The Rapture and John Darby
By J.R. Ensey
ABSTRACT:
Are the claims that John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) personally concocted the doctrine of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture of the church, and that it was unknown until he presented it in the 1830s, actually true? Did others embrace this end-time theory before that time? That others prior to him held such views will be shown. Did he also give birth to the idea of Dispensationalism? A very brief overview of the circumstances of how he came to hold these positions will be provided here. Ten reasons a pre-Tribulation (pre-Trib here) view is the better way for us to understand God’s unfolding plan for the end-time, are also provided.
John Nelson Darby was born in King Country, Ireland, in 1800 to a landed family. Little interested in religion in his youth, while being educated at Westminster School and Trinity College in Dublin, he embraced Christianity with evident sincerity. He studied law and his post-graduate work focused on that direction. However, finding that fraternity to be adverse to his Christian beliefs, he became a minister in the Church of Ireland (Anglican). He was soon motivated to join a group whose first congregation had been established in Plymouth, England, in 1831, thus becoming known as the Plymouth Brethren. The movement’s eschatology centered around the details of the Second Coming of Christ. The quick-minded John Darby soon became the dominant personality in the movement and its branches in both Britain and continental Europe, especially in French Switzerland, where he spent the greater part of the years 1838–1845.
Darby’s biblical studies and personal research led him to give expression to a concept called Dispensationalism. He didn’t invent the theory, but he did systematize it and give it form. He was definitely not the first to hold such a view. Clement of Alexandria (AD 150-220) espoused at least four distinct dispensations of God’s rule. Irenaeus (AD 130-200) laid out broad schemes of historical epochs in God’s dealings with humanity. Augustine (AD 354-430) freely used the Latin term dispensatio to describe ways God administered His affairs among men throughout history. Research, such as that provided by William C. Watson, reveals that the concept of Dispensationalism was not new to nineteenth century students of history and the Bible. He demonstrates that Darby’s perspectives were not “off the wall” theologically, nor did they originate with him. They did, however, under Darby’s modern pen, become a positive aid to understanding the Scripture as a whole and fulfilling II Timothy 2:14-17. Clarence Larkin, in the early twentieth century, published a series of books that also supported the dispensational view with scores of charts that gave even greater elaboration to the system laid out by Darby.
There is quite a list of pre-Darby theologians, authors, and commentators provided by Watson to show that Dispensationalist views were held long before him and the Plymouth Brethren. So why do mid- and post-Tribulationists continue to point to John Darby as introducing an idea that is not biblical but just “hatched” by him in the nineteenth century. The old “make the close-up moon stop reflecting light so the far-away stars can be seen more brightly” wish, perhaps. The game is to denigrate one view to make the other more attractive.
Dispensationalism provides an alignment of history with Scripture. From our end-time perspective, it makes even more sense now than ever before. It gives substance to the concept that there were various historical time periods in which God related to the human family in ways specific to each of them. Darby saw a sharp distinction between Israel and Christianity and their roles in the time of the end. He adopted a pre-millennial, pre-Tribulation view of Christ’s return for His people. The eras or dispensations were divided as Innocence (Eden), Conscience (Fall to Flood), Human Government (Noah), Promise (Abraham), Law (Moses), Grace (The Church Age), and the Millennial Kingdom.
At the end of the Church Age, Darby held that Christ will suddenly return to the air and remove believers from the earth in a “catching away’ or “rapture” immediately prior to the seven-year Great Tribulation period. His views were subsequently adopted by many prominent English and American pastors, as well as educational institutions, such as the Moody Bible Institute, Dallas Theological Seminary, the Master’s Seminary, and others. It is interesting that Pentecostals have the highest percentage of pastors who embrace a pre-Trib Rapture.
