The Tribulation and rapture in 2 Thes. 2?

[Littlejoe]

My B-I-L recently called me and was all a twitter about the coming rapture, end times...according to some guy at Rapture Ready (yeah I know) that he's been listening to. The guy thinks this because its the Year of Jubilee, Shemita year and has the Feast of Trumpets (Roshashanna). Therefore, he believes it's coming sometime between July and October(?) of this year. I doubt anyone is insterested in listening to these hour + long but if you are here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaRR6rPy9HM
As most of you know, I'm not a futurist, I lean Preterist/Amillinial mostly. So, it was when I was doing my daily reading that I came to the following passage, and remembering the discussion with my B-I-L, I was thinking about the "coming rapture". I was thinking, here they were 2000 years ago, writing to Paul asking if they had missed the Rapture...then...something occured to me. If this is talking about the rapture of the Church...why did the Thessalonians write to Paul asking him if they had missed it? If Paul was taken in the rapture, why would the Thessalonians think he would still be here to answer the letter?

Scripture Verse: 2 Thessalonias 2:1-12

1 Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers,
2 not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.
3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction,
4 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.
5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?
6 And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time.
7 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.
8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.
9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders,
10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.
11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false,
12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

© Copyright Original Source

So, what do you think this passage is about? Is it about a rapture? Or maybe its about the start of the Tribulation? If it's about the start of the Tribulation, what does "our being gathering together to him" mean...and why did the Thessalonians think they missed it?

[Darfius]

My B-I-L recently called me and was all a twitter about the coming rapture, end times...according to some guy at Rapture Ready (yeah I know) that he's been listening to. The guy thinks this because its the Year of Jubilee, Shemita year and has the Feast of Trumpets (Roshashanna). Therefore, he believes it's coming sometime between July and October(?) of this year. I doubt anyone is insterested in listening to these hour + long but if you are here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaRR6rPy9HM
As most of you know, I'm not a futurist, I lean Preterist/Amillinial mostly. So, it was when I was doing my daily reading that I came to the following passage, and remembering the discussion with my B-I-L, I was thinking about the "coming rapture". I was thinking, here they were 2000 years ago, writing to Paul asking if they had missed the Rapture...then...something occured to me. If this is talking about the rapture of the Church...why did the Thessalonians write to Paul asking him if they had missed it? If Paul was taken in the rapture, why would the Thessalonians think he would still be here to answer the letter?

Scripture Verse: 2 Thessalonias 2:1-12

1 Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers,
2 not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.
3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction,
4 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.
5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?
6 And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time.
7 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.
8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.
9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders,
10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.
11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false,
12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

© Copyright Original Source

So, what do you think this passage is about? Is it about a rapture? Or maybe its about the start of the Tribulation? If it's about the start of the Tribulation, what does "our being gathering together to him" mean...and why did the Thessalonians think they missed it?

Paul, like all the prophets, packed a lot of information into a small passage, but only to those "discerning" enough to know the Scriptures. It's obvious he didn't want to say too much (God's enemies can read the Bible too): "Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?" (remember what I told you, don't make me write it all down explicitly).

The Thessalonians thought they had "missed it", because of "spiritualizers" like you:

Scripture Verse: 2 Timothy 2

¹⁶ Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly. ¹⁷ Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, ¹⁸ who have departed from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some.

© Copyright Original Source

Hymenaeus was teaching a "spiritual" resurrection. "Don't worry that your loved ones' bodies are still rotting away there, they didn't need that disgusting body anymore because they have spiffy new "spiritual" bodies. How do we know? Trust us, we're more holy than you. " A brand of Gnosticism, in other words.

I believe it's called "hyperpreterism" by preterists not willing to appear completely idiotic by asserting the resurrection has already happened, despite the fact they appear just as idiotic claiming Jesus has already "returned".

Scripture Verse: 1 Timothy 1

¹⁸ Timothy, my son, I am giving you this command in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the battle well, ¹⁹ holding on to faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and so have suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith. ²⁰ Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.

© Copyright Original Source

Paul knew (and taught) that certain things had to occur, prophetically speaking, before the Lord could return. The tribes had to be regathered to the land promised to Abraham (hence the pun on "gathered together", meaning physically and in the resurrection/transformation) and the "time of the Gentiles had been fulfilled (Luke 21:24)"--which Daniel described as a succession of Gentile kingdoms that had to reign until "the rebels have become completely wicked" (Daniel 8:23, another pun and word link Paul uses ["until the rebellion occurs and the lawless..."] for the people who actually know Scripture).

