Page 73 - Eschatology - Masters revised

What does “the rebellion” in NIV84 and ESV (translated “the falling away” in NKJV, and “apostasy” in
NASV) really mean. The first seven English Bible translations of “apostasia” all most appropriately
rendered the noun as either “the departure” or “the departing”. Extensive studies in the Scriptures
confirm that this word in almost every case means “departure from” meaning a physical departure from
a certain place. Just the root word alone denotes movement (“apo”) away from the surface of an object
(“stasis”). It cannot mean an abstract departure from faith in this context. The facts give a staggering
amount of weight that this “departure” is the very physical rapture itself, the departure of the church
from the earth. Paul reminds the Thessalonian believers that this “departure” must occur BEFORE the
Man of Sin is revealed.

The Latin Vulgate which is St. Jerome’s Latin Bible translation from the late fourth century (prior to all
English translations above) used “discessio” which translates as “departure”. E. Schuyler English, one of
our finest Greek scholars translated this word in 2 Thess. 2:3 as “the departure”. Theodore Beza, the
Swiss reformer was the first to transliterate apostasia and create a new word “apostasy” rather than
translate it as others had done. He then defined his new word with the meaning “to fall away from the
faith” in a religious sense. The translators of the King James Version were the first to introduce the new
rendering of apostasia as “falling away.”

The use of the definite article means that Paul is pointing to a particular type of departure clearly known
to the Thessalonian church. In the immediate context in verse 1, Paul talked about “our being gathered
to Him” (Jesus Christ). In Paul’s first letter to the churches in Thessalonica he described the Rapture in 1
Thessalonians 4:17 and used the words “caught up” with the Lord in the clouds. The Thessalonian
believers would most certainly understand Paul to be saying that the “departure”, the anticipated
rapture of the church, must occur before the antichrist would be revealed. This understanding would
give these believers definite assurance that the Day of the Lord had not yet begun because the
preceding event, the Rapture, had not yet occurred.

Interpreting this word as a spiritual falling away from the faith does not give the readers any definitive
event. Apostasy had already begun in the first century and has continued ever since. How would the
readers know when “the spiritual falling away from the faith” had occurred? This meaning would not
have been the clear event as demanded by the definite article, which seems to indicate a clear,
discernable event.

13. This final week of seven years which is the Lord's Wrath poured out upon the antichrist and his
Gentile kingdom is not for the church, the bride of Christ. Jesus Christ will be consummating his
marriage to the church for those seven years. Although many people living during the Tribulation will
believe in Christ for eternal life, they will not be part of the church, which ended with the Rapture. The
definition of the word “consummate” is to bring an arrangement or agreement to completion,
perfection, fulfillment. Jewish wedding tradition holds to the bride and groom hiding away from the
public, the world, for a period of seven days, one week. And Jesus, the Bridegroom, is Jewish! It is a
Jewish wedding! There is no way around that fact. The mid-tribulation view, the pre-wrath view, and
post-tribulation view fail to understand this.

14. The rapture of the church off the earth and the return (second coming) of Jesus Christ to this earth
are two entirely different events, as the following chart shows:

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