Unclouded vision of Rapture

In his new book, “The Rapture: A Controversy Settled,” Bible scholar R. Dawson Barlow correlates the word ‘Rapture,’ a simple redefinition of the phrase “caught up” in the King James Bible, with the Raptor birds of Europe and Asia.

He explains that while the doctrine of the “catching away,” is often “explained away as an emotional experience and its true significance gets lost in a maze of spiritualized, subjective and mystical explanations," Noah Webster’s “now rare” definition of Raptor birds “offers a very vivid reminder of the old literal definition of the Rapture.

“Webster defines them as, ‘Living on prey, having feet modified with sharp, curved claws, for SEIZING prey . . . hawks, eagles, owls, vultures.’ ”

Barlow recalls a PBS documentary on Raptor birds that “actually photographed a large eagle swooping down on a newborn mountain goat, snatching him away and carrying him far up into the air. The narrator of the program said there is regional folklore concerning human babies who were left alone and were snatched away by these birds.”

*****

At the Rapture the Body of Christ is literally brought together into one unit in the air to then meet with Jesus Christ.

“We really have the reunion before we get to be with the Lord, and it’s at this point the Body of Christ is completed,” explains Richard Jordan (shorewoodbiblechurch.org). “He’s the head, we’re the body, and we’re put together, all in our glorified bodies. We’ve lost all connection to Adam and we’re caught up together for the very first time, but we’ll all be together.”

Among clear statements detailing this extremely literal pivotal event in history, is I Thessalonians 2:16-17: [16] For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
[17] Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Jordan says, “Now when Paul talks about being caught up ‘in the clouds,’ there’s a discussion you hear people have about what are the clouds. People say, ‘Well, they’re not rain clouds. It’s not storm clouds.’

“There’s that verse in Matthew 26 where it says the Lord Jesus Christ is going to come ‘in the clouds of heaven,’ but it’s not a thunderstorm we’re talking about here.

“People say the clouds are really angels, the heavenly host, but that’s not it. When the Bible talks about the Lord of hosts, it’s talking about a host of angels. Seems to me if Paul had wanted to say ‘angels’ he would have said angels, and if he wanted to say 'the host of heaven'--that’s certainly what angels are.

“When he says we’ll be caught up together with Him in the clouds, I think it’s going to be clouds. Clouds are clouds are clouds.

“Hebrews 12 begins with, ‘Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses . . .’

“You see that expression? The word ‘cloud’ there is not talking about a cloud of water vapor. It’s talking about a big group of witnesses. It’s talking about all the people he’s listed in chapter 11. You can use the word ‘cloud’ in the sense of talking about a big group of people. Not just like a cumulus water vapor cloud in the sky.

******

“In a passage that prophetically looks toward the Second Coming of Christ, II Samuel 22:8-13 says,

[8] Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations of heaven moved and shook, because he was wroth.
[9] There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.
[10] He bowed the heavens also, and came down; and darkness was under his feet.
[11] And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: and he was seen upon the wings of the wind.
[12] And he made darkness pavilions round about him, dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies.
[13] Through the brightness before him were coals of fire kindled.

“This is a psalm of David that matches Psalm 18. The issue is, under Jesus Christ’s feet was darkness and thick clouds. Psalm 97 says, ‘The LORD reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof. [2] Clouds and darkness are round about him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne.’

“The way He made darkness pavilions round about Him is with clouds that veil off His glory. If you get clouds that are thick and dense enough to black out the sun . . . I’ve flown into a cloud bank that looked just as dark as night but when you flew into it, the clouds were just as light and white. What the darkness really is is a shadow.

“You get these thick clouds with water vapor in them and they block off the sun and under the bottom of that cloud you really have a shadow and it looks dark, but they’re just as white as can be because it’s the optics of the thing. What the cloud does is veils back the sunlight. Around the Lord He does the same thing. He has clouds to sort of veil off His glory.”

*****

“In I Timothy 6:16, Paul writes about God, ‘Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting.’

“Paul’s talking about the light of the majesty of the manifestation of His person. God as being God cannot be limited by time or space, but because He is God, and He does have a creation that He has made, He chooses to manifest Himself to His creation.

“He chooses to do that in a geographic location. That’s part of what the third heaven is about. When He does it, it’s in a blazing representation of light and it’s called ‘the glory of God.’ But when that glory appears (when the manifestation of his person appears) it is so overwhelming that you can’t approach to it.

"So He veils it off in the Scripture over and over, and what He veils it with are clouds. The clouds put a filter, as it were, on the glory and what you have to veil off that light to which no man can approach is a ‘pavilion round about Him.’

“According to the dictionary, a pavilion is a temporary building erected for the use of an exhibitor. In other words, God builds a temporary structure around Him in which He exhibits His glory and the pavilion is made of clouds.

*****

“I Kings 8:10-13 says, ‘And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the LORD,
[11] So that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of the LORD.
[12] Then spake Solomon, The LORD said that he would dwell in thick darkness.
[13] I have surely built thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for thee to abide in for ever.’

“Notice what happens in verse 12. In other words, what that cloud is doing is holding back, making it so you could approach to the Lord.

“This happens all through the Old Testament back there with Israel. In Exodus 19, the Israelites had the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day. The cloud represented the Lord’s presence in their midst, but it’s a cloud because it’s engulfed. It’s veiled off.

*****

“Exodus 19:9 says, ‘And the LORD said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever. And Moses told the words of the people unto the LORD.’

“Verse 16 says, ‘And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.’

“There’s the cloud in which the glory of God is and what you’re seeing is the majesty of His glory but it’s veiled so they could look at it.

“Exodus 20:21 says, ‘And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.’

*****

“In the Book of Nahum is a passage that while historically referring to God’s judgment of Nineveh, is looking forward to the Second Advent. It reads, ‘The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.’

“The Book of Job also talks about the Lord’s Coming and it’s like a whirlwind and the clouds are the dust of his feet. So when the Lord has a dustup what happens is you have clouds. You know when somebody’s whipping across somewhere, they make a big cloud plume and it encompasses them. In a case like this, when it comes to the atmosphere, God’s presence makes such a disturbance in the atmosphere that it generates clouds, storms.

“At the Rapture, Believers will be caught up into this giant pavilion that accompanies the presence of the Lord and the clouds will veil what’s going on from everybody else.”

(new article tomorrow)