"Pre-tribulation escape" is an absurdity, since tribulation means trial and the unsaved cannot be tried as there is no faith to be tried. The tribulation is a "time of trouble for Jacob", meaning not just the tribes of Judah but the assimilated Ephraimite tribes who are most Christians. It is the wrath of God after the tribulation ("immediately after the tribulation of those days") that Christians are delivered from.

Out of curiosity, do you know of any church belief in preterism before the 16th century?

Historically, preterists and non-preterists have generally agreed that the Jesuit Luis de Alcasar (1554–1613) wrote the first systematic preterist exposition of prophecy Vestigatio arcani sensus in Apocalypsi, published during the Counter-Reformation

"Listen, guys, I know our guy claims to be the vicar of Christ and lives like a king, but you're totes cray cray to say he's an antichrist, cause all that business happened in the first century. *nervous chuckle* Anyway, it's those Protestants who need to die, amirite?" (I am not saying this represents your thoughts or beliefs, Littlejoe, it's satire to point out the vested interest the Jesuits had in making up the bull that preterism is.)

[3 Resurrections]

My B-I-L recently called me and was all a twitter about the coming rapture, end times...according to some guy at Rapture Ready (yeah I know) that he's been listening to. The guy thinks this because its the Year of Jubilee, Shemita year and has the Feast of Trumpets (Roshashanna). Therefore, he believes it's coming sometime between July and October(?) of this year. I doubt anyone is insterested in listening to these hour + long but if you are here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaRR6rPy9HM
As most of you know, I'm not a futurist, I lean Preterist/Amillinial mostly. So, it was when I was doing my daily reading that I came to the following passage, and remembering the discussion with my B-I-L, I was thinking about the "coming rapture". I was thinking, here they were 2000 years ago, writing to Paul asking if they had missed the Rapture...then...something occured to me. If this is talking about the rapture of the Church...why did the Thessalonians write to Paul asking him if they had missed it? If Paul was taken in the rapture, why would the Thessalonians think he would still be here to answer the letter?

Scripture Verse: 2 Thessalonias 2:1-12

1 Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers,
2 not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.
3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction,
4 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.
5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?
6 And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time.
7 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.
8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.
9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders,
10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.
11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false,
12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

© Copyright Original Source

So, what do you think this passage is about? Is it about a rapture? Or maybe its about the start of the Tribulation? If it's about the start of the Tribulation, what does "our being gathering together to him" mean...and why did the Thessalonians think they missed it?

Some of the Thessalonian believers thought their dead relatives who had died in the Lord had missed the bodily resurrection, because Hymenaeus and Philetus were teaching this. Those two men were pointing to the resurrected saints who had come out of the grave on the day of Christ's resurrection, and were teaching the believers that this resurrection event in AD 33 was the one and only bodily resurrection that would ever take place. Those bodily-resurrected Matthew 27:52-53 saints were still living among the early church, so Hymenaeus and Philetus's incorrect doctrine was just plausible enough to be discouraging the faith of the believers at the time. And there were 144,000 of those Jewish "First-fruits" resurrected saints, so their number was remarkable enough to be noticed by the believers of that day.

This is why Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians 4 and the "rapture" text. Paul was proving to these discouraged believers that the former "First resurrection" of Christ and the Matthew 27:52-53 saints was not the one and only bodily resurrection event to ever take place. Those saints who were still in the grave would be raised to life again in a changed body, and caught up to meet the Lord in the air at the next bodily resurrection event. They would be joined by those like the "alive" and "remaining" Matthew 27:52-53 saints who had been waiting patiently on earth to be taken to heaven with the returning Christ.

This "rapture" already happened on the day Daniel 12:11-13 predicted long ago. It took place on the 1,335th day after Jerusalem was surrounded by armies in late AD 66, at the same season when the daily sacrifice for the emperor and the Roman empire was eliminated by the temple governor, Eleazar, earlier in the AD 66 year. Exactly 1,335 days after Jerusalem was surrounded by Cestius Gallus's Roman armies coming against the Zealot armies, Christ returned to the Mount of Olives to gather all the resurrected saints who had died prior to that year, and He returned to heaven with them.

Paul was taken in that AD 70 "rapture", because he was martyred in AD 67, just in time to participate in this "gathering together" of the resurrected saints. And ONLY resurrected, living saints participated in this "rapture"- not those saints who had not yet died before then.