Hans Memling’s final judgment
The prophecy that became popular in Tiktok predicts that Jesus Christ will come down to earth this week to take the faithful with them.
It is believed that the end of the world is close, so it really needs to know what the rapture is. Simplifying, the rapture is the belief that, at any time, Jesus Christ will come down from heaven and “snatch” to heaven All those who truly believe in Him. Those of among the faithful who have already died will be resurrected and will also be moved to the sky.
Evangelical Christians in Tiktok have predicted that the rapture happen this week. A viral video of a South African evangelical pastor predicted that the dreaded prophecy was materialized on September 23 or 24, and if you are reading this news, it’s already a sign that the world, after all, is not over on Tuesday.
When the rapture happens, believers think that the rest of us will be left behind, not knowing where there were many of those we know. For this reason, it is often known as “Theology of the left behind“.
For the followers of the theology of the left behind the conservative evangelical Protestantism, significant parts of the Bible-the books of Revelation and Daniel in particular-refer to events that are still happening at the end of the world. These are the return of Christ, the resurrection of the dead and the God’s final judgment on all humanitybetween the saved and the condemned.
But for the particular rapture, the first book of the Thessalonians (4,16-17) in the New Testament is the crucial text:
For the Lord Himself, given the order, and to the sound of the archangel, and to the sound of the trumpet of God, will come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ shall be raised first. Then we, the living, those who stay, We will be raptured in the clouds together with them, to meet the Lord in the air; And so we will be with the Lord forever.
Tribulation
The rapture is the first of two ideas that left behind theology added to the traditional Christian history of the end of the world. The second is the tribulation.
According to most theologians left behind, the rapture will be followed by a period of seven years of tribulation on Earthbased on some complicated calculations around the text of Daniel 9: 24-27.
This is the was from antichristthe son of Satan – a human figure who will soon be revealed.
It will be a global land ruler, opposed to Christ and pretends to be Him. It is he who is called in the Bible “The beast that rises from the sea with ten horns and seven heads”(Revelation 13.1),“ The Small Horn ”(Daniel 7: 8) and“ The Wicker ”(2 Thessalonians 2: 3), whose number is 666 (Revelation 13:18).
Christians who have been taken to heaven are immune to these seven years of natural disasters, wars, hunger and persecution of the antichrist.
The Kingdom on Earth
After the seven years of the tribulation, Christ will return with his saints to combat and defeat Satan, the Antichrist and his strength in the battle of Armageddon.
Most followers of theology left believe that Christ will then establish your kingdom on earth and will reign in Jerusalem during a millennium. He will rule the earth with his Christian followers, along with the Jews who recognized Christ as the Messiah during the period of tribulation.
The eventual conversion of Jews during this period explains, at least in part, the commitment and support of many Protestant evangelical Christians to the continuation of the State of Israel until the tribulation periodwhen the Jews convert to Christianity.
At the end of the thousand years, Satan will be released and There will be a final rebellionbut short, against God, after which Satan will be defeated. Then God will judge everyone as to eternal happiness in heaven or eternal misery in hell.
A relatively recent innovation
In the history of Christian thinking, the idea of rapture before tribulation is a relatively recent innovation.
We can gather it from the 1830s and Anglican theology John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), a member of the Protestant brothers of Plymouth and founder of the group still known as Exclusive Brothers. But it was popularized in the United States Protestant Circles for its inclusion in the SCOFIELD reference Bible notes in 1909.
The Bible of Ci Scofield (1843-1921) was the main source for the idea of rapture until “The Last Great Planet Earth“By Hal Lindsey (1929-2024), in 1970, a work that sold over 28 million copies and was translated into 54 languages.“ Someday, ”said Lindsey,
A day that only God knows that it will come to take all those who believe in Him. He will come to meet all true believers in the air. Without the benefit of science, spatial facts or interplanetary rockets, there will be those who will be transported to a glorious placemore beautiful and more impressive than we can understand.
But it was Tim Lahaye’s and Jerry B. Jenkins’s Book series Left behind (1995–2007), with over 65 million books sold, along with his movie series, which most popularized the idea of rapture and tribulation followed by him.
For many of us, the world looks like a place of tribulation. “It’s all in pieces, all coherence has disappeared,” as John Donne (1572-1631) said.
The idea of the rapture seems to reflect the utopian dream of many that can be translated from this land to a better placeuntil they can return to a world of justice, compassion and decency that seems so absent from today’s world.
