Will You Be TAKEN?

Theology
1

I have a deceived friend I work with whose father is a pastor over a Church that preaches man’s false pre-trib rapture theory. My friend has all 13 books of the Left-Behind series that pre-trib spokesman Tim LaHaye wrote. Yet my friend is having doubts, and he came and asked what I thought about the time of our Lord Jesus’ future coming.

One of pre-trib’s false ideas is a wrong interpretation of what Lord Jesus said in Luke 17 about the two in the field, one ‘taken’ and the other one left. They wrongly teach the one ‘taken’ is via a rapture by Lord Jesus coming PRIOR to the “great tribulation.” That is not at all the kind of answer Lord Jesus gave His disciples when they asked Him, “Where, Lord?” about those taken.

Luke 17:35-37
35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
37 And they answered and said unto Him, “Where, Lord?” And He said unto them, “Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.”
KJV

Our Lord Jesus’ answer may sound cryptic to many, but I don’t think it’s that difficult, especially when we read that same answer written in the Matthew 24:28 Scripture…

Matt 24:28
28 For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.
KJV

The Pre-trib Rapture school teaches that we do not want to be the one left behind, because we are not appointed to wrath (their quoting from Apostle Paul in 1 Thess.5). That means they are preaching that we will be TAKEN by Christ. But does that sound like Lord Jesus’ answer is about His faithful Church being ‘taken’? I think it obvious by His answer that He was not saying any such thing that we are ‘taken’ prior to the trib, for we are not symbolically as a dead “carcase” which the fowls will be gathered to eat on.

2

Since Lord Jesus showed those ‘taken’ of Luke 17:35-36 will be like a carcase where the fowls will be gathered, can that mean there will actually be a FAKE rapture by the coming false-Messiah prior to our true Lord Jesus’ coming? One may call this just speculation, but I see that exactly as to what Lord Jesus is pointing to, a fleeing by the deceived to the coming false-Messiah in Jerusalem.

However, there is one point in Bible prophecy when we can be sure when the first Messiah that comes with supernatural powers will be a fake. If we are not changed at the twinkling of an eye to our “spiritual body” when Messiah comes to gather us, like Apostle Paul taught in 1 Cor.15, then it won’t be the true Messiah Jesus Christ, but a fake.

3

According to Jewish tradition, Moses received not only the Ten Commandments on the mountain, but also oral teaching that was to be passed from generation to generation. They teach that Moses was told by God that Adam had been given a six-day workweek. God had worked in six days. Adam had been given dominion over all the Earth to see what he could do with it in six days.

In the broader scheme of things, each “day” was to last 1,000 years. According to 2 Peter 3:8, “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” (See also Psalm 90:4. Written by Moses) Adam, as the first man, was given a six-day workweek, each day equaling a thousand years.

The Talmud (Sanhedrin 97a) states:

The school of Eliyahu taught: Six thousand years is the duration of the world. Two thousand of the six thousand years are characterized by chaos; two thousand years are characterized by Torah, from the era of the Patriarchs until the end of the mishnaic period; and two thousand years are the period of the coming of the Messiah.

Days 1 and 2: Days of Chaos/Desolation —until the Word/Torah comes.

Days 3 and 4: Days of the Torah — until Messiah comes. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 97a) said Messiah would come at the end of the fourth day. These two days can be called “the dispensation of the Law.”

Days 5 and 6: End of Days — The Talmud calls this the Messianic Era. A footnote to Sanhedrin 97b states:” He should have come at the beginning of the last two thousand years; the delay is due to our sins.” Peter and the disciples preached at the beginning of the “End of Days.” We live at the end of the “End of Days.” These two days can be called “the dispensation of grace, the Church age.”

This is as simple of doing the math. God gave Adam six thousand years after the sin in the garden. Daniel’s timeline told us when the messiah would come and die on the cross. No one says the Daniel’s is incorrect. That timeline also fit into the 6 thousand years for Adam because according to Daniel’s timeline, Jesus came at the end of the 4th day or 4 thousand years after Adam. That left 2 thousand years or 2 days until the year 2033. The math says the 2033-7yrs = 2026.

