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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Out of the World of Out of the Evil?, #15
Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life? (I Corinthians 6:2,3)
The saints will not be lifted up from the earth, after their resurrection from among the dead, for the purpose of being protected from God's judgment or from Antichrist.
That is not the purpose for the ascension. In fact, it is the saints who will administer the Divine judgment (Psalms 149:9; I Corinthians 6:2,3).
Not one time in the entire Scriptures, Old Testament or New Testament, to our knowledge, does the Holy Spirit suggest that the purpose for the resurrection and ascension of the saints is that they may be evacuated from the great tribulation that is to take place in the last days, the tribulation that will result from the enthroning of a man in the Temple of God.
Neither does the Scripture once mention that the saints will disappear, which is part of the "rapture" teaching.
Because the teaching of the pre-tribulation "rapture" of believers is preventing Christian people from preparing for the judgment that is coming, it is absolutely incumbent upon every person who regards himself or herself as a minister of God to go afresh to the Scriptures concerning the "rapture."
If the minister cannot find a clear scriptural basis for the belief that the post-resurrection ascension is for the purpose of removing the believers from trouble, and in view of the fact that those who are attempting to warn the saints to prepare for the suffering to come are finding that their warning is being ignored because of the "evacuation" error, then he or she should in all conscience join with us in preparing the saints to stand in the age of moral horrors that is at hand.
Let us repeat, the passage of I Thessalonians intended to comfort the relatives of deceased believers does not refer to an avoiding of the tribulation or a disappearing of the saints. It does not imply that the world will continue on its course for an additional seven years without the presence of the Church or the Holy Spirit.
The saints in Thessalonica were looking for the imminent coming of Christ in the glory of His Kingdom. As time went by, some of the older Christians died. Those who remained became concerned that their deceased loved ones would not be on hand to witness the glory of the coming of the Lord in His Kingdom and that, having died, they would not participate in the Kingdom. This fact alone proves that the saints in those days did not view Paradise as the goal of salvation.
Paul was comforting them by saying that their departed loved ones would return with the Lord Jesus, and that the deceased, having received from the ground their sleeping bodies, would rise to meet Jesus in His Kingdom together with the living believers.
To be continued.