The claim by some current Christian theologians and older denominations is that the doctrine did not come from the Bible but was solely the brainchild of John Darby alone. It wasn’t known, believed, or taught by Christians through centuries; therefore, we should not hold a theological position that burst on the scene 1,800 years after the Bible was written. It was not taught by Roman Catholics or most of the Reformation Protestants—or anyone until Darby put legs under it, they say. Detractors from among Pentecostals who hold the post-Trib or mid-Trib “Rapture” doctrine have parroted such lines. The burden of proof, however, lies on the shoulders of the claimants. We should be careful when we repeat a claim that a little research reveals has no foundation in truth. It could backfire.
Using the logic that the Rapture and Dispensational theories were dismissed by the state church formed in the fourth century, and were not fully reclaimed until the nineteenth century, they therefore should be avoided, we might have to re-evaluate some other doctrines we hold. Could the same argument be used against our stance on faith healing? Or women’s uncut hair? Or the Oneness of God? Or baptism in the name of Jesus? These issues rarely surfaced to any great extent for a period covering about 1,400 years. Should they be rejected on the same basis? Should we refer to R. E. McAlister as the “founder of Jesus Name baptism” in 1913? Those and other positions were virtually unknown or ignored until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The time frame of when a doctrine was returned to the light from the Dark Ages and re-established, has little or nothing to do with its scriptural authenticity. Dispensationalist and pre-Trib views make room for the end-time “latter rain” revival, which includes a revitalization of historically ignored doctrines and practices.
The idea of Darby’s “inventing” the “new” doctrines of dispensationalism and a sudden end-time Rapture is used only to put someone’s alternative view in a better light. And if they can add a touch of ad hominem to discredit the person who may be its greatest advocate, they are all the more emboldened in their critique.
Is Darby really the sole source of the pre-millennial, pre-Trib Rapture? Did no one preach it until the 1830s? Did he actually “invent” the Rapture theory rather than see it in the Scriptures? Did some miraculous visitor or spiritual experience drop it into his mind, Joseph Smith-like? If he was the one who alone developed it, what were his sources? Is it extrabiblical? If so, why is it embraced by the largest percentage of the most conservative ministers in Western Christianity, particularly Pentecostals?
Apparently, it was time for the doctrine to be revived and proclaimed as some others mentioned above. The end-time was upon the church. Someone needed to see how it could assist Christians to understand the signs and events that Jesus and the apostles predicted. Darby didn’t get it from the Plymouth Brethren. They were on the right track, but had not yet gotten it all together. He apparently got it by reading the Bible—as we have also gleaned doctrinal positions from the Word in the last days. It was Paul who got it by revelation (Romans 16:25; II Corinthians 12:1,7; Galatians 1:12; Ephesians 3:3). Then, with the sense of prophetic timing provided by the Brethren, Darby put it in a framework that could easily be grasped and aligned with Scripture. Yet, that did not make him its “inventor,” any more than McAlister’s reference to Jesus name baptism in 1913 made him its inventor. For those of us who also embrace it, the pre-Trib Rapture plan was born in the mind of God and passed on to Paul by inspiration and revelation, and from Jesus’ own words spoken during His Olivet discourse (Matthew 24). His teaching about end-time events to the Thessalonians (II Thessalonians 2:5,6), aligns well with the information Jesus gave us in that prophetic message.
Darby’s general pre-Trib approach, a position held most Oneness Pentecostals, aligns easily with the relevant scriptural passages regarding the end-time. Here are ten reasons why a pre-Trib view may be held with confidence:
1) It fits with Paul’s detailed account of the resurrection of the saved in I Thessalonians 4:15-17.
“For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” This Rapture scene describes the “snatching and carrying away” of the faithful Christians at the end of this age, and is the beginning of the “blessed hope” mentioned by Paul in Titus 2:13.
2) The Greek and Latin New Testament terms used in Scripture regarding the first resurrection indicate a sudden removal, as in a “snatching away.”
