The fairest way to decide the merits of any Christian belief system is to examine carefully the Bible passages that are said to support it. It was a thorough examination of just that sort that led me, a convinced rapturist Fundamentalist, to reconcile with the Roman Catholic Church almost a decade ago. (My book Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic provides details of the journey.)

While the Catholic appeals to Scripture, Tradition, and the teaching authority, or Magisterium, of the Church to guide his beliefs, rapturists claim to rely exclusively on the ostensibly clear and self-interpreting text of the Bible. So it is fair to ask whether the rapturist belief system is the best way to understand the relevant Scripture passages, considered apart from other authoritative voices. Of course, as Catholics, we would say this approach removes two legs of the three-legged stool of truth. But discounting for our purposes Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium, can the rapture theory really do justice to what the Bible teaches?

To be thorough and fair, I will attempt to survey all of the relevant passages, looking at the common rapturist interpretation of each and trying to determine whether it is the best understanding. I will then offer my own conclusions from a Catholic perspective.

Keep in mind, however, that it is not possible for anyone to claim that his understanding of a passage is the Catholic one if the Church herself has been silent on the issue. “There are but few texts whose sense has been defined by the authority of the Church” (DAS). The passages we will examine most closely do not fall within those few texts. Yet we will at all times endeavor to stay within the parameters set by the Church, mindful that there can be a multitude of valid Catholic opinions about most passages.

Indeed, it is very probable that some good Catholics will disagree with my treatment of some of these passages. Your pastor may give a homily based on one of these passages that takes a different understanding from the one this book presents. There is nothing wrong or unusual about this, as long as he does not claim that everyone must agree with his perspective. My purpose is not to review the entire scope of Catholic possibilities, but to show that there exists at least one consistent Catholic perspective on each given passage that is truer to the text and to history than the rapturist perspective is.

In our exegesis, we will be ever mindful of our goal. As St. Jerome said, “The office of a commentator is to set forth, not what he himself would prefer, but what his author says.” I believe it is fair to state that this is how the early Church handled Scripture.

We will also honor the traditional Christian view of Scripture’s reliability: that the texts as originally written are without error in all that they intend to teach. The Church has clearly stated that Scripture is fundamentally a revelation of God Himself, culminating in the deeds and words of our Lord Jesus Christ. As Vatican II stated, “The books of both the Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their parts, are written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit; they have God as their author.… Therefore, since everything asserted … must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully, and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation” (DV, 11).

As a former Protestant preacher, I think I can say that most rapturists would have no trouble agreeing with Church teaching regarding Scripture. (Granted, more than a few would have trouble with the source!)

Fortunately for us, there are not many passages of Scripture that bear on the discussion at hand. We will spend most of our efforts examining passages in three books of the Bible: Daniel, Matthew, and The Apocalypse. We will take brief excursions into a handful of other passages as well.

Perhaps unfortunately, these three books contain literature of the genre called “apocalyptic.” This is unfortunate in that this type of writing is rather foreign to the twenty-first-century reader. Because the imagery is vivid and symbolic, apocalyptic literature can lead rather easily to misunderstandings.

In this type of writing, special rules apply. Apocalyptic literature must be interpreted with the full awareness of how it was intended to be understood when it was written. This is a basic rule of hermeneutics (rules for interpreting the Bible). Poetry should be understood as poetry, history as history, and apocalyptic writings should be understood in the larger framework of apocalyptic literature.

Moreover, apocalyptic text in the Bible does more than use vivid, symbolic imagery. It also purports supernaturally to inform readers about future events. In this sense, apocalyptic literature in the Bible is different from any secular literature of the apocalyptic genre. The best term I have encountered to describe this biblical literature is “prophetic-apocalyptic” (ZPE, I, 204).

It will be much easier to navigate the apocalyptic passages touching on the rapture and second coming of Christ if we have first clarified certain principles. These ground rules can be discerned from Scripture itself, so that a fair-minded Protestant should be able to agree with them.

After laying the foundation of these ground rules, we will take the passages in their turn, examining them on their own merits. We will discuss the passages in the order they appear in the Bible, in order to keep them in approximate chronological order. That is how God revealed these truths to His people. First Daniel and Zechariah were available. Much in these books was difficult to understand until Jesus taught more truth in the Olivet Discourse (Matthew) about six hundred years later. At least three more decades transpired before the Church was finally given the perspective of The Apocalypse.

