Will Catholics be “left behind”? In this episode Trent examines the Rapture and explains what the Bible really teaches about the end of the world.
Welcome to the Counsel of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn:
Hey everyone, welcome to the Counsel of Trent podcast. I’m your host, Catholic Answers apologist and speaker, Trent Horn. And today we are going to talk about the rapture. So this is a doctrine dealing with eschatology. So eschatology is the study of the end times, the end of the world. And from a Christian perspective, we would talk about things like the final judgment, Christ’s second coming. So this is a part of eschatology and it’s a popular part of some Protestant and Evangelical views of the end of the world. Now, there are some Catholics who end up hearing about the rapture, and that kind of becomes a gateway to them into these Protestant evangelical ways of thinking, not just about eschatology, but about the church, about salvation. And so it becomes something, an opportunity for them to start to question or be skeptical of the Catholic faith, and in some cases, leave the Catholic faith, which I think is very sad over something like the rapture, because the rapture is not a fundamental disagreement that Catholics have with other non-Catholics or with Protestants.
Trent Horn:
It’s not something like sola scriptura or justification by faith alone or the Eucharist or the priesthood. It’s not a fundamental difference, but it is a difference. And so that’s why I think it’s worthwhile to talk about here on the podcast today. But before we do that, though, don’t be left behind. If you remember the fictional book series Left Behind, I think Tim LaHaye and Jenkins is the other guy who wrote that. So I know Lehaye was one of them. Left Behind was that book series about the rapture, really popularized the idea for a lot of people. Then they did a few movies based on it. I think one of them has Nicholas Cage. I know one of them has Kirk Cameron, you can always count on Kirk Cameron, to show up in movies like this. So don’t be left behind of the other people who are subscribing to the Counsel of Trent podcast, YouTube channel, liking this video, leaving a comment below. And of course, supporting us at trenthornpodcast.com.
Trent Horn:
If you go there and you support us, you not only allow this podcast to grow, you get access to great bonus content. My catechism study series, New Testament study series, a fancy mug to keep in your pantry, all that and more at trenthornpodcast.com. Don’t be left behind. So left behind. So let’s take a look at the Bible passages and dive a little bit deeper into the doctrine of the rapture itself. This doctrine comes from the 19th century around the year 1830, John Nelson Darby was one of the first people to really popularize it. Now, the word rapture goes back to a Latin word that is using the translation of First Thessalonians, chapter four, verses 16 through 17. I think it’s, we’re like, rapturo, like to snatch or to take. So this is what Paul writes when he’s talking about Christ’s second coming, First Thessalonians chapter four, verses 16 through 17.
Trent Horn:
“For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command with the archangels call and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we shall always be with the Lord.”
Trent Horn:
So on the face of it, when you read this, it seems to say that when Christ comes at his second coming, the final promise of the resurrection of the dead will be fulfilled. Those who have died, those who have died in Christ will rise first. And then if we happen to be alive at Christ’s second coming, we’ll be caught up with them. Those who are left will be caught up together. That’s the Latin word. I want to say rapturo, I don’t know if I’m getting that right. You could also say, shall be raptured, taken up to be with Christ. And so this imagery is similar to when Christ was entering into the city of Jerusalem, his triumphal entry. The crowds go out to meet Christ and be united to him. And then they joined with Christ and enter into the city.
Trent Horn:
Now, the idea behind the rapture is that Christ will come and all of us, those who are the believers, will be caught up to God and those who don’t believe will be left behind. They won’t be taken up to God. And also the other thing that’ll be left behind will be the true believers, their clothes, their personal possessions, their vehicles will be left behind. So you have in the Left Behind series, things like planes crashing because all the Christian pilots are going to disappear. Cars crashing, mayhem, and madness. And those who will be left behind will be forced to face something called the tribulation, the final series of evils and calamities that will befall the world before Christ really does come in a second coming.
Trent Horn:
So you’re starting to see a little bit of the difference here that the rapture doctrine relies on the idea that Christ’s second coming will be split into two, like Christ will come to rescue the church from the tribulation, from these final disastrous elements at the end of the world. And then he’ll come again after the tribulation to usher in the final judgment. And so Catholics would disagree with the rapture because the constant teaching and what the scriptures say when Christ returns to usher in the second coming, that’s going to be it. There’s not going to be some kind of long prolonged gap between that and then the final judgment and the resurrection of the dead and the end of the world.