“The English word ‘rapture’ is derived from the Latin word ‘raptus,’ but it is also related to the Latin word ‘rapiemur,’ which is the word St. Jerome used for ‘caught up’ (KJV) when he translated 1 Thessalonians 4:17 in the Latin Vulgate Bible. While the use of the word ‘rapture’ in casual conversation has changed in meaning since St. Jerome’s time, its original definition and application to Jesus’ return for His Church has remained. In the classic sense, the word “rapture” means ‘to snatch away,’ as a raptor (bird of prey) seizes its prey from the earth. Since that describes how Jesus will remove His Church from the earth prior to the Tribulation, we continue to use that word to describe the event of Jesus’ return for His Church.”
The Greek word ??
??? (harpazo), which Paul used in I Thessalonians 4:17, carries the same connotation of a sudden “seizing...snatching away” or removal of something or someone from one place to another. The concept again matches Paul’s description of the catching away of the church in I Thessalonians 4:17. See also: I Corinthians 15:52; II Corinthians 2:2-4; Acts 8:39; Revelation 2:5).
3) It circumvents the “wrath of the Lamb” (Revelation 6:16) poured out during the Great Tribulation, which is not intended for Christian believers (I Thessalonians 5:9).
All who believe, obey, and live the Christian life will suffer persecution during the church age (II Timothy 3:12). The first believers did, the early Christians did, and the true believers since those days have experienced tribulation, the severity being based on where they live. It is still going on in places like Nigeria, China, and Muslim nations. But the Great Tribulation, the time of “Jacob’s trouble” (Jeremiah 30:7), the apocalyptic seven years of the beginning of “day of the Lord,” (II Thessalonians 2:1-4) is yet another matter. Faithful Christians will be removed from the earth prior to that “day”—a seven-year period of judgment and wrath upon the Jews and Gentile unbelievers. “I will keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth” (Revelation 3:10). That is our promise from Jesus. Christians are told to watch for the “Son from heaven” (I Thessalonians 1:10), not the “son of perdition” to be revealed as the Antichrist after we are “caught up” and removed from the earth (II Thessalonians 2:3). That is because Christ’s appearance will occur first.
The severe judgment and wrath that Jesus and Paul described will begin with the four horsemen of Revelation 6:1—first the Antichrist on a white horse, achieving dominance over territory and technology through deception and whatever threat of force is necessary. The second horseman will be division based on extreme hatred to the point of killing each other, either erupting in the homes and streets, or total war on the seas and in the air. We see such hatred (personal, class, racial, and national) festering even now. The third horseman will reduce food supplies and cause crops to fail and bring famine to all the nations on the earth. The fourth horseman is death, who rides a pale horse. Millions will perish—either by starvation, disease, uncontrollable wild animals, or the physical weapons that bring death. Doesn’t sound like fun; dd like judgment and wrath, which it is.
It is inconceivable “I am going to put you through some additional, difficult, apocalyptic tests no one has ever seen before, to see if you can endure them and remain faithful. Just before I return, I will send a quick famine to cause you and your family great duress from hunger. You will be tempted greater than ever dbefore—to steal bread for your children, to kill those who might be stealing your bread, to protect your wife and children from assault. Calamities such as have never been seen will come. War on America’s streets, devastation beyond belief on every side, will crush many of the most dedicated believers. Some are falling away before the Antichrist is even revealed. Times of fearful darkness will frighten every person. Children will wail for their mothers. Americans, least of all, will be likely to endure those days. The Antichrist’s “restrainer” will not intervene. Death will follow famine, and it will occur on every side. You will suffer the judgments designed for the Messiah-denying Jews and unbelieving Gentiles alongside them. I’ll test you to the limits. If you can overcome in the situations I have described to John, you can be saved. If you break and take the mark, I will send you to an everlasting fiery Hell from which there is no escape. If you survive those days with your faith, you can sit down at our wedding feast as My Bride. But if you falter through deception, and surrender to the lies of the Antichrist and false prophet, you will be doomed.” Personally, that does not sound a lot like the Jesus I know. It would seem a little unfair that only the believers living at the beginning of the Tribulation would have to undergo such disgusting temptations and horrific difficulties to prove their faith and devotion. But we recognize that “fairness” by human standards is not incumbent upon God. If it turns out that way, so be it. We will do the best we can and hopefully endure to the limit. However, I believe in a Christ who desperately wants us to be saved—not lost. He was manifested to be our Savior. He has done everything possible to save us. He will not turn and do everything possible to cause us to destroy ourselves, just to see if the faith can be twisted from our hearts. He will not expect His church, His family, His Bride for no reason other than that they were living when the prophesied judgment of the Jew and Gentile unbelievers were punished for unbelief. Tough persecution by pagans during the post-Apostolic period was not considered as “judgment upon them. The Tribulation is a judgment—“the wrath of the Lamb.” (Revelation 6:17).
