Rapture Bashing

N.T. Wright gives us this short essay about the "American obsession" about the rapture.  He raises some interesting points from a British Anglican point of view:
Farewell to the Rapture

What do I think about it?  Glad you asked!

I like N.T. Wright a lot and I think he has a lot of good things to say. But I think his eschatology is wrong. I think he has to take every single eschatalogical passage and declare them all "metaphorical". Does it make sense for Jesus to explain his metaphorical parables in Matt. 13 with more metaphor? I don't think so.

The fact is, the eschatology of Jesus doesn't make any sense to the supernaturally-critical, which the British Anglican church certainly is. So rather than let Jesus say what he says, they want to add another layer of metaphor so they can figure he says something else. It is clear that Jesus (and Daniel and Paul) are all referring to the same event-- the God-appointed coming of the Messiah to rule the earth. Not to heaven, to earth.

However, as usual, N.T. Wright gets all the cultural connections exactly correct. This description of Paul's does refer to a triumphant hero, returning to his home city. But Paul refers to more than that. He refers to the common theme of God's people ending their dispersion throughout the world and coming to the Messiah who would lead them eternally. Check out Isaiah 27:12-13 in which the gathering of God's people are associated with a trumpet sounding, which is only one of many passages in the Hebrew Bible that mentions a future gathering of all of God's people to return to the land.

I think that the focus of many rapturists is misplaced. They want to talk about a deliverance from suffering and judgment and a time of regret of all the peoples of the earth, years before Jesus' coming. I think this is unnecessary in Scripture and so just another way to make biblical eschatology more complicated than it needs to be.

There is a middle road-- that a gathering happens, it happens miraculously, as Paul said, but that it is a part of Jesus' already miraculous return to earth.

Originally posted on the Aletheia Discussion Forums.