By following the order of God’s unfolding revelation, we can learn from the earlier passages before we attempt to discern the meaning of the later ones. It is essential to remember that the later books presuppose a familiarity with the earlier books. If I follow this general scheme properly, at the end of Daniel you will have been introduced to some concepts of which you are not yet fully convinced. By the end of The Apocalypse, however, we should be able to look back in awe at the wondrous revelation of God through the ages.

Prophecy inspired by God can foretell events in advance of any possible human foresight

Like most people, I have vivid childhood memories of Christmas. One of my family’s traditions was the reading of the Nativity story every Christmas morning before we opened any of our presents (which made us very willing to sit still so as not to create any delay!).

One of the passages giving us the details of Christ’s birth can be found in the first two chapters of Matthew’s Gospel. We read that after the birth of Jesus, “wise men from the East came to Jerusalem” (2:1) inquiring about the location of the new baby King.

This inquiry certainly piqued the interest of the reigning ruler in Judea at that time, Herod. King Herod was not a Jew, but an Edomite. He had been recently installed on the Jewish throne by the Romans, at the expense of the Jewish Hasmonean dynasty. It is quite certain that he knew of the prophecy of Balaam, recorded in Numbers 24:17–18, which foretold the ascendancy of Jacob’s star (a Jewish King) at the expense of the Edomites: “A star shall come forth out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel; it shall crush the forehead of Moab.… Edom shall be dispossessed.”

Herod was so troubled that, “assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet: “And you, O Bethlehem … from you shall come a ruler who will govern my people Israel” ’ ” (Matt. 2:4–6). In answering Herod’s question, the leaders of Israel referenced Micah 5:2.

In this exchange, we can ascertain Ground Rule 1: Prophecy inspired by God can foretell events in advance of any possible human foresight (GR1). Modernist objections notwithstanding, Scripture is sprinkled liberally with prophecy that has been fulfilled in a way that no human being could have foreseen. It has been estimated that about one-quarter of the Bible was prophetic when penned.

Some 150 years before his birth, the Persian king Cyrus was named and described in Isaiah 41:25–45:4. He merited this mention because he paved the way for the Messiah when he decreed the rebuilding of Jerusalem. In 1 Kings 13:1–3, the name and actions of King Josiah are predicted almost three centuries before his birth. He stands as an important type of Jesus the Messiah as the reforming king, killed by Egypt. While modernist Catholic commentators refer to these as later glosses, added after the events, able Evangelical scholars have proven them wrong. These truly were prophecies, uttered before the fact.

This principle stands in direct opposition to a basic assumption of modern higher criticism, as adopted first by Islamic scholars, then by Protestants, and then by Catholics. Many laymen are not aware of the roots of modernist theology as it relates to New Testament studies, much of which can be traced to a Lutheran scholar by the name of Rudolf Bultmann.

One of Bultmann’s basic assumptions was his total rejection of the supernatural. All miracles are automatically ruled out as impossible, whether they are found in the Old Testament or the New. The stories of the Old Testament about Noah, Moses, and Elijah are reinterpreted to fit the prejudices of a modern, rationalistic mindset. Likewise, the New Testament accounts of the Virgin Birth, the feeding of the five thousand, the raising of Lazarus, and the Resurrection of Jesus are explained, or rather, explained away, in modern rationalistic terms.

Since looking into the future and predicting it with an accuracy that human foresight cannot explain is certainly a miracle, true prophecy is impossible according to modernist theologians. This is an a priori article of faith for them. A favorite approach to any text containing a prophecy that was fulfilled is to strive to re-date its authorship to a time after the event occurred. Scholars call this “antedating” the authorship of Scripture. This makes it possible to explain away the prophecy. In their view, it is really history written in the style of prophecy.

This, however, is extremely difficult for them to do with the prophecy of Micah, quoted by the chief priests to Herod in Matthew’s Gospel. This prophecy was fulfilled in the birth of Christ, yet we know that Micah’s prophecy was in existence hundreds of years before that event.

