09 The Rapture in the Early Fathers

 

Copyright © 2023 Michael A. Brown

      Some commentators who do not believe in the pre-tribulation rapture claim wrongly that this teaching originated in the year 1830, through a fifteen-year-old Scottish girl called Margaret McDonald.  She claimed that God revealed the end-times to her in a prophetic vision.  So those who oppose this teaching say that it is therefore deception and unbiblical (although her prophetic utterance actually seems to refer to a post-tribulation rapture).

      Prior to this, around the year 1827, J.N. Darby of the Brethren denomination in UK came to understand from the Scriptures the truth of the pre-tribulation rapture, and thereafter he began to propagate this teaching.  This belief was widely popularised through the Scofield Reference Bible (first published in 1909), and since then it has become a widely held viewpoint in the Body of Christ.

      However, some simple research into the writings of the Early Fathers reveals that belief in the pre-tribulation rapture was common in the early Church period.  This teaching and belief is therefore as old as Christianity itself.  As we have seen, both the Lord Jesus and the apostle Paul taught it.  Furthermore, it can also be shown that, although amillennialism[1] eventually became the official eschatological doctrine of the institutional Church (mainly through the dominating influence of Origen and Augustine), there were still many who held to a belief in the pre-tribulation rapture in the Medieval and post-Reformation periods.[2]

      I have outlined below some of the evidence that can be found in early post-apostolic writings and those of the early Church Fathers in support of the pre-tribulation rapture.  This shows that this belief and teaching were common in the post-apostolic period of the early Church.


The Didache

      This tract outlining basic Christian teaching is otherwise known as The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, and it dates from the first century AD.  Its fourth and final section contains the following teaching about the end-times:

‘For in the last days false prophets and corrupters shall be multiplied, and the sheep shall be turned into wolves, and love shall be turned into hate; for when lawlessness increaseth, they shall hate and persecute and betray one another.  And then shall appear the world-deceiver as Son of God, and shall do signs and wonders, and the earth shall be delivered into his hands, and he shall do iniquitous things which have never yet come to pass since the beginning.  Then shall the creation of men come into the fire of trial, and many shall be made to stumble and shall perish; but they that endure in their faith shall be saved from under the curse itself.  And then shall appear the signs of the truth; first the sign of an outspreading of heaven; then the sign of the sound of the trumpet; and the third, the resurrection of the dead; yet not of all, but as it is said: The Lord shall come and all his saints with him.  Then shall the world see the Lord coming upon the clouds of heaven.’

      Note carefully that the word ‘but’ in the phrase ‘but they that endure...’, explains that those who endure in their faith and who will be saved from the curse, are saved from what has just been described, i.e. the tribulation.  So the rapture takes place before the tribulation.  The next phrases regarding the three signs of the truth refer to the heavens being opened, the trumpet sounding and the dead in Christ rising, i.e. the resurrection/rapture event.  This is then followed later by the Second Advent, with the Lord coming on the clouds of heaven with his saints.

      So the chronological order in which events are presented here is: firstly the rapture, then the rise of Antichrist and the tribulation, and finally the Second Advent.


The Shepherd of Hermas

      This very popular apocryphal work dates from the first half of the second century AD.  In chapter 1 of the fourth vision, the writer says, “I saw another vision, brethren – a representation of the tribulation that is to come.”

      Then in chapter 2, he says, “Lo! A virgin meets me, adorned as if she were proceeding from the bridal chamber, clothed entirely in white…”, and “I knew from my former visions that this was the Church…”, and then, “You have escaped from great tribulation on account of your faith, and because you did not doubt in the presence of such a beast.  Go, therefore, and tell the elect of the Lord His mighty deeds, and say to them that this beast is a type of the great tribulation that is coming.  If then ye prepare yourselves, and repent with all your heart, and turn to the Lord, it will be possible for you to escape it, if your heart be pure and spotless, and ye spend the rest of the days of your life in serving the Lord blamelessly.”

      This emphasis on keeping a pure and spotless heart reminds us of 2 Peter 3:14 where the same language is used and speaks about the rapture.  So pure-hearted believers will escape the tribulation by being raptured.


Irenaeus (120 – 202 AD), bishop of Lyons

      Irenaeus’ well-known writing Against Heresies contains some teaching about the end-times in Book 5.