Therefore; the rapture of the church or body of Christ or the bride will happen on the feast of trumpets 2026. This is also the day in which no one knows the day or hour the feast will begin. When Jesus said that only the father knows when he will return, he was referencing the Jewish wedding tradition where the groom goes for a period of time to build an addition onto his father’s house. If you were to come across this groom and ask him when the big will happen, he would say to you “only my father knows”.

This is why Jesus that; he was telling us when to expect his return for his bride.

Thanks

Watchman Jim

4

Brethren in Christ Jesus:

According to the timeline of Daniel’s 70 weeks prophecy of Daniel 9, Messiah (Jesus) was cut off to end the 69th symbolic week. The final 70th week is still unfulfilled today. The actual date of the cutting off on the cross happened at 29 A.D., not 33 A.D. (See the following Appendix by Bullinger on the date… https://www.companionbiblecondensed.com/AP/ap91/index.html?page=3)

"Archbishop Ussher’s Chronology was first added to the Authorized Version by Bishop Lloyd in the edition of 1701. But, in Nehemiah 2:1, Bishop Lloyd put his own date “445 B.C.”, to suit his own theory. Archbishop Ussher’s date for the commencement of the reign of Artaxerxes was A.M. 3531, which, in his Collatio Annorum, corresponds to 474 B.C. “The twentieth year of Artaxerxes” would, therefore, be 454 B.C., as given above.

The era called “Anno Domini” was first fixed by a monk (Denys le Petit, commonly known by his Latin name, Dionysius Exiguus), about A.D. 532. It did not come into general use for some centuries. Charles III of Germany was the first who used the expression, “in the year of our Lord”, in 879. It was found afterward that a mistake had been made by fixing the era four years too late! This explains the marginal notes in Matthew 2:1 and Luke 2:20, “The fourth year before the Common Account called Anno Domini.” (In some editions of the Authorized Version we have seen “the fifth year”, Luke 2:1, also “the sixth year”, Luke 1:6) Hence, the year called A.D. 33 was really the year A.D. 29. This, with 454, makes exactly 483 years, or 69 weeks of years." (E.W. Bullinger Note in The Companion Bible)

Thus if we try to use a 2,000 year period from the time Lord Jesus was cut off at the cross (A.D. 29), it would mean 2029. But still, Jesus said NO MAN KNOWS THE DAY OR HOUR OF HIS COMING. So Jewish Gematria, which is like numerology, is not the way God left in His Word to grasp the era of Lord Jesus’ future return. But the SIGNS Lord Jesus gave in His Olivet discourse, and in His Book of Revelation, are given for those in Christ to be watching leading up to… His future coming. And that is actually HOW we know how close the timing is for His future coming.

5

Cold, hard facts re Bullinger @DavyP

Who he was
Ethelbert William Bullinger (1837–1913) was an Anglican clergyman and a biblical scholar. He is best known for The Companion Bible (KJV text with extensive notes and 198 appendices) and Figures of Speech Used in the Bible. He was a man of great industry and, by all accounts, sincere. But industry and sincerity do not guarantee sound doctrine.

  1. The root problem:Ultradispensationalism (“Bullingerism”)
    Bullinger’s system is not mere dispensationalism; it is ultradispensationalism. He taught that the Church, as the Body of Christ, did not begin at Pentecost but only after Acts 28:28, in Paul’s prison epistles. He held that the church of Acts was a Jewish remnant with an “Israelitish” hope, distinct from the later “Body” revelation. He further taught that water baptism and the Lord’s Supper belonged to an earlier dispensation and have no place in the present age, and that the Church is not the Bride of Christ (reserving that for a future Jewish remnant).

Harry A. Ironside, himself a dispensationalist, called Bullingerism “an absolutely Satanic perversion of the truth.”

For the Reformed tradition, which sees one covenant of grace, one people of God under Christ, and the sacraments as perpetual ordinances, this fractures the unity of Scripture and the church in a way that is fundamentally incompatible.

