Some teachers claim the bride of Christ will be taken away before the trouble of the Great tribulation.
The Prosperity gospel claims the Church will not suffer agony and pain, but walk in victory and always be successful. Many teachers tell us that there are new seasons coming, and everyone with perfect faith can enjoy health and wealth in the last days.
The teachers of a pre-tribulation rapture of the Church, use the bride of the book of Revelation as a picture on the Church. The message is that the Church has be presented beautiful, happy and spotless when she face the Messiah coming to take her home.
There are many problem with this message.
A Christian who in 2010 become a martyr, was not necessarily a pretty site. Its easy to conclude that a beaten, bloody and headless saint must have misunderstood the gospel of “fame, perfect health and wealth”.
John 3:29
The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete.
Not even priceless amount of make-up could have made such a perfect bride of Christ fit into a false “beauty queen doctrine”.
Luke 21:15-17
For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. All men will hate you because of me.
In regards to focus, commitment, faithfulness to the persecuted Messiah, the martyr’s seems to have understood the Gospel. They have correctly rejected the false “beauty parlor gospel”, and become a living sacrifice for Jesus our Lord. Surely Blameless, and without spots.
What kind of worldly pleasure have the bide of Christ renounced?
Basically the bride has refused to become a “good looking prostitute”. Be aware that just before the wedding feast, the great prostitute, the Whore of Babylon will be exposed. She will surely be both rich and adored.
The exposure of both the bride of Christ and the great prostitute will take place inside the Great Tribulation, the very season of wrath from God.
Revelation 19
Hallelujah!
After this I heard what sounded like the roar of a great multitude in heaven shouting:
“Hallelujah!
Salvation and glory and power belong to our God,
for true and just are his judgments.
He has condemned the great prostitute
who corrupted the earth by her adulteries.
He has avenged on her the blood of his servants.” And again they shouted:
“Hallelujah!
The smoke from her goes up for ever and ever.”
The bride of Christ has not corrupted her self.
Revelation 19:6-8
Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting:
“Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.)
(end of this scripture).
Its also worth to take notice of another bride, the New Heavenly Jerusalem:
Revelation 21:2
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
Another problems with the “Bride in the sky” doctrine, is the Church being separated from Israel, who alone will suffer in the Great Tribulation.
That is a doctrine of true replacement theology. Israel alone will have to deal with the final antichrist.
The third problem with such doctrines, is that the Book of Revelation teach that there will be saints coming out of the Great Tribulation, that have been washed in the blood the Lamb. So obviously, both Israel and the Holy Spirit have been left behind when the Church was “taken away”.
The third question, is related to the need to take the bride away from the Earth. She will be separated for a wedding feast in Heaven, and later brought back to the Planet for the final judgment and separation.
If the Church is not coming back again from Heaven, Jesus has to take the goats with him to Heaven as well. This is neither in accordance with the scripture, nor is it logic. Since the separation of the righteous and the wicked will take place on Earth at the very end, the Church have to be present where the Holy Spirit has called her to be. With Him.
The doctrine of the pre tribulation rapture of a perfected and spotless bride, do require three comings of the Lord. One as the Lamb of God, one as the bridegroom, and one as the Lion of Judah.
In my Bible I can only read about two comings of the Messiah. I believe the coming of the Messiah as the bridegroom and the Lion of Judah will be one and the same.
We have to keep our oil burning, and keep enough oil. From the Apostolic age up towards our days, all Christians have been called to be ready for both a sudden coming of the Lord and a bumpy and painful ride ahead.
Lets take a deeper look, and use more scriptures from the book of Revelation. Please consider my objections based on the scripture.
Revelation 14:6
Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation, tribe, language and people.
Revelation 12:17
Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring—those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.
Revelation 11:3-8
And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.” 4These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. 5If anyone tries to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and devours their enemies. This is how anyone who wants to harm them must die.
To those who proclaim that the book of Revelation must be read in chronological order, it must be noticed that the rapture is not taking place at the beginning of the book of Revelation. It comes after a lot of exposure, wrath and persecution in Chapter 11.
Revelation 11:11-12.
But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies looked on.
In Revelation chapter 12, the story of the people of Israel is also revealed. Many of those events explained her, is linked to the preparation of the first coming of Jesus.
In conclusion:
The doctrine of the pre Great tribulation rapture of “the Church” and her wedding fest in Heaven, while another Church is formed inside the Great Tribulation, does not make sense.
