of these persecutions and would not be protected like the church in Philadelphia. Left Behinders conveniently ignore the plight of the church in Smyrna and don't apply the same futuristic promise to this congregation.
The other churches John was writing to faced problems other than persecution. They were struggling to figure out how much compromise was too much compromise in the midst of their very pagan culture. How separate and diverse did they need to keep themselves? What practices were abhorrent to God and which weren't? Many times, the answers to those questions had serious economic and social ramifications. For instance, in Thyatira, if you wanted to be a successful merchant you had to join the merchant's trade guild. Unfortunately for Christians, one of the requirements of membership within the guild was that you had to sacrifice to and worship the pagan gods of Rome. By not doing so denied Christians access to the trade guild, and thus made buying and selling wares extremely difficult unless they compromised their beliefs.
Ultimately, the idea of Christians being "raptured" so that they can escape persecution or a coming time of "tribulation" is extremely Amero-centric and contradicts the historical and Biblical plight of the Christian calling. All around the world, Christians are being persecuted in larger numbers than any other time in history. 500 million people around the world suffer from poverty and famine. If anything, Americans should be wary of the "coming wrath," given the luxury and prosperity that has been afforded to us, many times at the expense of our poorer and less fortunate neighbor. We should perhaps take heed of the warnings sent to the five other churches in the first three chapters of Revelation and discover where we are guilty.
The Script
The script was developed by a man named John Nelson Darby in the early 1890’s and is known today as the father of modern day fundamentalism. He was on track to become a successful lawyer when he began a spiritual struggle and became an ordained priest in the Anglican Church in 1826. Troubled by the condition of the established church, however, he began what is known as the Plymouth Brethren, a ministry based on the call of Christ rather than the ordination of men. Obsessed with prophesy, Darby began delving into Revelation and came up with the idea of the rapture, where all of Christ’s faithful will be snatched from the earth, a seven year tribulation followed by the thousand year reign of Christ on earth.
Darby’s ideas were brought to America shortly after the time of the American Civil War, and became extremely popular. During such a dark period in our country’s history, it’s easy to understand why this idea of being spared the “really bad stuff” was so appealing. Nearly one-fourth of the male population in the South was killed off during the American Civil war and while we think September 11th was the bloodiest day on American soil, it doesn’t compare with the 15,000 that died in a single battle during the war between the states. So this idea of being spared a time of intense tribulation caught on like wild fire and quickly spread across America.
In the early 1900’s, a man named Cyrus Scofield, a layman with no theological training, took Darby’s initial system and expanded upon it and broke the Bible up into seven different “dispensations” of history:
1. Innocence (Genesis 1:28-3:6)
2. Conscience or Moral Responsibility (Genesis 4:1 – 8:14)
3. Human Government (Genesis 8:15 – 11:32)
4. The Law (Exodus 19:3 – Acts 1:26)
5. Promise (Genesis 12:1 – Exodus 18:27)
6. The Church (Acts 2:1 – Revelation 19)
7. The Millennial Kingdom (Revelation 20)
Scofield then wrote the “Scofield Reference Bible,” which was published in 1909 and Dispensationalism was born. These dispensations were then combined with Darby’s premillennialism to bring about our current “system” which gives us a timeline of events to follow throughout the end of time.
A key text for this scenario is Daniel 9:20-27, which describes a period of seventy weeks of years that will pass before the end comes (a “week” of years equals seven years). According to Darby/Scofield, all but one of these seven year periods elapsed prior to the time of Christ. After the Jews rejected Christ, God stopped the clock with just one seven-year period remaining, much as a referee might stop a football game with seven seconds left on the clock. For the past two thousand years, people have gone about their activities, as the players and spectators do during a time-out, waiting for the clock to start again so that the game can be played out. Thus, all of the time from the first century to the present lies in the gap between 9:26 and 9:27.
The “signal” that God’s clock is about to begin ticking again is expected to be the rapture of faithful Christians. The term “rapture” refers to believers being caught up to meet the Lord in the air, as Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. Since the first century, Christians have usually understood that Paul was referring to Christ’s second coming at the end of time. However, since Darby some have taken Paul to mean that the faithful will be snatched from the earth to spare them from the tribulation that is to occur before Christ’s second coming, much to the astonishment of the half-hearted Christians and unbelievers who will face the horrors of the tribulation.
