At this point, the rapturists’ case is looking tenuous, to say the least. In Daniel, we learned that there really was no prediction of a seven-year tribulation, but rather a seven-decade period of covenantal transition that ended in 70 A.D. In the Olivet Discourse, we learned that Jesus keeps His promises. The signs He predicted were fulfilled in the first century, the Great Tribulation occurred as predicted, and Christ came in judgment to His accusers in the Sanhedrin. When Christ returns, it will not be a secret, and no one will be left behind. Rather, we will all be judged and admitted into—or left out of—God’s eternal Kingdom.

Yet rapturists still use certain passages from New Testament epistles to try to salvage their case. Even very knowledgeable Catholics can get confused about how to answer these rapturist claims. Examining these verses, we will see that the confusion stems from the rapturist tendency toward “deceptive double vision.”

In the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey’s Uncle Billy looks for his hat after drinking too much at a party. When George holds it out to him, he looks at it and asks, “Which one is mine?” The audience laughs because everyone knows that there is only one hat.

We will encounter a similar scenario with the rapturist treatment of the epistles. One, and only one second advent is taught in the New Testament. Yet in each passage, the rapturist will ask which “hat” is being discussed: the secret rapture or the second coming.

After examining the “double vision” passages, we will look at two epistles that will give us valuable insight into the mindset of the Apostles. These passages will “sober us up” after the “double vision” passages. After we glean what we can from the wisdom of these epistles, we will be ready for The Apocalypse.

The time line is assumed: 1 Corinthians 15:20–26

This passage lays out a general time line of the events of the end. This is certainly not Paul’s primary purpose—which is to convince his readers of the resurrection of the body—but this makes the order of events even more compelling:

Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.… As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at His coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when He delivers the Kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

The order is clear. First, Christ was raised bodily from the dead. This event stands as a prophecy concerning our own personal future. Christ was “the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (GR3). Second, Christians will be raised from the dead. Third, “the end” comes.

That is the order. If St. Paul had believed in the rapturist system, this would have presented a perfect passage in which to include it. But Paul does not allude to the rapturist time line of the end; moreover, he lays out a time line that excludes its possibility. There is no mention of a two-stage coming split into a secret rapture and a later, public second advent. In fact, there is not even a hint of a secret rapture. There is one resurrection mentioned (not two) and only one coming “event” (not two, or in two stages). Immediately after this coming (not seven or a thousand or 1,007 years later), “the end” arrives, at which time Christ “delivers the Kingdom to God.”

This is a major problem for the rapturist system. Even leading rapturists admit that the idea that Christ’s second advent will be split into two stages is not taught in a single passage of Scripture. The only way to justify their system is to assign certain passages to the first stage and other passages to the second stage, even though the passages themselves do not encourage this. This is what I call “deceptive double vision.”

This tendency on the part of the rapturist to assign certain passages to one stage or the other in an arbitrary way is nowhere more apparent than just a little further on in 1 Corinthians:

Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep [die], but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.… Then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

(Church nursery workers like to claim that this passage describes their experiences with babies: “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.”)

Rapturists would say that this passage describes the secret rapture. But why? There is certainly nothing in this text that cannot be understood perfectly well as happening at the traditional second coming. In fact, that is a better way to understand the text. St. Paul tells us that not all Christians will die, but that “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye … we shall all be changed.” The Church has always understood this to be an event that will occur at the second coming of our Lord and Savior.

We read that this will occur “at the last trumpet.” Trumpets always proclaim public events in the Old Testament (Exod. 19:10–20; Lev. 25:8; Num. 10:1–10; Jos. 6; Ps. 81:3–5; Isa. 27:13, 58:1; Jer. 4:19–21; Ezek. 33:3–6; Joel 2:1, 15; Amos 3:6; Zeph. 1:14–16; Zech. 9:14). The image of trumpets’ boldly announcing Christ’s coming certainly does not resemble a secret rapture.

Further, this is not just any trumpet. This is the “last” trumpet. “The dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed” at the end of time. The rapturist tries to place this last trumpet 1,007 years before the second coming! But the “last” trumpet will not occur seven or 1,007 years before the end. It seems too evident to require pointing out, but the “last” trumpet will sound last.

