“If
you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will
eventually
come to believe it.”
-The Nazi, Joseph Goebbels
It
came from Dave MacPherson who aggressively attacked the
pretribulation rapture by attributing its origin to Margaret
Macdonald, whom MacPherson considered to be occult influenced. He
claimed J.N. Darby derived the pretribulation rapture from her and
this was done secretly, lest the true origin of the rapture be
discovered. This was the beginning of the MacDonald lie.
David MacPherson
David
MacPherson began the whole controversy with his claims which have so
little supporting evidence that one wonders how he could write his
book with a straight face. Pretribulationalists should be indebted
to MacPherson for exposing the facts, namely, that there is no proof
that MacDonald or Irving originated the pretribulation Rapture
teaching.
Max
S. Weremchuk wrote a major biography on Darby entitled, “John
Nelson Darby: A Biography. “ In it he says, "Having read
MacPherson's book I find it impossible to make a just comparison
between what Miss MacDonald 'prophesied' and what Darby taught. It
appears that the wish was the father of the idea.”
John
Nelson Darby, wrote of the Pre-trib Rapture in January of 1827
His
denomination was the Plymouth Brethren
Darby
had already written out his pretribulation Rapture views in January
1827, 3 years prior to the 1830 MacDonald prophecy.
Darby’s
belief came from Scripture, not from a girl’s prophecy.
He
did not get his eschatological views from men, but rather from the
doctrine of the church as the body of Christ. His views were
gradually formed and theologically and Biblically based rather than
derived from any Pentecostal group or MacDonald prophecy.
Darby
went to the meetings being held where MacDonald gave her word, and
he concluded that what was going on there was “demonic.” He
would not have borrowed an idea from a source that he clearly
thought was demonic.“
Darby's
understanding of the pre-trib Rapture was the product of the
development of his personal interactive thought with the text of
Scripture as he, his friends, and dispensationalists have long
contended.
Darby's
earliest published essay on Biblical prophecy was in 1829. In his
earliest of essays, he expounds upon the Rapture as the Church's
hope, not the Church’s purification during the Tribulation.
Darby’s
conclusion concerning the pre-trib Rapture came when he saw clearly
the distinction between Israel and the Church, two separate
dispensations.
Margaret
MacDonald was post-trib
MacDonald’s
vision was in 1830, 3 years after Darby’s conclusions about the
Rapture
MacDonald
was a member of the charismatic movement of 1830. John Darby went to
investigate and dismissed her “vision” as "demonic."
If Darby thought MacDonald to be under an "evil spell,"
why on earth would he use her writings to form some new doctrine?
MacDonald’s
statements show her to hold a POST-trib position. She
said of the Tribulation:
"…being the fiery trial which
is to try us …for the purging and purifying of the real members of
the body of Jesus." She looked for the Church being purged by
the Antichrist. This is not pre-trib belief. Pre-trib doctrine shows
the Church being removed BEFORE THE COMING of the Antichrist.
Margaret
MacDonalds’ Prophecy
Roy
A. Huebner, Brethren writer
Huebner
wrote that Darby first began to believe in the pre-trib Rapture and
develop his dispensational thinking while convalescing from a riding
accident during December 1826 and January 1827. Huebner wrote of
Darby's pre-trib and dispensational thoughts:
He
saw from Isaiah 32 that there was a different dispensation coming
…that Israel and the Church were distinct.
During
his convalescence, Darby learned that he ”ought daily to expect
his Lord's return."
He
also saw a gap of time between the Rapture and the second coming
Darby
himself said in 1857 that he first started understanding things
relating to the pre-trib Rapture "thirty years ago," so
that would be January 1827.
Darby
had already understood those truths upon which the pre-tribulation
Rapture hinges. He claimed that the doctrine virtually jumped out of
the pages of Scripture once he accepted and consistently maintained
the distinction between Israel and the church.
Huebner
considers MacPherson's charges as "using slander that J. N.
Darby took the pretribulation Rapture from those very opposing,
demon-inspired utterances.”
John
Bray
Bray
was an anti-Rapture believer, but he said that Margaret MacDonald was
teaching a single coming of our Lord Jesus. This contradicts the
Rapture doctrine which teaches a two-staged event: first, Christ
comes for His Church and second, seven years later his return to
earth. So Margaret MacDonald was post-trib, NOT pre-trib.
There
are not a lot of writings from the early church period on the subject
of the Rapture. And why should there be? They were not to live in
those days. The earliest writings from which we have learned about
these things are found in the Bible’s Book of Daniel. After
receiving the revelation, Daniel was told:
“Go
your way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the
time of the end.”
Ephraem
the Syrian, 373 AD ---1,454 years before Darby
"For
all the saints and Elect of God are gathered, prior to the
tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord lest they see
the confusion that is to overwhelm the world because of our sins."
John
Gill (1748)
Dr.
John Gill was one of the most brilliant scholars of his day. This
Calvinist Baptist theologian wrote a full commentary set on the Bible
in 1748. In this commentary he made a statement in his notes on 1
Thessalonians 4 that supported a time difference between the Rapture
of the saints and the coming of Christ to earth. He said:
"....here Christ will stop and
will be visible to all, and as easily discerned by all, good and bad,
as the body of the sun at noon-day; as yet He will not descend on
earth, because it is not fit to receive Him; but when that and its
works are burnt up, and it is purged and purified by fire, and become
a new earth, He'll descend upon it, and dwell with his saints in it:
and this suggests another reason why He'll stay in the air, and His
saints shall meet Him there, and whom He'll take up with Him into the
third heaven, till the general conflagration and burning of the world
is over, and to preserve them from it...."
Joseph
Mede (1586-1638)
"I
will add this more, namely, what may be conceived to be the cause of
this RAPTURE of the saints on high to meet the Lord in the clouds,
rather than to wait his coming to earth....What if it be, that they
may be PRESERVED during the Conflagration of the earth and the works
thereof, 2 Pet.3:10, that as Noah and his family were preserved from
the Deluge by being lift up above the waters in the Ark; so should
the saints at the Conflagration be lift up in the clouds unto their
Ark, Christ, to be preserved there from the deluge of fire, wherein
the wicked shall be consumed?" ("The
Works of Joseph
Mede," 1672, London edition, Book IV, p.776)
Irenaeus
(130 A.D. – 202 AD)
“And
therefore, when in the end the Church shall be suddenly caught up
from this, it is said, “There shall be tribulation such as has not
been since the beginning, neither shall be.”
Cyprian
(200 AD – 258 AD
Do
you not give God thanks, do you not congratulate yourself, that by an
early departure you are taken away, and delivered from the shipwrecks
and disasters that are imminent? Let us greet the day which assigns
each of us to his own home, which snatches us hence, and sets us free
from the snares of the world and restores us to paradise and the
kingdom.”