Those who are "left behind" to suffer through the tribulation will go through this 7 year time period where a world leader known as the "Antichrist" (1 John 2:18) or "the Man of Lawlessness" (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4) and the beast (Revelation 13:18) forms a single world government comprised of ten nations (from the 10 crowns on the beast's 7 heads). The beast's supporters are expected to use computers to control the global economy forcing people to accept the "mark of the beast" (Rev. 13:18) - perhaps a social security or credit card number. The beast now promotes a new "global religion," pictured as the "harlot" (Rev. 17:1-18). During this time, a group of 144,000 Jews will convert to Christianity and bring others to the faith.
During the first half of this Great Tribulation, Israel will make a diplomatic pact with the Antichrist, thinking this will secure for them the peace and security needed to rebuild the temple so the sacrificial system can be reinstated. While there is no direct mention in the Bible of this temple being rebuilt, it is assumed it must be rebuilt so that the Antichrist can defile it and the Gentiles trample it. (Daniel 9:27, Matthew 24:15, Revelation 11) This is the "time of trouble for Jacob" (Jer. 30:7). Then comes Armageddon - the cataclysmic conflicts that are expected to occur a the end of the tribulation (Rev. 16:16). A common scenario involves Russia (Gog - Ezekiel 38-39) and the "king of the north" (Daniel 11) attacking Israel in order to gain control of the Middle East. This conflict escalates into global war when the Russians are joined by the kings of the South (an Arab confederacy) and the kings of the east, usually thought to be China (Rev. 9:13-19; 16:12). The battle culminates when Christ returns and defeats his enemies in Jordan (Isa. 63:1-6) at Megiddo (Rev. 16:12-16) in the Valley of Jehosaphat (Joel 3:1-2, 9-17), and at Jerusalem (Zech. 12:1-9) leaving behind the carnage described in Ezekiel 39:18). This ushers in the Millennial Reign, where Satan is bound for a thousand years (Rev. 20:1-6) and is thought to be when many of the Old Testament prophesies will be fulfilled. After the thousand years are over, Satan is released for a time only to be summarily destroyed, at which time eternity will begin.
Essentially, what premillennial dispensationalism does is it treats the Bible like a jigsaw puzzle, weaving together pieces of Revelation with other parts of scripture.
Authors like Hal Lindsey and Jerry Jenkins/Tim LaHaye ran with this idea, and wrote their books outlining a frightening vision of end-time events.
Problems With The Script
This script, however, is fraught with all kinds of difficulty and problems. First, what if one of these “pieces” of the puzzle isn’t in the right order? Then the “scenario” of events looks very different. Current dispensationalists are already facing problems with the script as they watch current events that aren't supposed to happen until the time of tribulation. The attack on the World Trade Center has frequently been referred to as the fall of Babylon. Yet, the fall of Babylon doesn't occur until Revelation 19 - well past the time when all the Christians should have been raptured from the earth.
Furthermore, Revelation itself defies a chronological reading. In one series of plagues and cataclysms, celestial orbs are displaced and portions of the earth destroyed, only to have them reappear unscathed in another round of plagues to be destroyed all over again. In Revelation 19 & 20, John describes almost the exact same scene as Ezekiel 38 & 39, but in the opposite order. John's feasting on the slain (Ezekiel 39:17-20; Revelation 19) occurs prior to the Millennial Reign, but envisions Gog and Magog's attack on the saints (Ezekiel 38:1-16; 39:5) and their destruction after the Millennium (Rev. 20).
Another “piece of the puzzle” that this system leaves out as well is the Christian life as a whole. The Left Behinders hide out in bunkers and retreat from the world as much as possible, rather than being in the world, helping the needy, the poor, and the suffering. All of these messages are completely forgotten in this end-times scenario. Spending money on large SUV's and not worrying about our planet because “it’s all going to get destroyed anyway” is contradictory to the vast majority of what God has commissioned humanity to do: care for his creation.
The Rapture
Until Darby, the "rapture" was an unknown concept within Christianity. In fact, "the rapture" is not even mentioned within the pages of Revelation. The only place in Revelation that even remotely passed for "the rapture" was in Revelation 11, where the two witnesses are killed and then raised from the dead, and like Christ, then ascend to heaven.
Hal Lindsey attempts to argue that when John is told to "Come!" in Revelation 4, that is when the rapture of the church occurs since the word "church" is not utilized again and it is the command utilized to call the two witnesses out of the grave and into heaven. However, this argument falls apart on a few levels. First, the word "saints," a frequent description of the faithful utilized throughout the New Testament to describe "the church," is mentioned throughout Revelation. Second, if the "rapture" of the two witnesses is to be used as a model, then the members of the church must first be killed in order to be raptured up to heaven.
As pointed out earlier, to find the so-called "rapture" one must go outside Revelation, to scripture references like Matthew 24 and 1 Thessalonians 4.
