While Tim Lahaye (Left Behind) and other dispensationalists teach that God has two people – an earthly people (the Jews) and a heavenly people (the Christians) – the Catholic Church asserts that God has always had just one People, or family, throughout history.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) states that “This ‘family of God’ is gradually formed and takes shape during the stages of human history, in keeping with the Father's plan. In fact, ‘already present in figure at the beginning of the world, this Church was prepared in marvelous fashion in the history of the people of Israel . . . Established in this last age of the world and made manifest in the outpouring of the Spirit, it will be brought to glorious completion at the end of time.’” (CCC 759). Therefore, the Catholic Church has always understood herself as being the New Israel (Gal. 6:16) and the new People of God (1 Pet. 2:9-10), the recipients of the New Covenant given through Christ.
The dispensationalist belief in two people of God leads to the teaching of a secret Rapture. This was developed in the 1830s by John Nelson Darby, an ex-Anglican priest who became convinced that “Christendom” – organized, institutional Christianity – was apostate, and that only a few “true believers” existed. Darby taught that many of God’s promises made to Israel, the earthly people, had not yet been fulfilled and would not be until the Church, the heavenly people, had been secretly Raptured. Subsequent dispensationalists claimed that the Millennium, the thousand years of Revelation 20, will be a literal, earthly reign of Christ on earth following the Second Coming. This belief is commonly called millenarianism, or millennialism, and has been rejected by the Catholic Church. In 1944 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith warned against “. . . the system of mitigated Millenarianism, which teaches . . . that Christ the Lord before the final judgment, whether or not preceded by the resurrection of the many just, will come visibly to rule over this world. . . . The system of mitigated Millenarianism cannot be taught safely” (see CCC 676).
While some early Church Fathers believed in an earthly, millennial reign of Christ, the idea was discarded in the fourth century. St. Augustine interpreted the reference to a “thousand years” as a metaphor for the Church age. This would become the implicitly accepted belief of the Church, even though the Catholic Church has still never made a formal statement about what the Millennium is or was – it remains open to debate.
The Church’s rejection of the secret Rapture is not formally stated, but is the natural conclusion of Catholic ecclesiology. While Catholics do not believe in a secret Rapture, we do believe in the Second Coming: Jesus Christ will physically and visibly return to earth, just as the Nicene Creed, recited in the weekly Eucharistic Liturgy, declares: “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.” The Catechism states that “On Judgement Day at the end of the world, Christ will come in glory to achieve the definitive triumph of good over evil which, like the wheat and the tares, have grown up together in the course of history” (CCC 681; see 682).
From the Catholic perspective the term “Rapture” is problematic. On one hand it can refer to being “caught up” to Christ (1 Thess. 4:17), which we believe will happen at the Second Coming. On the other hand, the term is basically owned by Dispensationalists. When used in popular discourse it almost always refers to the secret snatching away of “true believers,” usually before the Tribulation, and always prior to and distinct from the Second Coming. Considering that the term “Rapture” is rarely used in Catholic circles, it is easy to see how misconceptions arise.
What happens to Israel in the Catholic understanding of End Time events? The Church’s one explicit teaching on this matter is that: “[t]he glorious Messiah's coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by ‘all Israel’, for ‘a hardening has come upon part of Israel’ in their ‘unbelief’ toward Jesus.” (CCC 674) The Church, reflecting upon Romans 9 through 11, believes that Israel will somehow come back to Christ and recognize him for who he really is. How this will be accomplished is open to debate since the Church says nothing else about it.
The Church does say a bit more about a time of Tribulation, teaching that there will be a time of great trial; however, we do not know when it will occur or how long it will last. The Catechism states that “Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the ‘mystery of iniquity’ in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth.” (CCC 675; also see CCC 2642) This time of trial will be at the start of the last days (see CCC 672).
Combined with this belief in a time of future testing, the Church teaches that there have been many Antichrists, but there will also be the Antichrist who leads a worldwide system of anti-Christian belief. The Catechism teaches that “…The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.” (CCC 675) “The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the [end times] judgement. . . .” (CCC 676).
A quick comment on the book of Revelation: it is, undoubtedly, one of the most hotly debated books of the Bible. Not surprisingly, the Catholic Church avoids making many specific interpretations of it. The Church’s doctrines allow for a range of interpretations. Thus a Catholic is free to believe it describes the conflict of good and evil experienced by individual Christians, and makes prophetic utterances about future events, and refers to events in the past. Such flexibility is a recognition that Scripture, inspired by God, can be full of different, yet complimentary, meanings. Since different people are going to often arrive at conflicting interpretations, there must ultimately be an authority who can make a decisive judgement when necessary. “It is the task of exegetes to work, according to these rules, towards a better understanding and explanation of the meaning of Sacred Scripture in order that their research may help the Church to form a firmer judgement,” the Catechism explains. “For, of course, all that has been said about the manner of interpreting Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgement of the Church which exercises the divinely conferred commission and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God.” (CCC 119).
