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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