Silence
and the Rapture
SILENCE WHICH DEMANDS
A VERDICT
(Comment RKM: Who are we to tell God what He
means. Silence demands Silence)
Futurists use this silence to minimize the importance of AD 70 by saying,
"Surely if AD 70 was as significant as you say, the leaders of the post-70
church would have said something about it, especially if it was the
Parousia. Since they ignore it, the implication is that it was not
significant for Christians, and certainly could not have been the
Parousia." This silence also affects the "Partial Preterist view,
since it gives them no historical support for their "some kind of coming
at AD 70."
There is a "documentation problem" for the rapture view, BUT it is
not as significant a problem as it is for the non-rapture Preterist.
Absence explains the silence better than their continued presence does. A
continued presence is what creates the "documentation problem" in the
first place. So, this "documentation problem" is not really
much of a "rapture" documentation problem at all. But our
critics have clearly pointed out how it is a "Parousia, resurrection, and
judgment" documentation problem. The lack of documentation for a
rapture is only one-fourth of the whole package. All of us
Preterists (regardless of our position regarding the rapture) still have a
"Parousia documentation problem."
For non-rapture Preterists, I would contend that the way they explain the lack
of documentation for the Parousia is the same way I would explain the lack of
documentation for a rapture. But absence works better for the rapture
view than continued presence does for the non-rapture position.
Partial Preterists and futurists do not accept the non-rapture (continued
presence) explanation of the lack of documentation for the Parousia. It
really does not offer a real solution to the problem. It merely begs the
question. So when a non-rapture Preterist asserts that the rapture
Preterist has a "documentation problem," it leaves three fingers
pointing back at him. The non-rapture Preterist has three other events to
find documentation for (Parousia, resurrection and judgment). But the
rapture theory provides a documentation solution to all three of these
events. A rapture easily explains why no Christian after AD 70 mentioned
the occurrence of the Parousia (they weren't around to document it). The
non-rapture view can't have that explanation in his bag of apologetic tricks,
and so he is burdened with a radically greater "documentation
problem" than the rapture Preterist.
If there was NO rapture, then Apostle John and a whole bunch of the other
leaders of the church (e.g., Apollos, Luke, Timothy, Titus, Barnabas, Gaius,
Aristarchus, etc.) must have lived beyond the destruction and would have
witnessed the fulfillment of the Parousia, resurrection and judgment. Why
didn't they say something about the fulfillments? Did John suddenly lose
all the knowledge about eschatology that he had when he wrote the book of
Revelation and 1 John 2:18, 2:28, and 3:2? Did all the other leaders
suddenly forget everything they had heard the apostles teach about the
Parousia? Did the Parousia actually occur and they simply missed it and
suddenly started thinking that the Parousia was no longer imminent any
more? Why didn't they say something about it if they knew it
occurred? Why do these leaders seem to suddenly vanish without a
trace? We don't know when, where, or how they died, nor where they were
buried. We should have reams of excited and exuberant documentation
from them if they had witnessed the fulfillments and lived beyond the event
into the AD 70-100 period.
Could it be that the reason they say nothing about the fulfillment of the
Parousia is because they were not still around to document it???
Gasp!!! (A rapture?) Isn't it SINFUL for a Preterist to even think
such a thing, much less even dare utter the "R" word?
Nope! J. S. Russell a century ago showed that it is perfectly consistent
for a Preterist to believe in a rapture.
Mat. 16:27-28 says that "some" of the 12 disciples would still be
alive at Christ's return. We know John was one of those (John
21:22f). But he was not the only one. Christ says
"some." So it seems there would be at least two of the original
12 still alive at the Parousia. Did they remember Jesus' promise to
return before they died? Matthew obviously did, and so did Apostle
John.
After 70 AD, when John supposedly lived beyond it (according to tradition), did
he actually know that the Parousia had occurred (like he claimed he would -- 1
John 2:28 and 3:2)? Or was he one of those who did not recognize the time
of Our Lord's visitation? His accuracy (and inspiration) is at stake
here. If he and the others who were still alive had witnessed the
Parousia and knew that it had occurred, why didn't they say something? Or
why don't we hear them at the end of their life on their deathbed bemoaning the
fact that Christ had promised to return in their lifetime, but had failed to
keep that promise, because they never saw it occur? And if they had seen
it, how could they ever go to their death without mentioning that it was
fulfilled?
You see, it is not the rapturist who has a
"documentation problem" here. It is the non-rapture Preterist
who has the problem.
