The Rapture: Fact and Fantasy

By My Two Cents

• When will the rapture happen?
• How long will the great tribulation last?
• Who is the Antichrist?
• Who are the 144,000 and the Two Witnesses?

These questions and many more are answered in this critical examination of the rapture. This book sets aside popular presuppositions as it uncovers the bare-bones truth of the matter from a purely Bible-based Christian perspective using scriptural and real-world evidence. Every Christian seeking an honest, no-holds barred explanation of this subject that is not colored by the prejudices of denominational doctrines needs to read this book.

 

Table of Contents

A Third Temple in Jerusalem

Daniel's Prophecy of Seventy Weeks

A Seven-year Tribulation

The Trajectory of the Antichrist

The Two Witnesses and the 144,000

Separate Plans for the Salvation of Israel and the Church

The Millennium

The Chronological Order of Revelation

Letters to the Seven Churches in Asia Minor

The Absence of the Church in Revelation Chapters 4-18

The Theme of the Wedding Banquet

We are Not Appointed to Wrath

References

• Language: English
• Publisher: My Two Cents
• Release date: May 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223723875

Book preview

Contents

A Third Temple in Jerusalem

Daniel's Prophecy of Seventy Weeks

A Seven-year Tribulation

The Trajectory of the Antichrist

The Two Witnesses and the 144,000

Separate Plans for the Salvation of Israel and the Church

The Millennium

The Chronological Order of Revelation

Letters to the Seven Churches in Asia Minor

The Absence of the Church in Revelation Chapters 4-18

The Theme of the Wedding Banquet

We are Not Appointed to Wrath

References

A Third Temple in Jerusalem

I

n Israel, Orthodox Jews eagerly anticipate and pray regularly for the construction of a third temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.2 In their theology, the existence of a standing temple with active worship services is necessary to usher in the age of their messiah.3

In 1987, The Temple Movement organization began preparations for the rebuilding of the temple, with the hope of achieving this goal after the year 2000. Another organization, The Temple Mount Faithful, has taken on the tasks of promoting acceptance of the idea of the new temple within the Jewish community and having the temple's cornerstone and assorted furniture made.

The newly-formed Sanhedrin has organized training for the Kohanim priesthood in the performance of ceremonial temple duties, including sacrificial offerings.4 Even the special red heifer cattle required to be killed and cremated for their ashes to be used in a priestly purification rite were raised by a Christian rancher in Texas and shipped to Israel in September 2022.5

In fact, many Christians, though recognizing that Jesus is the Messiah of the Jews and Gentiles who already made his first advent over two-thousand years ago, also look forward to the establishment of a third temple as one of the final milestones along the road to fulfillment of end-time prophecy. Why is this?

By these Christians, being mainly adherents to Dispensationalism who look forward to being raptured prior to the second coming of Christ, the event will be welcomed as an omen signaling their impending escape from this world, even as they believe it will also mark the rise to power of the Antichrist whom the Jews will initially accept as a false messiah and then suffer horribly under during the time of tribulation.

One can't help but wonder whether very many in Israel really understand the mindset and motives behind the support that has been offered by these Christians over the years for the restoration of their nation and the reestablishment of the temple. On the other hand, it might be expected that they have little concern for what they regard as Christian superstition.

Many of these Christians insist that Revelation 11:1-2 referred to a physical temple in Jerusalem in the last days, rather than the Body of Christ (the true temple of God, according to 1 Corinthians 3:16), because John was asked in his vision to rise and measure the temple of God and all that worship within it:

"And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months"

This attribution of significance to a physical temple in Jerusalem in a Christian prophecy about the return of Christ is baffling because ―regardless whether that temple might be built― those who would worship in it would not be his followers.

Why would Jesus have asked John to quantify the worshippers in a Jewish temple who, by definition, are those who reject him as Messiah, as though they comprised a group that was sacred to the exclusion of those outside? The notion squarely contradicts Christian soteriological doctrine. It is much more sensible to think that the Body of Christ was meant. After all, in his time, John would not have had a separate word for a church building as distinct from a temple, because the former did not yet exist as such; both being houses of worship.