      In section 1 of chapter 5 of this book, Irenaeus uses the translation of Enoch as a type of the rapture: ‘For Enoch, when he pleased God, was translated in the same body in which he did please Him, thus pointing out by anticipation the translation of the just.’

      Furthermore, in section 1 of chapter 29, he says that the Church shall be raptured away from the tribulation: ‘And therefore, when in the end the Church shall be suddenly caught up from this, it is said, “There shall be tribulation such as has not been since the beginning, neither shall be.”  For this is the last contest of the righteous, in which, when they overcome, they are crowned with incorruption.’

      The word ‘this,’ referring to what the Church is caught up from, clearly means the tribulation.  So the rapture will happen before the tribulation.

      Irenaeus continues in section 2 of chapter 29, and in sections 1-3 of chapter 30, to talk about the beast and Antichrist, and then, at the end of section 4 of chapter 30, he concludes with the Second Advent.  So he gives a clear and logical order to these events: firstly the rapture, followed by Antichrist and the tribulation, and then the Second Advent.  So the rapture takes place before the tribulation, and it is an event separate from the Second Advent.


Cyprian (c200 – 258 AD), bishop of Carthage

      In his Treatises, Cyprian writes: ‘We who see that terrible things have begun, and know that still more terrible things are imminent, may regard it as the greatest advantage to depart from it as quickly as possible.  Do you not give God thanks, do you not congratulate yourself, that by an early departure you are taken away, and delivered from the shipwrecks and disasters that are imminent?  Let us greet the day which assigns each of us to his own home, which snatches us hence, and sets us free from the snares of the world, and restores us to paradise and the kingdom.’


Eusebius (c.260 – 339 AD), bishop of Caesarea

      In his Fragments in Luke, Eusebius writes: ‘As all perish then except those gathered with Noah in the ark, so also at his coming, the ungodly in the season of apostasy… shall perish while according to the pattern of Noah… all the righteous and godly are to be separated from the ungodly and gathered into the heavenly ark of God.  For in this way [comes the time] when not even one righteous man will be found anymore among mankind.  And when all the ungodly have been made atheists by the antichrist, and the whole world is overcome by apostasy, the wrath of God shall come upon the ungodly.’


Victorinus (died c303 – 304 AD)

      Victorinus’ Commentary on the Apocalypse contains several useful statements which refer to the rapture and the tribulation.  In reference to the words of Revelation 6:14 ‘The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up…’, he explains that ‘For the heaven to be rolled away, this is that the Church shall be taken away.’  So this refers to the rapture.  Furthermore, in reference to the words of Revelation 15:1 ‘I saw in heaven another great and marvellous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues – last, because with them God’s wrath is completed,’ he explains that ‘For the wrath of God always strikes the obstinate people with seven plagues, that is, perfectly, as it is said in Leviticus; and these shall be in the last time, when the Church shall have gone out of the midst.’ (underlining my own for emphasis).

      So Victorinus taught that the rapture takes place at the time of the sixth seal, and before the pouring out of the wrath of God.  It is also therefore separate from the Second Advent.


Ephraim the Syrian (c306 – 373 AD)

      In his The End Times, Ephraim writes about the rapture: ‘For all saints and the elect of God are gathered, prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord lest they see the confusion that will overwhelm the world because of our sins.’

      Furthermore, he writes in Sermon on Repentance and Judgment, ‘The signs and wonders, which the Lord said had to happen, the famines, the earthquakes, the terrors, and the nations in upheaval the report of these things does not disturb us, nor the spectacle itself.  For the elect shall be gathered prior to the tribulation, so they shall not see the confusion and the great tribulation coming upon the unrighteous world.’



[1] Amillennialism is the belief that Christ will not reign for a thousand years on earth after his Second Advent.  It also believes that the rapture is part of the Second Advent itself, and therefore that it happens at the end of the Great Tribulation.  It does not see the rapture as an earlier, separate event.  So it believes that the bride of Christ will go through the Great Tribulation.

[2] It is beyond the scope of this chapter to go into detail on this.  It is sufficient simply to show that belief in the pre-tribulation rapture was common in the post-apostolic period.  For a sketch overview of the development of thought on the pre-tribulation rapture, the reader can consult Thomas D. Ice’s article “Myths of the Origin of Pretribulationism (Part 1)”, (May 2009), Liberty University, Article Archives. 114. https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/pretrib_arch/114.

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