  1. Other serious doctrinal errors
    A.J. Pollock’s critical examination, An Examination of Dr. E.W. Bullinger’s Bible Teaching, lists several dangerous errors:

Soul sleep / conditional immortality. Bullinger taught that the dead are unconscious between death and resurrection, effectively denying the conscious intermediate state and the believer’s present communion with Christ. He mangled Philippians 1:23 (“to depart and be with Christ”) by trying to make “depart” mean Christ’s return rather than the apostle’s death.
The “Gospel in the Stars.” He held that the zodiac constellations were pre-Christian revelations of Christian doctrine, a speculative notion with no biblical foundation.

Biblical numerology (gematria). In Number in Scripture he assigned mystical, symbolic values to numbers and words in a way that goes far beyond sober exegesis.
Flat-earth advocacy. He was an active member of the Universal Zetetic Society and chaired flat-earth lectures. While this is not a theological error per se, it raises serious questions about his judgment and his handling of evidence.

Crucifixion on a Wednesday with four criminals. He held idiosyncratic views on the passion week that depart from the plain testimony of the Gospels.

Pollock’s verdict, from a conservative evangelical standpoint, is devastating: “Never in all our reading have we come across a true Christian author so guilty of misinterpreting, misunderstanding and mangling the Scriptures as he has done.”

Now do I mean you can’t find golden nuggets there, of course not.

Shalom.

J.

6

And this is where it becomes problematic, Bullinger believed in a Pre-Trib.

J.

7

And…?

Doesn’t mean he didn’t do some good scholarship.

Apostle Paul said prove all things, hold fast that which is good.

The pre-rapture theory was first preached in a Christian Church in 1830’s Great Britain. Bullinger got sucked into it for it became a popular doctrine in his era.

However, the Bible scholarship he did in The Companion Bible is still the best KJV study Bible in my opinion. It contains many Massorah notes from Christian David Ginsberg’s compilation of the best Old Testament Hebrew manuscripts that have the Massorah scribe notes in between the Hebrew text. No other study Bible has that. And as I have said, the information he compiled in the 198 Appendixes alone makes it worth having a copy.

So instead of you guys trying to find fault with everything, why don’t you take Apostle Paul’s advice, prove all things, keep what is good (1 Thess.5:21).

8

I do not only point out when I feel someone is incorrect; I also love to point out when they ARE correct. I understand this may come as a surprise to people, but Jesus did mean the opposite. In the verses right before Luke 17:35, Jesus gives two historical examples to explain what His coming will be like:

Noah’s Flood (Luke 17:26–27 / Matt 24:38–39): “The flood came, and destroyed them all.” Who was taken away? The wicked were swept away in judgment, while Noah and his family were left behind on Earth to survive.

Lot in Sodom (Luke 17:28–29): Fire and brimstone rained down and “destroyed them all.” The wicked were taken in judgment, while Lot was preserved.

When Jesus says “one taken and the other left,” He is continuing this exact pattern. Being “taken” in this context is not a reward—it is destruction.

In Luke 17:37, when Jesus mentions that one will be taken and another left, the disciples ask: “Where, Lord?” They are not asking where the saved go, but where the taken ones are taken to. Jesus responds: "Wheresoever the body [carcass] is, thither will the eagles be gathered together."

The Greek word for “eagles” here (aetos) refers to birds of prey, specifically carrion birds or vultures. This imagery points directly to Old Testament judgment scenes, such as Job 39:27–30 (“where the slain are, there is she”) and Ezekiel 39:17–20, where birds of prey gather to feast on the corpses of God’s defeated enemies after judgment.

The Meaning: The ones “taken” are taken to a place of death and judgment. Where their corpses become food for vultures.

Peter

9

The Luke reference to "taken: is not about the rapture as many believe but about the harvesting of tares from wheat. In this judgement, being “taken” is not good.

Bullinger assumed that there was a single point the separated the nation of Israel from what we know as the church today. Traditional dispensationalists consider that point to be Acts 2 he thought it was Acts 28. A better case can be made in mid Acts. As the grace gospel given to Paul for the gentiles ran parallel to the kingdom gospel for the nation of Israel.

Gal 2:7 But contrariwise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter;

A rapture is necessary to remove the body of Christ from the earth before wrath is poured out for seven years with the tribulation. When Christ returns at the end of the tribulation a faithful remnant of Israel will finally receive the earthly kingdom and be the nation of priests that had been intended from the beginning.