It will later be shown here that the forty-two months mentioned in the passage would turn out to be a period when pagandom (under the Antichrist Beast) trampled on the boundaries of Christianity, not of Judaism. It is prudent to remember Jesus' own declaration to Jerusalem, before we imagine it playing a preeminent role in biblical end-times prophecy:

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling! Look, your house is left to you desolate. And I tell you that you will not see Me again until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord' "

Luke 13:34-35

C:\Users\Ayn Czubas\Desktop\Desktop Files\Bible Study\Jews_at_Western_Wall_by_Felix_Bonfils,_1870s.jpgJews_at_Western_Wall_by_Felix_Bonfils,_1870s

Jews at the Western Wall, 1870s. Félix Bonfils, Albumen silver print 6

Has the image of multitudes praying into a wall for so many generations become so normalized that the tragic irony of it is now lost on us?

Daniel's Prophecy of Seventy Weeks

N

onetheless, the active interest of many Christians in the progress of Jewish third-temple affairs has been spurred on by a particular interpretation of the prophecy of seventy-weeks recorded in Daniel 9:24-27. This prophecy was relayed by the angel, Gabriel, in answer to Daniel's prayer wherein he plead on Israel's behalf for God's forgiveness for its having strayed from the path of righteousness in his own day.

Gabriel's answer indicated that God would grant Israel a finite period of probation during which to bring itself back into compliance with God's laws and atone for its sins, by the end of which to properly acknowledge the Messiah.

That time period commenced with "the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem":

"Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.

And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations* he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate"

Daniel 9:24-27, KJV

* An incorrect translation of this clause, as will be explained further on.

Given that there is some disagreement among Bible translations and, so, among believers, as to the meaning of "anoint the most Holy" in Daniel 9:24, let us look at the underlying Hebrew words:

Although this term, "Holy of Holies, or Most Holy", in scripture did often refer to the inner sanctum of the Jewish temple, which was set apart for the priests, its meaning is not inherently so definite: it simply denotes that which is most sacred, and we must rely on its context to know what it specifically referred to.

Fortunately, as is so often the case, scripture serves to clarify its own meaning: In the next verse, 9:25, the term Messiah (the Anglicized Hebrew word מָשִׁ֣יחַ, mā·šî·aḥ) is a masculine singular adjective used as a noun that literally translates to the Anointed One. This makes it clear that, in verse 24, the referenced object of the anointing was not a place, i.e. not the temple, but rather the Messiah himself. Notable Bible commentators tend to concur on this point, including Ellicott, Benson, Poole and Gill. 8

Now, it is generally accepted among Christians that Daniel's prophecy applied the year-for-a-day principle, which considers each day mentioned in the prophecy as symbolic of one year in earthly terms. Based on this count, the combined "seven weeks and three-score (i.e. seven weeks and sixty) and two weeks, totaling the first sixty-nine weeks, or 483 days, actually signifies a 483-year period from the issuance of the decree to restore and build Jerusalem unto the Messiah, the Prince which we can literally take to mean until the arrival of the Messiah".

Below is a graphic representation of how the timeline of Daniel's seventy weeks is generally conceived of by Christians who hold a Dispensational view and typically also expect a pre-tribulation rapture. Actually, these believers comprise only one group within a broader category of Christians who, irrespective of variant opinions on the timing of the rapture, regard Daniel's seventieth week (which is, indeed, seven years) as being the same or substantially overlapping with the period of tribulation that will immediately precede Christ's second coming and could be called 70th-week tribulationists.

70-WEEKS DISPENS CHART

The most perplexing aspect of this timeline to those who are unfamiliar with the reason for it is the massive interlude between the sixty-ninth and seventieth week, which for those will be explained shortly.

