A Deeper Dive Into the Book of Revelation - Part 49
The last book of the Bible, the Revelation of Jesus Christ, was given to John the Apostle, as we are told in the very beginning of the book:
“This is the revelation of Jesus Christ [His unveiling of the divine mysteries], which God [the Father] gave to Him to show to His bond-servants (believers) the things which must soon take place [in their entirety]; and He sent and communicated it by His angel (divine messenger) to His bond-servant John who testified and gave supporting evidence to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to everything that he saw [in his visions].”—Revelation 1:1-2 (AMP)
It should be obvious, even to a child reading this, that John is a man who received this revelation from God. He is a literal man. He is not a metaphoric symbol representing something else.
But many prophecy teachers in the Church are deceiving people into believing that the entire Church will be caught up in a rapture before the Tribulation period.
When you ask them what they base those beliefs on, they will often point to Revelation 4:1-2, where John is caught up to the throne of God before the Tribulation starts.
“After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, ‘Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place after this.’ Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne.”—Revelation 4:1-2 (NKJV)
In this passage, those prophecy teachers claim that John represents the Church being caught up to Heaven when the last trumpet sounds. They claim that this proves that the Church will be in Heaven before the Tribulation begins.
There are many problems with this interpretation. First of all, John didn’t hear a trumpet. He heard a voice. Trying to describe the voice, John wrote that it sounded like a trumpet. And this was not the last trumpet that Paul described in 1 Corinthians 15:52. John wrote that this was the first voice that he heard.
The voice said to John, “I will show you things which must take place after this,” It is true that the Tribulation will happen after John’s experience, but it is also true that some of the things he saw while he was in Heaven have already happened since his experience. For example, the opening of the first seal in Revelation 6 releases the spirit of Antichrist upon the earth. That happened soon after John had this heavenly experience. He even wrote about it in his letters after his Revelation experience:
“every spirit that does not confess Jesus [acknowledging that He has come in the flesh, but would deny any of the Son’s true nature] is not of God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and is now already in the world.”—1 John 4:3 (AMP)
“Children, it is the last hour [the end of this age]; and just as you heard that the antichrist is coming [the one who will oppose Christ and attempt to replace Him], even now many antichrists (false teachers) have appeared, which confirms our belief that it is the last hour.”—1 John 2:18 (AMP)
This word, “antichrist,” was never used in Scripture until John used it in his letters, which evidently were written *after *the first seal was opened to release this antichrist spirit during John’s lifetime.
So John’s catching up cannot represent the rapture of the Church because that would put the rapture of the Church *before *the opening of the first seal at the time of the first century Church.
Another problem with interpreting John’s catching up as the rapture of the Church is that throughout the book, John has conversations with several people and heavenly beings. If John represents the Church, it doesn’t make sense that the whole Church would have a conversation with one person.
And if we stick to the interpretation that John represents the whole Church in chapter 4 of Revelation, we can’t just pick and choose verses where John represents the Church and other verses where John represents only himself. If he represents the Church in chapter 4, then that interpretation must be true throughout the whole Revelation. But that interpretation of John as the Church quickly falls apart when we try to consistently carry it throughout the book of Revelation. It should be very obvious in many parts of the book that John can only represent himself; nothing more.
But probably the biggest problem with seeing John’s catching up representing the rapture of the whole Church is that when the groups of believers are actually “raptured” into Heaven in Revelation chapters 7, 14, and 15, John is *observing! *John watches these believers who have been caught up to Heaven.
If John represents the Church that is “raptured” into Heaven, how can he then *watch *the Church that is raptured into Heaven? How can he be a participant *and *an outside observer at the same time?
Also, John himself contradicts any teaching that says that he escapes tribulation. When John addresses the seven churches in the first chapter of the book, he refers to himself as “your brother and *companion in the tribulation” *(Revelation 1:9).
So, when we read the Scriptures carefully and prayerfully, I believe that God will reveal to us that John should be taken literally when we read the book of Revelation. John does not represent anyone or anything other than himself; and any teaching that presents John’s catching up in chapter 4 as the “rapture” of the Church is a deception.
The reason this is so important is that Satan wants all of us to believe that every Christian will be “raptured” away from earth before the Tribulation begins because the fruit of that belief is complacency, which is the spirit of Laodicea.
If I believe that I will be raptured away from the earth before the Tribulation period, then there is no reason for me to prepare myself for Jesus’ return. I can live my life in any way that I want because the preacher told me that we’re all guaranteed to be taken out of here before the Tribulation.
Jesus warned us that we will know false prophets by their fruit (Matthew 7:15-20). The fruit of the “Pre-Tribulation Rapture” teaching does not draw people closer to Jesus and inspire an urgency to prepare for His coming. The fruit of the “Pre-Tribulation Rapture” teaching is complacency. That is why it is so dangerous. This is the spirit for which Jesus rebuked the Laodicean church and warned them to repent in Revelation 3:14-19.