A few verses later, we see further evidence that these are the final events being described. “When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ” At the time of this trumpet and resurrection, death will be destroyed. Yet St. Paul has already mentioned that “the last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:26). That would place these events at the final eschaton. Yet rapturists still foresee the battle of Armageddon and the battle with Gog and Magog as transpiring after this passage. That would mean death had really not yet been “swallowed up in victory.”

Rapturists claim that these verses speak of the secret rapture before the Great Tribulation and the Millennium. But they believe that during this time, people will continue to be born, to live, and to die. That, quite simply, does not fit this passage. When death is destroyed and we are all raised, all tombs will be forever empty, just as that one tomb outside Jerusalem was empty two thousand years ago. The bodies will be gone.

The scriptural evidence points much more convincingly to the Church’s historical teaching. Christ will come back one more time. At that time, all mankind will be resurrected, will be judged, and will enter into eternity. It is a simpler system; it is what the early Church believed; it is what the Bible teaches.

Our commonwealth is in Heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to be like His glorious body.

These verses promise that our bodies will be changed “to be like His glorious body.”

When Jesus’ body was resurrected, the old body was subsumed into that resurrected body. There was no longer any body on earth to decompose. When we have a resurrected body, our old bodies will not be in graves any longer. This will happen at the final eschaton, and the caskets will all be empty.

There is nothing to indicate that this is not at the second advent of Christ—the historical understanding of the Church. Only a case of deceptive double vision would necessitate the insertion of a secret rapture. There is no textual reason to insert an intermediary event before the second coming.

When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

The most straightforward understanding of this verse avoids any double vision. Christ will gloriously return to earth to close the curtain on history. When He does come, it will be in glory and power.

This glorious coming does not match the secret rapture that is sometimes read into this verse. There is certainly nothing in the context of this verse that suggests a secret rapture before Christ’s glorious return.

This is a favorite passage of the rapturists. They seem quite certain that this passage clearly teaches their version of the future. But does it?

But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from Heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord.… The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.… Sudden destruction will come upon them as travail comes upon a woman with child, and there will be no escape.

St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonian Christians because they were worried about those who died before Christ’s return. Many in the ancient world believed that a person simply ceased to exist upon death, as do many modern unbelievers. There seems to have been a rumor in Thessalonica that the dead Christians had lost out on any chance of a physical resurrection. St. Paul assures them that it was not so. In fact, “the dead in Christ will rise first” to meet Christ, and those still alive at the second coming will immediately follow them. But all will meet Christ at that time.

Rapturists make a point of the fact that we will “meet the Lord in the air”—the Lord who has come “in the clouds.” They infer from this that Christ will not actually touch down on terra firma and that we will go back to Heaven with Christ for the duration of a seven-year Great Tribulation. If so many people did not accept this explanation, I would dismiss it immediately as silly.

The word St. Paul uses for meeting the Lord “in the air” is aer, the Greek word for atmosphere. This same word is used to describe Satan as “the prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2). Yet no one would claim that, because of this word, Satan has no influence over people who keep their feet firmly planted on earth. A consistent rapturist reading of this word here would mean that only astronauts, balloonists, pilots, and airplane passengers are influenced by Satan’s power.

No, when Christ returns to the earth’s atmosphere, He has returned to earth. Read the verses again! We will meet Christ, but it will be at His second coming to earth. Any other use of the language stretches credibility.

Rapturists bolster their argument by pointing to the description of Jesus’ coming “in the clouds.” But this does not mean that Christ cannot return on a clear, cloudless day. Elsewhere, even rapturists do not claim that Jesus must be seated upon a stallion when He returns (Apoc. 19:11). Certain symbols appear in Scripture repeatedly. Clouds indicate that Christ will be coming again in glory as Judge. His Suffering Servant (cf. Isa. 53) days are over, and He is now victorious over His enemies (GR6).

Rapturists, however, do not want to lose this passage for their cause. They sometimes point out that the word Paul uses for coming in verse 15 is the Greek word parousia. During my childhood, rapturists were taught that this word always refers to the rapture. Even today rapturists still talk of the parousia when referring to the rapture. We were taught that two other Greek words in the Bible, epiphaneia (“appearing”) and apokalupsis (“revelation”) refer exclusively to the second advent of Christ. If this were true, it would be a clear indication of which passages refer to the secret rapture and which refer to the second coming.

