A Commentary in Simple English on Revelation

APPENDIX

It does seem necessary to say something about the 'Rapture' theory although this not intended to be a work about prophecy in general. Martin Rosenthal's book 'The Prewrath Rapture of the Church' (Nelson, Nashville, Tennessee 1990) provides a statement of the 'Rapture' position, which he has himself moved away from. It also states a new position he has adopted which is that the Second Coming of Christ will take place prior to a period of God's wrath on earth but after the 'Great Tribulation'.

On p. 33, he says that in recent years the trend has been away from the view that a 'Rapture' will take place before the 'Tribulation'. My own observation is that this 'Rapture' view is no longer held by Christian people with the same ferocious dogmatism with which it was introduced to me many years ago. I then rejected it: Jesus said 'Lo, I am with you always'. And I have always rejected the Rapture theory, although it was many years before I met anyone else who did so.

Rosenthal states some of his basic positions on page 60. But: -

a) The Olivet Discourse begins not with two questions from the disciples but with three. (Matthew 24:3) (See page 215: 'The first word to be considered is 'coming''. Why this first?

a) 'When will this happen?' - that is, the destruction of the Temple

b) 'What will be the sign of your coming?'

c) 'What will be the sign of the End of the Age?'

Jesus answers question (a) in verses 4-28. This relates to events up to AD 70. To deny this is to deny that Jesus gives an answer to question (a) at all! This is not to say that this evacuates all present meaning from these verses. But they have been fulfilled.

Verses 28-31 give the answer to questions (b) and (c). The difficulty is in the words 'immediately after' in verse 29, which must mean that the ages between have no prophetic meaning as far as the disciples' questions are concerned.

Verses 32-35 resume the teaching from verse 28 and verses 36-51 resume the teaching from verse 31.

b) If we insist that the Seven Seals are parallel to Matthew 24:4-28, then the first six relate to events up to AD 70 - perhaps including a warning against Jewish hopes of a Parthian intervention in the Jewish War. We may then feel that the contents of the scroll are indeed the 'roll' of the Gentile Church; and the silence in heaven is wonder and admiration at the greatness of the blessing from the preaching of the Gospel to the nations.

c) I can find nothing secure in the interpretation of Daniel 9:24-27. The mere translation bristles with difficulties and there is nothing in the text to say that week 70 is detached. There is no agreed starting point. Cyrus decree of 538BC was to rebuild the temple. Nehemiah rebuilt the wall about 445BC without a commission or decree and his activity was too early. A starting date of 420BC seems to have no historic meaning and gives 'Messiah shall be cut off' a date of 14AD - too early. The one thing which is sure is that the passage concerns Jerusalem and the Jewish people and should not have its meaning expanded. (Daniel 9:24). For example, there is no hint in this passage of the Second Coming of Christ. (Ezra's return was in 458BC or 397BC: neither date helps).

Rosenthal writes as a Christian Jew, and the teaching of Revelation on Israel is for him a live issue. (See J M Court p 109). Negative attitudes of the Jews to Christianity may have been strengthened by the flight of the Jerusalem Church to Pella before the Roman siege of the city - not just loss of manpower. 'Is this Jesus not with us in our battles then?'! But Rosenthal (p74) does not notice the movement in Revelation from that which is purely Jewish to what is greater, which we can detect. This is not to doubt that Paul does teach the conversion of all Israel in Romans 11:26, as some do.

The statement that 'signs are miraculous' (p.97) needs to be qualified, to say the least. A biblical 'sign' may not be a miraculous event in itself. Its timing is of the essence. A man of God says: 'This is going to happen' - perhaps at a certain time. And it happens. This gives authority to the man of God.

This is only one example of our problem with words. 'Tribulation' is another (p103) I am not convinced that - for the Jews - there is another 'Great Tribulation' in prospect - something worse than the Jewish War or Hitler's Holocaust. Then, 40 million died and 6 million of them were Jews.

Part of the problem is the shift in focus, which the very use of the word 'Rapture' involves. It brings in ideas of excitement, ecstasy that are not present in Scripture. The Scripture focus is on the Second Coming of our Saviour. To shift this focus to the First Resurrection is one thing. But to go another step and to shift the focus to just one verse - 1 Thessalonians 4:17 - which is the only verse which speaks of the destiny of the minority of the Gospel Church who will live to see the Second Coming - is quite foolish. The same is true of 'The Day of the Lord'! (p 115). We take away its meaning if we focus on events. It is 'The Day of - THE LORD!' (See pp 158-159) not 'the Day of the Lord'. The same subtle shift is seen in the use of the word 'wrath'. Instead of meaning the Divine attitude of great anger against sin, it is used to denote a certain period of time.

On page 143 I find Rosenthal a little obscure. There is surely no doubt that it is the Lamb who takes the scroll from God who is enthroned. But Revelation does nothing to explain the connection between the breaking of the seals and the events that take place. And 'the distinction between God's active will and permissive will' is only one of the weaknesses of our theology today. It is no help whatsoever! We should go back to the Reformer's distinction between the secret will and the revealed will of God.

The short discussion of 1 Corinthians 15:23,23 on p 219 shows how critical this passage is. Surely 'The End' here is beyond the Second Coming. It belongs with the events of Revelation 20: 7-15 beyond the 'Millennium'.

The tabulation on p 283 is useful, but would be much more useful if it gave the Greek words! But the surrounding text does not escape from the fundamental confusion, which comes when we take our eyes off what we are to expect - the coming of our Lord, Himself. We must never fix our attention on prophesied events and lose sight of Him.

In the final Summary (pp 293-295), whatever we may feel about most of the points made, there is one with which we can fully agree. This is (9). We suspect that 'Rapture' teachers often fall into the downright error of placing the 'Rapture' before the resurrection and thus contradicting Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17. There is only one second coming of Christ (Hebrews 9:28) and it is not to be split up. (p 296)