[Below is just the beginning of this long article but it's a worthwhile read. I usually don't post these articles because they usually miss many points (as this one does) and fails to make the point convincingly enough. As stated before, the definitive book on the gathering up is "Maranatha, Our Lord Comes" by Renald Showers.]
Perhaps you’re a Christian, but you think the Pre-Tribulation Rapture is all a bunch of warm hooey. It is an escapist eschatology; built specifically for weak-spined western Christians who are afraid of a little persecution. You frequently tell anyone who will listen, that the word “rapture” is not even in the Bible. You say the “rapture” was a theological scheme created out of thin air by that evil dispensationalist John N. Darby 150 years ago. And even he didn’t invent it you say matter-of-factly, but stole the idea from a teenage Scottish girl. Perhaps you think we are already in the Tribulation, and times are looking bleak for America (see Part I). You say it is time for us Christians dig in, get our hands dirty, and fight for what we believe in when another civil war comes. It is time for Christian’s to get our “big boy” pants on and take a stand.
I suppose it is the height of both irony and hypocrisy that a professing Christian would hate the idea that their Savior could return sooner rather than later. Essentially, that is what those who despise the Pre-Tribulation Rapture are guilty of, turning the blessed hope (Titus 2:13) into a joke or a byword. Of course, most would never admit to such a thing. They will claim some moral or theological high ground of outing false theology or having to prove our salvation through tribulation. However, is that really true?
I for one, cannot see how it could be, especially given the fact we all have Bibles and could sit down together and go through these issues line by line, chapter by chapter, and book by book to see if what we believe actually passes the theological smell test. So what is it then? Why so much angst against a biblical doctrine that shows irrefutably, that Christ will return again for His Church before the 70th Week begins. Why are certain eschatological views hell-bent (literally) on putting the Church (ekklesia) inside the 70th Week of Daniel? There are a few reasons I can think of:
1. Inheriting bad hermeneutics
The practice of bad hermeneutics (or how one interprets scripture), began in earnest with Origen (circa 200AD) and his application of allegory to Scripture. His approach was later passed on to Augustine (circa 400AD). Augustine’s teachings were later incorporated into the Roman Catholic Church doctrine and dogma (500AD – Present). The allegorical approach became the default position (especially regarding eschatology), which was carried into and through the Protestant Reformation (1517 – Present). The allegorical approach was distributed throughout the mainline protestant denominations for the next three centuries.
However, mainline Protestants began protesting again, but this time, against the inherited corrupted RCC form of hermeneutics at the end of the 18th-century and early 19th-century. They returned to a literal, grammatical, and historical understanding of all Biblical doctrines, not just soteriology. This subsequently, resulted in rediscovering dispensationalism, which concludes the Church Age with the Pre-Tribulation (Pre-70th Week) Rapture (harpazo) of the Church (ekklesia).
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