It is important to remember that true prophecy really can be found in the Bible. The Holy Spirit was able to direct writers of Scripture to foretell future events accurately, even when the writers themselves did not fully understand the implications of what they wrote. The Church throughout history has generally accepted an earlier date for other books of prophecy, such as Daniel. It is not that early Christians were uncritical, either. Textual criticism is not modern; there is evidence of robust textual criticism dating from the second century. Modern higher criticism wedded to antisupernatural prejudices is the problem.

This prejudice affects how modernists view even the Gospel account. Yet the Church states, “The Gospels were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who preserved their authors from every error” (SME). With that said, it will surprise no one that I accept the historicity of the miracles of Jesus as presented in the Gospels, and even the virgin birth of that same Jesus. His Incarnation was possible because of the yes that His mother, Mary, gave to God’s plan as presented by the angel Gabriel. Yes, that means I accept the possibility of the supernatural. Along with Christians of every loyal faith tradition, I also believe that Christ will physically return to close the curtain on history. The focus of this book will be on how this last prophecy will occur.

Numbers in prophecy denote a symbolic meaning that trumps any empirical value

In the Old Testament prophetic book of Jeremiah, we encounter our second ground rule. The prophet Jeremiah lived just before the Babylonian captivity. He looked that catastrophe straight in the eye and stated that, although horrible in the suffering it caused, it would have an end. He predicted that the time of captivity for the Jewish nation would be seventy years: “Thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place” (Jer. 29:10).

The prophet Daniel lived through this captivity. When it started, he was a young lad in Jerusalem. He was taken captive to Babylon and rose in the ranks of royal advisors. Later in his life, he came across this prophecy of Jeremiah and realized that the seventy years was close to being completed (Dan. 9). Jeremiah’s prophecy was about to be fulfilled—but not with the precision that a modern Western reader might expect.

This prophecy of seventy years is one of the only instances in which we can compare the prophetic time of the Bible with our modern concept of historical time. Both the prediction and the fulfillment are recorded in the Bible. As a result, scholars and historians have struggled to make the historical events of the captivity fit the seventy years that Jeremiah predicted. It simply never works out exactly; rather, the events fit into either sixty-seven years or seventy-one years. Even a staunch literalist such as Walvoord admits this in Daniel, The Key to Prophetic Revelation.

If you assume that God is omniscient and omnipotent, the natural question is, “Why would God reveal to Jeremiah a nice round number such as seventy when the actual time period would turn out to be a little less or a smidgen more?” The answer turns out to be quite simple. As Catholic and Protestant scholars alike have long recognized, in Old Testament times, numbers had a symbolic meaning.

Often, this symbolic meaning bears more importance than the literal numerical value. The number three was the number of God. The number four was the number symbolizing earth. Seven (three plus four) and twelve (three times four) signified God working in the world. Ten was the number of completion. Even multiples of these numbers were important to ancient Jews. In the Jewish calendar, the seventh month was the most sacred, being the month of the Feast of Trumpets, Yom Kippur, and the Feast of Tabernacles. Numbers that relate to dates, and times were particularly significant.

The Bible even uses two Greek words for two types of time. Chronological time is kronos (the root of the words chronometer and chronology), whereas symbol-laden, salvific time is kairos. This kind of time is described in Ecclesiastes 3:1–8: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under Heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted.…”

So what might be the symbolism of the seventy years in Jeremiah? Seventy is the result of multiplying ten and seven. These numbers signify the completion of God’s working in the world. In this case, that work involved the punishment of Israel. The captivity of Daniel and his fellow Jews was not exactly seventy years, but the judgment of God was complete.

This does not match our modern concept of chronological time, but it speaks to something more important—namely, symbol-laden, salvific time. The sixty-seven (or seventy-one) years of the Babylonian captivity was close enough to seventy years for an observer to notice the correspondence, yet the significant number seventy was preserved. Numbers in prophecy denote a symbolic meaning that trumps any empirical value (GR2).

We must remind ourselves of this ground rule every time we read a number in the Bible. What is its symbolic meaning, if any? For example, the importance of the number one thousand is immense. Jewish tradition teaches that this was the length of the Davidic kingdom. But when the Bible states that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, it is inappropriate to start identifying which hills are being included. One thousand is the product of ten times ten times ten; thus it is a complete and perfect number. The number represents something much more important than 999 plus one. God’s wealth is totally complete.

