Rapture

In sensus plenior, Revelation is a recapitulation of the same story told repeatedly through the OT. It is told using the symbols in the literal rather than the hidden layers. As such it it like a Rosetta stone to the symbols of the rest of the Bible.

What pr-trib and others miss by not being cognizant of the sensus plenior is a proper understanding of eternity. When eternity is viewed as a time line extending in both directions for ever it creates theological problems with apparent contradictions.

Eternity is timeless. Matthew records Jesus' teaching on the rapture. "This generation" will not pass away. Jesus did not lie. This generation refers to every generation that reads it. We die at different times within time, and it appears that Jesus has returned like a thief taking one from the field and one from the bed. So everyone experiences death at different times, but rapture simultaneously.

From a timeless eternity, we arrive simultaneously in the skies with him. Steven has a rapture experience at his death, and we each will. When we get over it and look around, Adam, Enoch, Abraham and granny as well as our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will all be there too.

The Great Tribulation was Christ's tribulation, and had the days not been shortened, had he been beaten to death in prison, no flesh would have been saved. What greater desolation than a holy God placed in the hands of sinful men?

The desolation was Christ's desolation and that of the earth. He faced the cross alone. The Father had left him and he had been made to be sin. Where on earth was God? What greater desolation?

The kiss of Judas was the abomination that caused the desolation. "He who condemns a righteous man is an abomination."

The parallels between Revelation and Exodus are not by accident, they both tell the story of Christ and the cross.