ANSWER:
The "rapture" (meaning to be snatched, according to St Jerome's Latin translation of the Greek) is obviously a biblical concept. The teaching is quite clear: when the Lord returns, those who are alive will be taken to be with him which seems to imply a transformation of the body of saints into bodies capable of being with the Lord.
1 Thessalonians 4:15-18: "we declare this to you by the word of the Lord: we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. Indeed, the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever."
There is also a spiritual/mystical or liturgical interpretation of this text, but the eschatological reading is most direct.
The point of controversy is that "rapture" is often synonymous with "mid-tribulation rapture," which is the belief that those who are in Christ will be (at the second coming of the Lord) removed from the earth, but that history will continue essentially "as is" without them for several years of tribulation. This is not the Orthodox understanding, if only because it does not pass the "straight face test." Or as the bumper sticker reads "in case of the rapture this car will be left without a driver."
This is the "rapture" viewpoint that is seen by Orthodox Christians as inconsistent with sound biblical exegesis (implying two second comings and a misreading of several texts) as well as common sense. |