Trent Horn:
So let’s get some of our terms right. I was talking about the tribulation. Do believe in the tribulation? Yes, we certainly do. Go to paragraph 675 of the catechism. This is what it says of the tribulation.
Trent Horn:
“Before Christ’s second coming, the church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies our pilgrimage on earth will unveil the mystery of iniquity in the form of a religious deception, offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth.” And then this paragraph of the Catechism goes on to say, “The antichrist will be the full manifestation of this religious deception.” So the final tribulation will be calamities disasters, but even worse will be a system that will encourage widespread apostasy or total repudiation of the Christian faith in favor of something else that will claim to be a kind of secular salvation.
Trent Horn:
So there will be a tribulation, but believers who are alive at that time, we’ll go through the tribulation with other people. It will be a final test. That’s why it says before Christ’s second coming, the church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. Those who believe in the rapture claim that the faithful will be those who believe in what is called a pre-tribulation rapture. I’m going to break that down a little bit when I talk about different views of the end times, but those Protestants who believe in a rapture that will take place before the tribulation believe that Christians would kind of be plucked away from the danger. Unbelievers will go through the tribulation. Then there’ll be the final judgment. But that is not what the church teaches. And it’s also not what the Bible teaches when we look at paragraph 675 of the Catechism.
Trent Horn:
So now let’s talk about four different views of the end times relating to the rapture, the tribulation, Christ’s return, his second coming. I’m going to break down these different views so you understand them. But in order to do that, I have to talk about another concept that is common to all Christian views of the end times that people try to understand. And that is the concept of the millennium, the thousand years, the millennium. This is discussed in the Book of Revelation, Revelation, chapter 20, verses five through six. This is what it says.
Trent Horn:
“The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who shares in the first resurrection over such the second death has no power, that they shall be priests of God and of Christ and they shall reign with him a thousand years.”
Trent Horn:
So Christian views of the end times have to understand what is the meaning of the millennium, what is the meaning of the tribulation, when will Christ come again? So what I want to do now, where does a rapture fit into any of this? I’m going to talk about four Christian views of the end times. And I will start with the one that is closest to what the Catholic church teaches about the end times, and they all deal with the millennium. So there’s amillennialism, host millennialism, and I’ll talk about two different versions of pre-millennialism. And that deals with the question of Christ’s reign on earth. So it seems here that Revelation chapter 20 is talking about how believers shall be priests of God and of Christ. They shall reign with him a thousand years.
Trent Horn:
So that thousand year reign of Christ, what does that mean? There is an amillennial view, a post-millennial view, and a pre-millennial view. So to summarize where I go into the four views, I have three here, but pre-millennial can be split up. Amillennial will say that we are reigning with Christ now in the age of the church. We are in the midst of the millennium and it is a symbolic millennium. It’s not actually a thousand years. The millennium where Christ reigns is the reign of the church here on earth. Post-millennial will say that Christ will come again after there has been a thousand years of Christian paradise on earth, of a reign of Christianity on earth for a thousand years, Christ will come post or after that millennium have a literal thousand years of a Christian paradise on earth. And then pre-millennial, Protestants usually, pre-millennialism says that Christ will come before the thousand year reign, pre-millennial, Christ will come before the thousand years. And there’ll be that thousand year reign of Christ on earth, and then you will have the second coming.
Trent Horn:
So let’s go into each of the four views to describe them more in detail and where the rapture fits into them. So the first view is amillennialism. I know it says, number four here, somebody else made that on Wikimedia, the graphic, but it starts with the first coming, the incarnation in the first century. Then at some point in the future, you have the second coming, the final judgment. Christ will return, usher in the final judgment. All of that will happen at one event in the future. And between the two, you have the symbolic millennium. So the number 1000 in scripture is often symbolic of just a very large number or a very long time period. And so when Revelation talks about Christ reigning, it’s talking about Christ reigning through the church here on earth.