First published: 19.10.2010
Written by Ivar
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I’m sorry Ivar, but you have a lot of doctrines from different opinions all mixed together. Totally confusing. I have a dispensational view. I believe that we are in the dispensation of grace where God is calling all men to himself through the gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) Jew and Gentile together who make up the bride. All we have to do is believe the gospel, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures he was buried and rose again the third day according to the scriptures. The worst sin today is rejection of the gospel and trampling under foot the wonderful thing that God did in becoming a man to die for the sin of the people. He died once for past present and future sins, and he is our substitute. The church is not the prosperity gospel church, it’s not the denominational church or even Catholic or any other thing else The church is the body of Christ. The Great Tribulation or the time of Jacob’s Trouble is JUDGEMENT ON THE WORLD FOR REJECTION OF JESUS CHRIST and for judgment against sin. If you won’t accept Jesus as your Savior then you will be judged during the Great Tribulation and you won’t escape.. We were judged at the cross, and now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (born again believers: Jew and Gentile). Yes, there will be a HARPAZO, see here: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G726&t=KJV In which the bride will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. 1 Thessalonians 4:17. The world ‘Caught up’ is Harpazo and it is also used in Revelation 12:5. Yes there is always wickedness in which Jews and Christians suffer persecution from Satan by using evil men, but that is not the judgement that God Almighty will pour out on the entire world. Not at all.
Dear Nanette.
Shalom, and love in Jesus.
I love you as my sister, and you are a Christian who loves Jesus. When it comes to understaning the age we are living in, we disaregree. I am preparing my self for the age of antikrist, that will be a fruit of the ongoing great falling away. The rejection and betrayal of both Zionism and Biblical Christianity. Im a ready to be a follower of Jesus inside the Great Tribulation. I belive you shoud start to prepare your self too. I dont mind if I am wrong, and I am raptured out of this mother of all trouble. If you are right. But if you are wrong, you are now in trouble, and will stand unprepared for the battles ahed. Behold: Jesus has shortend these days for the sake of the elect, otherwise no one would be able to survive. I believe you are one of these elect too.
A point that all would do well to consider and thank you for raising it. The notion of a pre-Tribulational “Rapture” did not arise until the 1830s in America and was popularized by the Schofield Study Bible starting in the late 1800s. At no prior point in church history did the Bride of Christ expect to be swept away before bad stuff happened; to me it is a form of arrogant entitlement to suppose that the modern church wouldn’t have to endure the kind of temporal nightmares that the early church endured under many of the Roman emperors. The pre-Trib folks like to draw upon suppositions based on several verses as proof positive of their theory, but two verses in Scripture deal their doctrine a fatal blow. In 1st Corinthians 15:51-52, the apostle Paul set the timing of the gathering together when he wrote “Listen, I will tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” Paul set this glorious event at the last trumpet, not in some undefined secret moment. But the second applicable verse comes from our Lord Himself, in Matthew 24:30-31, when after describing horrors on the earth and astronomical calamities in the heavens, He states unequivocally that “At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.” The nations cannot be seeing the Lord coming on the clouds with power and great glory if the “Rapture” is some secret whooshing away of the Body of Christ. Jesus was very clear and precise in stating this, and if He was somehow mistaken about it then He could not have been the Lord Christ. I’ve yet to hear pre-Tribulationists answer satisfactorily to either of these clear statements; they cannot without all sorts of mental acrobatics. Peace be unto you.
I agree with you Ivar!
Dear Elisabeth.
Shalom and love in Jesus.
Thanks. We are a minority among pentecostals, true friends of Israel, who reject the dotrine of the pre-tribulation gospel. Many Christians belive that through long praise and worship sessions, in great public halls, ready with their “weddig dresses” on, they are pleasing Jesus. They claim they are building His kingdom on Earth, getting ready to be raptured out of all troubles. What a delousion. Church is a resque operation on Earth. The time is short, and most of claimed followers of Jesus seems to deactivated and demoblized. In grim contrast, In their tens of thousands, their broters and sisters in faith are martyred in Asia and Africa. Facing antichrists along their road. They are slaughtered, beheaded and crucified because their were true vitnesses for Jesus. They face, what two witnesses, to lampstands will face in Jerusalem soon, as printed in blood in the book of Revelation chapter 11. During the Reformation, these witneses soung hyms on the way to the stake. They were burned alive because they refused to compromise on truth. Go, be prepared and do likewise.
Greetings Ivar,
Hope all is well. Let us rejoice that the Jesus Christ comes soon. I do believe in the rapture because several verses of the Word of God support it.
Matthew 24:30-31
30 “Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. 31 And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
Daniel 12:1-2
1 “At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered. 2 Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.
1 Corinthians 15:51-53
51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.
1 Thessalonians 4:16-18
16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
But I can be wrong. it is better to be ready now than later when it comes to Christ Jesus. And the most important thing is He comes soon.
God Bless,
Gloria
Dear Gloria. Shalom and love in Jesus. Good to see you back. Yes, all is well.