Question for those who believe in a Pre-Tribulation Rapture

The Rapture is not the second coming of Christ.
The Rapture must take place prior to His second coming...

There is this two-part study:

Is The Body The Bride Of Christ?

Amen.

That alone, I agree. But verse 1 and 3 also frame the time.

Well…

1st Coming- as the Lamb of God (suffering Messiah)

2nd Coming - as the Bridegroom for His Bride (rapture)

3rd Coming - as King of Kings with His Wife at end of Tribulation to set up Kingdom on Earth

The pre tribulation rapture is a theory that came from futurism and dispensationalism. These are inventions of the devil and people have swallowed the lie hook lie and sinker.

History proves that this teaching is man made and is not from the Bible.
The devil is good a inventing false doctrines. He causes Confusion.

Look up Futurism yourself.

Which ones did He come to the earth?

Only two...

Here that is....

The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place.
He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw—that is,
the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of
this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the
time is near." Revelation 1:1-3

Keep in mind!
That's in God's time.
Not man's sense of time.

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years,
and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some
understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but
everyone to come to repentance. "2 Peter 3:8-9



grace and peace ............

Actually, in my case, it came as I read the scriptures. I had never heard of dispensationalism or futurism or any other "ism' you care to mention. When I became a Christian, it was like having to learn a new language, for not being raised in a Christian home, most doctrinal titles were foreign to me.

I did not learn any of this from men, although good scholars have helped to clarify and organize the doctrines for me as I'm sure they will continue to do so in the future as I continue to study the word.

That's the beauty of discussion, which I like.



This is somewhat lengthy, so I hope you don't mind reading, although I will try to keep it brief:

Isaiah 54:5
5 For thy Maker [is] thine husband; the LORD of hosts [is] his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.

It might be different had there not been more written by the prophets of the Lord already having been the husband of Israel:

Jeremiah 3:11, 14
11 And the LORD said unto me, The backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah. ...
14 Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:

Jeremiah 31:31-32
31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day [that] I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:

Hosea 2:14-19
14 Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.
15 And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.
16 And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, [that] thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali.
17 For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.
18 And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and [with] the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.
19 And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies.

So, we can see that Gentiles are not at all the one to whom the Lord betrothed Himself. Today, however, the popular teaching that the Lord's bride is now the BODY of Christ...that simply makes no sense. The reference that's been made to 2 Corinthians 2:11, speaking to one of Churches, using the imagery of a marital relationship, that context doesn't give any reason to believe that the Lord sent Paul out to be a match-maker for Him among the Gentiles. This idea that the Lord will become the serial polygamy wife of the Lord, I cannot accept that. Replacement theology has Israel pushed completely out of the picture, even though the tribulation period is the Lord's means for dealing with disobedient and harlotry immersed Israel and Judah.

It is already revealed that the body of Christ will dwell in Heavenly places, not the New Jerusalem, for it is clear that the inhabitants of the New Jerusalem are the Lord's bride who will be joined back to Him after this:

Jeremiah 3:8 And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.

Jeremiah 3:11-14
11 And the LORD said unto me, The backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah.
12 Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the LORD; [and] I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I [am] merciful, saith the LORD, [and] I will not keep [anger] for ever.
13 Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the LORD thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the LORD.
14 Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:

So, even after having divorced Israel, the Lord still considered Himself married to her. So, are we now to believe that the Lord will become a polygamist in Revelation 21? Is that the Lord's ways, as believed by most Evangelicals? Famous ministries are behind this idea, and yet they fail to grapple with the massive dichotomies they create in this doctrine of theirs, never considering that the marriage will be a marital reuniting to Israel after she has been purified by the horrendous fires of tribulation (Zechariah 12).

Does this help?

MM

Good question.

I can't find anywhere that the LORD ever called the Church, the body of Christ, an army of Heaven. The angels are indeed known to be that army, not the body of Christ.

However, out there will hold to what they believe in spite of the facts.

MM

I'm not sure if "help" is the right word as it does raise some degree of anomaly if only on the surface.

