In Genesis 12, God chooses Abraham from the midst of the nations — or, more specifically, from the midst of the descendants of Shem. God does not, however, simply give Abraham the same command he gave to Adam and Noah. Instead, he gives Abraham a promise: “I will make you exceedingly fruitful,” he says (Genesis 17:6), which is exactly what he does. And so, as Abraham’s generations unfold, they recapitulate the structure of Genesis 1–11.

Genealogies matter. The biblical narrative is fundamentally a record of events — births, deaths, kings enthroned, kings deposed, covenants made, covenants broken, and so on. The Bible’s genealogies are the backdrop against which these events unfold. As such, they are a basic part of the fabric of Scripture. They tell us when events happen and who is involved in them. And, by extension, they often give us clues as to why.
But before we dive into the (sometimes murky) details of the Bible’s genealogies, it will be helpful for us to consider them in broader redemptive terms.
Forming, Naming, Filling
At the outset of the biblical story, God creates the heavens and the earth. They start out like a blank canvas, formless and empty (Genesis 1:1). Then, over the course of six days, God carries out three important types of activities: he adds form to what he has made (e.g., by the division of night and day); he names what he has formed; and, last of all, he fills what he has formed (e.g., the day with the sun; the night with the moon and stars).
Afterward, God commissions man to continue his activities. More specifically, God commands man to be fruitful and multiply and to fill and subdue the earth (Genesis 1:28). The Bible’s genealogies are thus firmly anchored in the events of Genesis 1. They are a record of how and to what extent mankind lives out God’s commission as he forms, names, and fills God’s creation.
Genesis 1–11 Redux
In Genesis 4, Eve forms three children and assigns to each of them a name.1 “I have [formed] a man with the help of the Lord,” she says after Cain’s birth (Genesis 4:1). (The verb “formed” — Hebrew kanah — is generally translated as “acquired” in this verse, but it often means “formed”; indeed, it is the verb used in Psalm 139:13, where David says to God, “You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.”) Needless to say, Eve’s statement about the world’s first childbirth is significant. Like God, Eve adds form to what is formless, as her daughters have done ever since.
In the aftermath of Abel’s death, the lines of Cain and Seth begin to fill the earth. To some extent, the two lines unfold in parallel. For instance, both culminate in a threefold division — in Cain’s case with Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-Cain (Genesis 4:20–22), and in Seth’s with Shem, Ham, and Japheth (Genesis 5:32). And before that, each line reaches a mini-climax in the rise of a Lamech, who is a man of sevens. Cain’s Lamech is the seventh from Adam, heads up a family of seven (him, his two wives, his three sons, and his daughter), and says his death will be repaid with a seventy-sevenfold vengeance (Genesis 4:24). Meanwhile, Seth’s Lamech lives for seven hundred and seventy-seven years (Genesis 5:31), and he fathers Noah — the life of a man of eights who heads up a family of eight (1 Peter 3:20). Hence, while Cain’s line is terminated by the flood, Seth’s lives on to inhabit a new creation.
In the aftermath of the flood, the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth begin to multiply and fill the earth (in answer to a repeat of God’s command in Genesis 9:1). The result is the “Table of Nations” in Genesis 10.
Then, in Genesis 12, God chooses Abraham from the midst of the nations — or, more specifically, from the midst of the descendants of Shem. God does not, however, simply give Abraham the same command he gave to Adam and Noah. Instead, he gives Abraham a promise: “I will make you exceedingly fruitful,” he says (Genesis 17:6), which is exactly what he does. And so, as Abraham’s generations unfold, they recapitulate the structure of Genesis 1–11.
The events of Genesis 1 establish a twelve/thirteenfold structure composed of six environments (night, day, heaven, earth, sea, and land, formed on days one to three) filled by six created things (moon/stars, sun, birds, animals, fish, and humans, created on days four to six), or seven if we count plants (created on day three).2 In answer, the branches of Abraham’s family tree yield an array of twelve/thirteenfold generations: Nahor’s line opens into a generation of twelve (Genesis 22:21–24), as do Ishmael’s (Genesis 25:12–16) and Esau’s,3 and, last of all, Jacob’s line opens into a generation of twelve, or thirteen if we count Joseph’s sons (Genesis 48:5).
Meanwhile, just as the lines of Cain and Seth emerge from a background of three streams and divide into three streams, so too does the line of Abraham: Abraham is one of three sons, and his posterity divides into the sons of Hagar, Sarah, and Keturah (Genesis 11:27–28).
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Their head may be full of theology, but it seems that their heart is empty. They miss what the Spirit of God is trying to do as they go on their little theological crusade. Those folks who are such repeat offenders when it comes to this really demonstrate how little of the heart of God they have and how carnal they in fact can be. It is always so sad to come across this.

