Millennialitis and Its Rapture Fever

By Rev. Brent W. Kuhlman

Let’s identify and diagnose a very dangerous spiritual disease. I call it millennialitis. One of its symptoms is Rapture Fever (I’ll get to that in a moment). The millennial malady is highly contagious. In fact, it is an epidemic in our country. More importantly, it can be spiritually lethal. The good news is that it can be prevented and cured. So roll up your sleeve and prepare yourself for a much needed vaccination. Will it hurt? Sure. So what! No pain—no gain!

Millennialitis is easy to spot. You know you are deeply infected with it when you deliriously mouth the millennium mantra. What is that? It is this: Jesus had and still has a millennium on the brain, that is to say, when Jesus first came on the scene He relentlessly offered to reign as king from Jerusalem for a peaceful and prosperous 1,000 years (a millennium). In other words, when Jesus took on flesh and was born of the virgin Mary He had millennial mania. After dying on the cross, the main thing He intended to do was to set up an earthly reign of 1,000 years and then Judgment Day would come. When you talk like that you have become sick with millennialitis.

With that, let’s pause for just a second and reflect on the unwholesomeness of this affliction. What does millennialitis leave out from the get go? What is not even on the radar screen? What (or Who) gets diminished or downgraded? Yes, that’s right. You guessed it. It is the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus— what you know as central and essential: sine qua non! However, when you are tainted with millennialitis, you can’t see that Holy Week, Good Friday and Easter Sunday were ever part of the Lord’s divine plan—ONLY THE EARTHLY MILLENNIAL KINGDOM IS!

Since people in the New Testament rejected His offer of the millennium and put Him to death (whoops!), Jesus put it off for a while. Consequently, those infected with millennialitis still wait for the goal or climax of history: the millennium. It’s almost like Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection from the grave was hastily put into place like some kind of Plan B! When you suffer from millennialitis, you aren’t as able to “fix your eyes on Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2) who endured the cross for your salvation. Instead, you are fixated on a postponed future millennium as the whole enchilada of God’s purpose for you and for the world! That ought to raise a lot of red flags! It truly indicates just how severely detrimental millennialitis is to your spiritual health!

Jesus, however, teaches just the opposite. The first sermon out of His mouth is that the climax of all history has come in His earthly ministry that leads to Good Friday (Mark 1:15). Jesus actually does bring about God’s reign of peace on the earth but it is precisely in, with and under His birth, life, suffering, death on the cross and His glorious resurrection from the dead. This is the central teaching of Jesus and His apostles (Matthew 1:21-22; 20:17-19, 28; Luke 1:79; 2:14; 24:26-27, 44-46; John 12:23; 17:1; Acts 2:17, 30-36; 3:18-24; 10:36; Romans 5:1; 1 Corinthians 10:11; 2 Corinthians 1:20; Ephesians 2:14, 17; Colossians 1:20; Hebrews 1:1-2; 9:26; 1 Peter 1:20). Since His ascension to the Father’s right hand, Jesus continues to reign until the Last Day as He dispenses forgiveness, life and salvation through the preaching of the gospel and the giving out of the sacraments (Matthew 16:19; 18:18; 26:26- 28; 28:19-20; Mark 16:15-16; Luke 24:47; John 20:19-23).

However, when you’re ailing from millennialitis, you also suffer from a high-grade Rapture Fever. It makes you delirious. You can’t think straight. Rapture Fever makes you hallucinate. One of the delusions that come with the fever is this: Seven years before the millennial reign or 1,007 years before the Last Day, Jesus will silently and secretly snatch up or rapture to heaven all believers from the earth. As fast as you can say, “Bob’s your uncle,” every Christian will vanish from the face of the earth (no matter what they are doing or no matter where they are) in order to be spared the imminent and nasty seven years of tribulation in which the Antichrist unleashes his tyranny. Coughing profusely and sweating feverishly from millennialitis you trot out a Bible passage to prove that you are really quite well. It is 1 Thessalonians 4:17: “Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up…” The original Greek is harpazo; the Latin Vulgate is raptus—and voila! You’ve got a rapture!

Give me your other arm please. Vaccination round two! 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 is not about what happens 1,007 years before the Last Day (as if there were two comings of Jesus separated by 1,007 years). The apostle Paul describes what will take place ON THE LAST DAY—“the coming [parousia] of the Lord,” (15). The word parousia was commonly used in the Greekspeaking world to denote the very public and bodily arrival or coming of kings and rulers on a visit. The word never implies that the coming is secret or unseen. How appropriate that Paul uses this same word to speak of Jesus when He comes in triumph on the Last Day to raise the dead. In the rest of the New Testament, parousia is almost exclusively used to describe Jesus’ return in glory on the Last Day (e.g. Matthew 24:26-27; 2 Thessalonians 2:8; 2 Peter 3:4-12; Paul speaks of being comforted by the “coming [parousia] of Titus,” (2 Corinthians 7:6) and the “coming [parousia] of Stephanus, Fortunatus and Achaicus,” (1 Corinthians 16:17).

Contrary to those who suffer from millennialitis, the Last Day parousia of the Lord will be quite earsplitting. “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command with the voice of an archangel and with the sound of the trumpet of God,” (1 Thessalonians 4:16). In addition, you know that the parousia is the Last Day because there is the resurrection of the body. If you ever had any concerns about what will happen on the Last Day to your deceased loved ones who believed in Jesus, let there be no doubts. They will be the first to taste the resurrection of the body that will come on the Last Day. Check it out: “For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming [parousia] of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep … the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so we will always be with the Lord,” (1 Thessalonians 15, 16b-17).

When the Lord Jesus comes [parousia] on the Last Day all believers will be together once more. Bodies raised from the grave and those still alive will be “caught up … in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” in order to enjoy the forevermore bliss of Paradise and fellowship with God! What joy! What hope! “Therefore comfort one another with these words,” words that come from the Lord Jesus himself (1 Thessalonians 4:18). Here endeth the vaccination. Millennialitis and Rapture Fever be gone!

In the Name of Jesus.

Rev. Brent W. Kuhlman is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, Murdock, Nebraska. He can be reached at kuhlman brent@gmail.com