The Rapture Trap: A Catholic View

Reprinted from "The Rapture Trap: A Catholic Response to 'End Times' Fever" by Paul Thigpen, Ph.D. with permission of Ascension Press.

Open the last book of the Bible, and you enter a strange and dazzling world. In quick succession you encounter there a baffling array of angels and beasts, saints and sinners, worshippers and warriors, celebrations and catastrophes.

There you find a great beast whose number is 666. A scroll with seven seals. Four men riding horses, each horse a different color. Hail and fire, mixed with blood. A battle named Armageddon. A star named Wormwood falling to earth. Crowned locusts with human faces, women's hair, lions' teeth, scales, and stinging scorpion tails. Invading nations named Gog and Magog. A red dragon with seven heads, ten horns, seven crowns.

So what does the Catholic Church officially teach about the true meaning of all these puzzling symbols, figures, and events?

The short answer: Not much.

The Church has never claimed to know with certainty, for example, the true meaning of the locust with human faces. But the Church does witness to a number of important truths about Christ's second coming and the close of the age.

A Humbling Perplexity

The Church teaches, of course, that the book of Revelation and the book of Daniel, with its similar imagery, belong among the Scriptures inspired by God. Both books extend to us God's invitations, promises, and warnings. Both contain useful exhortations to maintain a steadfast hope and faith.

Nevertheless, much of what is contained in these books is exceedingly difficult to understand. The rule of interpreting a biblical text as far as possible in its ``plain sense'' does not help much in many passages we find here. The ``plain sense'' of a red dragon with seven heads and ten horns is just not very plain at all.

On the other hand, what the Catholic Church, by Christ's authority, has definitively declared about the end of the world---and what is clearly implied by what it has so declared---Catholics are obliged to believe. In fact, what the Church has definitively declared, Catholics should be overjoyed to believe. After all, it's good news! Christ's second coming and the events surrounding it are just as much a part of the gospel as His first coming.

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