Unfortunately for rapturists, however, their own Bible scholars have disproved this assertion. These three Greek words are used interchangeably. This leaves each reader to pick and choose which passages refer to the rapture and which refer to the second coming, based on his own subjective reading. This should be a clue to all of us that perhaps the entire system is a fabrication with no basis in the Bible whatsoever.

There is just no good reason to insert a secret rapture into this passage—unless you come to the text with pre-existing double vision. Look at the passage itself. The coming of Christ is anything but secret and silent. Christ will come with “a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God.” These are descriptions of loud, public events.

Jesus is not trying to be discreet or secretive in His coming. This passage reflects the Olivet Discourse, when Jesus predicted His coming would be “as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west” (Matt. 24:27). Jesus Himself prophesied that everyone would immediately be aware of His coming. He was specifically contrasting His coming with the false Messiahs who would appear on the scene discreetly. Christ will not be discreet. Yet the rapturist claims that at this point, the rest of the world will not know what happened. The “cry of command,” “the archangel’s call,” and “the trumpet of God” make this impossible.

The phrase “the Lord will come like a thief in the night,” must be understood in this context of commands, calls, and trumpets (5:2). In addition, the next verse makes it clear that St. Paul is not speaking of the stealth of the thief, but the unanticipated suddenness with which thieves strike. He calls it “sudden destruction” (5:3). Notice the destruction comes suddenly on the unbelievers. This is the last judgment.

A further problem for rapturists appears when we examine the assumed time line of the passage. St. Paul clearly states that immediately after this event, eternity begins. He writes, “and so we shall always be with the Lord.” That is precisely the time line taught by the Church throughout her history. Yet rapturists teach that this coming (the rapture) will be followed by the seven-year Great Tribulation and then a thousand-year earthly Kingdom. Why does St. Paul not at least allude to these events?

But, rapturists respond, the details in this passage are different from those we encounter elsewhere in the New Testament, suggesting two entirely different events. But this is just a symptom of the preconceived conclusions, the deceptive double vision, that they bring to the passage.

Rapturists usually understand that this is a very bad method for handling Scripture. For example, the Bible talks about the Passion of the Lord on several occasions, each time giving us different details about one historical event. But they’d never interpret this to mean that there was more than one Passion. In like manner, various passages provide different details about the second advent. But this doesn’t mean they should be sorted into two piles—those about a rapture and those about the second coming. All the passages speak of one and only one more advent of Christ.

In this passage, St. Paul related a few new details about the second coming to encourage the Thessalonian church. Since he had founded the church in that city, he had already taught them the basics of the Faith, including the blessed hope of Christ’s coming. In this epistle, he clarifies something of which they already had some knowledge.

If there were two stages to the second advent, we would be able to find one passage that speaks of them both together, teaching us in one place of the differences. That we are not able to do so is a terrible handicap to rapturists. It is evidence of their deceptive double vision. Of course, we have not been able to find a passage that unequivocally teaches about a secret rapture at all, much less a passage that speaks of it side-by-side with the second coming.

Since none of these passages contains details inconsistent with the second advent, why not simply accept the simplest, most consistent understanding? There is only one remaining coming of the Lord, and the Bible uses three Greek words interchangeably to describe that coming. It will occur at the end of history, just before the final judgment and eternity.

Here St. Paul is again writing to the Thessalonians, probably shortly before the Jewish-Roman War began in 67 A.D. For this reason, some have tried to understand this passage as being fulfilled in the coming in judgment that we described surrounding the events of 70 A.D. But the passage mentions the “assembling” of Christians to meet Christ. This will occur at the second advent, so the only adequate understanding of this passage is that it speaks of the second advent. In addition, the Church has universally understood this passage as still future even after the destruction of the Temple (CCC, pars. 673–677).

Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our assembling to meet Him, we beg you, brethren, not to be quickly shaken in mind … by letter purporting to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.… That day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the Temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.… For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, and the Lord Jesus will slay him with the breath of His mouth and destroy him by His appearing and His coming. The coming of the lawless one by the activity of Satan will be with all power and with pretended signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are to perish, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.

This paragraph says a lot in a few sentences. We will examine it one piece at a time.

Rapturists agree that this passage focuses on the events leading up to Christ’s second advent. They believe the antichrist will appear after the rapture. When Christ comes, He “will slay [the antichrist] with the breath of His mouth.” Early Christians associated this statement with the sword that comes out of Christ’s mouth in The Apocalypse (COA). The “breath” and the “sword” both signify the truth of the gospel. The power of Christ is in the truth that the Word proclaims. Truth will always win the victory, particularly at the final eschaton.

We do disagree over who is on earth when these events take place. Rapturists claim that Christians have been secretly raptured at the very start of the passage—three and a half years before the Temple worship is corrupted, and a full seven years before Christ returns to “destroy [the man of sin] by His appearing.”

Notice deceptive double vision at work. Rapturists place the one event (the rapture) at the very start and apply all the rest of the passage to the second advent. Yet if that is true, why does not St. Paul make it clear that his readers would not be present to see this antichrist “proclaiming himself to be God”? He is writing to encourage a group of Christians who are afraid they had been “left behind”! Why does he not explicitly speak of the “blessed hope of the rapture” to comfort the worried Thessalonians? Nowhere in this passage is there even a mention of the rapture. This would certainly have been more reassuring than a description of events that would transpire after they were gone! In this passage, the rapture is missing in action.

The reason St. Paul does not mention the rapture as occurring before the appearance of the antichrist and before the second coming is simple: it never entered into his mind that anyone would believe Christ would rapture His Church before the final eschaton. The passage assumes that the Church will be around to witness the man of lawlessness revealed. That will be during the final confrontation between good and evil. In The Apocalypse, that is referred to as the battle with Gog and Magog. Christians will participate in that confrontation because there will be no secret rapture before it. Our comfort rests in Him who will emerge from that confrontation as the Victor. That is the reassurance St. Paul offers, not the promise of escape from the Great Tribulation.

The passage also describes a “restraining” force that prevents the antichrist’s power from taking full effect right now. Various alternative interpretations have been proposed. Rapturists claim the restraining force is the Holy Spirit within the Church. Tertullian, Cyril of Jerusalem, Jerome and Augustine all understood the restrainer as the rule of law as enforced by the state (APO, 32; CAT, XVII:12; EPJ; COG, XX:19).

Most important, we need to notice that this restraining force is active at the same time that Satan is “bound” in The Apocalypse. We are getting a little ahead of ourselves, but the restraint is taken out of the way at the same time that Satan is “loosed” just before the final battle with Gog and Magog (Apoc. 20:1–7). This does not happen twice, as rapturists assert, but once.

“Wait a minute,” rapturists might interject. “You are ignoring that St. Paul teaches here that the final antichrist will set himself up in the Temple: ‘The son of perdition … takes his seat in the Temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.’ ”

Because this passage predicts an attack on the Temple, in which the antichrist forcibly subverts its worship of the true God, rapturists believe that the Jerusalem Temple must be rebuilt before the antichrist can be revealed. How can the man of sin, the antichrist, proclaim something from a Temple that has not been rebuilt?

But unfortunately for rapturists, this is a poor proof text for their beliefs. The Greek word for temple in this verse is naos. Although naos is sometimes used to designate the physical Temple of the Jews in Jerusalem, it is used in the New Testament to designate other temples. But even more to the point, St. Paul, the author of 2 Thessalonians, never once uses this Greek word to designate the Jerusalem Temple of the Jews—always preferring to use the more common New Testament word for Temple, hieron (1 Cor. 9:13). Whenever St. Paul uses the word naos, he is referring to New Covenant temples. These include either the Church or the individual Christian, both of which are New Covenant temples indwelt by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16–17, 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:21).

St. Paul understood the word temple to have different senses (Appendix Five discusses some of them), but he always uses the word naos in a New Covenant context (GR3).

