veteran
New Member
I never said that John Darby was not important. Just that it did not originate with him. Let me try to explain something. Just because the early church believed or didn't believe something does not really influence my acceptance or rejection of an idea. The majority of the church at one time accepted replacement theology. Does this mean that I should accept it? I do not, as I consider this to be a heresy. Before the reformation there was a lot of things about Salvation that the church did not believe, that I do. The church used to believe that you had to confess your sins to a priest and only a priest could forgive them, I do not believe this. The church used to believe that it can sell sin 'indulgences', and you can have some of your sins forgiven by giving money to the church, I do not believe this. I am a protestant, not because I followed the history of the Protestant movement, and because of what some man in the movement might have said or done, but because the protestant churches for the most part teach what I believe to be true when compared to the Catholic church.
I understand, but I didn't try to bring in history of the doctrine, you did. I was ready to go to Scripture.
do not consider myself to be in any denomination because I have yet to find one that believes exactly what I believe to be true. As far as John Darby is concerned, to be totally honest, I have never actually read anything that the man wrote. I don't use the term 'secret rapture'. And in fact, with only one exception, every single time I have seen that term used, it has been used by a Post tribulationist, as they talk about the pretrib rapture. They try to disprove that the rapture is secret as if that had any bearing on my understanding of scripture at all.
Darby was actually the one who created the phrase "secret rapture", and he is one of the fathers of the pre-trib doctrine that exists today. It was because the doctrine originally believed the gathering of the saints prior to the tribulation to be a 'secret' coming and gathering by Christ. It's a very important point having to do with how the doctrine in Britain got started. It's also significant that the proponents of the later Pre-trib school based the doctrine on Irving, Darby, et al, and at some later point decided to drop off that word "secret", and just use the word "rapture". That's likely the reason you can say you don't recognize the term 'secret' that originally was included with the doctrine.
Let me address one more point and then hopefully we can move past the 'history' of the pretrib rapture. Margaret McDonald did not teach a pre-tribulation rapture. I would ask, have you ever read the actual 'prophecy' of Margaret McDonald or are you just repeating what other Posttribs have said? I found a copy of the entire vision on a post trib site, which is an excerpt from Dave Macpherson's ( A post tribulationist ) book 'The incredible coverup.' Hopefully this site is slanted enough in the Post tribulation arena that you will not claim that I got my information from a biased source.
I won't include the entire 'vision' here but you can read the entire vision at http://www.preterist...le-coverup.html
... I saw the people of God in an awfully dangerous situation, surrounded by nets and entanglements, about to be tried, and many about to be deceived and fall. Now will THE WICKED be revealed, with all power and signs and lying wonders, so that if it were possible the very elect will be deceived. - This is the fiery trial which is to try us. - It will be for the purging and purifying of the real members of the body of Jesus; but Oh it will be a fiery trial. Every soul will be shaken to the very centre. The enemy will try to shake in every thing we have believed - But the trial of real faith will be found to honour and praise and glory. Nothing but what is of God will stand. The stony-ground hearers will be made manifest - the love of many will wax cold I frequently said that night, and often since, now shall the awful sight of a false Christ be seen on this earth. and nothing but the living Christ in us can detect this awful attempt of the enemy to deceive ... It is brought on by the outpouring of the Spirit, and will just increase in proportion as the Spirit is poured out. The trial of the Church is from Antichrist. It is by being filled with the Spirit that we shall be kept. I frequently said, Oh be filled with the Spirit - have the light of God in you, that you may detect Satan - be full of eyes within - be clay in the hands of the potter - submit to be filled, filled with God This will build the temple. It is not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord. This will fit us to enter into the marriage supper of the lamb. I saw It to be the will of God that all should be filled.
Yep, that fits right into the pretrib doctrine. I mean doesn't everyone know that Pretribbers teach that the people of God will be in awfully dangerous situations, to be tried, and many will be deceived and fall? Oh wait.. no that is the post tribulation people that believe that. Oh I know, the pretrib people must think that the fiery trial which shall come upon us will be 'The Wicked' with all power and signs and lying wonders.. no wait, that not us either, that is the post trib folks. Wait I got it.. the pretrib folks are going on and on about how the body of Jesus must be purged and purified by a fiery trial. No wait a minute, that's not us either, the pretrib folks claim that Jesus has already purified us with his blood. That is the post tribulation folks that claim that the church needs to be purified. WAIT...WAIT I got it, I got it.. The pretrib folks are saying that the trial of the Church is from the Antichrist! Right?? No... Oh that's right... that is the Post tribulation folks again.
