The History of a Heresy, Part 4: The 'Secret' Rapture

Up to this point in our history of the pre-tribulation Rapture, we have looked at the development of imminency, and of the 'split' coming of Christ.

Enter Margaret McDonald (1800- ?). At the age of 15, Margaret was a member of the Catholic Apostolic Church which was pastored by Edward Irving.

At this time, she had a vision of a ‘secret rapture.’ This was in 1830. In her handwritten account, she wrote: “…I saw it was just the Lord himself descending from Heaven with a shout, just the glorified man, even Jesus;…I saw the error to be, that men think that it will be something seen by the natural eye, but ‘tis spiritual discernment that is needed,…”

This doctrine of devils was the first time in prophetic history that it was said that Christ would NOT return gloriously and in his visible humanity.

Margaret’s pastor, Edward Irving (1792-1834) was a Presbyterian until he pulled out of this state church and formed a new movement (the Catholic Apostolic Church) emphasizing a return to New Testament spiritual gifts. He is known as the Father of Pentecostalism because he had in his church at this time a ‘restoration’ of prophecy, tongues, and other manifestations.

Irving had translated De Lacunza’s work from Spanish into English in 1827. (De Lacunza was the Jesuit priest who wrote under a Jewish alias.) While translating De Lacunza’s book, Irving would have read of splitting the Second Coming into two returns. It was shortly after this that he began to put forth this same idea which many objected to.

Irving’s pre-tribulation position was also greatly influenced by the vision of the 15-year old Margaret.

He wrote: “The substance of Mary Campbell’s and Margaret Macdonald’s visions or revelations, given in their papers, carry me to a spiritual conviction and a spiritual reproof that I cannot express.”

We now have THREE elements necessary for a pre-tribulation Rapture:

1. The Doctrine of Imminency – Rooted in Catholic allegory

2. A split Second Coming of Christ – Conceived by a Jesuit priest

3. A secret coming of Christ for His saints – Seen in a vision by a 15-year old Charismatic Catholic

But something is still lacking.

The History of a Heresy, Part 3: The Jesuit Connection

The Catholic Church had some of her Jesuits write on the subject of eschatology as part of the Counter Reformation.

These Jesuits wrote that the Antichrist’s rule would last a literal 1,260 days, not an allegorized 1,260 years. Since this 3 1/2 year reign had not yet happened, the reign of the Antichrist must still be in the future. (This turned out to be true, but that’s not why they wrote it; they only wrote it to take the ‘heat’ off the Catholic Church.)

Francisco Ribera (1537-1591) was a Spanish Jesuit, a doctor of theology who wrote a 500 page commentary on the Book of Revelation. His commentary placed the Tribulation at an unknown future date. And, he also agreed with the early Christian writers that the Church would be persecuted for a literal 3 1/2 years.

However, to these truths, he also added something -- time.

The Lord Jesus, Paul, and the early Church had all stated that the Rapture would occur AT the Revelation, as a single event. The Lord would descend from heaven to the earth’s atmosphere, call up his Church to the clouds, and then continue to the earth to fight against his enemies. Ribera stated that the Rapture would occur 45 days before the end of the Tribulation. The Church would ascend 45 days before she came back down with Christ.

This is the first known instance where the Second Coming was split into two separate comings! And it was conceived of by a Jesuit priest.

Manuel De Lacunza (1731-1801) was born in Chili. At the age of 15, he was sent to Spain to become a Jesuit Priest. Twenty-two years later (1767), the Jesuits were expelled from Spain because of their brutality. De Lacunza settled down in Imola, Italy, where he claimed to be a converted Jew and wrote under the alias ‘Rabbi Ben Ezra.’

The manuscript that he wrote was titled, The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty. In 1812, he published a book in which he theorized that the church would be raptured some 45 days before the real return of Jesus to the earth. (He was probably influenced by Ribera.) He also theorized that during this same 45 day period, while the Church was in heaven with the Lord, God would judge the wicked still on earth.

Because of his Jewish alias, his book was more easily accepted by Protestant scholars. When it was placed on Rome’s Index of prohibited books, it was even more sought out by Protestants.

Let's see where we are so far.

We now have two elements necessary for a pre-tribulation Rapture:

1. The Doctrine of Imminency - which is rooted in the allegorical method of interpreting the Scriptures as first proposed by Origen and then later made by popular by the Catholic theologian Augustine.

2. A Split Second Coming of Christ - which is rooted in the teachings of two Catholic Jesuit priests.

And it will only get better!

The History of a Heresy, Part 2: Imminency Threatened

As stated in our last post, the doctrine of the imminent return of Christ was arrived at by a strange mix of two beliefs.

