The Promise of the Rapture - Part 1

Dr. Bernard E. Northrup, Th.D. (deceased) came across my radar screen several years ago when a friend of his wife asked me if we would publish one of his books for a seminar series her church was having. We did publish it, and of course it's not possible to publish a book without reading it. I was very taken with his writing and would like to present on my blog a paper he wrote, The Promise of the Rapture. It will be divided into several parts, and will run consecutively this week. Feel free to save it to your computer if you find it as comprehensive and insightful as I did.

Bernard E. Northrup earned his Th.M. and Th.D. from Dallas Theological Seminary and has taught Hebrew and Old Testament at San Francisco Baptist Theological Seminary, Baptist Bible Seminary in Clark’s Summit, PA, and Central Seminary in Minneapolis. He later served as dean at Shasta Bible College. Dr. Northrup traveled as a translation consultant with Bibles International, checking the accuracy of translation work done by nationals in more than 20 different languages in India, the Philippines, and Africa. He was the first to recognize that the book of Job has much to say about earth’s fifth great cataclysm, the biblical icy catastrophe.

The Promise of the Rapture - PART 1

Introduction

For centuries since the Lord Jesus departed from His disciples, the Church largely has focused upon that which He accomplished in His death on the cross for those who believe. Only occasionally do we find in the writings of the Church fathers in those early centuries an emphasis upon His promise that one day He would return. Yet He in the upper room clearly had promised to those disciples and to those who have believed in Him in the centuries that have followed as a result of their ministry that one day He would return. 

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in Me. In My Father's house there are many mansions. If this were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I do go and do prepare a place for you, I will come again and I will receive you unto Myself in order that where I am, there you also may be. And where I go you already know and you even know the way" (John 14:1-4).

During the years of His teaching, after His rejection as the Son of David while He was preparing His disciples for His ministry as the Son of Abraham, Christ had taught them that He was going away and one day would return. Careful scrutiny of the parables that He taught after His rejection in Matthew 10-12 will reveal that some of these parables focus upon the departure of the King to another land. Others focus upon the long stay. Still others focus upon the sudden return to those who would believe and on the judgment of the rebels that would follow.

Christ's teaching about His return is plainly seen in His explanation of the parable of the tares of the field (Matthew 13:36). But it also will be seen that there is no reference to that which will happen to church age believers in His teaching for that truth had not yet been unfolded for believers to understand. 

". . . The One Who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world. The good seed are the children of the kingdom, but the tares are the children of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age and the reapers are the angels. Therefore, in the same way that tares are gathered and are burned in the fire, even so it will be in the end of this age. Then the Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom everything that offends and those who practice iniquity and they will throw them into a fiery furnace. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous ones will shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear" (Matthew 13:37-43).

In the little parable about the pearl of great price Christ pictures His work on the cross, His departure from this world and His present ministry of saving to the uttermost those whom He would purchase in that death on the cross. 

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant Who is seeking fine pearls. He, when He had found one pearl of great price, went and sold everything that He had and bought it" (Matthew 13:45-46). 

He does not speak of His return in that parable but immediately summarizes that which would happen at that time in the parable of the dragnet. 

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that is thrown into the sea, that gathers of every kind [of fish]. When the net is full, they draw it to shore. Then they sit down and gather out the good unto containers but they throw the bad [fish] away. This is the way that it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth and they will separate the wicked ones out from among the righteous ones. Then they will throw them into the furnace of fire and there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Jesus said to them, 'have you understood all of these things?' They said to Him, 'Yes, Lord'" (Matthew 13:47-50).

Now the researcher should recognize that in none of these parables which Christ taught to His disciples is there anything which fully explains that which will happen to believers of the church age that separates them from the wicked before those receive their judgment. There is good reason for that. Paul will explain later in His epistles that the details concerning that which would happen to church age believers at the end of the church age were hidden from all Old Testament believers. It will be seen that this is a crucial part of the meaning of the term, "mystery." One thing that must be recognized is the fact that, before the cross and resurrection, His disciples still were Old Testament believers. Later I will explain His statements about those things that believers today can know which Old Testament believers were not allowed to understand.

