Thank you for your post/reply/comment:
FWIW, short and simple about matters is not always possible.
You wrote: The issue is not whether those verses are true, but whether they teach a two-stage coming of Christ. The early Church always taught one Parousia…
As a person commented earlier, the belief a gathering/calling out to the Messiah was a matter of belief and discussion in Judaism. Paul wrote,
1 Corinthians 1:1-2 Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, (2) Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:
1 Corinthians 15:51-53 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, (52) In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. (53) For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
1Th_1:1 Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
2Th_1:1 Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
Ephesians 2:12-20 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: (13) But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. (14) For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; (15) Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; (16) And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: (17) And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. (18) For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. (19) Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; (20) And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
Why the verses? Just referencing that Paul was writing/speaking to the churches. Now if a person believes that the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ or what Paul calls “my gospel” then – and it will be arguably with some – he is talking and believes that a person who is born again during the age of the church, is a person who is placed in the body of Christ. That occurs at the new birth, immediately at the time the person is born again. That person now has the reality of eternal security (“perseverance of the saints”) and eternal life.
If a person has such a promise/reality/gift then what happens during the tribulation when with fear of loss of life or the hurt of their loved ones they take the mark of the beast? God’s word says those are cast into the lake of fire. So they are ripped out of the body of Christ? They never were eternally secure? They really didn’t have eternal life?
No – that can be. God is not going to put His only begotten Son through any further pain and damage. His sacrifice is complete. No, God is not going to rip a saint/member out of the body of Christ. Ok, so God lied. NO!! Then what? A translation of the born again, which are members in the body of Christ allows for the integrity of God’s word and doctrine.
Now someone may say Paul was writing prior to John writing the Book of Revelation (AD 96) and that would be true. But Paul doesn’t need the fact of the mark of the beast and so on for a person to lose salvation, he can look at one’s own works each and every day – and even those who say they don’t believe anymore. He believed in eternally secure, eternal life. We know Paul was a devout Pharisee so it safe to believe he believed in the argued Jewish doctrine of a gathering of the Jews with the Messiah. So to my understanding he believed in a church/born again translation that was to occur prior to God’s judgement on the lost and Israel specifically.
2Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
So yes, Paul believed in the rapture/translation of the church/born again. “…wherefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thessalonians 4:18
1 Thessalonians 5:9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
Romans 5:9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
You wrote: Yes, Enoch is a foreshadowing of resurrection and life. But no Father of the Church ever used him as a type of a pre-trib rapture. He was taken up because he pleased God, not to establish a two-stage return of Christ.
Why couldn’t God do both? When Paul was in the desert being taught by the Lord Jesus Christ don’t u believe God taught him with types? Take for example Sara and Hagar and how Paul gave light to those and us using types when writing about the two covenants. You see Peter using types from the OT to show light when he is writing about the “living stone” and “chief cornerstone” or when he referred to “the like figure” in 2 Peter 3:21. Why wouldn’t Enoch being a type of something that God hid (a mystery) until the age of the church have been determined by God who knows everything as a tool/type the He would shed light on about when the time was right?
You wrote: That interpretation is not found in any of the early Church Fathers. Revelation 4:1 describes John being taken up “in the Spirit” to receive a vision. The text does not say the Church disappeared from earth. In the following chapters the Church is still present, described as “saints” and “those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus”.
You wrote: That framework is not in Paul, John, or the Fathers. It first appears with Darby in the 19th century.
But if it was not a teaching of what you reference as the church fathers, I do not know. But I do know this, that these so-called early church fathers are people that introduced many wrong vocabulary and doctrines into the church age. And from these is then what is the Roman Catholic Church and Greek Orthodox Church. Roman CC) is what people consider Christianity and yet it is also this “church” that has for centuries killed the people who believed as I do. It is them that have wrote the “church” history which considered people like me as a heretic. It was their preachers who were murdered. Their writings burned. How much evidence of what my post is about was destroyed by them? I am sure a lot.
Let’s say for the sake of argument that you are correct, the translation of the saints before the start of the tribulation is a teaching that came from the studying of Mr. Darby. So what? Do you not agree that Martin Luther had “more light” than the so referenced early church fathers? Calvin – the murderer, ditto. You don’t think God is at work in the body of Christ and can, does and will give light on the bible as one study and prays for light? Hmm, I bet a study of the hymns of the church would shed interesting light on this topic.
Hope, Levity and Wonder 