The view proposed in this book also happens to be a premillennial one, as the Book of Revelation stated that there will be a thousand-year kingdom established, on this earth (5:10; 20:9), upon the return of Christ, over which he will reign with certain believers as his co-regents (20:4,6). There is no compelling reason found in scripture to allegorize or spiritualize these particular statements or to place that thousand-year period within any other time-frame than was plainly stated ―between Christ's second coming and the time of final judgment.

However, as you may have surmised by this point, the eschatological view that will be presented in this book does not agree with the timeline illustrated above. Nor does it agree with the notion that the rapture will take place prior to the onset of tribulation; not because any particular denominational doctrine says that it will not, but for the simple reason that it would be literally impossible in light of what the Bible has told us. Ample scriptural and logical proof for this position, and much more than is held up in support of an opposing one, will be set out in detail here.

Indeed, a few commands and concessions aimed at restoration and rebuilding in Jerusalem are known to have been given by Persian kings who sought to get in the good graces of the mighty God of Israel; the first of which (according to secular chronology) may have been a few years before, and the rest were significantly after, Daniel's time of writing.

The Persian king, Cyrus, is popularly believed to have decreed the return of the Judahites to Judah and the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem ca. 539/536 B.C. However, based on the estimated time of writing of the Book of Daniel as having been around 530 B.C., Cyrus' edict would more likely have been recent history to Daniel than a future event.

Even if that was so, the grammar of the underlying Hebrew for "from the going forth of the commandment", much like that of its English translation, did not necessarily place the time of issuance of the commandment in Daniel's future as it did the subsequent events it mentioned. The text does seem to leave room for the possibility that the commandment (or this part of it, as elaborated further below) had already been issued at the time of Daniel's writing and therefore served as a common point of time reference between the angel and Daniel.

So, Cyrus' edict cannot be ruled out as the referenced commandment solely on the basis that it might have been issued prior to Daniel's prophecy. Even so, the terms of Cyrus' edict did not fully meet the description of the command to restore and rebuild the city of Jerusalem, as the rebuilding that Cyrus decreed was only of the temple.

The temple was finally completed with the support of King Darius, in the sixth year of his reign (Ezra 6:15), ca. 516 B.C., as he honored Cyrus' edict and provided goods for the temple and security for its construction project by declaring the death penalty for any who might have obstructed its progress.

There were still two later concessions made by the Persian royal house having related purposes, both of which were made by the King called Artaxerxes I (the son of Xerxes) who reigned from 465 to 424 B.C.

Artaxerxes' first such concession was in the seventh year of his reign, according to Ezra 7:11-26. His letter to Ezra outlined a formal decree wherein he granted permission for any of the people of Israel within his realm to voluntarily return to Jerusalem along with Ezra and pledged considerable gifts of precious metals, livestock for sacrifices, foodstuffs and other provisions, the right to ask and receive any freely-given donations from his citizenry, and any other services needed for the benefit of the temple. That decree was issued about 458/457 B.C.

Artaxerxes' second goodwill gesture in the twentieth year of his reign, as recorded in Nehemiah 2, was made when he granted Nehemiah's request to be sent "unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers' sepulchres, that I may build it" (Nehemiah 2:5). The king also sent letters to governors of territories along the way to ensure Nehemiah's safe passage through the kingdom and authorized the donation of the needed building timber from the King's forest. This concession is believed to have been made around 445/444 B.C.

This second gesture of Artaxerxes was the only one of these kings' concessions which scripture indicates actually pertained to rebuilding the city of Jerusalem. On the other hand, the initiative to restore the people to Jerusalem (or vice versa, if you prefer) began with the original edict of Cyrus.

Due to these discrepancies, much debate has been stirred up over exactly which of these Kings' decrees or concessions was the commandment that began the countdown of the 483 years until the appearance of the Messiah. Many stand firmly on 458/457 B.C. while most insist that it was 445/444 B.C. Before being drawn in and