St. Paul was not alone in this understanding of the New Testament Church as the new Temple. The Fathers of the Church adopted his perspective. We encounter this in the Epistle of Barnabas (Appendix One). Clement of Alexandria also refers to the Church as the Temple of God (STO, VI, 14:114).

This makes eminent sense. St. Paul, along with all first-century Christians, believed that Christ had predicted the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple within their generation. But they never believed that this destruction would leave the world without any Temple. The new Temple was God’s spiritual Temple, the Church, for which Paul always used naos.

So if not in the rebuilt Jerusalem Temple, where will the man of lawlessness set himself up “to be God”? Although it may be difficult to ascertain in advance, as is true of most biblical prophecy, it will likely be very evident at the time. The crucial element is that he will claim to be God. This goes even further than what Antiochus Epiphanes did when he defiled God’s Old Covenant Temple with sacrifices to Zeus (Dan. 8:24; 11:36–38). It goes beyond what Pompey did when he defiled the inner Temple with his visit. It goes beyond what the Romans did in 70 A.D. when they introduced pagan worship in the Temple. It is reminiscent of Caligula’s intention of being worshiped within the old Temple in 40 A.D., although he died before he could implement his plan. Each of these events points to the final antichrist (GR3).

A clue to our understanding of the final antichrist is his title, the “son of perdition.” In His prayer for the infant Church, Jesus gives this very title to Judas Iscariot (John 17:12). Does this mean that St. Paul believed the antichrist would be someone who had been privileged to know the entire truth about Christ and had purposefully rejected it? Or perhaps, like Judas, the man of perdition would attempt to bring in the fullness of God’s Kingdom through his own machinations. Perhaps the antichrist will thrust upon the world a hope for a secular Millennium, as was attempted in the century just past. We do not know for sure, but it can make for interesting discussion (CCC, pars. 675–677).

My belief is that the man of sin will somehow try to insert himself or his symbols into the worship of the Church, the new Temple. Perhaps it will even involve the Mass in some way. The word naos can be translated as “sanctuary,” which is a place within every Catholic Church in the world. Will the final antichrist somehow use these sanctuaries to proclaim “himself to be God”? Perhaps. This would fit in with his being called a “son of perdition,” a “Judaspriest” perhaps.

We can be certain, however, that even though the antichrist might be a priest, he cannot possibly be the Pope. In Matthew’s Gospel, Peter and his successors are promised that “the gates of Hades” will not prevail against Christ’s Church (16:18). This includes an assurance that, although the Pope may not be the best leader possible, he will never teach error. Since proclaiming “himself to be God” would certainly qualify as error, we can be sure the Pope cannot be the antichrist.

Some of what this passage means will never be known for certain until it happens. But of one thing we can be certain even now: this passage does not teach a two-stage coming, nor the necessity of a rebuilt Jerusalem Temple. It does teach that Christians will still be here on earth when the battle with the final antichrist rages.

Many rapturists nonetheless refer to the rapture as their “blessed hope.” They find this language in St. Paul’s epistle to Titus:

For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men, training us to renounce irreligion and worldly passions, and to live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world, awaiting our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Rapturists believe that the “blessed hope” refers to the secret, imminent rapture. (The Greek word here is not parousia, but epiphaneia [“appearing.”]) But the passage speaks of glory, and what is glorious about secretly stealing away your followers and shuffling them off to safety while your enemy runs rampant for seven more years?

No, when Christ comes in glory, it will be in the glory of “our great God.” The entire world will see Him, as we recognize lightning that blazes across the sky. The entire world will immediately know Him as the one the antichrist has led them to reject. The entire world will promptly be judged by Him. We already know these facts from other passages. The idea of a secret rapture does not fit this passage at all. Unless we see with double vision, this passage pictures a victorious return of the King as Judge at the final eschaton.

Catholics are well aware that we have the real presence of Christ even now, in the Eucharist. But His Real Presence with us now is veiled, requiring the eyes of faith to see Him. The “blessed hope” points our hearts to the moment when we will see Christ unveiled, as He is in all His glory and power (CCC, par. 1404).

In Daniel, the rapturists lost their future seven-year Great Tribulation. In the Olivet Discourse, they lost their signs for the generation of the fig tree, as well as their “left behind” language. In the epistles, the lack of biblical support for their system continued.

