XIV. Do you Really Believe Revelation 4:1 Describes the Moment of Rapture?

Over the years, one thing that has always amazed me is the pre-tribulation teaching that Revelation 4:1 is the one verse in scripture the believers can claim as describing the moment of our rapture, and which verse thus ends any interest the church has in the remaining testings and trials to come in the remainder of the book of Revelation. (Revelation 4:1 After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me (the Apostle John), saying, “Come up here, and I (Jesus) will show you things which must take place after this.”)  One of the cardinal claims of pre-tribulation teaching is that if you take, and believe, the scripture literally, you must believe in a Rapture preceding the seven years of testing.  But if you take scripture literally, you cannot believe this verse refers to the Rapture, unless you change it’s meaning and add a lot more to it than what it says. 

May I suggest you read it slowly and deliberately, once or a hundred times, and see if, with your greatest imagination, you can conclude anything other than a personal invitation to John to leave earth in the spirit to be in the presence of Jesus in Heaven.  In Revelation 1:19, Jesus directed John to write the things you have seen (which John accomplished in Chapter 1), and the things which are (which John accomplished in Chapters 2 and 3), and the things which will take place after this (beginning with chapter 4 thru 22).  In Revelation 4:1, John wrote “After these things “I” (John) looked…, voice which “I” (John) heard…, speaking with “me” (John)…, I will show “you” (John) etc.  This verse is nothing but a personal invitation from Jesus to John, and nothing more, for John to come up to Heaven and behold the wonderful Revelation of Jesus.   

However, one of my close pre-tribulation believing friends does write that the words “come up here” are not a veiled reference to the Rapture of the church, but a command from Jesus to John, when he was on the Island of Patmos, to be carried to Heaven in the Spirit where Jesus would reveal to him all the end time prophecy which John was to write for the benefit and study of all those on earth.  To read into this that it is a description of, and the moment of the Rapture seems to be a great stretch of what is written, and an adding to the Word by man.  However, the overwhelming majority of pre-tribulation teachers of today claim that this verse indeed describes the moment of Rapture.

[ Top ]