There are certain things that must be said over and over. No matter how often you speak about such matters, you find that you must keep repeating yourself. Either folks are just not listening, or there are some perennial problems that must constantly be addressed.
The topic of this post is an example of this. I have often written about it in the past, but the need is always there to keep revisiting the theme. And that theme is this: yes, theology matters – massively. Sound doctrine is vitally important, and I have made that case hundreds of times over the years, both here and on the social media.
However… We all know of those who always want to be theologically correct but who are far too often spiritually incorrect. That is, so often they are running in the flesh, and not in the Spirit, as they act as the world’s policeman to make sure everyone is believing the “correct” thing.
I find this constantly on the social media. Indeed, just this morning I opened up one of my pages to find this happening yet again. It does my head and heart in, and I wonder if it will ever stop. As I just posted online:
It is one thing to be concerned about sound theology, but another thing to obsessively act as a theology cop, going around and “correcting” everyone when they dare to have a different view on things – especially when you were just trying to offer some spiritual edification, and NOT start yet another theological war. Such folks end up being little more than Pharisees, and as I have said so often, they will not get a free run on my page.
This happens so often and it bothers me no end. When my aim is NOT to make some theological point, but simply to encourage others, bless others, seek to have them love God more, it really is disturbing that some believers do not get it. The spiritual aim that I intended goes completely over their head, and they see this as yet another opportunity to push their pet theology.
Their head may be full of theology, but it seems that their heart is empty. They miss what the Spirit of God is trying to do as they go on their little theological crusade. Those folks who are such repeat offenders when it comes to this really demonstrate how little of the heart of God they have and how carnal they in fact can be. It is always so sad to come across this.
But let me spell this out with some examples just in case some Christians are still not getting it:
When I share some great spiritual encouragement or biblical truth from John Wesley, I really do not need some angry Calvinist attacking me and missing entirely the helpful truth I was seeking to offer to others.
When I share some great spiritual encouragement or biblical truth from John Calvin, I really do not need some angry Arminian attacking me and missing entirely the helpful truth I was seeking to offer to others.
When I share some great spiritual encouragement or biblical truth from a Catholic, I really do not need some angry Protestant attacking me and missing entirely the helpful truth I was seeking to offer to others.
When I share some great spiritual encouragement or biblical truth from a Protestant, I really do not need some angry Catholic attacking me and missing entirely the helpful truth I was seeking to offer to others.
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When Jesus says that some will be taken, he is saying that some will be arrested, taken into custody, beaten, and killed when the day of the Lord’s wrath comes. This day happened just like Jesus predicted, within a single generation, when the Romans came into the city, murdered, raped, and killed the Jews, and took the remaining survivors “into custody.”

