ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN ANSWER ABOUT THE ANTICHRIST

No “pre-Tribulation” rapture into Heaven for End-Time Christians The Three Holy Youths are seen by St. Irenaeus as a prefigurement of the Church in the End-Times that shall be persecuted severely by the Antichrist for its refusal to worship him or his image. Believers must remain strong at that time. Endurance is needed. Patience is needed (Rev. 13:10). There will be no “pre-tribulation” rapture (rapture means: “caught up”) as a miraculous escape route into Heaven to avoid End-Times persecution. This concept of escaping the Antichrist’s final persecution by a divine rapture up into Heaven is a modern-day false teaching that only a certain percentage of Protestants believe. It was invented in Scotland in 1830 by Margaret Macdonald and promoted widely by Englishman John Nelson Darby (whom some credit as its originator.)27 Before these two people lived, no Protestant, Roman Catholic, or Orthodox Christian ever heard of or believed such an idea. Rather, the historic Christian view has always been to follow the Lord Jesus’ exhortation of believers to endurance, saying: “He who endures to the end shall be saved” (Matthew 24:13). Orthodoxy rejects and has never taught the innovative and recently developed modern-day theory of an escape “rapture” that will gather Christians into heaven ahead of time so that they will not have to see the Antichrist nor be persecuted by him nor undergo a period of persecution, trial, and tribulation. If there was such a rapture into Heaven ahead of the Antichrist’s persecution, then all of Jesus’ warnings to believers to watch out and not be deceived by the false christ would be useless warnings (see Matthew 24:23-27). Rather, Scripture teaches that “it was given unto him [to Antichrist—the Beast] to make war with the saints, and to overcome them” (Rev.13:7). Obviously, the Christians will be still on the planet if the Antichrist is going to be fighting and persecuting them. If the “saints”—the believers—had been previously raptured (caught up) into heaven prior to the Antichrist’s persecution of them, then this Scripture (Rev. 13:7) would mean nothing. Rather, St. Paul explains that the real “rapture” of believers being “caught up” in the sky is simply the gathering of the believers who are still alive on the earth (and enduring to the End) to meet the Lord Jesus in the air when He finally returns on the clouds of glory at His Second Coming—which takes place after the Antichrist’s persecution. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 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. (1 Thess. 4:16-17) This gathering of the remaining faithful Christians (the “elect”) to Christ at His Second Coming will follow the period of great End-Time Tribulation that Jesus Himself described: Immediately after the tribulation of those days…they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (Matthew 24:29,30,31) The Antichrist’s short three-and-a-half-year violent reign “Immediately after the tribulation of those days…” Holy Scripture is very clear that before Christ’s Glorious Return in the sky, there will be a terrible time of persecution for believers, with no pre-tribulation escape rapture. True believers must be strong, patient, and trusting in Jesus (Rev. 13:10). Many will be witnesses for the true Christ, and will be beheaded, becoming martyrs (Rev. 20:4). For a short period of three and a half years (“1260 days”—Rev. 11:3) the Antichrist will have deceived the world, pretending to be nice, so that he could take over political control. But then, after becoming a global monarch, for a second short period of another three and a half years (“42 months”—Rev. 13:5) he will try to force humanity to worship him. Like ancient King Nebuchadnezzar, the Antichrist will use devious and evil means to do so. He will use coercion to force all people into his spiritual and political camp by controlling the buying and selling of all goods and services. Thus, after a pre-reign period of the first three and a half years of campaigning during which time he fakes kindness in order to gather global political support, then following his coronation as global king in Jerusalem, the Antichrist will have a short, yet violent reign of another three and a half years. St. Paisios of Mt. Athos took this time frame to be literal.28 Thus, the total is seven years allotted to the Antichrist—from his first appearance on the world scene until his overthrow at Christ Jesus’ Second Coming, as described in 2 Thessalonians 2:8.