We will soon enter The Apocalypse, in which there is such tremendous interest today and about which there is so much sensationalistic speculation. But before we do, there are two epistles that will help us to “sober up” from any double-vision hangover we may still have from the rapturist view of the last few epistles.

St. Paul wrote his epistle to the Galatians to explain the relationship of the Christian Church to the Old Covenant Law. On the one side stands the Church with her freedom in Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit. On the other is the Law as practiced by the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem.

Galatians was written midway between the Passion and the destruction of Jerusalem. At this point, the Roman Empire viewed the Christian community as a small sect within official Judaism. From the perspective of the civil Roman government, the Jewish religious authorities in Jerusalem had a perfect right to influence beliefs within the Church.

Certain Jews had parlayed this Roman attitude into undue influence within the Galatian church. They claimed that Christians had to continue fulfilling the requirements of the Jewish ceremonial law.

St. Paul writes powerfully and persuasively to convince the Christians that this is not only untrue, but also dangerous to their faith. He reviews the first Church council in Jerusalem and his interactions with the Apostles to prove that the Apostles and bishops had determined that Gentiles did not have to keep the Jewish law to become members of Christ’s Church. He develops the theme that the gospel of Jesus Christ is superior to the Law because it is based on the faith of Abraham, which preceded the Law given to Moses.

He then takes the argument a step further by telling a story:

Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and one by a free woman.… Now, this is an allegory: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai … Hagar.… She corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.… We, like Isaac, are children of promise. But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now. But what does the scripture say? “Cast out the slave and her son; for the son of the slave shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” So, brethren, we are not children of the slave, but of the free woman (4:22–31).

St. Paul reminds the Galatians that Abraham had two sons. The younger son, of Sarah, was the child of faith. The older son, of Hagar, was the child of slavery. Being older, this first son persecuted the second. This situation went on for years until Sarah finally convinced Abraham that it was no longer tolerable. The household of Abraham was not suitable for either son when both were there. St. Paul reminds the Galatians of the solution to this family discord by quoting the passage in Genesis 21: “Cast out the slave and her son; for the son of the slave shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.”

Now, here is the truly riveting aspect of this story. St. Paul tells the Galatians that this entire story “is an allegory” of their own situation (GR3). The Church is the child of faith, like the younger son. The Sanhedrin is the child of bondage, like the older son. The Sanhedrin (the earthly Jerusalem) is persecuting the Church (the heavenly Jerusalem). This situation would only worsen until it culminated in the Great Tribulation of Nero.

Like these two sons of Abraham, earthly and heavenly Jerusalem coexisted for quite some time, about forty years. But the situation could not go on forever.

The only solution was to cast out the son of bondage. This is precisely what Jesus had predicted in the Olivet Discourse. He had warned the Jewish leaders that their rejection of the Truth would be the cause of their destruction. But He had also implied that the two children of God, Old Covenant and New Covenant, would coexist for some time, a “generation” (Matt. 24:34). Before the end of that generation, about forty years, the earthly Jerusalem would be destroyed.

After the older son was “cast out,” the younger son of faith would be free to grow. Only then could the younger brother of faith, the Church, develop unimpeded by persecution and confusion. St. Irenaeus understood this well: “The law originated with Moses, [and] it terminated with John as a necessary consequence. Christ had come to fulfill it.… Therefore Jerusalem … must have an end of legislation when the new covenant was revealed” (AG, IV:4).

Confusion over loyalties could be a serious problem in the early Church. This was the point of St. Bede in his comments on Mark 13:2: “It was ordered by divine power that after that the grace of the faith of the Gospel was made known through the world, the Temple itself with its ceremonies should be taken away; lest perchance someone weak in the faith, if he saw that these things which had been instituted by God still remained, might by degrees drop from the sincerity of the faith, which is in Christ Jesus” (cited in GCC).

If we keep this allegory from the life of Abraham in mind when we examine the conflict between the Old and New Covenants in the first century, we will understand the entire New Testament more clearly. For example, The Apocalypse is primarily a prophecy that describes the complex process of casting out the Old Covenant system. Because it illustrates how God keeps His promises to His children, we can trust its promise of the second advent. But much of The Apocalypse does not predict the future to us in the twenty-first century, but tells of the past. We must remember, of course, that even these past events may themselves be a foretaste of the future, just as Sarah and Hagar were a foretaste of the events surrounding 70 A.D. (GR3).