This veil which closed the minds of Old Testament believers begins to be lifted slightly at the time of Christ's ascension. Forty days after His resurrection, Christ had taken His disciples that Sabbath's day journey out of Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives. There He had ascended out of their sight. While they stood staring upwards in total amazement, they suddenly became aware of two messengers from the Lord who were standing near them. These said to them, "You men of Galilee, why are you standing gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, Who is taken up from you into heaven, will return in the same way that you have seen Him go into heaven" (Acts 1:10-11).

Now a new truth has been revealed to the disciples that deliberately had been obscured in Christ's parables about the departure of the householder and king. It is a truth for which their hearts were not ready before the resurrection. The details of all that would happen when Christ would come back for the Church would not be unveiled by the Holy Spirit to believers until after the Lord Jesus had returned to heaven and the Church had been established through the work of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Indeed, that veil that obscured the glories of the return of the Savior to catch up His Church would not be fully lifted until the Holy Spirit directed the human author, the apostle Paul, to write of them in so many of the epistles written to the churches of New Testament times.

I. THE MYSTERY OF THE RAPTURE REVEALED IN 1 CORINTHIANS 15:51-57

A. A Biblical mystery defined by Paul

There are five major places in Paul's epistles where he explains this fact that there were truths which Old Testament writers and readers were not allowed to understand. These passages are Romans 16:25-26, Ephesians 3:4-6, 3:9-11, 1 Corinthians 2:6-3:4 and 15:51-57 The researcher will see when we examine these passages that Paul refers to this fact of the concealment of these truths to the Old Testament believer and then the revealing of these truths to the New Testament believer in the New Testament by the term, "a mystery."

1. Paul's first definition of "a mystery"

In Romans 16:25-26 Apostle Paul defines the word "mystery" which also he has used in 1 Corinthians 2. His definition is found in the benediction which closes that great book. "Now to Him who has power to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching about Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made clear, even through the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for obedience to the faith . . . (Romans 16:25-26).

Now Paul has declared very plainly here that there are two crucial elements to a Biblical mystery.

1. A Biblical mystery contains truth which actually was revealed by God through the Old Testament prophets but which carefully was kept from their understanding by the Holy Spirit Who is the member of the Godhead.

2. The Biblical mystery now opens the believer's mind today to understand that which formerly had revealed and yet had been concealed from believers long ago. Thus the two essential parts of a Biblical mystery focus first of all upon the concealment of things which were utterly unknown to the Old Testament believer and yet were present in the Biblical revelation which had been given to them in the Old Testament. Then the focus of a Biblical mystery turns to the fact that these truths that had been completely unknown to the Old Testament prophet or believer now are being unveiled for understanding by the New Testament believer. Paul explains both of these characteristics of a mystery more clearly in 1 Corinthians 2. First of all he explained that, because the unsaved Corinthians could not have understood his message if it had been delivered out of the depth of what he had come to know or in the manner of the Greek philosophers who gloried in their wisdom. 

"And I, brethren, did not come with excellency of speech or [human] wisdom when I came to you declaring to you the testimony of God. This is because I determined not to know any thing among you except for Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. And I was in your presence in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not in words of man's wisdom which entice, but [they were] in the demonstration of the [Holy] Spirit and of power. This was in order that your faith would not stand in the wisdom of men but rather in the power of God. 

He explains why crucial truths about the Savior were not understood prior to the cross.

Then Paul explains that, among mature believers, he had a far more extensive message than he had used when seeking to lead these same people to Christ. And there, as he develops the subject, he explains that even now this Old Testament revelation only can be understood by a believer who is in a proper relationship to the Holy Spirit. The New Testament believer who continues, after the manner of the unsaved man, to walk according to the rule of his or her sin nature rather than under the guidance and empowerment of the Holy Spirit will not be able to understand the Biblical mysteries. He or she will continue to fail to understand that which the Holy Spirit will reveal to the spiritual believer.