First, the early Church believed in a post-tribulation Rapture (the Man of Sin would be revealed before the Rapture, 2 Thess. 2:1-3). To this was added the false belief that the Antichrist had already arrived (they spiritualized the Bible to make the Pope and the Catholic Church into the Antichrist, and the many centuries of persecutions into the Tribulation). With the Antichrist already here, they reasoned, Christ could return at any moment.

The Imminent Return of Christ was born!

Here again is their logic:

The Post-Tribulation Rapture Position
+ The Antichrist has been Revealed Already

The Imminent Return of Christ

But then something else changed. With the resurgence of literal interpretation, biblical scholars realized that the Antichrist was NOT the Pope. They correctly placed the coming of the Antichrist and the Tribulation back into the unknown future. And the Church was left with a choice.

The Church could re-establish the correct belief that Christ would come for them AFTER the Antichrist was revealed, but if they did so they would lose the wonderful (though historically incorrect) doctrine that Christ could come for them at any moment.

The imminent return of Christ was in jeopardy of being discarded, and with it a very powerful motive for holiness—the fear of being caught in the act.

How could the Church save imminency? Perhaps the Second Advent could be divided up into two stages? The first being the Rapture (which could still happen at any moment) and the second being the Revelation (which is still in the correct post-tribulation position).

Let’s digress for a moment!

During these same Dark Ages (c. AD 1585), as already mentioned, many Christians believed that the Pope/Catholic Church was the Antichrist. This would not do at all, so the Catholic Church had some of her Jesuits write on the subject of eschatology or future things.

This was part of the Counter Reformation.

(Stay tuned, folks, it's about to get really good!)

The History of a Heresy, Part 1: The Establishment of Imminency

There are few sacred cows that are as beloved as the pre-trib Rapture. And I understand that what I'm writing here today is not taught in most churches today. But here we go anyway:

The development of the pre-tribulation Rapture is generally attributed to John Darby of the Plymouth Brethren, who formalized his theory around 1830. He was the first to formally theorize that Jesus would return in two stages: first, in a spiritual form to rapture the Church, and then in bodily form seven years later to judge the world. Up until Darby, the return of Christ was seen as a singular event -- Jesus would return to earth ONCE, to rapture his Church, to redeem lost Israel, and to judge the wicked and rebellious world.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Let’s remember that the book of Revelation was not written until 90 AD. Until that time, the early Church formulated its view of the end times based on the teachings of Jesus (the Olivet Discourse, etc.), and of Paul. This led to the early belief that the Rapture occurred at the Revelation.

But time passed, and after many years of persecution, many believers began to wonder if Jesus were coming back at all. By the fourth century, as persecutions continued, the Catholic theologian Augustine proposed something that the Church was ready to accept:

Perhaps the Second Coming, the Rapture, and the Day of the Lord were not to be taken literally after all.

Augustine proposed that perhaps the kingdom of God was not a literal kingdom, and perhaps there would be no physical, earthly millennial kingdom over which Christ would rule. Instead, perhaps the kingdom of God was spiritual, fulfilled in the hearts of faithful men. Perhaps the Millennium was already here, now, manifested as the Body of Christ in the Church Age in which we live. He taught that the sufferings of persecution were the (spiritualized) Tribulation and that the (spiritualized) Antichrist was behind these persecutions.

This is known as the allegorical method of interpretation. It spiritualizes the text. It avoids the common sense understanding of a text in favor of whatever the reader wishes to be there.

This teaching of Augustine’s was commonly held throughout the Dark Ages (AD 500-1000). During this time, the Scriptures were hardly read at all. When they were, they were spiritualized after the method of Origen and Augustine. Then during the Reformation in the 1500’s, the Church returned to extensive Bible study and a literal reading of the Scriptures. Initially, this return extended only to theological issues pertaining to doctrines such as faith, grace, and the atonement; eschatology remained where it had been left off—allegorized.

By the 1800’s, the scholarly community was ready to take all of the Scriptures literally again. Using the literal method, they rediscovered the literal reign of Christ during the Millennium, and the literal Tribulation period just prior to it. These scholars also discovered that the Antichrist had NOT as yet been revealed, and that the Tribulation had NOT as yet started.

To summarize: Up until to the 1800’s, the persecuted Church had correctly believed that the Rapture/Revelation occurred after the Antichrist was revealed and after the Tribulation. But they had also come to believe incorrectly that the Antichrist had been revealed already.

Therefore they reached the wrong conclusion that Christ could come at any moment.

This is known today as the imminent return of Christ.