“Of that Day and Hour Knoweth no Man”
Harold Camping came to fame in the British media recently on account of his prediction that on 21 May 2011 the righteous would be “raptured” (caught up into heaven). Five months of dreadful judgements would then come on the earth, culminating in the end of the world on 21 October 2011. The media, recording this latest of Camping’s unfulfilled prophecies, portrayed him as a Christian fundamentalist taking his predictions from the Bible. Implicitly they poured scorn on Christianity and on those who believe that the Bible is the Word of God and entirely trustworthy, as he professes to do. Writer, broadcaster and owner of broadcasting stations, with many followers in the USA, he persuaded many to contribute funds to advertising his predictions. Some donated their life savings, ceased working, sold their houses or ran up large debts because they expected to be carried up to heaven on May 21.
Camping takes no responsibility for these actions and their consequences. While acknowledging that he was mistaken in his calculations and now claiming that what took place on May 21 was a spiritual judgement, he is unrepentant concerning his endeavours to determine the times which the Lord said no man knows, “no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father” (Mk 13:32). The Lord is not denying His omniscience as the Son of God but declaring that the time of the end is not something which He has been commissioned as Mediator to communicate to us.
Camping is charged with alleging that all churches are apostate and with various departures from Biblical Christianity, such as denying total depravity and affirming the annihilation of the unsaved. This note focuses on Camping’s belief in a pre-tribulation rapture and on his claim that times can be calculated from the Bible, which he justifies by misinterpreting Daniel 12:9: “Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end,” which only means that the things prophesied will become known as they occur.
The idea of a secret rapture of God’s people prior to a time of great tribulation on the earth, followed in the view of some by a physical coming of Christ with His saints to reign on the earth for a thousand years, has no basis in Scripture. This notion found acceptance for the first time among a body of professed Christians in the nineteenth century through J N Darby’s reception and elaboration of views preached by Edward Irving and through Darby’s propagating of these views among the Brethren.
The principal scripture on which the notion of the rapture is based is 1 Thessalonians 4:16,17: “The dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” That there will be nothing secret about the appearing of the Lord which will bring about this event is clear from the beginning of verse 16: “For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God”. A sober reading of the passage in the context of Scripture as a whole makes clear that it refers to the coming of Christ at the end of time, bringing about the general resurrection, and ushering in the Day of Judgement and the eternal state of all. The “blessed hope” of the people of God is not some “secret rapture” but “the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). The righteous and the wicked shall be together on the earth until the end comes.
The Westminster Confession of Faith states: “As Christ would have us to be certainly persuaded that there shall be a day of judgement, both to deter all men from sin, and for the greater consolation of the godly in their adversity; so will He have that day unknown to men, that they may shake off all carnal security, and be always watchful, because they know not at what hour the Lord will come; and may be ever prepared to say, Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly” (33:3).
Paul taught those Thessalonians who gave up work, presumably expecting the Lord to come any day, that many things are to happen before the Lord’s appearing, the final consummating event of earth’s history. That God’s people have “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for His Son from heaven” (1 Th 1:9,10), finds expression not in trying to calculate times which God has kept to Himself but in living as those should to whom the Second Coming is as real by faith as the First – “soberly, righteously, and godly” (Titus 2:12) – knowing that soon our brief life shall end and we shall be caught up in the implications of that day.
HMC