T IS HARD to be a Pentecostal when you’re in middle school. Early adolescence is apocalyptic enough for atheists; throw in the ongo- ing terror of the fiery judgment of God, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for many sleepless nights. I remember a few of these, and they were almost always connected to cursing. I was sure that as a result, hellfire and brimstone were just around the corner, because I feared that a worldwide trumpet could sound at any moment to catch up the righteous to heaven. I had heard that if you sin the second before, then your ticket to glory gets a lot more expensive. That little slip will cost seven years of tribulation and a severed head!
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No other medium has reinforced this reality with a greater potency than Chris- tian films from the last generation, which often centered on the rapture of ordinary people to heaven. The plots were similar. A kid who just cursed arrives home to find the blender on and a hot meal on the table, but no one there—just several sets of clothes perfectly starched lying on the furniture, remnants of those who had been taken. I don’t know any Pentecos- tal kid from my generation who did not at some point arrive home to an empty house and almost lost his lunch, thinking that the Rapture had happened. It’s funny that in view of the Pentecos- tal obsession with the end times, in the end it doesn’t matter all that much to us since if things go right we won’t even be around to see it. We’ve done all this study and preparation to chart out what the final scenes of life on earth will look like, all the while expecting to slip out the back door before the grand finale gets started. And we have some really complicated readings of the Book of Revelation to back this up. If God is getting ready to anni- hilate the world, we know that we don’t want to be around for that, so we typically adhere to the idea that Jesus will come down on a cloud and the saved will fly up to heaven in the nick of time. The traditional doctrine of the Rap- ture is the Christian’s way off the sinking “Titanic” by the skin of the teeth—a last shot out of this world before God con- sumes everything and everyone with His
22 EVANGEL | October 2010
Rapture Remixed
The by Josh Rice
Jesus will wrap His people in the clouds, and everything empty in us will be filled.
rage. The Rapture is a stay of execution just before the switch is flipped. Things are all going to pot, but God loves us enough to get us out of here first. The clearest scriptural evidence we have for such a concept is in 1 Thessalo- nians 4. There, the question is not really about the end of the world, but what hap- pens to the dead now that they’re dead. The early Christians apparently never expected their own to die before the sec- ond coming of Christ. Nevertheless, Paul tells them not to worry too much about it in view of where God is taking things:
For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be
caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words (vv. 15-18).
The Thessalonians were bent out of shape about their dead getting left out of the Rapture, which was only for those who are “alive and remain.” Paul says everyone will be at the party in the clouds for a meeting that won’t end. He doesn’t know when this will be, but just the prom- ise is enough to get by on. If the stressed- out Thessalonians keep reminding one another of the coming Rapture, they’ll get the comfort they need.
The peacefulness of Paul’s depiction of the Rapture is haunting. The cadences of the words in this passage are serene, with the Rapture being a message of abid- ing comfort. Not motivation, not awe, not even anticipation, but comfort. Like a baby tucked in for the night in the soft
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