The concept of the rapture, in connection with premillennialism, was expressed by the American Puritan father and son Increase and Cotton Mather. They held to the idea that believers would be caught up in the air, followed by judgments on the earth and then the millennium.[13][14] The term rapture was used by Philip Doddridge (1738) and John Gill (1748) in their New Testament commentaries, with the idea that believers would be caught up prior to judgment on the earth and Jesus' Second Coming. The concept of a pre-tribulation rapture was articulated by Baptist Morgan Edwards in an essay published in 1788 in Philadelphia.[15]
Although not using the term rapture, the idea was more fully developed by Scottish minister, Edward Irving (1792–1834). In 1825[16] Irving directed his attention to the study of prophecy and eventually accepted the one-man Antichrist idea of James Henthorn Todd, Samuel Roffey Maitland, Robert Bellarmine, and Francisco Ribera, yet he went a step further. Irving began to teach the idea of a two-phase return of Christ, the first phase being a secret rapture prior to the rise of the Antichrist. According to Irving, “There are three gatherings: – First, of the first-fruits of the harvest, the wise virgins who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth; next, the abundant harvest gathered afterwards by God; and lastly, the assembling of the wicked for punishment.”[17] (Where Irving got this idea is a matter of much dispute.)
Dr. Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, a respected theologian and biblical scholar, who lived during the rapid growth in popularity of the "secret rapture" teaching, wrote a pamphlet[18] which traces the concept of rapture through John N. Darby back to Edward Irving.
John Nelson Darby, considered the father of dispensationalism, first proposed the pre-tribulation rapture in 1827.[19] This view was accepted among many other Plymouth Brethren in England. Darby and other prominent Brethren were part of the Brethren Movement which impacted American Christianity, primarily through their writings. Influences included the Bible Conference Movement, starting in 1878 with the Niagara Bible Conference. These conferences, which were initially inclusive of historicist and futurist premillennialism, led to an increasing acceptance of futurist premillennial views and the pre-tribulation rapture especially among Presbyterian, Baptist and Congregational members.[20] Popular books also contributed to acceptance of the pre-tribulation rapture, including William Eugene Blackstone's book Jesus is Coming published in 1878 and which sold more than 1.3 million copies, and the Scofield Reference Bible, published in 1909 and 1919 and revised in 1967.
The Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox churches, the Anglican Communion, as well as most Protestant Calvinist denominations have no tradition of a preliminary return of Christ and reject the doctrine, in part because they cannot find any reference to it among any of the early Church fathers and find its biblical foundation weak, and because of their rejection of the 19th-century concept of dispensationalism.[21] Some also reject it because they interpret prophetic scriptures in either an amillennial or postmillennial fashion.
Proponents of a preliminary rapture believe the doctrine of amillennialism originated with Alexandrian scholars such as Clement and Origen[22] and was later brought wholly into Roman Catholic dogma by Augustine.[23] Thus, the church until then held to premillennial views, which see an impending apocalypse from which the church will be rescued after being raptured by the Lord. This is even extrapolated by some to mean that the early church espoused pre-tribulationism.[citation needed]
Some Pre-Tribulation proponents maintain that the earliest known extra-Biblical reference to the "Pre-Tribulation" rapture is from a sermon attributed to the fourth-century Church Father Ephraem the Syrian, which says, "For all the saints and Elect of God are gathered, prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord lest they see the confusion that is to overwhelm the world because of our sins."[24][25] However, the interpretation of this writing, as supporting Pre-Tribulation rapture, is debated.[citation needed][26]
There exist at least one 18th century and two 19th century Pre-Tribulation references, in a book published in 1788, in the writings of a Catholic priest Emmanuel Lacunza[27] in 1812, and by John Nelson Darby himself in 1827.[28] However, both the book published in 1788 and the writings of Lacunza have opposing views regarding their interpretations.
The rise in belief in the "Pre-Tribulation" rapture is often wrongly attributed to a 15-year old Scottish-Irish girl named Margaret McDonald (a follower of Edward Irving), who in 1830 had a vision of the end times which describes a post-tribulation view of the Rapture that was first published in 1840. It was published again in 1861 but two important sentences demonstrating post-tribulation were removed to encourage confusion concerning the timing of the Rapture. The two removed sentences were, "This is the fiery trial which is to try us. - It will be for the purging and purifying of the real members of the body of Jesus" and "The trial of the Church is from Antichrist. It is by being filled with the Spirit that we shall be kept".[29]
The popularization of the term is associated with the teaching of John Nelson Darby, prominent among the Plymouth Brethren, and the rise of premillennialism and dispensationalism in English-speaking churches at the end of the 19th century. In 1908, the doctrine of the rapture was further popularized by an evangelist named William Eugene Blackstone, whose book, Jesus is Coming, sold more than one million copies. The first known theological use of the word "rapture" in print occurs with the Scofield Reference Bible of 1909.[30]
In 1957, John Walvoord, a theologian at Dallas Theological Seminary, authored a book,The Rapture Question, that gave theological support to the Pre-Tribulation rapture; this book eventually sold over 65,000 copies. In 1958, J. Dwight Pentecost authored another book supporting the Pre-Tribulation rapture, Things to Come: A Study in Biblical Eschatology, which sold 215,000 copies.
During the 1970s, the rapture became popular in wider circles, in part due to the books of Hal Lindsey, including The Late Great Planet Earth, which has reportedly sold between 15 million and 35 million copies, and by the movie A Thief in the Night, which based its title on the scriptural reference 1 Thessalonians 5:2.[31] Lindsey proclaimed that the rapture was imminent, based on world conditions at the time. The Cold War and the European Economic Community figured prominently in his predictions of impending Armageddon. Other aspects of 1970s global politics were seen as having been predicted in the Bible. Lindsey suggested, for example, that the seven-headed beast with ten horns, cited in the Book of Revelation, was the European Economic Community, a forebear of the European Union, which at the time aspired to ten nations; it now has 27 member states.
In 1995, the doctrine of the Pre-Tribulation rapture was further popularized by Tim LaHaye's Left Behind book series, which sold tens of millions of copies and was made into several movies.
The doctrine of the rapture continues to be an important component in American fundamentalist Christian eschatology.
hope that didn't take too long Kalam, you might miss recess.
