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A few of my acquaintances, especially John Bray, have
claimed that a Catholic priest named Manuel de Lacunza (using the pen
name "Ben-Ezra") originated the pretribulation rapture
belief and introduced it in his notable work "The Coming of
Messiah in Glory and Majesty" (1812).
Well, now is the right time to tell you that I am
forced to kindly disagree with the Lacunza claim. Here's why:
Bray, in his 1982 booklet "The Origin of the
Pre-Tribulation Rapture Teaching," admitted that he'd been
influenced by an early 20th century pastor, Rev. Duncan McDougall of
the Free Church of Scotland, who wrote the booklet "The Rapture
of the Saints." McDougall, copied by Bray, was inspired by
"much before" speculation in a Lacunza quote (Vol. I, p.
99) which declared that "much before" Christ's "arrival
at the earth" He "will give his orders" involving a
shout, the archangel's voice, and the trumpet of God (I Thess. 4:16).
But both McDougall and Bray were evidently unaware
that a few paragraphs after the "much before" quote (and in
the same context), Lacunza reveals that other writers of his time
commonly believe that "a few minutes will suffice----five or
six" between the catching up and the touchdown at Jerusalem.
Although Lacunza doesn't explain his "much before," a
day----or even an hour----would be "much before" when
compared with only five or six minutes.
Lacunza speculates (Vol. II, p. 250) that the
"wrath" and "commotion" of the "day of the
Lord's coming" (that is, the second advent) will last at least
"forty-five natural days." Bray somehow sees these days as
part of "the tribulation period" and claims that in
Lacunza's view the raptured saints are up in the air with Christ
throughout the same 45-day period.
Even though Lacunza places a rapture before this
period, he repeatedly notes that this period is "after the
entire ruin of Antichrist," "after the coming of Christ in
glory and majesty," "in the age to come," etc.!
After the meeting in the air, Lacunza even has the
raptured saints back on earth during the 45 days! In Vol. II (pp.
262-3) he declares that they will immediately become Christ's
messengers; he quotes Isa. 18:2: "Go, ye swift messengers, to a
nation scattered and peeled"----in other words, to "the
relics of all nations which shall survive" Antichrist's reign.
Does Lacunza teach a rapture occurring 45 days before the coming to
earth, as Bray claims? Let's look at Vol. I.
On p. 83 Lacunza refers to the book of Revelation and
writes that "the nineteenth chapter speaks of the coming of the
Lord in glory and majesty, which Christians with one consent do wait
for." Pages 99-100: after quoting I Thess. 4:13-18 Lacunza
quotes Matt. 24:30 and then comments: "If you compare this text
with that of St. Paul, you shall find no other difference than this,
that those who are to arise on the coming of the Lord, the apostle
nameth those who are dead in Christ, who sleep in Jesus; and the Lord
nameth them his elect."
Lacunza (p. 113) again quotes I Thess. 4 and Matt. 24
in this manner: "...He shall descend from heaven, and the dead
in Christ shall rise first; then we who are alive, &c. and it
appears to me, that you will find St. Paul and the Gospel speaking
one and the same thing: He shall send his angels and they shall
gather his elect from the four winds; who can be no other than those
very ones who are in Christ, who sleep in Jesus." For years I
sent Lacunza quotes like the ones above to Bray and urged him to
abandon that Catholic priest. Finally, in a letter dated Oct. 17,
1990 (still in my files), Bray wrote: "I don't even know what
all Lacunza was talking about."
(He's the same Bray who's been promoting 18th century
pastor Morgan Edwards as a pretrib. But I've been telling Bray that
Edwards believed that "Antichrist" was the Catholic papacy
which had already been on earth for 1200 years before Edwards wrote
his book! I've also told Bray that Edwards viewed the Ottoman Empire
as Rev. 13's second beast----a beast that was already four centuries
old in Edwards' day! It would have been impossible for Edwards to
expect an event which logically should have happened centuries earlier!)
Interestingly, even Tim LaHaye's 1992 book "No
Fear of the Storm" alias "Rapture Under Attack," alias
"The Rapture"), p. 169, admits that "Lacunza never
taught a pre-Trib Rapture!"
If Lacunza's 1812 book contains pretrib, as McDougall
and Bray have claimed, why was such doctrine unknown before 1830? It
wasn't that John Darby and Edward Irving were unaware of Lacunza's
work, for both discussed it in their pre-1830 writings. And it wasn't
that Darby and Irving were opposed to novel ideas, for both began to
embrace pretrib after it emerged in 1830.
One final thought: why did the world have to wait
until McDougall's time to hear something about Lacunza that it had
never heard before?
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