Kurt Willems writes a post entitled “Why the Rapture isn’t Biblical … And Why it Matters at Patheos.” He has adamantly repudiated what he was taught at church as a child and is also disturbed by the success of the Left Behind series (65 million have been sold). I’m sure the new 2023 Left Behind movie only adds to his frustration.
Kurt Willems (M.Div., Fresno Pacific) is the founding pastor of Pangea Communities - a movement of peace, justice, & hope. The church plant, in partnership with the Brethren in Christ and Urban Expression, is based in Seattle, Wa. Kurt writes at The Pangea Blog
I want to respond to what I think are his two strongest rebuttals of the Rapture. His other arguments are restatements of N. T. Wright’s article in the Bible Review.
His first argument contends that the Rapture of the church is out of harmony with the entire narrative of Scripture:
You see, the Bible flows from Creation (Gen 1-2) to Renewed Creation (Rev 21-22). This is the narrative of Scripture. Nothing in the text (if read in its proper context) alludes to the actual complete destruction of the planet. This world’s worth to the Creator runs deep and because of this, the world as a whole ought to be intrinsically valuable to us.
My response is that God has already disrupted this alleged narrative flow with the flood of Genesis 6-8. I know Kurt’s response is that the Flood was only local and not universal. The description of the consequences of the flood of Genesis 7:23, for example, is not local: “Every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive and they that were with him in the area.”
It also appears that Peter writing inspired Scripture also interpreted the flood as universal and that in the future God will once again disrupt the flow of narrative with the complete destruction of the planet not with water but with fire: “Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished (sounds universal): But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day” (2 Peter 3:7).
Kurt’s second argument focuses on the word Paul uses in the classic Rapture passage in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. The word “air” in 4:17. Kurt says that “air” is used only of the lower atmospheric region. Paul could have used the word “heaven” had he meant a rapture of believers to heaven. Here is Kurt’s statement on the significance of these two words:
It seems that the difference between these two words will prove to be significant. The word in the 1 Thessalonians text indicates the “air” of the “lower” region as opposed to the “heavens” as οὐρανός can also be translated (heavens – 24x, heavenly – 1, heaven – 218). In other words, Paul had an option to use either of the words to talk about the “air” but he chose to use the word that refers mostly to the lower atmospheric region.
My response is apparently, if Paul had meant the rapture of believers he would have used the word for heaven instead of the word “air.” The problem is that the word “heaven” has a wide semantic range of meanings including the same as “air.”
According to Louw-Nida, the “heavens” as οὐρανός can mean “sky.” Here is Louw-Nida’s definition of “heavens”: In some contexts οὐρανόςa ‘sky’ designates areas which in other languages are referred to by terms specifying only a part of the area above the earth. For example, a literal translation of ἐμβλέψατε εἰς τὰ πετεινὰ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ‘look at the birds of the sky’ (Mt 6:26) would in some languages refer only to those birds which fly particularly high in the sky, for example, eagles, vultures, and falcons.
This is a straw man argument.
Here is Paul’s description of the Rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven (the word “heaven” here is interchangeable with “clouds” and “air” in this passage) with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and then with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” So the Lord will come to the first heaven which is the heaven of clouds and take us to the third heaven where God dwells.
Kurt believes at the coming of the Lord only the dead are resurrected and like N. T. Wright, the living are transformed as well as the planet. The normal sense of meaning would take the words “caught up” to mean more than just transformed. This word is used to describe the effect on Philip after he had won and baptized the eunuch: “And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more” (Acts 8:39). If Philip had just been transformed then Philip would still have been in the eunuch’s presence. But Philip was caught away just like the church will be raptured when the Lord comes for His Bride.
Both Kurt and N. T. Wright reject the Rapture of the church. Kurt restates some of the arguments of Wright’s article Farewell to the Rapture in the Bible review, August 2001.
In this article, N. T. Wright says “Jesus himself, as I have argued in various books, never predicted such an event.” My response to Wright: The earliest statement on the Rapture is stated by Christ to his discouraged disciples in His Farewell Address in John 14:1-3: “Let not your hearts be troubled: you believe in God believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am there you may be also.”
Paul’s description of Jesus’ reappearance in 1 Thessalonians 4 is a brightly colored version of what he says in two other passages, 1 Corinthians 15:51-54 and Philippians 3:20-21: At Jesus’ “coming” or “appearing,” those who are still alive will be “changed” or “transformed” so that their mortal bodies will become incorruptible, deathless.