I believe Him when He said He is going to “snatch” us off the earth prior to those days and we will “forever be with the Lord” (I Thessalonians 4:17). We will then appear at the Judgment Seat of Christ (Romans 14:10) where rewards are distributed, and then sit with Him at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9). After that marriage feast, we will return to the earth with Him to achieve victory over all His foes (Revelation 19:11-21). This is the fate of the saved during those seven years of judgment.
Those who embrace a mid-Trib or “post-Trib” Rapture, seem to overlook the strong suggestion that the Rapture occurs in Revelation 4:1,2. Revelation 6:17 says “the wrath has [already] come.”
4) It corresponds to the prophetic words of Jesus and Paul (Matthew 24; and the letters of I and II Thessalonians. For instance, Jesus used the word “taken” when referring to “two grinding at the mill...in the field...one taken and the other left.” Being “taken away” in Jesus’ lesson matches what Paul says: “caught up.” Some see other parallels in those narratives.
5) It is in harmony with the convictions of many Christian authors and commentators.
Darby was NOT the first in history to attach a Rapture image to the words of Paul and Jesus, as is being alleged. The writings of post-Apostolic author Irenaeus, who was a disciple of Polycarp, who in turn was tutored by John himself, reflect thoughts that let us know he had some sense of similar end-time events. Since John was given the unction to describe the events as stated in Revelation, he surely would have passed them on to Polycarp, and by extension, to Erenaeus. Those and other Early Church Fathers held tightly to imminence, the fundamental fact of Jesus returning for His church at the end of the age. Larry Crutchfield notes: “This belief in the imminent return of Christ within the context of ongoing persecution has prompted us to broadly label the views of the earliest fathers, 'imminent intratribulationism.’” Expressions of imminency abound in the Apostolic Fathers. Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, The Didache, The Epistle of Barnabas, and The Shepherd of Hermas all speak of imminency.” Furthermore, The Shepherd of Hermas speaks of the pretribulational concept of escaping the tribulation at 1.4.2. Some researchers say that pretribulationism was very active among the Waldensians, the Albigenses, and Lombards in the fourteenth century. The centuries following saw an increase of interest regarding end-time Bible passages, ultimately leading to Darby in the nineteenth century.
Rather than provide in this brief essay the lengthy list and writings of those who believed similar details of Christ’s return to earth for His people as did Darby, let me refer the reader to a paper that provides them. Upshot: Darby was not the first pre-Trib Rapture believer.
6) It offers hope and promise to the living saints of the last days. There is little hope, peace, or comfort in a mid-Trib or post-Trib Rapture. Paul’s description of the Rapture in I Thessalonians 4:15-17 has offered comfort to believers through the centuries. As Paul said, “Comfort one another with these words.” A mid- or post-Trib view seems to offer little comfort, given the details of the Great Tribulation.
7) It corresponds with the types present in Old Testament history, such as Noah, Elijah, Lot, Enoch. Other views do not seem to enjoy this much history via the types and shadows from the Old Testament.
8) It provides details of believers participating in post-Rapture events, such as the Judgment Seat of Christ where the Christians’ rewards will be distributed, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, and then a return with Christ to establish an earthly millennial kingdom. That millennium will complete an approximate 7,000-year history of mankind on the earth. This is followed by the final White Throne sentencing bar, where all the unsaved are given their eternal sentence. The saints are then removed from the earth before it is burned up. A new earth is created upon which the Holy City will sit as a “headquarters” for our “everlasting habitations” (Luke 16:9).