Silence demands an absence, since a continued
presence could not have been silent! My previous non-rapture explanations
for the rapture texts have reached dead ends (historically, grammatically and
contextually). They no longer seem credible in view of the
"deafening silence" that pervaded the church immediately after AD 70,
when they should have been shouting from the housetops that Christ had
returned. This "deafening silence" of the apostolic voice after AD 70
speaks volumes about what had happened. It is a "documentation problem
which points explicitly toward a rapture removal of the true saints at the
Parousia. If there wasn't a rapture, then all Preterists have an
insurmountable "documentation problem." We would have to
explain why John and the other remaining apostles were not bemoaning
their failure to see the Parousia and be rewarded in the fashion they
were expecting. There is simply too much "silence" for us to
explain away
without a rapture removal.
The rapture is the only consistent way I have found to solve this
"Parousia documentation problem." Again, there is no
documentation problem for the rapture. We would not expect any
documentation of a rapture from the "sleepers" who were left
behind. They were not awake and did not know what had happened. And
they were certainly not allowed to see it, any more than the 50 prophets in
Elijah's day were allowed to see His translation into heaven (2 Kings 2).
They couldn't document something they didn't see or even know occurred.
Questions: If the Parousia occurred and some of the apostles (John and at least
one other) were among the faithful ones who were "watching and
waiting" and recognized it, why didn't they say so after AD 70 if they
were still around? Did they suddenly lose their ability to speak and
write? Did John see it like he said he would (1 John 2:28, 3:2)? Did he KNOW
he saw it? Did he live beyond it? Did he lose his memory or his
ability to communicate? Did anyone else SEE the Parousia and know
that it occurred? Did Luke, Apollos, Timothy, Titus, or any of the other
faithful disciples who lived and remained until the Parousia see it? Did
they KNOW the Parousia had occurred, or were they unfaithful and failed to
"recognize the time of His visitation?" If they knew it
occurred, why didn't some of them say so? Why didn't at least one of them
write about it in one of the uninspired non-canonical writings immediately
after AD 70? Wasn't it a significant event? Or was it so ho-hum
that they ignored it and went right on their merry way with their lives
as if nothing had happened? How could those who "waited so
anxiously" at fever pitch for His Parousia and said
"Maranatha" all of a sudden become so indifferent after His
Parousia?
Something is drastically wrong with this picture! The silence is
SCREAMING -- a "deafening" silence so LOUD that even our critics have
heard it. Why haven't we?
Where's the beef? Why didn't apostle John state clearly for the record
that the things he had just written in the book of Revelation had now been
fulfilled? If he was still around and had not been "received to
Christ" like John 14:3 promised, then was he so disillusioned by the
non-fulfillment of John 14:3 and the lack of seeing the Parousia that perhaps
he was struck dumb and was unable to say anything? Or maybe he lost all
memory of what Jesus had said and just decided (like Roman Catholic tradition
asserts) to go through the countryside teaching nice "love one
another" platitudes and avoid mentioning the HUGE events that had just
occurred? Preposterous, you say? Exactly! It would take more
blind faith to believe that, than to simply understand that Christ kept his
word and "received [the remaining disciples] to Himself" along with
all the other faithful true sanctified believers who "waited
anxiously" for His return, and whose "spirits and souls and
BODIES" were preserved complete and blameless until the Parousia (1
Thessalonians 5:23), at which time they were "caught up" (1
Thessalonians 4:15-17) to accompany Him during the three and a half years of
His Parousia presence (AD 66-70).
It is obvious from what little writings we have from the period (AD 70-150)
that the whole post-70 Church was unaware of Christ's return in AD 70.
And we have no writings of any apostles or their close disciples after AD
70. For some reason we do not know anything for certain about WHEN they
died, WHERE they died, HOW they died, or where they were buried. They
vanish without a trace. All the traveling companions of Paul (Silas,
Luke, Timothy, Titus, Gaius, Aristarchus, etc.) are silent. It is not
likely that they all died in the persecution. Surely several of them
would have survived the "tribulation" and lived on beyond AD
70. There is a tradition that the Christians (evidently the mere
"professing" ones only) who fled to
I see this silence as the very proof of the rapture at the Parousia. They
wrote nothing about it because they were no longer around to write about
it. Surely if apostle John and those other leaders of the pre-70 church
had still been around at the time of the Parousia they would have seen it and
said something about it. Silence can only be explained by one of two
things: either non-fulfillment of the Parousia, or a rapture
removal. The silence allows no other options.
as of 12-2005