You’ve Been Left Behind…
At the zenith of my choral career, circa the late 1990s, I was chosen to perform a solo in front of my entire private Christian high school. Apparently, the talent pool was a bit low that year. Either way, I was given the unenviable task of alerting all the would-be tares, sown into a Christian School wheat field, to repent or face their eschatological doom… With a Brady-bunch quiver ready to strike at my undeveloped teenage vocal cords, I crooned out the following warning to my classmates: “There’s no time to change your mind, the Son has come and you’ve been left behind.” If you are blanking on the reference, take a moment to enjoy some dispensational cringe and then come back for the article proper.
Wonkavator in the Sky
When it comes to eschatology, the most common view bumbling around pulpits and popular Christian literature these days asserts that at some point in the immediate future, believers will be whisked away from the world in a secret rapture. Christians will apparently vaporize, leaping invisibly into the heavens, leaving clothing, dentures, and plastic surgical additions piled neatly behind them. Planes will fall out of the sky. Unmanned cars will careen over cliffs. And all the world will be thrown into the kind of panic that only a cavalier Antichrist could rectify, which will jumpstart a seven-year tribulation that ends in Armageddon.
This kind of murky reasoning once seemed rational to me. That is until I left the eschatological bog of big Eva publishing swamps and started reading the Bible for myself. It is amazing how such a simple action can clear up so much confusion. Who would’ve thunk it?
With that, today, I want us to explore what the Bible says about the rapture in Matthew 24. Is it God’s heavenly dispensational wonkavator that is meant to zap us out of here before the world gets really crazy? Or, have we misunderstood what the Scriptures are saying about these things and need to adopt a better view? Let us begin!
A Brief Disclaimer
As I have mentioned before. Jesus is going to return at the very end of human history. The dead in Christ will rise. The living and the dead will be judged. Some will be thrown into the lake of fire where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. And some will enter into the eternal kingdom with Christ in the new heavens and the new earth. All of that is true and is still in our future.
But, what we have also shown in this series, is that many of the most popular eschatological fantasies, peddled as the Gospel today, will not happen in the future, because they have already happened in the past. For instance, over the last several weeks we have shown that the rise of False Messiah’s, Wars and Rumors of Wars, Earthquakes and Famines, Tribulations, Signs of the Times, the Abomination of Desolation, The Great Tribulation, and the “Second Coming” (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3), all occurred in the events that happened in the Church’s first tumultuous forty years.
If you are all caught up on the series, today, we will examine how the events of Matthew 24:36-41, are not referring to a pre-trib, mid-trib, or post-tribulational “rapture”. But, instead is more evidence that Jesus was describing events that would happen in the first century. If you are not caught up, this post may be interesting, and I feel sure you will get something out of it, but, I would suggest reading the previous articles in the series for a fuller treatment. You can find those in blog form here, or in podcast form here.
The Text:

But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left.—Matthew 24:36-41

A Past Day in View
While many believe this section of Scripture is referring to a future rapture of a righteous church, the context of Matthew 24 makes it abundantly clear that Jesus is referring to events that have already happened in the past to the unrighteous nation of Judah. We know this for at least three reasons. First, the context bears it out. Jesus is answering the disciples’ questions about when the temple will be destroyed, what will be the sign this is about to occur, and how will that factor into the end of the Jewish age of redemption (Matthew 24:1-3). From verse 3 onward, Jesus is giving an unbroken answer to their question, describing events that must soon take place in their lifetimes, without deviating from that objective. There is not a single moment in verses 1-35, where Jesus jarringly shifts away from His audience to the distant future, to somehow wax proleptically. He stays on task and so should we.
Second, Jesus said a mere two verses earlier: “This generation will not pass away until all these things take place” (v. 34). This tells us unequivocally that Jesus believed everything in this prophecy would occur within a forty-year window. That alone should end the debate, right? Do we believe Jesus or not?
Third, whenever Jesus uses the word “day” in this chapter, He is not referring to an indeterminate day that will occur sometime in an undisclosed future. Instead, He is referring to a well-defined day, known as the “Day of the Lord”, which makes its Biblical appearance in the Old Testament prophetic writings. According to the prophets, the “Day of the Lord” was a special day when God uniquely brought His covenantal fury against His enemies. According to Jesus, that day had come in full when Judah rejected the reign of God (See Matthew 23:35-36). This undoubtedly served as the chiefest of all betrayals and pitted the Jews as mortal enemies with God. This is why Jesus alludes to, quotes from, and appeals to the very prophets who refer to this awesome and terrible day because that day would afflict the very generation He was speaking to (See for example Joel 1& 2; Amos 5; and Malachi 3 & 4).
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