Deeper shade of grey | rupture of rapture

by Gordon Cotterill

I have a love hate thing going on when it comes to using a sat nav. When travelling by myself to new and unknown destinations I find a definite value in their company - but only enough to borrow one.

The danger lies in relying on what you presume to be the destination, only to find that you are woefully short or wide of the mark. 

One trip ending in a field with a cheery voice declaring I had reached my destination now makes me double/triple check the postcode I tap in. Even then, as I get closer I really sweat on where I will end up. I really like to know where I am going and as the miles disappear I often regret not making even a cursory check of the map.

I am neither a biblical scholar nor anything more than a gutter theologian! - but when it comes to eschatology I get nervous with what people rely on. At this time of year when we recognise Jesus as the prototype for the resurrection of the body, we take hope in the potential for new creation when Heaven and Earth will be one. I wonder if tapping in the wrong code can leave us woefully short in any kind of understanding. Travelling blind, without even a cursory glance at the deeper meanings of Paul’s metaphorical points can leave us wide of the mark in our understanding.

To engage with novels as theology has implications - it takes a good read of Walter Wink to detox from the influence of Frank Perretti’s spiritual warfare. It takes a good read of NT Wright to detox from the Left Behind series and to understand that there is more to Christian hope than being snatched out our homes and communities to be with Jesus!

Dealing with 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, NT Wright is keen to point out that Paul’s purpose is to comfort, and that he draws together OT imagery to inspire hope. Wright illustrates that to read ‘rapture’ into this text is to make the mistake of not understanding Paul’s words in the way they were intended.

Wright points out and wants us to understand that:

• Paul never intended, nor did his readers understand or ‘suppose that heaven is physically above us’;
• That rather than a place, heaven is God’s dimension;
• While a risky metaphor, ‘descending’ is an echo of and understood within the hope of Moses.
• Paul was not thinking of a literal vertical ascent, the language is taken from Daniel 7 as the Son of Man is vindicated after his suffering.
• Meeting with the Lord is reminiscent of Roman citizens going out to meet an emperor when paying a state visit and then accompanying him back. 

NT Wright ruptures the rapture by showing that rather more strength can be seen in a framework of New Creation:

“The key is to realize that resurrection is not a disembodied life in some mid-air heaven but in the re-embodiment of God’s people to love with and for God in the new redeemed world that God will make”. (Wright 2002:125)

Writer: Capt. Gordon Cotterill lives in London, England, is married to Kate and has two daughters Bethan and Eryn. He has been a Salvation Army officer for ten years and ‘cut his teeth’ in ministry with his wife as the corps officers at Poplar in the East End of London. The lessons he learned there in his day-to-day ministry, amid the chaos of the inner city, continue to shape his understanding and passion for biblical and grace-centred mission. His latest appointment as Spiritual Programme Director at the William Booth College, London now offers him the opportunity for the fusion and exploration of ‘mission’ and ’spiritual formation’ while trying to inspire a new generation of Salvation Army officers as to their role in God’s plan for His creation. Gordon keeps a blog where he mulls over themes of mostly, mission and spiritual formation.

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