It fails to address the issue of the Apostles being the foundation of the Bride or any of the NT scriptures that speak of the Church as if she is Christ's wife.

I will continue to look into this matter. Another poster left me a link which I will check out as time permits.

I thank you for your time and effort and the scriptures which I will look at closer.

grace and peace.

Paul has frequently used military metaphors for describing our function.

And, here we see that we will be used as countering the enemy only as an army can...




God has something in mind for His resurrected invincible believers.


Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs,
but rather tries to please his commanding officer.

2 Timothy 2:3-5

A good place to start is to look at the Bible as a whole, and observe for yourself the dispensations:

Adam - the only command was to not eat of just one tree. He failed.

Abraham - he was counted righteous because of his faith, which was perfected by his works of obedience to the LORD.

Noah - he too was a man of faith and was obedient in building the ark.

Moses - This was a serious shift, in that Israel was given the Law, which they promised they would obey, and yet did not. They failed

.John the Baptist - preached the Kingdom gospel of repentance and water baptism.

Jesus - preached the Kingdom Gospel of repentance and water baptism, not saying a word about His crucifixion and resurrection until the latter part of His earthly ministry ONLY to the disciples, which they did not understand and were afraid to ask Him about.

The twelve apostles - preached repentance and water baptism, never saying a word in the Gospels about the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ until the book of Acts after the LORD's ascension, and even then it was still based upon works as the perfection of their faith.

Paul - who received revelation ONLY from Christ the mystery that had been hidden in God from the creation of the world, preached ONLY by faith, believing Christ was crucified according to the scripture, buried, raised from the dead according to the scriptures. Nothing about baptism, although many were baptized, but not by Paul. It was not a requirement under the Gospel of Grace.

Now, looking back at all that, there are still those who will say that the means for salvation was the same all throughout, never giving thought to the fact that Adam, Abraham, Noah, Moses and many, many others, were never told that they must believe in Christ Jesus.

When we see that not even Jesus Himself preached belief in His crucifixion and resurrection, where Paul did unto the Gentiles, it was NOT the same Gospel. Granted, some will so overly spiritualize scripture that they end up making Paul guilty of the sin of omission by his not having ALSO preached about the requirement for repentance and water baptism. They also forget that Jesus upheld the Law when telling one of the men He had healed to go, show himself to the high priest, and to offer up the sacrifices required by the Law of Moses.

Yep, the gobbledygook practiced by some out there of mashing everything in scripture together as if it were all saying the same thing to all peoples at all times, they betray their ignorance and/or hypocrisy when conveying such falsehoods. Universalism is good at that, as I came to understand from a Universalist preacher who thought to try and school me on that system of thought in the recent past.

MM

Were not the apostles all Jews? When we drive a wedge in there to separate out their origins as the chosen people of the LORD, and to whom alone the LORD was married, the practice of magnifying the unity in Christ above the fact that Israel is still His chosen people, that's the tragedy behind replacement theology.

MM

I've heard that reasoning before, but that is neither the plain meaning of the text and makes absolutely no sense to those it was written to.

Well?

What's the plain meaning of this?



It has a plain meaning. No?

True. Paul did use those metaphors. However, you seem to have overlooked the fact that those metaphors were in relation to our warfare here on earth, mostly against our own flesh, and against the powers and principalities of the air in our prayer life rather than against flesh and blood.

Never are we called the "army of Heaven." This earth is not heavenly by any means.

MM

That is how I basically came at it. I found out I was a dispensationalist before I even knew what that was.

To me it is clear God has dealt differently with different people at different times. In some ways, it is no different to how I raised my children. Different ages required different measures.

Actually, in my case, it came as I read the scriptures. I had never heard of dispensationalism or futurism or any other "ism' you care to mention. When I became a Christian, it was like having to learn a new language, for not being raised in a Christian home, most doctrinal titles were foreign to me.

I did not learn any of this from men, although good scholars have helped to clarify and organize the doctrines for me as I'm sure they will continue to do so in the future as I continue to study the word.