The Difference between the Rapture and Second Coming

Andre, that's an interesting view, but I see no textual or literary support for reading what Paul wrote as a metaphor. It's written as a literal description. To read it as metaphor, one must assume metaphor. This is a letter to a church, at a time of persecution. I don't think metaphor is in view here at all and so it's best to read it literally.

 

Do you read the bolded statements literally? As written, they clearly state that eternal life is given based on works - how we have lived:

God "will give to each person according to what he has done."[a] 7To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. 9There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11For God does not show favoritism.
12All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.

 

Amen, Sister Marcia! And AMEN! to your testimony found on that page you cite.

 

All statements must be taken in context of the book and then the whole Bible; we know God does not contradict himself.

This is a red herring - you've raised another issue and this is not the issue we are discussing.

If you want to discuss this issue, start a thread on it!

 

Thanks, Ed, and thanks for reading it! :wavey:

 

That is absurd.


Eph 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
Eph 2:9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.



Christianity 101.

 

Well, I politely suggest it is you who needs to go to Christianity 101.....

The statement Paul makes in Ephesians 2:8-9 has nothing whatsoever to do with "doing good works". The context shows that he is talking about the works of the Law of Moses - the Torah, and not the more general category of good works. And that is good news, because if Paul were asserting that good works do not save, then he would be contradicting what he wrote in Romans 2.

Thankfully, though, Paul is entirely consistent. In Romans 2 he teaches that indeed the "good works" made manifest in the life of the believer will justify them at the end. And in Ephesians 2, he points out that doing the practices of Torah does not save.

He is nowhere denying that "good works" are salvific.

I am happy to make the actual about why "works" in Ephesians 2 must be read as "works of Torah".

 

Eph 2:9 Not 3756 of 1537 works 2041, lest 3363 any man 5100 should boast 2744 .


ἔργον Transliteration
ergon

Part of Speech
neuter noun

Root Word (Etymology)

from a primary (but obsolete) ergo (to work)

Outline of Biblical Usage 1) business, employment, that which any one is occupied

a) that which one undertakes to do, enterprise, undertaking

2) any product whatever, any thing accomplished by hand, art, industry, or mind

3) an act, deed, thing done: the idea of working is emphasised in opp. to that which is less than work


We are not save by works of any kind. We are saved by the grace of God, period.

 

The fact that you find a Bible definition that is in accord with your position does not demonstrate that your position is correct. It demonstrates that someone else agrees with you.

I am more than happy to make the case that in Ephesians 2, Paul is denying salvation by works of Torah, and is not denying that "good works" justify us - something he actually affirms in Romans 2.

It is actually a very easy case to make. If one is fair-minded about this question, one must be open to considering the case for both of the following positions:

1. Paul is talking about "good works" and how they do not justify;
2. Paul is talking about Torah and how doing its works does not justify.

The contextual evidence overwhelming affirms position number 2:

Here is what Paul says in the verses after the 2:8-10 block.

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called "uncircumcised" by those who call themselves "the circumcision" (that done in the body by the hands of men)— 12remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
14For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, 16and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit

Paul wants to drive home the point the true family of God contains both Jews and Gentiles - that membership in the family is not limited to those who practice Torah - the Jews. He is simply not even addressing, and therefore not denouncing, the idea that people can play some kind of a 'good works' role in their own justification. Paul is instead clearly concerned with the issue of the Jew-Gentile division (which, of course, is manifested through the ethnic specificity of Torah). He is not dealing with the issue of people try to earn their salvation through "good works".

And verse 15 is extremely telling in this regard - Paul is clearly talking about the prescriptions of Torah and how it has been abolished. It makes no sense at for Paul to have been talking about "good works" in the general sense (in 8-9), then have a "therefore" and then talk about the abolition of the ethnic specificity of the Torah.

He is talking about Torah in verses 8 and 9.

 

I did not give a Bible definition. I gave you the translation of the Greek. It says what is says. It is what it is.

We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. We cannot work our way to God, whether it is through works of the Torah or any other works. We cannot achieve the holiness of God apart from Christ. Our good works are evidence of our faith in Christ, that is all. They have no salvational merit.

 

I teach a couple of Bible classes at a local Christian school and use a lot of the Rose info for a study on cults. Good stuff.

 

Further arguments as to why Paul is not denying justification by "good works" in Ephesians 2, but is rather denying justification by doing the works of Torah. This is an important distinction and my position in no way denies that salvation is by grace, precisely because the works that are manifest in the life of the believer are the product of the Spirit, not of our own effort.

The material in Ephesians 2:11 and following is all about the Jew-Gentile divide - and that is demarcated by Torah, not by the "doing of good works". Paul is quite clear in Romans 3 that the Jew and the Gentile are equally lost when it comes to doing "good works" (without, of course, the gift of the Spirit).

This is the big problem with the reformed reading of "works". It requires us to scratch our heads and ask the following question: "Why is it that when Paul refers to "works" (taken as "good works"), it always appear in a context where the Jew-Gentile issue is in view?"

The answer is not to effectively assume that Paul is a sloppy wandering writer, it is to step back and realize that when Paul refers to "works" he is indeed referring to something that makes perfect sense in such contexts - namely Torah (the law of Moses).

 

Amen, Brother TaliOrlando -- Really true, Really Good Video.

I've studied that pretribulation Rapture from the Bible for many of my 58 years of being a Christian. I've been writing about it here on bulletin boards for 24 years. So I'm qualified to judge your Video - it is Fantastic.

Caveat: I'm looking at the video from the TRUTH value. I know that if Tali owned the Film Studios in Orlando, he could really make a bang-up vidio. But it was good enough to sell the truth he was selling.