2. Peter's contribution to our understanding of a "mystery"

This is the truth to which the Apostle Peter refers in 1 Peter 1. He has been introducing the glories of the product of the faith that we New Testament believers will enjoy when Christ returns. 

"Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, Who, according to His abundant mercy, has caused us to be born again unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled, which does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation which is ready to be revealed in the last time. You greatly rejoice in this, even though now for a time, if it is necessary, you are in heaviness through multiplied trials, in order that the trial of your faith, which is much more precious than the trial of gold which perishes even though it is tried with fire, might be found to be unto the praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ, Whom, having not seen, you love, in whom, even though you do not see Him now, yet believing, you rejoice with joy which is unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. 

Of this salvation the [Old Testament] prophets have inquired and have searched diligently, who prophesied of this grace [that comes to New Testament believers], searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ, who by means of them did indicate, when He testified beforehand about the sufferings of Christ and the glory that would follow. It was revealed to them that it was not unto themselves that they ministered these things which now are reported to you by those who have preached the gospel to you with the Holy Spirit Who has been sent down from heaven, which things [even] the angels long to examine. Wherefore, gird up the loins of your mind. Be sober and hope to the end for the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 1:3-14).

The truth is plainly stated here by Peter that there were things revealed through the Old Testament prophets by the Lord which they themselves did not understand, even though these things are found in their writings. While Peter does not mention the word "mystery," it is inescapable that he was speaking of that when one considers Paul's definition of a Biblical mystery. And it also will be seen that the term covers more than one area of revelation. Here in First Peter, two truths are mentioned that were embedded in the Old Testament prophet's writings, yet were not understood by them.

1. Peter refers to the sufferings of Christ as one of these areas which was not grasped even though there are passages like Isaiah 52:13-53:12 which directly speak of Messiah's sufferings.

2. Peter also speaks of the glory that would follow the sufferings of Christ as an area of prophecy which was closed to the understanding of the Old Testament writers.

3. The use of the term "mystery" in 1 Corinthians 2:6-3:4

1 Corinthians 2 also speaks of the fact that those who were involved in the crucifixion of the Messiah did not grasp the fact that their actions were fulfilling Old Testament prophecy. 

"However, we do speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet it is not the wisdom of this age not that of the princes of this age that comes to nothing, but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, [that which is hidden], even the hidden [wisdom] which God ordained before the ages unto our glory, which [wisdom] none of the princes of this age knew, for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But [it was] just as it is written (in Isaiah 64:4), "Eye has not seen, nor has an ear hear, neither has it entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for those who love Him . . ." (1 Corinthians 2:6-9).

In 1 Corinthians 2 Paul has begun to speak of the fact that things which had been kept a mystery to those under the Old Testament economy. This period of Biblical history extends into the New Testament. It does not end until the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit began the formation of the Church, the body of Christ. These things that were a mystery to those in the Old Testament economy were not understood by those who crucified Christ. Paul describes the Old Testament truth that those people who crucified Christ did not understand in this way. It was 

". . .the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God had ordained before the ages unto our glory, which none of the princes of this age understood. The reason is that, if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Corinthians 2:7-8).

Paul announces that those things that formerly had been hidden in God's earlier revelation, the Old Testament, were now part of the message which he brought in his preaching and teaching to the mature believer of this age. After he finished reporting the inaccessibility of these things to those who killed their Messiah, he turns to explain that those hidden things now are made understandable by the Holy Spirit to believers today. 

"But God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit, because the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God (1 Corinthians 2:10).

The believer today has privileges much greater than the Old Testament believer. Paul uses a human illustration to enable us to understand that only the Holy Spirit could enable a believer to understand these things which no Old Testament believer knew. 

"For what man knows the things of a man except for the spirit of the man which is in him? In the same way no man knows the things of God but only the Spirit of God, which things we also speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teaches but in words which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual words" (1 Corinthians 2:11-12).

But the sad thing is that there are many believers, who have the Divine Author, the Holy Spirit, residing in them, who do not begin to understand the Biblical mysteries. In this larger passage in 1 Corinthians 2-3 Paul explains a major reason why many believers today do not understand his teachings about the mystery which we call "the rapture." This term, which actually is derived from a Latin word, long has been applied by those who understood Paul's teaching about Christ's coming in the air. It is the believer's home going when Christ returns at the end of this dispensation to take believers out of this world before the beginning of the day of the Lord. Paul's teaching on the matter will be explained later.