Trent Horn:
Also, Revelation talks about the devil being restrained for a thousand years. And so during this time period, you have church fathers like St. Agustine saying that when Christ reigns through the church on earth, the devil is restrained so that the gospel can be spread throughout the world. He writes, “The devil was thus bound, not only when the church began to be more and more widely extended among the nations beyond Judea, but is now and shall be bound til the end of the world when he used to be loosed at the final judgment so that Christ can conquer his enemies and conquer death itself.” So this is amillennialism, there is no rapture here. Christ will just come at the end of time, there’ll be a final judgment. And that will be it. Those who are alive, will meet Christ at the end of the world. Those who are dead will be raised for the final judgment. So that’d be amillennialism, probably the closest view to Catholicism when we look at these different Christian eschatology views of the millennium.
Trent Horn:
And another one that was common in the 19th and early 20th centuries is post-millennialism. So it says, Christ’s first coming in the first century and then Christ will come again with a second coming, the final judgment, sometime in the future where this view post-millennialism differs from amillennialism is that post-millennialists believe Christ will come after a literal 1000 year period, where there is a Christian paradise. Once the entire world has been converted and there is a Christian, essentially a Christian world, when the whole world has been converted, then you had peace for a thousand years. The devil will be bound during this time period, but at the end of it, Christ will return. This view is a very optimistic one. And so there was a lot in the 19th century, people were, developments in 19th century. The world seems to be improving even in the early 20th century.
Trent Horn:
But then when you get to World War I, World War II, the Cold War, you see fractures in the latter half of the 20th century, most Protestants abandoned post-millennialism. They did not think there would ever be a period where the entire world would be converted and only then Christ would return. A lot of them ended up embracing something called pre-millennialism. And so that would be the third view though. There’s two different kinds of pre-millennialism dealing with when the idea of the rapture. So even here, we don’t have the rapture appearing in what is called post-tribulation pre-millennialism. So what they say is that Christ came in the first century and then the second coming and the final judgment are divided.
Trent Horn:
There will be a literal 1000 year period, Christ will return he’ll reign for a thousand years on earth, and then there’ll be a final judgment. But before Christ returns, there’ll be a tribulation. So these are called post-tribulation pre-millennialist. So I know this is confusing and I’m going to try to break it all down. If you’re listening on podcast, you might find the graphics, I’m using to describe this on YouTube, to be helpful. If you’re watching on YouTube, subscribe to the podcast. That’s always nice to do.
Trent Horn:
So just to break it down. The big difference here with the pre-millennialist, unlike post-millennial and amillennial, which is the closest to the Catholic view is we have a split, Christ’s second coming, but the final judgment happens much later, a thousand years later when Christ will reign. but before Christ’s second coming, you have the tribulation. So I think we would agree that there will be a tribulation, a second coming, but you need to compress this millennial period, the last judgment happens at the second coming itself. I’ll explain what the Bible says about that. But the view where the rapture fits in is not so much post-tribulation, pre-millennialism, it would be pre-tribulation, pre-millennialism. So strap yourselves in as we go through this.
Trent Horn:
Christ’s first coming in the first century, and then like the other pre-millennialists, you have a tribulation. Christ will return, reign for a thousand years. Then there’ll be the final judgment. Pre-tribulation pre-millennialists believe that Christ will come before the tribulation, before the bad events at the end of the world. he’ll come before that to rapture or take the church with him. Then you’ll have the nasty tribulation period, Christ will come again with the church, reign for a thousand years, then you’ll have the final judgment. So the rapture fits in here is in pre-tribulation, pre-millennialism.
Trent Horn:
Pre-millennial, Christ will come before, reign for a thousand years, then the final judgment. Pre-tribulation pre-millennialism says Christ will … So basically there are four comings of Christ under this view, not two. You have the first century, the rapture, coming again with the church, for the millennium, reign for a thousand years, then the final judgment. And so this is where you get these problems. And there are even some Protestants who are called mid-Trib rapturists, who believe the rapture will happen in the middle of the tribulation, not before it. So there you go. But let’s boil it down to this issue. Should we believe that the church will be spared the tribulation, Christ will take them and then he’ll return again, reign for a thousand years, and then have the final judgment? No, because it’s very clear that when Christ returns, he is going to come in the same way that he left, in a public visible manifested way.
Trent Horn:
Acts, chapter one verse 11, says that you remember when the disciples are seeing Jesus ascend into heaven, two men in white who were probably angels tell them, men of Galilee, why do you look at the heavens? Christ will return in the … he will come in the same way that he was seen going into heaven. So you won’t have a secret return, an invisible return for the rapture. You’ll just have Christ coming again. It’ll be public, visible and known, just like you see in First Thessalonians four, the sound of the trumpet, the archangels call, everybody will see and know it. it won’t be some kind of secret event like the rapture.
