“But even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed! As we have said before, so now I repeat, if anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be accursed!” (Gal 1:8-9 NRSV-CE).
The apostle Paul cursed all those who preach a false gospel, be they men or angels (Gal 1:8-9). One such false gospel is the doctrine of premillennialism in all of its forms and varieties. And one of the foundations of premillennialism is the doctrine of the Rapture, a fictional event which has been forcefully inserted into the scriptures; it is the first of TWO returns of Christ. The Rapture initiates the taking up of the Church into heaven (1 Thess 4:14-17), and the restarting of the fictional prophetic clock, which paused for Israel when they rejected Christ nationally (Matt 27:25).
This restart precedes another fictional event, the future Great Tribulation (Matt 24:21, 29), or “time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jer 30:7), a period of seven years (Dan 9:25-27). Mid-way through this Tribulation the future fictional antichrist or “man of sin” (2 Thess 2:3-10) will turn on Israel and unleash a time of great tribulation upon the nation (Rev Chs 5 to 20). Christ will return with a heavenly army and cast the beast and the false prophet into the lake of fire, along with their followers.
Satan will be imprisoned for the period of the Millennium (Rev 20:1-4), during which time Jesus will reign over a fictional world empire centred in Jerusalem and, at the beginning of this period, the Mosaic law will be re-established, and the Levitical priesthood and a full-blown sacrificial system in a fictional future temple will be reinstituted (Ezek chs 40-48); thus the fictional prophetic clock will begin ticking from the point where it left off when Israel rejected Jesus and had him crucified, and will continue through the Millennium. At the end of the Millennium Satan will bring together all the unbelievers to fight against Christ and the saints but will be defeated at the battle of Armageddon, and Israel will be taken up to be with Christ forever.
This complicated compartmentalised eschatological system of several dispensations has come about because of a modern and wrong application of prophecies made to Israel by the Old Testament prophets, and consequently a misunderstanding of Israel and the Church. The apostle St. Peter shows how all the titles and terms used for Israel have now been transferred to the Church (1 Pet 2:1-10) because God has rejected Israel and given their sonship status to the Church (Matt 21:33-43 and Matt 22:2-7; Eph chs 2 and 3).
The Church is thus known as the new Israel and is the fulfilment of the prophecies made to Israel in the OT. This is confirmed in Hebrews chs 8-10 where God abrogated the old covenant with its animal sacrifices and replaced it with a new covenant based on the once-for-all sacrifice offered up by Jesus. And Jesus’ priesthood is the permanent replacement of the Levitical priesthood: “You are a priest for ever” (Heb 7:21). The Levitical priesthood is no more. It is gone forever, along with the whole Old Covenant. Hebrews clearly says that the Old Covenant was temporary and insufficient to satisfy for sins, and that the New Covenant is permanent.
Jesus’ timeline of the last things
Jesus himself gave a concise timeline, in two parables, of what will happen at the end of time. He repeated it so that there can be no confusion. In his timeline there is no room for the Rapture, the Great Tribulation, or the Millennium – these fictitious events are doctrines imagined by men, manufactured by wrong application of various bible passages. It is only when we consider what Jesus taught that we can see why they are so bizarre, and amount to a false gospel which is foreign to the true Gospel of Jesus Christ and his once-for-all sacrifice on behalf of sinners.
In Matthew chapter 13, Jesus gave what are commonly called Parables of the Kingdom. The two of these parables which give a timeline for the end of time are those of the Wheat and the Weeds (Matt 13:24 and its interpretation in vv36-43); and of the Dragnet (Matt 13:13:47-52).
In the parable of the Wheat and the Weeds, Jesus gave the parable which was symbolism for the end-time. Later, when his disciples asked him to explain it to them, he gave the timeline in a nutshell. The Sower of the seeds is Jesus, and the wheat are believers in him and in the Gospel; the weeds are unbelievers; the enemy who sowed the weeds is Satan; the harvest is the end of the world and of time, and the reapers are the angels. The unbelievers will be gathered and cast into the fire of hell: “The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers,and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!” (Matt 13:41-43).