But here in 1 Corinthians 3:1-4 Paul explains a major hindrance that faces New Testament believers and hinders them from grasping teaching that was "a mystery." Now Paul is not delving into the hidden secrets of gnosticism here. This is that teaching which corrupted the early church and still plagues the church today. Gnosticism exalted human wisdom after the manner of the Greek philosophers. It continually placed the Word of God under critical scrutiny and subjected it to the reinterpretation and the contradiction of the philosopher. Like the gnosticism of today, it rejected the obvious meaning of the Word of God and intruded an overriding interpretation which flew in the face of the obvious intent of the Revelator in His Word.

An example of modern gnosticism may be found in those who trust the pronouncements of the evolutionary faith rather than the clear statement of the Word of God concerning the event series in God's creation and following. These believers reject the obvious meaning of Genesis one. They extrapolate the solar days of Genesis into millions of years wherein God used the supposedly natural processes of evolution to create all things. They do this in order that they may straddle the fence between a truly Biblical faith and the evolutionary faith of origins that they have been taught in their scientific "disciplines." Another example of modern gnosticism may be seen in amillennialism. Those who refuse to believe the Old Testament prophecies concerning the future glories of the descendants of Abraham in the millennial kingdom exalt their presuppositions above the direct revelation of God on the matter. They reinterpret prophetic Scripture in order to make its words fit their firmly established doctrine that there will be no earthly kingdom of Christ on earth.

In 1 Corinthians 2 and 3 Paul gives two possible explanations for those religious people who cannot or will not accept the New Testament revelation of things which previously had been a mystery.

1. First of all he shows that people may fail to understand a Biblical truth which formerly had been concealed because they actually are not believers. Even though they may be religious, they still are in their unsaved state and actually are secret unbelievers. He describes the individual who is in this category in this way.

"But the natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God, [which things He now reveals to the receptive believer], because these things are foolishness to him, neither is he able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14).

Paul is saying that this man simply can not understand those previously hidden things that the Holy Spirit now is revealing to mature believers. He is explaining that this is because these things are understood only through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, whom the natural man has not received since he has not yet even become a true believer. Now it always has been understood that this verse speaks of the unsaved man's inability to understand spiritual truth. But something has been lost when that spiritual truth is not considered in the context in which Paul wrote this verse. He has been speaking of those in the Old Testament economy who were not able to understand the formerly hidden things prophesied concerning the sufferings of Christ. Notice that in 1 Peter 1:10-14, when Peter has explained the inability of the Old Testament prophets to grasp fully the things of the Messiah, he has associated ". . . the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow" (1 Peter 10:11). The Old Testament prophets did not fail to understand because they were not saved. Far from that! But in the case of the unsaved man in New Testament times, he never can fully understand the purpose of, the nature of, the benefits of nor the application of the sufferings and the death of Christ. Neither can he understand the glory that will follow. But this indeed is because he has not been saved and does not have the Holy Spirit, the Divine Teacher, indwelling him.

2. That which is true of the unsaved man is true also to a lesser extent for the believer in Christ Jesus who has persisted in the ways of the old man, who has refused to ". . . walk by means of the [Holy] Spirit" (Romans 8:1, 3 as preserved in the Majority Greek text).

Of course there are many believers who do not intentionally persist in walking according to the dictates of his or her flesh. They have been left walking ". . . by means of the flesh" (Romans 8:1, 3) because the one who led them to Christ never completed the task of discipling them. The one who won them to Christ simply dropped the foundling on the church steps. He then walked away as if unconcerned whether the new babe in Christ ever grew up spiritually or not. The larger half of the Epistle to the Romans, chapters 6-15, is devoted to Paul's five crucial steps of discipling the new believer after he has set forth the five crucial steps of soul winning in chapters 1:16-6:10. Paul speaks of his continuing ministry of discipling spiritually undeveloped believers in 1 Corinthians 3:1-4. 

