N.T. Wright’s Rapture Rhetoric
It's OK to disagree, but how we disagree reveals a lot about us!
Folks have been disagreeing about the rapture of the church for hundreds of years, and one’s rapture views do not classify him as either heretical or orthodox. The reasoning which we use to defend our position, however, does reveal our true biblical posture, and this is particularly noticeable in the rhetoric of N.T. Wright in his recently revived rapture challenge, Farewell to the Rapture[1], on his blog. Let’s talk about it:
Fact Check: “The American obsession with the second coming of Jesus — especially with distorted interpretations of it — continues unabated.” In reality, evangelical commitment to the rapture is fading in direct correspondence to the impact of the new Calvinism, though it did experience a short revival around the turn of the century. More importantly, it is unfair to call this an obsession by any stroke, unless one is trying to prejudice the issue.
Fact Check: Wright then supports his observation by referencing the LaHaye/Jenkins Left Behind series.[2] Wright has every reason to challenge some of the nonsense in this fictional series and we acquiesce. The series does not, however, represent the theology of the average believer in the rapture, and in fact, barely treats the rapture subject. Opposing the rapture because some abuse the doctrine is akin to refusing to own a car because some drive recklessly. Wright has prejudiced the facts and would cast rapture believers as obsessed fans of this fanciful series.
Fact Check: “It is Paul who should be credited with creating this scenario. Jesus himself, as I have argued in various books, never predicted such an event.” While the claim that Jesus did not teach the rapture is certainly up for debate, the most dangerous part of this statement is that Wright’s own view of the inspiration of the scriptures in exposed. Clearly, the intimation is that, if Jesus did not mention it, we must limit what Paul said only in light of what Jesus taught while on earth. What Wright fails to understand is that Jesus’ basic ministry was the offering of the gospel of the kingdom to the nation of Israel while Paul’s subsequent mission was to carry out the ministry of Messiah among the gentiles (Romans 11:13). This discussion is fully expanded in Acts. Further, Paul received additional revelation by the mouth of Christ, (1 Corinthians 11:23, Ephesians 3:3). It only makes sense that Paul would stress the rapture more than Christ because its message relates to the consummation of the ministry of the church. The entire scope of the nature of the church and its place in history was a yet unrevealed mystery (Colossians 1). If we are to follow Wright’s logic we must discard anything Paul taught which Christ did not teach.
Fact Check: “Understanding what will happen requires a far more sophisticated cosmology than the one in which ‘heaven’ is somewhere up there in our universe, rather than in a different dimension, a different space-time, altogether.” Heaven and earth are not different dimensions, they are separate entities and each has a clearly delineated past, present, and future laid out in God’s Word. This dimensional claim, of course, is the result of Wright’s own obsession with ancient near east religion, and pagan worldviews, now expressed in the modern notions of theoretical physics. The Bible clearly and consistently refers to heaven as a physical place, and for that matter, it is up. These are basic biblical tenets that virtually all of God’s people in all camps have held universally until the popularization of the views of the Bible Project, Heiser, and the likes of Wright. To accept this “sophisticated cosmology” is to go far beyond the limits of God’s Word and it requires, by the way, a restatement one’s of anthropology, hamartiology, angelology, soteriology, and even theology proper as Wright’s friends at the Bible Project have so clearly evinced.
Fact Check: Wright then treats a few select rapture passages in an entirely metaphorical context insisting that “Paul’s mixed metaphors of trumpets blowing and the living being snatched into heaven to meet the Lord are not to be understood as literal truth, (as the Left Behind series suggests), but as a vivid and biblically allusive description of the great transformation of the present world of which he speaks elsewhere.” Follow the steps. First, we are to treat any and all rapture passages as metaphorical and reject any literal statements regarding the rapture at hand. Secondly, we are to understand that they are all vivid biblical descriptions of the coming transformation of this present world. In order to build this scenario, we must reject simple, literal interpretation and substitute Wright’s wisdom in assigning the correct metaphors to each passage. Finally, we must somehow fit this into his dominionist worldview.
Fact Check: “Wouldn’t this be overturned if we recaptured Paul’s wholistic vision of God’s whole creation?” Unlike Dr. Wright’s, Paul’s “wholistic” vision of God’s whole creation certainly conformed with Christ’s and the other apostles’ views. It was articulate, definitive and exquisite.
The doctrine of premillennialism in general and the doctrine of the rapture (as stated both implicitly and explicitly) have been shared among God’s people for centuries. It is not a recent American invention or obsession. While it has suppressed during the reign of orthodoxy so-called, it is the result of a commitment to literal interpretation (while respecting biblically verified figures of speech and metaphors). We cannot pick and chose what verses we will use, what verses we will treat as literal and metaphorical, and what scenarios we must imagine in order to make things work.
If metaphors are in vogue, consider this. Theoretically, we could take all the parts of an automobile and place them in one large box. That would not be a wholistic collection. We could even assemble some creative, functional items using those pieces. That still would not be a wholistic assembly. Paul’s wholistic view includes all the respective elements of Bible prophecy, properly assembled, and easily understood and recognized by all of God’s people who will commit to simple, literal interpretation, allowing metaphors to illumine and expand what God has clearly stated. The problem with literal interpretation is that is so boring and leaves so little room for the creativity of human flesh.
The choice is in front of us. We can embrace a self-canonizing, self-perpetuating, and self-interpreting Bible, or we can be forever dependent on higher authorities and their various mixes and blends of theological fantasy.
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