Trent Horn:
Also, you have Matthew chapter 16, verse 27. It says, the son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his father, and then not a thousand years later, but, and then he will repay every man for what he has done. So Matthew 16:27 seems clear that when Christ, he will come in glory, he’ll be visible. And at that moment, not a thousand years later, not spread out, but at the same time, that is when the final judgment will take place. For those of us who are alive will be caught up to Christ, will be with him when this all occurs. If we are dead, Christ will raise us from the dead.
Trent Horn:
Finally, let me just address two other Bible passages that come up when people speak about the rapture. In First Corinthians chapter 15, it talks about how we will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. Some people take this to mean that in an instantaneous moment, we will be caught up with Christ. And so this is talking about the pre-tribulation rapture. It’s not because First Corinthians 15 verses 51 through 55 are talking about the end, not the rapture, and then the tribulation and then the millennium and then the final judgment. Where this comes from in First Corinthians, chapter 15, it’s talking about what will happen at the end of the world.
Trent Horn:
It says the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable. Verse 55 says that death will be swallowed up. So here, this changing is that at the final judgment, the resurrection of the dead, we will be changed and our perishable bodies will put on an imperishable form, as St. Paul says, so that we can enter into glorious, eternal life with our resurrected bodies. Finally, in Luke chapter 17, there is a verse there when Christ is talking about the end of the world. People, a lot of them interpret that as the rapture. It’s Luke 17 verses 34 through 37. It says, I tell you in that night, there will be two men in one bed. The verse, actually two people, is a better translation. Two people in one bed, one will be taken and the other left. There will be two women grinding together, like grinding at a mill. One will be taken and the other left. And they said to him, “Where Lord?” And some of you only read this verse and think, oh, this is talking about the rapture, right? You’ll have the Christians will be plucked away. And people will be like, “Well, where did he go? What’s happening?” And then the tribulation and all of this. No, actually Jesus here in Luke 17 is not saying the believers will be taken away and the unbelievers will be left for the tribulation.
Trent Horn:
He’s not talking about that here, because verses earlier in Luke 17 verses 26 through 27, he says, “As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the son of man. They ate, they drank, they married. They were given in marriage until the day when Noah entered the Ark and the flood came and destroyed them all.” So here, those were taken away in Luke 17:37, Jesus said to them, “Where the body is, there the Eagles will be gathered together.”
Trent Horn:
They say, where Lord, where will they be taken? And Jesus doesn’t say, oh, to me or to heaven because they’re the true Christians who’ve been raptured. He doesn’t say that. He says where the body is, there the Eagles or that same Greek word can be translated, vultures, will be gathered together. So here he’s not talking about being taken away to salvation. He’s talking about being taken away to judgment. And we know it’s judgment because he’s talking about how the judgment will come swiftly like it did in the days of Noah and those in the days of Noah who were not prepared, they were swept away. Those were the unbelievers. So here Jesus is saying in Luke 17, look, the day of judgment will come unexpectedly. Another comparison often uses is like a thief in the night. So be prepared for it. That’s all he’s saying here.
Trent Horn:
He’s not talking about a rapture or anything like that. So I hope this is helpful for you all. But yeah, don’t be sucked in by all this. The point is just be prepared, be prepared. That was a nerdy reference, Lion King. Be prepared, either for the end of the world or statistically likely your own demise and end to know that if you were to die today, are you in a state of grace to know that you will be with Jesus Christ. If you’re not, go to confession or make an act of contrition and then make make an act of perfect contrition. People often say, if you can’t go to confession, make a perfect act of contrition. No, don’t say the act of contrition perfectly, make an act of perfect contrition, which is having sorrow for sin and offending God and you wholeheartedly desire his forgiveness. So if you’re in a state of grace, stay there. If you’re not, go to confession, make a perfect act of contrition, if you’re not able to go to confession right now, but get your act together so that whether it’s the end of the world or the end of your world, you’re ready to meet Christ at that moment.
Trent Horn:
Hey, thank you guys so much. I’ll leave some links in the description below for good books on the rapture. There’s a great book by David Curry and Paul Thigpen as well and other great resources on it at catholic.com. So Hey, thank you guys. And I hope you have a very blessed day.
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