The Second Coming Of Jesus Christ:No Secret Rapture.
The great event of the future is the second advent of our Lord Jesus Christ.The Scriptures plainly declare that this advent will be personal,visible,sudden and unexpected,glorious and triumphant.(The Momentous Event,W.J.Grier).
1.Personal.The N.T.teaches that our Lord will come in person.The Lord himself shall descend from heaven.
2.Visible.His first coming was literal and visible,and we may be sure that His second coming will be literal and visible too.’This same Jesus,which is taken up from you into heaven,shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven'(Acts 1:11);His second coming is to be as visible as His ascension.’Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven:and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn,and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet,and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds,from one end of heaven to the other'(Matt.24:30,31).
The late Dr.R.V.Bingham once held the common doctrine of a secret appearing of the Lord and a secret rapture of the saints,but,on being asked by his wife for a proof-text,he found that he could not produce one.There are plenty of texts on the other side.Surely if it were to be secret,it would not be ‘with a shout,with the voice of the archangel,and with the trump of God'(1 Thess.4:16).
3.Sudden and unexpected.Speaking about the word ‘apocalypse,’or ‘revelation’, of the Lord,used in the N.T. for his second coming,Dr.Geerhardus Vos says that the ‘very idea of suddenness and unexpectedness seems to be intimately associated with the word.'(Pauline Eschatology,p.79).It is as if a curtain were suddenly flung aside and the Lord of glory revealed.His coming will be ‘as a thief in the night.For when they shall say,Peace and safety;then shall sudden destruction cometh upon them'(1 Thess.5:2,3).The Saviour Himself said that His coming would be ‘as the lightning'(Matt.24:27)—-as sudden,and as universally visible.None will forsee it and all will see it at once.What a warning this should be to careless sinners and to slack,easy-going professors of religion.(The Momentous Event.p.10).
4.Glorious and Triumphant.
The contrast is often drawn in the New Testament between the two appearings of our Lord.He came in the body of his humiliation,but He will come in the body of His glory (Heb.9:28).He ‘took the form of a servant,’but when He comes again’every knee shall bow’to Him(Phil.2:5-11).He came to be rejected and killed,but He will come again ‘in His own glory and the glory of His Father and of the holy angels'(Luke 9:22-26). He came as a child but He will come as King of kings and Lord of lords,victorious over every foe )Rev.12:5;19:11-16).
One of the common New Testament words for Christ’s ‘coming’ would be more properly translated ‘arrival.’The New Testament writers recognised indeed that Christ had already arrived,but ‘the arrival,’ the epochal coming,the one fully worthy of the name,belonged to the future.They had an intensively prospective outlook–for them the momentous event is the coming of the Lord.
Another word for His second coming—–‘the revelation’-is used in the same way,as if this,rather than His first coming,was the revelation par excellence.
Another term for it is ‘the day’—‘the night is far spent,the day is at hand’ (Rom.13:12).When He comes,darkness will vanish forever for His own,and deliverance,joy,and blessedness will be ushered in.Indeed,His second advent is described as ‘our redemption.’
J.A.Bengel says beautifully (Acts 1:11) ‘Between His ascension and His coming no event intervenes equal in importance to these: therefore,these two are joined together.Naturally,then,the apostles….set them the day of Christ as very near.And it accords with the majesty of Christ that during the whole period between His ascension and His advent,He should without intermission be expected.’
It is characteristic of the saints in the Old Testament that they looked for the consolation of Israel,Christ’s first coming.Now,’this is pinned as a badge to the sleeve of every true believer,that he looketh for and longeth for Christ’s second coming’ (John Trapp).The New Testament keeps this great event constantly before our minds and urges it on our attention,that we may be active,earnest,patient,joyful,and holy.
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hottubreligion 
November 11, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Amen!
November 11, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Les,I am delighted that you are dealing with this issue.
The rapture crowd say with (a straight face) that Rev.4:1 is a picture of the rapture.Yet the Bible simply says that John heard a voice saying, “Come up here and I will show you things which must take place after this.”There is no mention of the church being ‘caught up.’The secret rapture crowd in a desperate attempt to prove their theory say,that the church is not mentioned after Rev.4.It is gone….raptured.However,any first year Bible school student knows that you can not argue a point from silence.You have to violate every scriptural method of Biblical interpretation to try to prove that Rev. 4:1 is a picture of the rapture of the church.
November 12, 2009 at 2:41 am
I have to get my emoticon correct:
8)
November 12, 2009 at 2:41 am
8)
November 12, 2009 at 5:00 am
Bill,
Using Rev. 4:1 to attempt to biblically support a pre-trib rapture is pretty desperate.
As for not mentioning the church after Rev. 4, that’s silly because where there are “saints” there is the church. “Where two or three are gathered…”
Oops, I better be careful or the pre-tribbers will be saying that “where two or three are GATHERED” proves that Jesus will “gather” His church before the tribulation.
C ya.
