There are countless (and I do mean “countless”) books, pamphlets, papers, sermons and lectures available on the subject of “end times.” They are all about chronological countdowns, tribulations, resurrections and judgments. Some make a distinction between the “rapture” and the “second coming”; some do not. Many congregations and denominations have been formed, fractured or destroyed because of disagreements concerning these matters. Anyone wanting to make an exhaustive study of this subject will quickly find himself agreeing with Solomon:
Ecclesiastes 12:12 . . . of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
There is certainly no “simplicity that is in Christ” which Paul tells us that to depart from is a “corruption” of our minds (2Corinthians 11:3).
It appears that the rapture doctrine was not even taught in any church’s creed, catechism or statement of faith before John Darby popularized it in 1830. Yet it is one of the dearest, most sacred doctrines of fundamental, orthodox Christianity—charismatic or not. Those of us who were brought up in these churches sang about it every week, heard it mentioned in almost every sermon, and found it to be a part of our everyday vocabulary. I know it was deeply ingrained into my psyche, producing in me probably the single biggest fear of my childhood and even continued into my adult life.
The doctrine is based primarily on these verses from Paul:
1Thessalonians 4:16 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: 17 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.
These words are supported by words from Jesus in Mark 13 when He was responding to the disciples’ question about the timing of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem that Jesus had foretold (v 2). He referred to “the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory” (v 26) and “of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father” (v 32). Yet two verses before this, in the same exhortation, Jesus said “This generation shall not pass, till all these things be done” (v 30), thereby indicating that He was not referring to something that was to occur in the far distant future.
Matthew 24 is Matthew’s rendering of the same teaching. But here Matthew includes the question asked by the disciples: “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” (v 3). This has given rise to the interpretation that this is indeed a Scripture on “end times”; and literally thousands of doctrines and prophecies have come out of various people’s reading of this chapter. This was probably the scariest chapter in the Bible for me as I was growing up. Yet Jesus again says that “this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled” (v 34).
In the book of Acts on the day of Pentecost (the 50th day of Passover) we hear Peter saying concerning the coming of the Holy Spirit upon those in the upper room:
Acts 2:16 But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; 17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon ALL flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: 18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: 19 And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: 20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come:
—the same “sign” given by Jesus concerning His “second coming”:
Matthew 24:29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
This “coming” of the Holy Spirit is what both Jesus Himself and Paul tells us would happen:
1Corinthians 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening [Life-giving] spirit.
John 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not COME unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.
And that’s what He did—He went away and returned as that Life-giving Holy Spirit that was given to live in us on the day of Pentecost—which was only a few days after His departure from the realm of the visible:
John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will COME unto him, and make our abode with him.
1Corinthians 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
Yes, that temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A.D. (when that “generation” Jesus was addressing were still living). Now we are that temple.
John 4:21 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22 Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. 23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
I don’t find it difficult at all to see the “second coming” as Jesus coming as the Holy Spirit to live as me:
Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
I think the whole problem lies in the refusal to give up the idea of the Hebrew man Jesus (“made of a woman, made under the law”) who took that humanity to the death (along with ours) on the cross and rose no longer a man, but a Life-giving Spirit—thereby demonstrating that He is Spirit being (as are we all in our true identity), a being that was never born and can never die (“before Abraham was, I am”—John 8:58). We want that man to be a “person” that can come back riding a horse through the sky, a person who sits on a throne and whom we can touch and handle.
We are so tied to our material existence on this physical plane that we want heaven to be a geographical location somewhere in the sky that we go to when we die (leave this physical body behind). But we don’t really let go of this physical body. We have devised doctrines (based on selected Scriptures) about how it is going to be “resurrected” (brought to life again and come out of a grave, now a “glorified” body). Who would even desire to be reunited with a body that has seen “corruption”? There must be at least parts of physical bodies over all the surface of the earth. It takes a lot of mental “gymnastics” to even imagine how a physical resurrection could even take place. Jesus demonstrated on the Mount of Transfiguration that He was already “resurrected” into His body “not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2Corinthians 5:1), as were Elijah and Moses. When Martha told Jesus that she knew her brother Lazarus would “rise again in the resurrection at the last day” (John 11:24), Jesus responded, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?” (v 25-26).
I would ask, “Does anyone believe this?” Without a death, there can be no resurrection. Martha is speaking out of her humanity about physical, material life. Jesus is speaking out of his Christ-consciousness about spiritual life.
And that is what the whole Bible is about, for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the church. It is about our spiritual journey out of the darkness of life as lived in our humanity (the “father of lies”) into “the light of the glorious gospel of Christ” (2Corinthians 4:4).
Everything taught in the whole of the Bible, whether by Paul or by Jesus, or any other writer, is but a parable of how we leave the darkness behind and enter into light. “This world” is the darkness; the kingdom of heaven is the light. Jesus overcame this world that we might enter that kingdom and live there where there is righteousness, peace and joy. When I recognize, as Paul did, that Christ has come into me to live as me (Galatians 2:20), it is indeed “the end of the world” of darkness for me; I have entered into the light of the kingdom of heaven. Everyone has to experience this “end of the world” for himself. It is infinitely more important than the “end of the world” argued about in all the “end times” teaching.
Even a child knows the difference between light and darkness, peace and confusion. Why can’t we become as little children (as Jesus said we must) and begin residing “in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6), returning to that “simplicity that is in Christ” (2Corinthians 11:3), knowing that the Christ has never left me (Hebrews 13:5) and that nothing can separate me from His love (Romans 8:38-39). I don’t have to look for a “second coming” that already occurred when He was “formed” in me, as Paul prayed He would be (Galatians 4:19). Why look “out there” for His return when He is already within me and one with me (John 17:21)? Why look for a resurrection when I’ve already been “raised” from the dead and “made alive” in Christ (Romans 6:1ff)? Why look for Him to set up an earthly government in Jerusalem when the government of my life is already on His shoulder (Isaiah 9:6)? Why look for judgment day when “the Father judgeth no man” (John 5:22) and I’ve already been judged righteous when Jesus became my sin (2Corinthians 5:21)?
Why not stop this literal reading of Scripture (which only leads to doctrinal disputes, division, strife and every evil work) and allow the Holy Spirit inside to reveal Scripture to me as needed for my own spiritual progress as I “grow up into Him, which is the head, even Christ” (Ephesians 4:15)? (See Where Is God? and What Is the Word of God?)