We see the ancient significance of numbers at work even outside of prophecy. In Matthew 1:17, the author organizes Christ’s genealogy around the number fourteen. There are fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the Babylonian captivity, and fourteen from the Babylonian captivity to Jesus. This splits the genealogy into “from promise given to promise fulfilled,” “from promise fulfilled to promise lost,” and finally “from promise lost to promise fulfilled eternally.” In addition, some scholars note that the number fourteen was the number of King David, which would remind a reader again and again that Jesus was the son of David. All of this is easily lost on the modern reader who does not study the ancient attitude toward numbers and their meaning.

An event can be a prophecy of a still-future, final fulfillment, and when it is, we should consider the entire historical context of the events to gain a fuller understanding

In all of Scripture, there is perhaps no prophecy more widely known than Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman [virgin] shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” This prophecy was written hundreds of years before Christ, so it may surprise you to find out that this prophecy was actually fulfilled within the lifetime of Isaiah.

In Isaiah’s time, the king of Judah was Ahaz, who was succeeded by his son Hezekiah. Jerusalem was being besieged by Damascus (the Syrians) and Ephraem (the Israelites), or the ten northern tribes. To most of the people of God (Judah) at that time, the situation looked hopeless. Through the prophet Isaiah, God assured the king that their enemies would not be victorious over them. God would send the Assyrians against Damascus and Ephraem. Isaiah promised the king that a young girl would conceive and give birth to a son. This son would eventually be weaned, but before that child was weaned, Judea’s enemies would be destroyed.

Isaiah promised Hezekiah that salvation was certain, but there would be a lengthy period before that salvation was fully realized. Isaiah himself writes that this son was born: “The prophetess … conceived and bore a son. Then the Lord said to me, ‘Call his name Mahershalalhashbaz; for before the child knows how to cry “My father” or “My mother,” the wealth of Damascus and … Samaria will be carried away’ ” (Isa. 8:3–4).

Sure enough, when we look back at history, Jerusalem was spared from its enemies during those years. But the story does not stop there. In fewer than seventy years, Ephraem (the ten northern tribes that had rejected the reign of David’s heir) was utterly conquered, dispersed, and left without a trace. Jerusalem did indeed experience God’s salvation, but not every descendant of Abraham benefited from that salvation. Those Israelites who had rejected the Davidic line of kings were destroyed and forgotten. Even today they are known as the ten lost tribes of Israel.

But an interesting thing occurred to this prophecy after it was initially fulfilled. The leaders of the people of God taught that the events centered on Isaiah 7:14 still had another future fulfillment in mind. We might state it this way: the event itself (the birth of a son via a young woman that signals the coming salvation of God’s faithful remnant and the destruction of the faithless majority) was a prophecy pointing to a more important fulfillment in the future. Someday another Son would come who would signal the availability of a more universal salvation for a new Israel, the Israel of God. “Israel of God” is the terminology of St. Paul for the Church (Gal. 6:16; Rom. 9:6).

Even before the conception of Christ, many of these Jewish leaders were stating that the young woman of the still-future fulfillment would actually be a virgin. This is evident in the word that Jewish translators used to render this verse into Greek in the Septuagint of Isaiah 7:14. By the time of Christ, this passage from Isaiah was understood to be a Messianic prophecy, and the Gospels reference it as such. When Matthew uses this prophecy of Isaiah in Matthew 1:23, he points to more than just the virgin birth. He includes in his view the entire series of events surrounding Isaiah’s time. These events included the salvation of the believing remnant and the destruction of the unbelieving majority that occurred much later than the actual birth of the child.

So we can observe that when a prophecy is fulfilled, that fulfilling event may itself become a prophecy, pointing to another, more final and complete fulfillment. Here is our third ground rule: An event can be a prophecy of a still-future, final fulfillment, and when it is, we should consider the entire historical context of the events to gain a fuller understanding (GR3). To put it succinctly, history can become prophecy.

St. Thomas Aquinas enunciated this principle. He wrote that the “allegorical sense” of Scripture is a reading of the Bible that appreciates the fact that events and persons described can point to something beyond themselves, and so build faith in us. For example, Adam is a type of Christ, while Eve is a type of Mary (SUM, 4).