Well, there's a precise point about it I don't think you understand yet. Because she said things like the following also, those ministers around her took a single idea out of it and furthered the idea of a 'secret' coming of Christ prior to the tribulation...
"Only those who have the light of God within them will see the sign of his appearance. No need to follow them who say, see here, or see there, for his day shall be as the lightning to those in whom the living Christ is." (from the letter by Margaret McDonald from that site link).
Do you see how her words in bold could easily become misconstrued as a 'secret' coming of Christ, known only to those who will see Him? That's what religious leaders around her took and ran with, creating the idea of Christ coming to rapture the saints in 'secret', before the tribulation. Margaret's own words point also to the idea of the saints going through the tribulation, simply because that's what Scripture states, but those ministers decided to leave those things out and opt for their 'secret' idea. That point of Christ coming in 'secret' was a whole new revelation to them by The Holy Spirit, they thought. In essence, they denied the post-trib account in Scripture, even Rev.1 Scripture about Christ's coming in the clouds with every eye seeing Him.
Man, Veteran, I am sure glad you set me straight on that, now that I know where the pretrib doctrine comes from, I can rest easy. But seriously.. The 'vision' of Margaret MacDonald had nothing to do with the pretribulation rapture doctrine. In fact, I have yet to find one pre tribulationist who credits Margaret MacDonald with anything, much less relating to pretribulation rapture theory. It has been Post Tribulationist like Dave MacPherson who has made this claim, and as you can clearly see, it is a bunch of mess. I do try to be unbias as far as where I get my information, but I have found information on Post tribulation slanted sites to be lacking.
I don't think it's really hit you yet how that 'secret' coming of Christ idea is one of the ideas that was responsible for the Pre-trib doctrine in 1830's Britain, which is why Darby used the phrase "secret rapture". That was one of the major points that MacPherson documented in his work. And what he documented was the history of the Pre-trib origins. Margaret McDonald was one source, Irving and Darby were others. So no, MacPherson's documentation is not a mess. You just haven't understood it yet, even as you've already revealed that you don't recognize the "secret" term in the phrase "secret rapture" nor aware why Darby coined such a phrase because of the movement. Just because those of the Pre-trib school that came later decided to drop that term "secret" out and just use the word "rapture" does not disconnect the origin of their Pre-trib doctrine from 1830's Britain. I think it's obvious that's what those later Pre-trib school leaders were trying to do.
So to be honest, I don't care that the church has believed in a post tribulation rapture of the church. I see a distinction between Israel and the Church. I see that Jesus promised that he would keep the church from the trial that is about to come upon the entire earth. I believe that when Jesus said, "If I go away I will come again and recieve you unto myself. So that where I am you will be also." That is exactly what he meant. The tribulation has 3 purposes, 1) To purify an unbelieving Israel, so that her blindness will be removed and she will accept her messiah, 2) to awaken the undecided in one final attempt to draw them to God, and 3) To punish an unbelieving and rebellious world.
The church does not have any part in any of those three functions.
Does this mean you're ready to discuss actual Scripture instead? We should do that in a one-on-one. Isn't there an area on the Forum to do that?
Distinction of Israel and the Church is a different subject. We'd have to get into a lot of Bible prophecy in comparison, which would get away from our original discussion.
The Church had held to a post-tribulational view of the gathering to Christ, until some Churches opted for the 1830's "secret rapture" Pre-trib idea that came out of Britain from Darby, et al. And the Bible passages you're pulling from do not prove a Pre-trib gathering to Christ. I can go into greater detail about them, letting Scripture interpret it, for there are many other Scriptures linked to what He said there, some of the most important ones in the Book of Ezekiel which define what abodes (mansions) and where they will be located.
This comment actually made me laugh. First off, I did not say that Post Tribulationist always do this or do that, I said that most of them will just quote Matt 24 and think that this solves the issue. And not only that, but I later provided an example of you doing this exact thing. In case you missed it, let me repost it.
But what made me laugh was that you did the exact same thing that you condemn me for doing.
Wouldn't you say that if most people are doing something, then this something would be considered common? So if most pretribs are doing this, then you can comment on it, but if I say that most post tribs are doing that, and give an example of you doing it, for me it is a strawman argument. Wow.. at least I was trying to add to the debate by providing references, I actually did look for a post trib site that mentioned pre Darby writings, but strangly enough they all said, Darby was the one who started it, just like you did. So forgive me for going to some sites that actually had the information. But then again, I guess if they actually published that there were writings of a pre trib rapture before Darby then they couldn't really claim that Darby came up with the concept now could they?
I'll have to finish this later...