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B.A.S.I.C. NEWSLETTER #196
I Cor.. 16:9 ‘For a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.’
July 15, 2011
End Time False Teachings
RAPTURE
There are Christians who teach a rapture, that is that Christians depart this earth before the judgment. They try to use Matt. 24:40-41 to show this. In those verses it is stated “one is taken and one is left.” The context of that is in v. 36 “that day” the judgment day. At the end God separates the sheep from the goats, Matt. 25:32. Matt. 24:40-41 is simply briefly stating what our Lord explains in detail in Matt. 25:31-45. First He gathers the sheep to His right, “one is taken,” there is a separation. Then He gathers the others, that is described as “and one is left”, but taken after the sheep. These are gathered to the left for judgment. The last day is clearly also taught in I Thess. 4:13-18. There is no time period between the gathering of the believers and the end. It is all on the last day. First the believers who are dead are raised. Then “then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” I Thess. deals only with the believers. Matt. 24-25 includes all people. The “one is taken” in Matt. 24 is “those who are alive” in I Thess. 4. Once those alive are taken up, caught up into the clouds, there is no returning to this earth after a time period. I Thess. 4:17 “so we shall always be with the Lord.” Peter tells us that on the “day of the Lord“, judgment day, “the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up.” II Peter 3:10 Our new home is from above as John tells us, “the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.” “a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away,” Rev. 21:10, Here we have had Scripture explaining itself to us. The rapture that is taught among some Christians is a misinterpretation of Scripture.
A Parable
“This comes to us from Ibrahim Karioki of the CLCEast Africa as a teaching illustration.”
He is now doing mission work in Zambia.
A Holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said, ‘Lord, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like.’
The Lord led the holy man to two doors.
He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in.
In the middle of the room was a large round table..
In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew,
which smelled delicious and made the holy man’s mouth water.
The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly.
They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles that were strapped to their arms and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful.
But because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.
The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering.
The Lord said, ‘You have seen Hell. They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one.
There was the large round table with the large pot of stew which made the holy man’s mouth water.
The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking.
The holy man said, ‘I don’t understand.
‘It is simple,’ said the Lord. ‘It requires but one skill.
You see, they have learned to feed each other.
The greedy think only of themselves.’
When Jesus died on the cross, he was thinking of you.
I will always share my spoon with you.
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End Time False Teachings
ALL ISRAEL WILL BE SAVED
Some also teach falsely that at the end of time there will be a Miraculous Saving of All Israel. These people latch on to the passage in Romans 11:26 “and so all Israel will be saved…” Of course that all the present nation of Israel would be saved would contradict the clear passages of Scripture that tell us to repent and be baptized. Acts 2:38, 3:19,17:30 It is clear in Scripture that there is no other way than this to be saved. As Paul told the Jailer, “Believe…” Acts 16:31. It is by faith and not by some miraculous acceptance at the end that Jews will be saved. To say that all of physical Israel will be saved at the end is to contradict God’s way of salvation.
And other passages of Scripture interpret the Israel of Rom. 11:26 as spiritual Israel. In Rom. 9:27 Paul said that only a remnant of Israel (physical) will be saved. In Rom. 2:28-29 we read, “For he is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal…” Scripture interprets Scripture and here we have passages that point us to a difference in the use of Israel and Jew. It is a spiritual thing and not physical. So for all of physical Israel to be saved at the end would be out of the meaning of the use of the words.
And we have the context of Rom. 11:26 to guide us into a proper understanding. We read in v. 25 “a hardening has come upon part of Israel… The unbelieving Jews are hardened in their heart against Christ. They exclaimed that His blood be on them. If we look then at spiritual Israel being used here, the physical Israelite’s are hardened. When the “full number of the Gentiles comes in” indicates what we are doing today reaching out to the Gentile nations until the last of the elect are called, and then the end will come. In v. 26 “all Israel being saved” includes the full number of the Gentiles. The passages point us to the end when the church in totality receives the reward Christ gained for us.
Of course God still loves the Jews and would bless them also, but as Jesus said “you would not.” They did not receive Him and still it is that way. We have used here the simple principles of interpretation of: Scripture interprets Scripture, a clear passage interprets a less clear, context.
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Pastor Koenig
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