In his thought, even St. Thomas harkened back to an earlier authority, St. Gregory. He wrote, “Scripture transcends all other sciences by the way it uses one and the same discourse to tell history and reveal mystery” (SUM, 4).

We repeatedly see illustrations of Old Testament stories fulfilled in the New Testament. The sacrifices of the Old Covenant foreshadow the one Sacrifice of Christ. The Hebrews’ forty years in the desert prefigure the forty days of Jesus’ being tempted in the desert. Jonah in the belly of the fish is used by Jesus as a type for His own death and Resurrection. Over and over the Old Testament events give us a picture of what will occur in the New Testament.

This ground rule also leads us to an important caveat. Although ninety-nine percent of all biblical prophecy has been fulfilled already, past events themselves can and do point to the final fulfillment of history when Christ returns. For example, antichrists have come (1 John 2:18) and will continue to come. Each of them foreshadows the one, final antichrist who will embody and perfect all of their evils. The events of the past can be imbued with meaning in the future by the God who is omnipotent and omniscient.

Apocalyptic visions may use one image to symbolize two realities

If you take great pride in your orderliness, this ground rule might bother you. It is so disconcerting to many Westerners that some ignore it even in the face of a specific teaching of Scripture. But remember, apocalyptic literature was not written for modern Westerners. We must try to be transcultural when we read it.

In The Apocalypse, St. John specifically informs his reader that one object within his vision symbolizes two things. In Chapter 17, we encounter “a scarlet beast … and it had seven heads and ten horns.… The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman is seated; they are also seven kings” (Apoc. 17:3, 9–10).

The seven heads of this beast have a geographical meaning, “seven hills,” and also a personal meaning, “seven kings.” When we get to The Apocalypse, we will spend the necessary time to understand St. John’s meaning. What is important for us to understand at the outset is our ground rule, which St. John sets forth very clearly: Apocalyptic visions may use one image to symbolize two realities (GR4).

Apocalyptic literature uses dramatic imagery of cataclysmic disruptions to describe changes within the human political sphere

Most Old Testament prophecy has been fulfilled. Scholars generally agree that Isaiah 13:9–13 is one of the fulfilled prophecies: “The day of the Lord comes … to make the earth a desolation.… For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light.… I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place, at the wrath of the Lord of hosts in the day of His fierce anger.” Was Isaiah speaking of the end of the world? Hardly.

This prophecy was fulfilled when the Medes destroyed Babylon in 539 B.C. Look at the verses that come next, in Isaiah 13:17–19: “Behold, I am stirring up the Medes against them.… And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the splendor and pride of the Chaldeans, will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them.” Yet although the Bible gives us a record of Babylon’s defeat by the Medes, there is no record of any heavenly disruptions such as a darkened sun, moon, or stars. Yet they are undoubtedly fulfilled. The prophet Daniel predicted and then witnessed this event.

Isaiah uses similar language several chapters later. In Isaiah 34:4–10, we read, “All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall fall, as leaves fall from the vine.…” Yet while this prophecy was fulfilled when Edom was destroyed in the sixth century B.C., the physical host of heaven (the stars) still exists today.

The prophet Ezekiel’s imagery is equally vivid—so vivid that it is often hard to understand at first reading. In Ezekiel 32, he prophesies the downfall of Egypt and its Pharaoh. Notice his choice of words: “When I blot you out, I will cover the heavens, and make their stars dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give its light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over you, and put darkness upon your land, says the Lord God” (32:7–8). Although this prophecy has been indisputably fulfilled, there is no record that at any time during Pharaoh’s downfall there were literal heavenly disruptions such as Ezekiel described.

The only logical reading is to understand the heavenly disturbances described in these prophecies as figurative language signifying the political change God ordained as judgment. So although the prophecies describe massive disturbances in the stars and moon, this is actually apocalyptic imagery that symbolizes the historical overthrow of political powers on earth.

We see the same principle at work in Nahum. He predicted the judgment of God on the mighty city of Nineveh. “The mountains quake before him, the hills melt” (1:5). Some have tried to apply this language to an atomic explosion still to come, but the city of Nineveh was judged by God in fulfillment of Nahum’s prophecy long before the canon was closed on the Old Testament.