Les
November 13, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Bill,
You need to get with the right crowd and the right Bible(Scofield) Those believers martyred in Rev. are Jews. For some mysterious reason a Jew that is saved by the blood of Jesus is not part of the church or promised to escape persecution like the rest of us! I just don’t know where you are coming from taking the Bible for what it says and not theorizing beyond its words. I guess the next thing you will say is that the antichrist is not a Romanian!
November 13, 2009 at 8:44 pm
If you read the Bible without trying to use it to further any particular political agenda there’s no way to arrive at a pretribulation rapture. The whole concept is based on a fallacy: Mt. 24:21 (For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.) is axiomatically interpreted as meaning the 7 year reign of the Beast of Revelation, or at least half of it, because persecution of Christians is thought to be the worst thing that could befall the world.
There are much worse things, to be sure. Whether you think the world is 4 billion or 6,000 years old, both the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs and the Flood of Noah were much worse than, say, Nero’s persecutions of Christians. Mt. 24:21 describes a disaster, and Mt. 24:29 gives a clue to what kind of disaster we’re dealing with: it will immediately be followed by nuclear winter. There’s no form of government or tyranny that leads to nuclear winter. Only a cosmic, volcanic, or nuclear disaster leads to nuclear winter.
The entire conflict between pretribulation, midtribulation, posttribulation etc. supporters is based on sharing this unfounded assumption that nothing that befalls this world could be worse than persecution. The Great Tribulation is not a seven or three-and-a-half year period of political repression, it’s a disaster of global proportions that leads to the destruction of nearly all flesh, i.e., animal life. Understand this, and eschatology becomes much simpler and less subject to politicking.
Read my free e-book Walkabout: The History of a Brief Century for the full story!
November 27, 2009 at 3:14 am
[This web article I just found seems to back up what you are generally saying. Most interesting! Karl]
PRETRIB RAPTURE RUSTLERS
To see the long hidden side of the 179-year-old, British-invented-and-American-merchandised, apocalyptic “rapture” mania, Google “Pretrib Rapture Diehards,” “Thomas Ice (Bloopers)” (the sloppy copyist “genius” that Lindsey, LaHaye and other “rapture” tycoons lean on!), “LaHaye’s Temperament,” “America’s Pretrib Rapture Traffickers,” “Edward Irving is Unnerving,” “Thieves’ Marketing,” “Appendix F: Thou Shalt Not Steal,” “Pretrib Hypocrisy,” “The Newest Pretrib Calendar,” “The Rapture Index (Mad Theology),” “Roots of (Warlike) Christian Zionism” and “Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty,” for starters. The author of these items plus the bestselling nonfiction book “The Rapture Plot” (available online) is journalist/historian Dave MacPherson who has uniquely focused for 40 years on the bizarre history of this endtime craze which is anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic and anti- just about everyone else! MacPherson is the one who has researched throughout Britain and aired so much rapturesque “dirty linen” he’s found behind the scenes (clever revisionism of early 19th century documents, rampant plagiarism, phony doctorates, Swaggart-type scandals etc.) that he is now No. 1 on the hate lists of the leading “rapture” money-changers! As everyone’s black, dust-covered book says, “There is nothing hidden that won’t be revealed….”
October 18, 2010 at 1:46 am
My new book, “The Origins of Left Behind Eschatology,” was published earlier this year at US$22.99 (ISBN: 9781615796670). It is a slight enlargement of my PhD dissertation, which examined the origins of the ideas behind the Left Behind books. Crawford Gribben, of Trinity College Dublin, has called it a “clearly argued, thoroughly researched and overwhelmingly convincing thesis”, the conclusions of which “should … dispel much of the uncertainty that has dogged this area of millennial studies.”
Copies are available through your usual bookstore or http://www.amazon.com or http://www.xulonpress.com
Thank you and God bless,
David Malcolm Bennett
For more information see: http://www.angelfire.com/wy/dmbennhome/LeftBehind.html
See video ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0xX9q2oo1Q
Book Review: http://www.godandscience.org/doctrine/left_hehind_eschatology.html
To unsubscribe click on bndv@primusonline.com.au
August 22, 2011 at 1:58 am
Yep, I agree! NO SECRET COMING Of Christ! I have done much research on this also and in the Greek language from the meanings and so forth and all lead to a Visible Physical presence Second ADVENT of Jesus Christ… Amen and Amen Sound the Alarm in Zion!!! He is on His way! =) If anyone would like to Friend me on facebook that is very fine with me. I have many teachings my self from my own studied on my notes on Facebook… My whole name on there is Jeremiah Barker… I am in my 20’s if you like to know also… God bless you/Dios te bendiga
August 22, 2011 at 2:08 am
All who desire to live Godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. Matthew 5) Blessed are the persecuted for theirs is the kingdom of heaven… So we see here that if we desire to live Godly we will suffer true persecution… I MEAN TRUE PERSECUTION… And Jesus calls those that are BLESSED…