Welcome to Episode #188 of the Way of the Bible podcast. This is our fourth of eight episodes in our Twenty-Fourth mini-series entitled The Return of Jesus Christ [3]. On today’s episode, we will continue expanding upon the greatest news for the church, the Great Snatching Away, harpazo/rapture, the resurrection/translation of the bride of Christ.
We’ll start with a quick context reminder and then hit our lesson for today, which will be the second half of 1 Corinthians 15. But before then, why the harpazo/rapio, the great snatching away? The reason for the great snatching away in the Bible is to remove the church from the world before God judges the world with great tribulations and wrath. We will address that near the end of this mini-series.
What I am teaching is not new. It is the Biblical view of the gospel, epistle, and letter writers of the New Testament as directed to be written by the Holy Spirit of God. It was not revealed in the Old Testament but was given by revelation to the Apostles who taught it to their disciples in the early church. Jesus was expected to return at any time with no prerequisite signs of his return to gather the church to himself. Jesus taught this to his disciples in the Upper Room the night he was betrayed.
John 14:1-3 – Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
Jesus tells of the immediacy of his return to Peter after he restored Peter over a fish breakfast with several other disciples. After restoring Peter, Jesus took him for a walk and told him what kind of death he [Peter] was going to die. John was trailing behind them and when Peter took notice of him he asked Jesus about John.
John 22:21-23 – When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?” 22 Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” 23 Because of this, the rumor spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?”
What we need to know for today’s episode from these two passages is that Jesus taught his disciples he was coming back to take them where he was going; and that his coming back could be as early as within John’s lifetime. There was nothing that had to happen prophetically to keep Jesus from coming back at any moment. That includes today, while I am sitting on my back porch writing this episode. Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus even Now! Why is this important?
Three hundred years went by and Jesus didn’t return. In 313 AD, Constantine the Great, the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, issued the Edict of Milan, which granted legal tolerance to Christians. Over time, Christianity was made the official religion of Rome resulting in the Roman Empire became Christianized. It was soon after that the Biblical teaching in the book of Revelation that Jesus was going to judge the world with wrath, return on the Day of the Lord, and establish his own kingdom on earth was taught to be allegory and metaphor and not to be taken literally. There was only one king/ruler of the earth and that person in the Roman empire was the emperor. This mystical understanding of the book of Revelation has continued to be taught even today in many if not most Christian denominations.
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