The Apostles clearly understood this use of vivid apocalyptic language. In his first public sermon, the apostle Peter quoted from Joel and assured his listeners that they were witnessing its fulfillment right there on that first Pentecost Sunday. You can read his entire sermon in Acts 2, but notice the descriptive language: “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.… And I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and manifest day. And it shall be that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (2:19–21). St. Peter believed this to have been fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. Rather than ask, “Where was the smoke and blood on Pentecost?” we need to accept Peter’s appreciation of Joel’s apocalyptic imagery.

What is our ground rule? Apocalyptic literature uses dramatic imagery of cataclysmic disruptions to describe changes within the human political sphere (GR5).

We should be aware that apocalyptic literature also uses the same hyperbole to describe positive changes. Isaiah 30:26 promises that “the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the Lord binds up the hurt of His people, and heals the wounds inflicted by His blow.” Notice how the number seven is used symbolically (GR2)? We notice this again in Isaiah 60:19–20: “Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself.”

Physical objects can signify spiritual realities; for example, clouds can signify the glory of God the Judge

At a critical juncture in their wilderness wanderings, the Hebrews were near mutiny against Moses and Aaron over the lack of meat in their diet. God would eventually send them quail, but just before this, “the people of Israel … looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud” (Exod. 16:10).

Later, when God gave the Law to Moses and the Israelites at Mount Sinai, a cloud surrounded the mountaintop. This cloud was a clear physical symbol of the inscrutable power and majesty of God, as God spoke out of it to the Israelites. We are even given the interesting detail that “the Lord descended in the cloud” (Exod. 34:5).

The cloud as a symbol of the power and presence of God later descended on the tabernacle that Moses had commanded to be assembled (Exod. 40:34–38). God specifically stated, “I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat” (Lev. 16:2). Of course, mercy is inextricably tied to judgment. Hundreds of years later, when King Solomon built and dedicated the first Jerusalem Temple, “a cloud filled the house of the Lord … for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord” (1 Kings 8:10–11).

All of this points us to our next ground rule: Physical objects can signify spiritual realities; for example, clouds can signify the glory of God the Judge (GR6).

This common imagery of the Old Testament is reflected in the New Testament when Jesus meets with Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:1–13). When Peter tries to make a suggestion, “a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to Him!’ ”

At the Transfiguration, Jesus was still here as the Suffering Servant (see Isa. 53), discussing His coming death in Jerusalem with Moses and Elijah. When Peter, James, and John forget who their humble Master really is, God reminds them with His support of Jesus spoken in glory and power. Once again, the cloud clearly signifies the glory of God, and the fact that the disciples were afraid shows they understood the Old Testament symbolism.

But in some instances, physical clouds are not even present, and the mention of clouds becomes purely symbolic. Psalm 104:1–3 links these symbolic clouds to God in His glory: “Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, Thou art very great … who makest the clouds Thy chariot.” This purely symbolic use of clouds indicates God’s coming in judgment.

In Isaiah 19:1, we read, “The Lord is riding on a swift cloud and comes to Egypt; and the idols of Egypt will tremble at His presence.” This was fulfilled in Isaiah 20:1–6. Yet no clouds are recorded as having appeared, nor did God make Himself visible in any physical manifestation. God’s coming on a cloud was actually fulfilled in the arrival of the Assyrian army! They were the tool of God’s judgment. God gloriously came on the clouds, but what was physically seen was the Assyrian army.

A similar use of clouds to signify the glory of God in His judgment against Egypt is in Ezekiel: “The day of the Lord is near; it will be a day of clouds” (30:3).

At the Ascension, clouds seem to combine all this symbolism. Jesus “was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9). His Suffering Servant days were completed. From this point on, the world would see Him as the glorified Son of Almighty God.

The angels hint at this when they tell the disciples that Jesus “will come in the same way as you saw Him go” (Acts 1:11). Some rapturists seem to imply this means that Christ’s second advent cannot occur on a clear day, but that is trivializing the meaning of the angels. They meant that next time Christ will return in glory as the Judge of the living and the dead.