 

I was trying to prevent the thread from being derailed, but I guess that was futile. So, in that case.....

Andre, Romans 2 is addressed to people who thought their good works could justify them. Paul is making an argument that continues through the rest of Romans.

Rom. 2 is part of the set-up -- "You can have eternal life if you are absolutely righteous." Then he goes on to show subsequently that no on is this righteous nor can they be; therefore, no one can be saved this way.

Rom. 1 and 2 are about accountability before God. Paul speaks to those who believe they are moral and to the Jews who think they can be justified by the law. Romans shows that no one can be justified either way because we are all sinners. You can't take part of a book out of context from the rest of the book or the rest of the NT. There were no chapters or verses in the Bible when it was written. Romans is one book.

Be upfront with us: do you believe man can be justified by his morality?

 

If you want, I can get off this side issue - I agree that the "works" issue is not what this thread is about. However, I will respond to what you have written in this post and then return to the rapture issue unless further challenged.

Agreed, but the standard take on Romans 2 is that Paul describes a path to justification that zero persons will take (a very odd thing to do indeed) and then, in chapter 3 and beyond, explains how it is that zero persons will indeed be justified that way. That argument has 2 glaring flaws.

First, in Romans 2, Paul gives us no reason at all to suppose that zero persons will be justified by the "good works" that their lives manifest. In fact, he emphasizes three times - people will be justified by the good works that are manifested in their lives. He never evenly remotely hints that he thinks zero people will meet such a standard - you have to read that in.

And, second, the argument for asserting that Paul intends us to understand that zero persons will be justified by "good works", is based on a misreading of Paul's denial of "justification by works". In each case, whether it be Romans 3 or Ephesians 3, the context clearly shows that he is talking about how the works of Torah do not justify. This is really quite clear in both Ephesians 2 and Romans 3.

So, we do not have to conclude that Paul is being obscure and misleading in Romans 2 (i.e. saying three times that there will be people saved by good works but intending the reader to understand that there are zero such persons) because his later denials of "justification by works" are really statements about the Torah, not the category of good works.

I am not sure why you need to ask me to be "upfront". But in any event, I have been crystal clear in both this post and others: The good works that indeed will justify us as Paul plainly asserts in Romans 2 are not the good works of the morally self-righteous. They are instead the works of the Holy Spirit, given purely by grace, to the person who does nothing more than place faith in Jesus.

And while Romans 3 does indeed assert that all are sinners, this is a description of the state of the person without the Spirit. Romans 3 is a timeline and the careful reader should note that the material in the first bit of chapter 3 - the stuff about all being sinners and incapable of being justified - occurs before this important statement:

21But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify

The Greek here for "now" is "in the present time. So indeed, without the action of Christ on the cross, no person can manifest the works needed to pass the Romans 2 judgement.

But God has acted in Christ and that incapacity has been removed through the gift of the Spirit.

 

It is really easy -- neither term is mentioned in the Bible - but both terms refer to the same thing. Christ said in John 14 "if I go away I will come again" - that is exactly what we see him doing in 1Thess 4 and Rev 19.

Matt 24 describes it in almost the same amount of detail as Rev 19-20.

Matt 24 says that AFTER the tribulation of those days they will see the sign of the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven - and he will "gather his elect" from the four corners of the earth.

It is really very simple. That is the rapture - and it is also the 2nd coming AND it is "after the tribulation" as Matt 24 says.

Bob

 

I have claimed in an earlier post that the scriptures do not teach a rapture of any kind - in the sense that any people will be "taken away from the earth to go to heaven". I have claimed that in the famous 1 Thess 4 text, Paul constructs an elaborate metaphor and never intends the reader to think that anybody will be snatched up in the air and taken away from the earth.

And this is not really surprising, Paul represents the final destination of resurrected man as being earth. If God really snatches people directly into heaven, He must then bring them back - a possible scenario perhaps, but it sounds a little odd. And as I think we can see, the 1 Thess 4 text is really metaphorical.

The first element of the metaphor is Moses coming down the mountain - the trumpet sounds and a loud verse is heard (these 2 elements are also in the 1 Thess 4 account - I do not think this is co-incidental, Paul knows his Old Testament) and then, after a long wait, Moses descends the mountain.

The second element of the metaphor is Daniel 7 in which the persecuted people of God are vindicated over their pagan enemy by being raised up on the clouds (note the parallel to the 1 Thess story) to sit with God in glory. This "raising up on the clouds" which Jesus applies to himself in the gospels is now applied by Paul to the Christians who are presently suffering persecution. Note these references from 1 Thess to the church under persecution:

(1:6) You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.

(2:14) you, brothers, became imitators of God's churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews,...

(3:3) that no one would be unsettled by these trials. You know quite well that we were destined for them.

The third element is the historical practice for people to respond to a visit from an emperor by going out to meet him at some distance from the city.

When Paul speaks of "meeting" the Lord "in the air", the point is precisely not - as in the popular rapture theology - that the saved believers would then stay up in the air somewhere, away from earth.

The point is that, having gone out to meet their returning Lord, they will escort him royally into his domain, that is back to the place they came from.

 

Martin Luther agreed with Paul: salvation is by faith in Messiah Jesus; salvation by works preached by James -- the book should not even be in the Bible. My preacher had an interesting idea: Paul and James were both right, Martin Luther is wrong. Paul is talking about how Salvation works with God: we believe Messiah, Jesus saved - it is a faith thing. James is talking about how Salvation works with the lost and our Christian Brothers: we do good works, others know we are changed and have been saved.

We are not saved by works; but saved to works.
We are saved by our works, but by the COMPLETED WORKS of Messiah Yeshua.
Jesus Saves!

 

amen, Brother TaliOrlando -- Preach it!