"But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour. (Matt. 24:36-44)
For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. (1 Thessalonians 4:16)When plopped into the "system" that had been developed and told that they are speaking of the rapture - one might buy into it. The problem? That's not what these passages are talking about if read in their full context. Or in the case of the 1 Thessalonians text, if you just read it closely there are huge flaws with their idea.
In the Matthew text, what Left Behinders do not realize is that in Jesus' day - to be "taken" or "swept away" was not a good thing. First, to be "taken" would bring up reminders of how people just 'disappeared' when the Roman army would come and take them away (similar to how people just 'disappeared' in Nazi Germany when the Gestapo came calling). They were being taken to be imprisoned or executed. Second, the people who were "swept away" and "taken" were those who were taken by the flood and being taken in judgment.
As for the 1 Thessalonians text - well one just has to actually read it in order to see the problems inherent in applying it as a proof-text for the rapture. Paul states: "The dead in Christ will rise first." The resurrection precedes the "rapture" of being caught in the air. And when put back into the context of the rest of the letter, Paul is trying to give edification to those who have been worried about those who have died prior to Christ's coming. Paul is saying, "Don't worry - the dead will rise first and get to see Jesus even before you do!" Additionally, the rapture "system" states there will be 7 years of tribulation following this rapture.
Yet, such an idea is foreign to Paul and absent from any of his writings and instead implies an almost immediate series of events that starts with the resurrection of the dead and the living being joined with those who have been resurrected. And instead of warning about there being a time of increased tumultuousness in the lives of believers, Paul warns that people need to be wary of being lulled into a sense of complacency, stating in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-5:
"Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, "Peace and safety," destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness."Paul here is speaking for people to remain alert and awake, to not fall asleep in their faith, to not be lulled into thinking that peace and security can come through any other means other than Christ. Especially given they lived in the midst of the Roman Empire, where peace and security was offered to all those under Roman rule... at a very violent price. His warning here is for Christians not to become too complacent under the comforts offered by the Roman Empire, for Christ may return at any moment.
Revelation also speaks to a similar audience - though in John's case, the Christians he spoke to were a diverse group of seven different communities facing a variety of problems: persecution, complacency and assimilation. If we turn our attention to those seven churches and the book of Revelation for a moment, we will see that much like Paul, John is offering up both a warning and a promise to these communities.
Most Left Behind/Dispensationalist proponents like to skip the first five chapters of Revelation, jumping straight into chapter six and the four horsemen, but the first five chapters lay down the groundwork for what Revelation is all about. It identifies for us the problems the churches were facing, and when we understand their challenges, we understand more readily how Revelation would have been understood by the people it was originally written to.
About the only part of the first five chapters that Left Behind/Dispensiationalists like to use is in chapter three, where the church in Philadelphia is being addressed and told that it will be spared the coming tribulation. In defiance of their usual "literal" reading, they choose to view the promises made to the church in Philadelphia as describing the "future" church that will be raptured, not the church that was present in John's day and facing persecution, having held fast to the word of God despite the affliction that they had come under.
Yet, apparently, no such luck for the church in Smyrna. Another faithful church that stayed true to the word of God, but they were going to come under the sway of these persecutions and would not be protected like the church in Philadelphia. Left Behinders conveniently ignore the plight of the church in Smyrna and don't apply the same futuristic promise to this congregation.
The other churches John was writing to faced problems other than persecution. They were struggling to figure out how much compromise was too much compromise in the midst of their very pagan culture. How separate and diverse did they need to keep themselves? What practices were abhorrent to God and which weren't? Many times, the answers to those questions had serious economic and social ramifications. For instance, in Thyatira, if you wanted to be a successful merchant you had to join the merchant's trade guild. Unfortunately for Christians, one of the requirements of membership within the guild was that you had to sacrifice to and worship the pagan gods of Rome. By not doing so denied Christians access to the trade guild, and thus made buying and selling wares extremely difficult unless they compromised their beliefs.
Ultimately, the idea of Christians being "raptured" so that they can escape persecution or a coming time of "tribulation" is extremely Amero-centric and contradicts the historical and Biblical plight of the Christian calling. All around the world, Christians are being persecuted in larger numbers than any other time in history. 500 million people around the world suffer from poverty and famine. If anything, Americans should be wary of the "coming wrath," given the luxury and prosperity that has been afforded to us, many times at the expense of our poorer and less fortunate neighbor. We should perhaps take heed of the warnings sent to the five other churches in the first three chapters of Revelation and discover where we are guilty.
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