The Church has always understood the symbolism of clouds in this way. Victorinus wrote the earliest extant commentary on The Apocalypse in about 270 A.D. He wrote that Christ “shall come with the clouds.… For He who at first came hidden … shall after a little while come to judgment manifest in majesty and glory” (COA, I). More recently, Pope John Paul II stated in his general audience on April 22, 1998, “In apocalyptic language, clouds signify a theophany: They indicate that the Second Coming of the Son of Man will not take place in the weakness of flesh, but in divine power.”

Physical-resurrection language can symbolize spiritual renewal

Ezekiel paints an interesting picture in Chapter 37. He sees a valley strewn with dry bones and is instructed to tell the bones that God will bring them back to life. Sure enough, as Ezekiel watches, the bones regroup. Then muscle and skin attaches themselves to the bones. Finally the breath of life “come[s] from the four winds” (Ezek. 37:9), and the originally dry, lifeless bones turn into a host of living, breathing people.

Ezekiel is told that this is a picture of what God will do for the people of Israel at the end of their captivity in Babylon. Against all odds, they will once again be brought back to Israel from captivity and become a nation again. We can read of the fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecy in Old Testament history.

God then describes this renewal of Israel in the most interesting language: “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.… Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you home into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land” (Ezek. 37:9, 12–14).

When we compare these verses carefully with their fulfillment in history, we find no record of a mass resurrection of Jewish people from cemeteries. It is apparent that Ezekiel used physical resurrection as an allegory for the spiritual renewal of God’s people.

We can learn from this that in apocalyptic literature, physical-resurrection language can symbolize spiritual renewal (GR7). That is the whole point of the dry bones. It is almost as if God were reminding us that sometimes a physical resurrection would be no more difficult than a spiritual renewal. Since a rebirth of faith is every bit as miraculous as a physical rejuvenation, the one can be used to speak of the other.

Jesus used this way of speaking (John 5:25–29). For example, He was criticized by the Pharisees for forgiving the sins of a paralytic man. Jesus said to these critics, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?” (Matt. 9:1–8). We sometimes assume (with Jesus’ critics) that the physical restoration is more difficult because it is more readily quantifiable, but that is not God’s perspective.

The idea that salvation is a spiritual resurrection is not novel to anyone who pays attention to the teaching of the Church. We hear it every time a child is baptized, in the prayer of the baptizer.

In his General Audience on April 22, 1998, Pope John Paul II reminded the Church faithful that “the resurrection of the dead expected at the end of time already receives its first, decisive realization in spiritual resurrection, the primary objective of the work of salvation. It consists in the new life given by the risen Christ as the fruit of His redemptive work.”

Chronological order is not always observed in apocalyptic visions

When dealing with apocalyptic literature, we must realize that not only does it use vivid, forceful language, but it often portrays its message in short vignettes, or visions. These can follow one right after another in rapid succession. The order in which these visions occur should not be assumed to be chronological. They are more like an envelope of snapshots than a film. The events pictured may overlap, duplicate, or be isolated from one another chronologically. This is true of visionary writings even when they are not a part of apocalyptic literature.

This may not be the way we would have written them, but it is the way apocalyptic writings are. Chronological order is not always observed in apocalyptic visions (GR8).

We can see examples of this ground rule all the way back in Genesis. In Genesis 37:5–11, Joseph dreams two dreams. In the first, the eleven sheaves of his brothers bow to Joseph’s sheaf, symbolizing that his brothers would one day be his subjects. The second dream overlapped the events of the first, but added new details. In the second dream, not only do eleven stars bow to Joseph’s star, but the moon and sun bow as well. This meant that not only his brothers, but even his mother and father would one day be subject to Joseph.

When we compare the later events of Genesis, it seems that the two visions begin with the same events, but that the end of this second vision is later than the first. The brothers visited Egypt and bowed to Joseph at least a year or two before Joseph’s entire family came to live in the country where he ruled as Pharaoh’s right-hand man.

This duplication of visions crops up again in Genesis. Pharaoh has two disturbing dreams, and he believes the dreams tell two stories. Joseph corrects him, saying, “The dream of Pharaoh is one” (Gen. 41:14–32). The gaunt cows that eat the fat cows in the first dream are parallel to the meager corn that devours the plump corn in the second dream. Both point to a terrible seven-year famine followed by seven years of abundance. (Notice the use of seven—GR2).