9) It avoids confusion with the Second Coming of Christ to earth described in Revelation 19. In the Rapture, Jesus comes to “the air” to receive His people (I Thessalonians 4:16,17). He escorts His Bride to an award ceremony (the Judgment Seat of Christ). Following a “marriage supper” with Christ (Revelation 19:9). Then we follow Him to the earth to rule and reign with Him for 1000 years (Revelation 19:11-20:6). Remember: We cannot “return” with Christ unless we have left the earth with Him. Unbelieving Jews do not participate in the Rapture, and God deals with them in His own way during the Tribulation. The church age has ended and the plan of salvation in effect now may not be exactly what is extended to the Jews during the Tribulation. There will be a remnant of the Jews saved during the seven years who will participate in the earthly millennial kingdom which immediately follows the Tribulation.
10) It presents the clearest and most understandable timeline of end-time events. It does not confuse the church with Israel. That nation and all Jews beyond its borders are the primary target of the Tribulation. Perhaps this is why someone in the eighteenth or nineteenth century could see end-time events a little clearer than Christians in the fourth century the thirteenth century, and why we can see them clearer than them. Events are coming into sharper focus just before the Rapture.
Conclusion:
Darby certainly had some well-grounded ideas and a sure grasp of the end-time events surrounding the return of Christ. Many of the signs pointing to these events weren’t as obvious then as now. Some will still say he invented some scenarios, but that really isn’t so, as we have shown in this paper. And we will probably still be referred to as “softies” because we appreciate the promise that the Rapture will spare us the terrible judgments that will fall upon those who enter the seven years of Tribulation here on the earth. But we don’t teach it for that hope alone. We proclaim it because it is the Word of God. He does not intend for His Bride to be subjected to what is prepared for those who insist on unbelief and a sinful lifestyle. Rejecting Christ’s rule in one’s life is a sad mistake. All doubt about that will be erased and all questions will be answered when Jesus appears in the clouds and the church is “caught up” to meet Him in the air. “So shall we ever be with the Lord.” We will never leave His presence after that experience.
We say with John and all those who are anxiously awaiting the return of Christ, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20).
FootNotes
1.Watson, William C., Dispensationalism Before Darby (Lampion House Publishing, 2015).
2.You may want to research these pre-Darby authors: P
A fairly exhaustive list of Christian denominations and church groups with their stated positions on end-time events are listed In this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CslNVE-jP5g.
3.I personally believe that since the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2, there has been someone or some group who was baptizing in the name of Jesus. But from the fourth to the twentieth century, it was anathema virtually everywhere because of the Roman Catholic Church’s adamant stand against it. The medieval “fake news” would not give it press.
4. For an example, see Delony, Stuart, John Nelson Darby and the Invention of the Rapture; 3/11/26 https://www.patheos.com/blogs/snarkyfaith/2026/01/john-nelson-darby-and-the-invention-of-the-rapture
5. In 2016 a Lifeway Research Survey revealed that 73% of Pentecostals hold a pre-Trib Rapture position.
6. White, Michael L, The Rapture Explained: A Doctrinal Abstract (2011); https://parsonplace.com/rapture.html.
7.Crutchfield, Larry V., "The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation in the Apostolic Fathers" in Thomas Ice & Timothy Demy, editors, When The Trumpet Sounds (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1995), p. 103.
8. Ibid., ppl 88-101
9. Bumerlock, Francis X, The Day and the Hour: A Chronicle of Christianity’s Perennial Fascination with Predicting the End of the World (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 2000), p. 80..
10. For a more complete list of references to a pre-tribulation Rapture position held by those in the thirteenth to the eighteenth century prior to Darby, see A Brief History of the Rapture, Thomas D. Ice, (2009), Article Archives. 4 https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/pretrib_arch/4; Liberty University TDice@liberty.edu. This underscores the fact that Darby did not invent the pre-Trib Rapture doctrine. |