God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesusso that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Ephesians 2:4-10

Paul said this nearly two thousand years ago. Do you think those ages Paul has referenced will come after God has executed a rapture maneuver, extracting the Church out of the hot-zone of warfare on this earth? Or, is there a chance we could actually be living in those ages that Paul said were to come?

The answers to these questions have far reaching implications. One scenario presents the problem of having been left behind. The other involves just being left out. The Jenkins/LaHaye Left Behind series presents an eschatology where the rapture is The event preceding a time of great tribulation where the saints are snatched up out of this world. The rapture essentially becomes the get-out-of-trib-free ticket. Everyone else is left behind.

Another eschatology might be referred to as a kingdom-now theology where the Church does not see itself overrun by evil. On the contrary, it envisions that her destiny is to shine brightly and to overcome, especially where evil has abounded. The overcoming Church knows that it has historically shined the brightest when the heat has been turned up the most. They base their anticipation on Jesus’ words, “In Me, the kingdom has come.” and, “My kingdom is within you.” This group remembers God’s original mandate for man to subdue the earth and rule over it. They believe the kingdom will emerge as God answers the prayer that Jesus taught them to pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” This tribe has hearts like Joshua and Caleb that reason; “The giants in the land may be big but they are no match for the Lord God Almighty who has given us this land to possess.” This tribe is not fearful of being left behind, it just doesn’t want to be left out of whatever battles are ahead.

As a new believer I anticipated that Christ’s return was imminent. I truly was surprised each year when the rapture had not occurred. Over the decades I have lost confidence that the timing of the rapture or the events surrounding it are that critical. Whether it is mid, post or pre; all I have been told to do is be prepared now. I don’t believe that prepping in fear for shortages of food or ammo are at all what Jesus was getting at either. I believe he was talking about our hearts. I believe our hearts will be best served by giving the Word of God the benefit of the doubt. Please listen to this paraphrase of Jesus’ prayer taken from John 17 ….

Father, it’s time. Display the bright splendor of your Son. I have given them this very same glorious splendor that you gave MeI’m not asking that you take My children out of the world.  In the same way that you gave Me a mission in the world, I gave them a mission; It is simply to display My life in them. While I will no longer be visible to the world; they will. Since I am in them and you are in Me, they can be one heart and mind with Us. This is so the world might believe. This will give the godless world evidence that you’ve sent Me and that You have loved them in the same way you’ve loved Me. I am in them. Guard this life within them which You conferred as a gift through Me. Father, I want those you gave Me to experience My completed joy and I also want them to be with Me, right where I am, so they can see My glory, the splendor you gave Me, having loved Me long before there ever was a world. As You put Me in charge of everything, I have given real and eternal life to all in My charge. And this is the real and eternal life: That they know You, The one and only true God, and Myself, whom You sent. 

I just cannot reconcile the victorious army, a purified Bride, or the overcoming Church of scripture with a rapture which seems to say; the Holy Spirit can only work through new resurrected bodies. A rapture implies to me that the Holy Spirit just could not subdue the flesh and that Jesus cannot exercise His rulership as Lord in a fallen world through a fallen Church. In other words, the condition of fallen men has trumped the Spirit and the kingdom of God. I must ask, “Has our failing experience as the Church shaped our theology where victory is precluded by virtue of the Church’s own distorted image of itself?  Perhaps our experience would be victorious if we were to build our theology from scripture instead of our experience.

What if we were to discover afresh who we actually are in Christ and that our mission is as simple as displaying His life in us? What if we are to discover afresh that we are not essentially fallen beings rather we are new creations in Christ, citizens of an eternal kingdom who are even now seated with Him upon HIs throne? What if He opened His Word afresh to us and it burned so upon our hearts that we knew that in Christ, today is the day of salvation; that today is the appointed time for His Bride to make Herself ready and to display the splendor of His glory to the world?

It has struck me that the left behind mind-set puts the Church on the defensive, managing our sin natures, anxiously awaiting the rapture so we can be done with this life and get on with the next. It is much easier for me to reconcile a kingdom-now theology with the the teaching of Jesus and the spirit of the New Testament.  That the kingdom of God is a now affair fills our lives with responsibility and adventure and an opportunity to see the Word of God vindicated in and through the Church.

Father, may Your Words take precedence above any doctrines of defeatism that have infected the Good News. May we see that You have answered Your Son’s prayer; that we are now with You where You are – seated at the Father’s side. Help us to see that we have not been orphaned in a hostile land but that we are kingdom sons and citizens commissioned to display the life of Christ. Succeed in sanctifying us and simultaneously overthrowing the ideologies that have discounted our identity and muddled our destiny. Amen.

 

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