"But I, brethren, was not able to speak to you as to spiritual [believers] but as unto carnal [fleshly believers], even as to babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with solid food because you still were not able to understand that, neither are you yet able. The reason is that you still are carnal, for in as much as there is among you envy and strife and divisions, aren't you still carnal and planning your life according to man? For whenever someone on the one hand says, `I am on the side of Paul.' But another on the other hand says: `I am on the side of Apollos.' Aren't you being carnal?"

I am utterly aghast that there are those, even one of my former students, who teach from the pulpit and from the Sunday School podium that there is no such thing as a carnal believer. They ignore Paul's explanation in Romans 5:12 through 8:3 that every believer does have a sin nature because of his participation in Adam's act in Adam and that this nature which has served as the king of his or her life since birth still is present in the one who has become a believer. For this reason he exhorts the one who has been placed "in Christ Jesus" through the baptism of the Holy Spirit at the moment of the new birth in this way. I translate Romans 6:11-13 in this way fully to transmit the implications of the original Greek text. 

"For this reason you also must reckon yourselves on the one hand to be dead to the sin nature but, on the other hand, living to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore stop allowing the sin nature to reign as king in your mortal body [the one which is still subject to death] in order to obey it in its lusts. Neither should you continue to present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to the sin nature, but on the contrary, present yourselves once for all to God as one living out from among the dead ones [i.e., as one who has been resurrected from the dead in Christ Jesus] and your members as instruments of righteousness to God"

Much of the confusion which believers face when they are attempting to understand Paul's explanation of the Biblical mysteries is caused by the failure of the translators of our English Bibles to recognize that the Apostle speaks 30 times of the sin nature between Romans 5:12 and 8:3. These references are readily distinguishable from his references to sin as an act by his use of the Greek article hee, (definite article "the," for feminine nouns) before the Greek word hamartia "sin" in these 30 locations. All of these references must be linked back with Paul's twice repeated reference to the sin nature in Romans 5:12 where he explains its origin in the act of rebellion by the fountain head of the race. We have that sin nature and the consequences in our lives today because, as the seed of Adam, we were "in Adam" when he first disobeyed God in the garden.

In Romans 7 Paul explains his own perplexity as a new believer. The Mosaic law, which he as a Pharisee had memorized, kept telling the one who now had been freed from the law through his death "in Christ Jesus" that he still was committing acts of sin. This helped Paul to realize that which every believer who eventually can lead a life pleasing to God must realize. He still had a very active sin nature within himself. Nine times in Romans 7 Paul refers to that nature by using the article "the" in front of the word for "sin." Indeed, there are three places in the chapter where he specifically refers to "the sin nature that indwells me" or "the sin nature that is in my members" (Romans 7:17, 20 and 23). Failure of a believer to acknowledge that he has a sin nature which forces him to be utterly dependent upon the Holy Spirit for victory in overcoming its lusts erases from his mind the absolute necessity of finding, like the Apostle did, the victory over the sin nature which is only obtained through a right relationship to the Holy Spirit [the theme of chapter 8 of Romans]. And failure to enter such a relationship with the Holy Spirit leaves the believer as a carnal believer motivated by the intense desires of his flesh instead of being led by the Holy Spirit. As a consequence, that believer will be greatly handicapped in the understanding of the great passages in the New Testament which unfold those Biblical mysteries which had been hidden from the Old Testament believer and which, as a result, still are obscure to the carnal believer.

Paul plainly is explaining in 1 Corinthians 3:1-4 that spiritual immaturity is a major reason why many believers do not understand, either partially or fully, those Biblical mysteries which are unveiled by the New Testament writers and particularly by Paul. Believers who have not learned to avail themselves of the teaching and empowering ministry of the Holy Spirit, who do not walk by means of the Holy Spirit, in a sense are like the secret unbelievers in the church who cannot understand or will not accept the great Biblical mysteries which now are unfolded to spiritually mature believers by means of the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit through mature teachers of God's Word.

Part 2 Tomorrow