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The Issue of the Catholic Origin of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture
Posted : 9 Mar, 2012 10:46 AM
The Issue of the Catholic Origin of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture
Don't do the dialectic of opinion, "how do you feel about it", the side-step, or
"lets agree to disagree," always in byte speak terms. Have a love of the truth of Scripture and sometimes use careful scholarship.
Francisco Ribera (1537�1591), followed by another Jesuit, Emmanuel
Lacunza (1731-1801) taught the prophecy doctrine of futurism and that
the Anti-Christ was to be a single person who would appear in the
future, during the tribulation. Some claim Lacunza said there would
be a pre-tribulation rapture of Christians so they would escape the
reign of the Anti-Christ. And apparently some have also said that
Francisco Ribera in his 1585 work on the Book of Revelation, titled,
In Sacrum Beati Ioannis Apostoli, & Evangelistiae Apocalypsin
Commentarij, claimed there will be a pre-tribulation rapture. I have
not seen any direct quotes from either Ribera or Lacunza saying there
will be a rapture of Christians before the tribulation period begins.
On the site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Ribera it is said
that "In order to remove the papacy of the Catholic Church from
consideration as the Antichrist (as an act of countering the
Protestant Reformation), Ribera began writing a lengthy (500 page)
commentary in 1585 on the Book of Revelation (Apocalypse) titled In
Sacrum Beati Ioannis Apostoli, & Evangelistiae Apocalypsin
Commentarij, proposing that the first few chapters of the Apocalypse
apply to ancient pagan Rome, and the rest he limited to a yet future
period of 3� literal years, immediately prior to the second coming."
The Catholic Church did not teach the doctrine of the pre-tribulation
rapture of the Church.
Manuel or Emmanuel Lacunza, 1731-1801, was a Jesuit priest who wrote
The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty (1790).
From: Chapter 3 of Stephen Sizer, Christian Zionism: Its History,
Theology and Politics, AAARGH Internet Editions 2005,
Edward Irving (1792-1834)
The Rapture and the Rupture Between Israel and the Church
"In 1826 Irving was introduced to the views of Manuel Lacunza a Spanish
Jesuit who wrote a book under
the pseudonym of Juan Josafat Ben-Ezra, allegedly a converted Jew,
entitled, 'The Coming of the Messiah in
Glory and Majesty'. Lacunza interpreted all but the first three
chapters of the Book of Revelation as describing
apocalyptic events about to happen.
Irving was so excited by Lacunza's speculations, he mastered Spanish
in order to translate and publish
the work in English.7 Irving added a 203 page preface to the
translation in which he presented with great
conviction his own unique prophetic speculations about the end of the
world, predicting the apostasy of
Christendom, the subsequent restoration of the Jews and finally the
imminent return of Christ."
Edward Irving was an associate of John Darby, known as the founder of
dispensationalism or Christian Zionism.
On http://www.poweredbychrist.com/Manuel_Lacunza.html
Fearless Dave MacPhearson says on this site - THE REAL MANUEL LACUNZA - that "
A few of my acquaintances, especially John Bray, have claimed that a
Catholic priest named Manuel de Lacunza (using the pen name
"Ben-Ezra") originated the pretribulation rapture belief and
introduced it in his notable work "The Coming of Messiah in Glory and
Majesty" (1812). Well, now is the right time to tell you that I am
forced to kindly disagree with the Lacunza claim. Here's why:
Bray, in his 1982 booklet "The Origin of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture
Teaching," admitted that he'd been influenced by an early 20th century
pastor, Rev. Duncan McDougall of the Free Church of Scotland, who
wrote the booklet "The Rapture of the Saints." McDougall, copied by
Bray, was inspired by "much before" speculation in a Lacunza quote
(Vol. I, p. 99) which declared that "much before" Christ's "arrival
at the earth" He "will give his orders" involving a shout, the
archangel's voice, and the trumpet of God (I Thess. 4:16).
But both McDougall and Bray were evidently unaware that a few
paragraphs after the "much before" quote (and in the same context),
Lacunza reveals that other writers of his time commonly believe that
"a few minutes will suffice----five or six" between the catching up
and the touchdown at Jerusalem. Although Lacunza doesn't explain his
"much before," a day----or even an hour----would be "much before"
when compared with only five or six minutes.
Lacunza speculates (Vol. II, p. 250) that the "wrath" and "commotion"
of the "day of the Lord's coming" (that is, the second advent) will
last at least "forty-five natural days." Bray somehow sees these days
as part of "the tribulation period" and claims that in Lacunza's view
the raptured saints are up in the air with Christ throughout the same
45-day period.
Even though Lacunza places a rapture before this period, he repeatedly
notes that this period is "after the entire ruin of Antichrist,"
"after the coming of Christ in glory and majesty," "in the age to
come," etc.!
After the meeting in the air, Lacunza even has the raptured saints
back on earth during the 45 days! In Vol. II (pp. 262-3) he declares
that they will immediately become Christ's messengers; he quotes Isa.
18:2: "Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and
peeled"----in other words, to "the relics of all nations which shall
survive" Antichrist's reign.
Does Lacunza teach a rapture occurring 45 days before the coming to
earth, as Bray claims? Let's look at Vol. I.
On p. 83 Lacunza refers to the book of Revelation and writes that "the
nineteenth chapter speaks of the coming of the Lord in glory and
majesty, which Christians with one consent do wait for." Pages
99-100: after quoting I Thess. 4:13-18 Lacunza quotes Matt. 24:30 and
then comments: "If you compare this text with that of St. Paul, you
shall find no other difference than this, that those who are to arise
on the coming of the Lord, the apostle nameth those who are dead in
Christ, who sleep in Jesus; and the Lord nameth them his elect."
Lacunza (p. 113) again quotes I Thess. 4 and Matt. 24 in this manner:
"...He shall descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ shall rise
first; then we who are alive, &c. and it appears to me, that you will
find St. Paul and the Gospel speaking one and the same thing: He
shall send his angels and they shall gather his elect from the four
winds; who can be no other than those very ones who are in Christ,
who sleep in Jesus."
For years I sent Lacunza quotes like the ones above to Bray and urged
him to abandon that Catholic priest. Finally, in a letter dated Oct.
17, 1990 (still in my files), Bray wrote: "I don't even know what all
Lacunza was talking about."
(He's the same Bray who's been promoting 18th century pastor Morgan
Edwards as a pretrib. But I've been telling Bray that Edwards believed
that "Antichrist" was the Catholic papacy which had already been on
earth for
1200 years before Edwards wrote his book! I've also told Bray that
Edwards viewed the Ottoman Empire as Rev. 13's second beast----a
beast that was already four centuries old in Edwards' day! It would
have been impossible for Edwards to expect an event which logically
should have happened centuries earlier!)
Interestingly, even Tim LaHaye's 1992 book "No Fear of the Storm"
(alias "Rapture Under Attack," alias "The Rapture"), p. 169, admits
that "Lacunza never taught a pre-Trib Rapture!"
If Lacunza's 1812 book contains pretrib, as McDougall and Bray have
claimed, why was such doctrine unknown before 1830? It wasn't that
John Darby and Edward Irving were unaware of Lacunza's work, for both
discussed it in their pre-1830 writings. And it wasn't that Darby and
Irving were opposed to novel ideas, for both began to embrace pretrib
after it emerged in 1830.
One final thought: why did the world have to wait until McDougall's
time to hear something about Lacunza that it had never heard before?"
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