The parable of the Dragnet tells the same story, a repeat of the same theme, using a different analogy: “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind;when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt 13:47-50).
The apostle Paul elaborates on Jesus’ sending forth his angels (see 1 Thess 4:13-17) in which he describes the return of Jesus in great glory and power. This passage has been hijacked by Premillennialists to teach the Rapture, a future event at least a thousand years before Jesus returns to make all things right. However, rather than it being Stage One of Jesus’ return, as Premillennialists wistfully imagine, it is a single event foretold by Jesus which will end time and usher in the biblical new age (not the occultic New Age of our present time). Paul gave Timothy a vital instruction: “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you…” (2 Tim 4:1). The correct interpretation of this text is that it fixes the great Day of Judgment as occurring at the time of Jesus’ appearing.
As Paul states it here, it will be an event awesome in the truest and fullest sense of the word, and vast in its proportion, as it will be seen by the whole world all at once. It will be no secret, invisible, silent Rapture, an event in which the whole Church will be whisked away, and when those who are “left behind” will wake up on the morning after the event and wonder where all the Christians went. Christ himself will descend with a shout; a shout which will shake the earth and wake even the dead! The archangel will blow the trumpet of God and this, too, will shake the world and every person in it. It will be the final event in time, an event that strikes sheer terror into the hearts of the wicked (i.e. those who refused to believe in Jesus); but believers will be thrilling with joy and excitement as they see their beloved Saviour come to deliver them from “the whole world lies under the power of the wicked one” (1 Jn 5:19); and, “For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first” (1 Thess 4:16). This is in precise agreement with Jesus’ description in Matthew 13. It is not the Rapture of Premillennialism; it is the end of time. Paul elsewhere describes it as: “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed” (1 Cor 15:52).
Where, in either Jesus’ or Paul’s accounts, do we find the Great Tribulation or the millennial reign of Jesus? They are not there and cannot be fitted anywhere there. They are human inventions which, like a spell, have enchanted untold numbers of Christians ever since they were introduced by false teachers Edward Irving and John Nelson Darby, and popularised by the liar Cyrus Ingerson Scofield and his lying Study Bible. And it was revitalised and perpetuated by Hal Lindsey in his lying book “The Late Great Planet Earth”. The Premillennial fiction received a massive blood transfusion and took off like a rocket. It became an instant best seller as millions of untaught, gullible, lazy-minded Christians swallowed the lie hook, line, and sinker. Even a film was made about it.
After a couple more generations, Tim LaHaye saw the fiction fading, and the financial potential in the market for this kind of pulp fiction; so, in collaboration with Larry B. Jenkins, wrote his notorious, lying “Left Behind” series. These perpetuated the deception and LaHaye and Jenkins became rich from the sale of the endless number of their lying books on the subject.
As for the passage in Matthew 24:38-41, where “two will be in the field; the one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal; one will be taken and one will be left” – the simple and biblical explanation, as given by Jesus, is that the world will be engaged in its usual everyday activities – “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage”, when Christ and his angels will come unexpectedly; and then the vessels of mercy prepared for glory, the wheat, will be caught up together with him, and the vessels prepared for wrath, the weeds, will be gathered by the angels and cast into the lake of fire.
Premillennialism, with its unique Rapture and Great Tribulation misinterpretations of Scripture, is a false gospel which abrogates the finished work of Christ, nullifies the New Covenant, negates the priesthood of Christ by returning Israel to the Levitical priesthood with its priestly garments, reintroduces temple sacrifices, has Jesus returning to the earth twice instead of the one single time he promised, and a host of other problems and unbiblical notions, all of which give Jew and Gentile sinners false expectation and false hope. Rightly does the apostle Paul condemn and curse it.