How many raptures are in the Bible?

Answer 1

A:

The 'rapture' is a fairly recent theological invention developed John Nelson Darby, founder of the Plymouth Brethren, in the nineteenth-century. Barbara R. Rossing (The Rapture Exposed) says that it has its origins in the nineteenth century beginning, according to one critic, with a young girl's vision. In 1830, in Port Glasgow, Scotland, fifteen-year-old Margaret MacDonald attended a healing service. There, she was said to have seen a vision of a two-stage return of Jesus Christ. The story of her vision was adopted and amplified by John Nelson Darby, a British evangelical preacher and founder of the Plymouth Brethren.

Darby's new teaching was that Christ would return twice. The first return would be in secret, to "Rapture" his church out of the world and up to heaven. Christ would return a second time after seven years of global tribulation for non-believers, to establish a Jerusalem-based kingdom on earth (called the "Glorious Appearing" - a phrase from Titus 2:13). Although Darby and later proponents selectively use biblical references such as Titus 2:13 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 as evidence for the coming Rapture, these were not really about the rapture. Apart from the well-known Second Coming of Jesus, there is nothing in The Bible that supports the 'rapture'.