This theme runs throughout the Bible. We find another example in the reign of King David, who was a type of Christ. He was anointed by Samuel, just as Jesus was baptized by John the Baptizer. David was rejected by the leadership of Israel, just as Jesus was. Eventually, the faithful remnant of Abraham’s seed, Judah, acclaimed David as their king after the death of King Saul. So, too, the believing remnant of Old Israel accepted Christ as their Redeemer King after the King’s death on the Cross. There was a period of warfare between those who accepted King David’s authority and those who did not. Eventually, King David’s followers were victorious over those who rejected him, and David sat upon the throne. Just so, Old Covenant Israel made war upon the New Covenant followers of King Jesus. Eventually, however, the followers of King Jesus were victorious, and the King was publicly recognized as seated on the throne of David in the New (spiritual) Jerusalem.

Please keep in mind that these parallels are not simply my idea. Nor is it just the idea of some other theologian. St. Paul wrote under divine inspiration when he outlined this conflict between biblical Judaism and Christianity in Galatians. Jesus predicted the “casting out” in the Olivet Discourse. The first nineteen chapters of The Apocalypse relate the details of the conflict between these two children of God, the Old versus the New. We will see the persecution, and we will see the casting out of the older brother in vivid detail.

In the epistle to the Hebrews, the author develops some of the same themes we found in Galatians and will find foundational to The Apocalypse, especially this: Christ and His New Covenant are better than physical Jerusalem and its Old Covenant.

Hebrews was probably written toward the beginning of the Great Tribulation, before the Roman Empire turned its fury on Jerusalem. Hebrews gives evidence, as does The Apocalypse, that the religious leaders of Jerusalem instigated and participated in the Christian persecutions.

As an aside, rapturists sometimes claim that Hebrews criticizes Catholic belief in the sacrifice of the Mass. Out of the other side of their mouths, they try to claim that belief in the Mass as an unbloody sacrifice did not appear in the Church until as late as the Middle Ages. Of course, they cannot have it both ways! How could the author of Hebrews be criticizing the sacrifice of the Mass if it was not believed to be a sacrifice yet? But more to the point, Hebrews has the Mosaic sacrifices, not the Mass, in view when it refers to sacrifices. The Jerusalem Temple was still operational, performing the endless series of daily animal sacrifices.

It is interesting that in Hebrews 8:13, written just before the destruction of Jerusalem’s Temple, we find this statement: “In speaking of a new covenant, He [the Lord] treats the first [covenant] as obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.” Although this verse is not usually treated as a prophecy, that is exactly what it is! The author of Hebrews is looking for the destruction of the Old Covenant system as Jesus had foretold it in the Olivet Discourse. When we get to The Apocalypse, we must keep in mind that its message is not unique. We saw it predicted in Daniel. We saw it predicted by Jesus. We saw it in Galatians. It keeps popping up throughout the Scriptures. It was even a common topic when St. Peter and St. Paul preached in Rome. Yet we have somehow forgotten this pivotal event in modern theology. Keeping it in mind will help us recognize the double vision of the rapturist.

Hebrews also makes it clear that there is a heavenly Jerusalem, of which the earthly Jerusalem is only a type or precursor: “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites [animal sacrifices], but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these [Christ’s Sacrifice]. For Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into Heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Heb. 9:22–24). We will be introduced to the New Jerusalem in The Apocalypse. The tension between the New Jerusalem in Heaven and the Old Jerusalem on earth will be developed in depth there. But this theme is essential to our understanding.

Hebrews 12:22–24 could actually be viewed as a rather good summary of the climax of The Apocalypse. In contrasting the New with the Old Jerusalem, the passage states, “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in Heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.” Every time we celebrate the Mass, we join our voices to the realm of this heavenly Jerusalem. We get a foretaste of what God has in store for us in eternity. When we examine The Apocalypse, we should remember that this message is not unique to the last book of the Bible.