He could have called ten thousand angels
\nTo destroy the world and set him free
\nHe could have called ten thousand angels
\nBut he died alone for you and me<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The core of PMD Rapture theology is that this was a huge mistake \u2014 a major screw-up on God\u2019s part. Rapture believers think Jesus should<\/em> have called ten thousand angels to destroy the world and set him free. The fact that he didn\u2019t \u2014 choosing, instead, to humble himself unto death, even death on a cross \u2014 is where the First Coming went wrong.<\/p>\nIt really is that stark: Rapture theology regards Jesus\u2019 birth, life, and death as a colossal failure. Jesus could and should have exploited all the power of the all-powerful to kick butt and force us puny humans to submit to what\u2019s best for us. And because Jesus failed to do any of that, he\u2019s going to have to come back to fix his mistakes and get it right next time. Jesus\u2019 resurrection, in this way of thinking, was not divine vindication of the sacrificial love through which God will reconcile all things. It was merely the escape plan that would enable Jesus to come back later with heavily armed reinforcements.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why Rapture theology is obsessed with the Second Coming, when Jesus 2.0 returns to correct what went wrong the first time around. And their description of that Second Coming is exactly what that song describes as the option that Jesus himself and God Godself explicitly rejected at Calvary \u2014 legions of angels sent to destroy the world by force, imposing God\u2019s will on everything by force.<\/p>\n
This is also why it\u2019s no big deal for Rapture Christians to discount and dismiss the life and teachings of Jesus \u2014 the Sermon on the Mount, the parables, the parabolic acts. Those are all relics of the prior, failed dispensation. They represent the sort of thinking that led to the failure of the First Coming, and there\u2019s no use studying such mistaken ideas unless you want to wind up repeating such failures.<\/p>\n
But I mentioned two<\/em> supposed \u201cmistakes.\u201d That first one\u2019s a doozy \u2014 regarding it as a mistake requires a distortion of the core of the entire New Testament, an inversion of the meaning of the gospel, and a perversion of the basis for Christian morality. The second one is just as bad. Thinking of this one as a mistake requires a distortion of the core of the entire Old Testament.<\/p>\nThis second mistake \u2014 or, rather, the mistaken idea that it\u2019s a mistake \u2014 is a big part of why I generally try to avoid that term, \u201cOld Testament,\u201d preferring instead to say something like \u201cHebrew Scriptures.\u201d We Christians too easily slip into thinking of the \u201cold\u201d as something that has been replaced and corrected and supplanted by the \u201cnew.\u201d We wind up thinking of it as the former<\/em> testament, or the no-longer-operational<\/em> testament or some such.<\/p>\nAnd that way of thinking just reinforces the Very Bad theology of this second Very Bad \u201cmistake.\u201d That supposed mistake being, of course, the choosing of Abraham and of Israel, and all of the covenants and promises that went along with it. Clearly, according to the tenets of Rapture theology, this was a major error on God\u2019s part. And thus, according to that same theology, it is an error that will ultimately be corrected and amended in the End Times, when Jesus 2.0 returns with his army of angels to coerce the world into submission. At that point, Rapture theology says, the children of Abraham will be given the opportunity to reject the not-so-eternal-after-all covenant Yahweh made with Israel and choose, instead, to become worshippers of the Winning Team.<\/p>\n
Again, none of this is how Rapture enthusiasts and premillennial dispensationalists and \u201cBible prophecy scholars\u201d would themselves describe what they believe. They\u2019re aware of how strange it would sound for them to nakedly accuse God of having made \u201cmistakes.\u201d But none of what they believe about the Second Coming and the End Times \u2014 or about the necessity to approach the Bible through a lens that regards the Second Coming and the End Times as its paramount concerns \u2014 makes any sense at all unless one also believes that Jesus\u2019 life and death were a tragic mistake and a failure in need of correction, and that God\u2019s covenant with Israel was also a tragic mistake and a failure in need of correction.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not trying, at this moment, to provide a comprehensive argument to that effect. Here I\u2019m just pointing it out.<\/p>\n
And also noting that it is, as I said, Very Bad. It is, among other things, how we wound up with Rick Wiles<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“Bible prophecy” is the business of explaining God’s mistakes and God’s plan to correct them at the end of the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[238],"class_list":["post-48696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicals","tag-left-behind"],"yoast_head":"\n
When Jesus comes back to fix God's two huge mistakes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\""Bible prophecy" is the business of explaining God's mistakes and God's plan to correct them at the end of the world.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/10\/08\/when-jesus-comes-back-to-fix-gods-two-huge-mistakes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When Jesus comes back to fix God's two huge mistakes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\""Bible prophecy" is the business of explaining God's mistakes and God's plan to correct them at the end of the world.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/10\/08\/when-jesus-comes-back-to-fix-gods-two-huge-mistakes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"slacktivist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-10-08T22:05:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2019\/10\/SecondComing.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fred Clark\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/10\/08\/when-jesus-comes-back-to-fix-gods-two-huge-mistakes\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/10\/08\/when-jesus-comes-back-to-fix-gods-two-huge-mistakes\/\",\"name\":\"When Jesus comes back to fix God's two huge mistakes\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-10-08T22:05:33+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-10-08T22:05:33+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\"},\"description\":\"\\\"Bible prophecy\\\" is the business of explaining God's mistakes and God's plan to correct them at the end of the world.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/10\/08\/when-jesus-comes-back-to-fix-gods-two-huge-mistakes\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/10\/08\/when-jesus-comes-back-to-fix-gods-two-huge-mistakes\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2019\/10\/08\/when-jesus-comes-back-to-fix-gods-two-huge-mistakes\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"When Jesus comes back to fix God’s two huge mistakes\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/\",\"name\":\"slacktivist\",\"description\":\""Test everything; hold fast to what is good."\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/32666545e535b697afb93d9848dcfc47\",\"name\":\"Fred Clark\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7083ccd514d4fb8d5043041756d766a0?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Fred Clark\"},\"description\":\"Fred Clark is a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now called Palmer Seminary), of Eastern College (now called Eastern University) and of the fundamentalist Timothy Christian High School (still fundamentalist and still called Timothy Christian High School, but not really thrilled to have a snarky, liberal, tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-GLBT, peacenik, commie, evolutionist as such a vocal alumnus). 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Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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<\/p>\n