When we examine visionary literature, we must constantly keep this in mind. The visions might be arranged chronologically. Or they might just as easily not be. They might overlap. Only an examination of the visions themselves will make it clear.

Christ’s first advent catapulted humanity into “the last days”

Ancient Jewish thinkers split history into three ages. First, there was the period before Moses and the Law. Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph lived during this age.

The second age was the time of the Law—the years from Moses until the Messiah’s coming. (The Law of Moses loomed large in the Hebrew mind; it is almost impossible to overemphasize its importance.) Most of the Old Testament fits into this second age. It includes Moses, Joshua, Samson, Samuel, Saul, David, and all of the major and minor prophets.

The final epoch expected by the Jews was the Messianic age. The promise of a future Messianic king, or anointed one, can be traced all through the Old Testament, starting in Genesis. The promise even predates Moses and the Law, and that hope is the heart and soul of biblical Judaism.

The advent of the Messiah signaled the start of this third epoch. Since it was the final stage in salvation, it was called the end of the age, or the last days.

To an ancient Israelite, all of history fit into these three ages, and only these three ages. This mindset can be seen repeatedly throughout Scripture, in both the Old and New Testaments. The author of Hebrews states, “God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days He has spoken to us by a Son” (1:1–2). We read a few chapters later that Christ “has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” (9:26).

In his sermon on the day of Pentecost, Peter quoted from the Old Testament prophet Joel (ch. 2), and applied it to his day: “In the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy” (Acts 2:17). Notice that his assumption is that he and his listeners were in the last days, or the end of the age. Why? Because the Messiah had come! Peter knew that his listeners would accept the idea that the last days were upon them only if they first accepted the fact that Jesus was the promised Messiah.

St. Peter never changed his mind about this. Much later he wrote that Christ “was destined before the foundation of the world but was made manifest at the end of the times for your sake” (1 Pet. 1:20).

St. Paul certainly shared this view. He refers to his time as “the last days” (2 Tim. 3:1). So did St. John (1 John 2:18).

Twenty-first-century Americans might view this as naive, or even mistaken. After all, look at all the important events that have occurred since the time of Christ’s first advent. But we should not dismiss this view with a guffaw. “You must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; they said to you, ‘In the last time there will be scoffers’ ” (Jude 18).

Every time the phrase “the end” occurs in the Bible, it does not necessarily refer to this last age. It might be the end of a dynasty, the end of a battle, the end of a festival, or just the end of a life. We must never take a phrase out of its context and try to absolutize its meaning.

Nevertheless, we cannot understand the prophecies of Scripture unless we first accept that, for the biblical authors, Christ’s first advent catapulted humanity into “the last days” (GR9). This means that we have been in the last days for two thousand years. The third age of the Jews started with the first advent of Christ and will extend to His second coming, which occurs at the final eschaton.

It may seem to some that these “last days” are dragging on too long. In that case, we might do well to remember the words of Habakkuk, a pre-exilic prophet who awaited the justice of God on the enemies of Israel. He was in for a long wait, yet he wrote, “For still the vision awaits its time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. Behold, he whose soul is not upright in him shall fail, but the righteous shall live by his faith” (Hab. 2:3–4). The second Jewish age, the time from Moses to the time of Christ, was probably between 1,300 and 1,500 years. Does it seem so strange, then, that the third age would be two millennia and counting? There is no hurrying God.

The Church has always understood the time from the first advent to the second advent as corresponding to the “end of the age” or the “last days” of Scripture. St. Clement was the bishop of Rome from 67–73 A.D., during the intense Neronian persecution. He wrote, “The Books and the Apostles teach that the Church … was spiritual, as was also our Jesus, and was made manifest at the end of the days in order to save us” (SEC, XIV).

The Catechism summarizes it well. “Since the Ascension God’s plan has entered into its fulfillment. We are already at ‘the last hour.’ Already the final age of the world is with us, and the renewal of the world is irrevocably under way; it is even now anticipated in a certain real way” (CCC, par. 670).

If I may make a suggestion: place a bookmark at this page. We will refer back to these ground rules scores of times as we progress, using the notation (GR#).