Dispensationalism, the Rapture, and Pentecostal Identity

So, someone recently 'predicted' the date that the 'rapture' would occur. Apparently, the date was a few days ago, and no surprises, we're all still here on planet Earth.

The Facebook memes...

I have been a little busy lately. I started an honours degree a little earlier than planned after completing my theology degree, which is why it's been quiet here. My thesis explores the outlook of the teacher in Ecclesiastes (an Old Testament wisdom book) and how he can speak to an over-realised Pentecostal eschatology. I will explain that in more detail in another post - it's a simple concept wrapped in big words. For now, though, I want to address the whole 'rapture' situation, which has come up in my research so far.

Growing up in the Pentecostal church in the 90s meant that from time to time, men in suits would turn up teaching from all sorts of charts about the end of the world and how it was all going to happen. Barcodes were the mark of the beast, and highway reference numbers were also significant to the whole story... I can no longer recall exactly why though. Since then, there have been many forecasts about all sorts of things to predict 'the end'. Lots of money has been made by the 'special ones' who received divine revelation, or those who happened to 'crack the code' for the end. And, shock, horror, none of it has gone as predicted.

As a young person, the thought of being left behind was frightening, but there was always a sense of discomfort with the teaching. The fruit of it is fear - the opposite of the gospel - which never made sense to younger me.

Since I've looked into it, I've realised why it sat uncomfortably. It turns out that before 1830, it simply wasn't present in Church teaching. It belongs to an idea or framework called dispensationalism, which developed out of the Plymouth Brethren and became prominent through the teaching of John Nelson Darby. His ideas went on to shape leaders like George Duffield, James Brooks, and C.I. Scofield.

Dispensationalism has a number of features, the main ones being that history is divided into seven different eras, or "dispensations," leading up to Christ's return.

A key element of this framework is the belief that before Jesus comes back to reign for a thousand years and bring judgment, the church will be secretly raptured while the world endures seven years of tribulation. The idea of a rapture is crafted by pulling together a bunch of scriptures that somehow 'prove' this idea of being zapped into the sky. Unfortunately, when these scriptures are looked at in context, they don't mean what dispensationalists say they do. To unpack each of them will take a little time, and may be the topic of another conversation or blog. This loose approach to interpretation is really where much of dispensationalism's problems lie.

Dispensationalists read the Bible through a very literal lens and draw a strong line between Israel and the Church—deciding which passages apply to which group. The problem with literal interpretation is that we risk importing meaning into the text. If we take scripture as authoritative, we absolutely must interpret it faithfully, which means letting it speak on its own terms. I definitely have more to say about that, but that's another topic for another post.

The distinction between Israel and the Church is an interesting feature, and one I want to focus on. In separating Israel, dispensationalists argue that when the Church is raptured, Israel is left behind. They also say that the Old Testament scripture applies to Israel and the New Testament from Acts applies to the Church.

And this is where things get especially problematic for Pentecostals. We trace our very identity back to the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit was poured out on all flesh—a promise first given in Joel 2:28–29.

If the New Testament only applies to the Church, how can our identity as Pentecostals come from an Old Testament prophecy?

Quite simply, it cannot. To make it work, you need to do acrobatics, and at that point, we need to stop. The gospel is simple. God has made it simple, so we can all understand it, so I don't believe that there is some extra mystery that we need to unlock. The idea of dispensationalism, apart from being absent for the majority of Church history, is utterly inconsistent with the Pentecostal identity and something that we would do well to reject.

I know that daily life can be hard, and that there are issues we all grapple with. But looking to an idea that at its heart is about escapism is not what we have been anointed and appointed for. The Great Commission is about sharing the gospel and teaching God's ways to bring heaven to earth until such time as Jesus returns. Will he? Of course. He said he would. Do we know when? No, and there's no point in guessing because that's not what he commissioned us to do.

Ultimately, our job isn't to figure out the timetable—it's to be faithful with the time we've been given. I once heard a preacher say he would rather be on the welcoming committee than the planning committee when Jesus returns. I think that is a pretty good way of putting it.