Saved From the Wrath to Come. 1 Thessalonians 1:10
“Our Father, it is a great privilege we have to study
Your Word. Your Word is the basis for our salvation, understanding Who You are,
what Jesus Christ did on the Cross, and that salvation cannot be accomplished
through anything we do but was accomplished by Christ on the Cross. We know all
we are responsible for is to either trust in Him or not, to believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ and then we will be saved. Once we are saved we begin to
understand this great plan of salvation that You have
for us. It includes these three tenses: our present tense of justification, the
ongoing sanctification in phase 2 and ultimate sanctification in phase 3, and
the fact that we have a future glorified body face-to-face with You, and free
from our sin nature. As part of our future we look forward to the Rapture, when
the Lord Jesus Christ will return in the clouds to receive us unto Himself. And now Father as we study
one of the most significant passages for this this
morning or tonight, whichever, we pray You will help us to understand these
principles. Amen.”
We are in 1 Thessalonians 1:10. This is the first time
we have a mention of what will come to be a more expanded treatment of the
pre-Tribulation Rapture in 1 Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians 1:2-10 functions as
the introduction to the main themes, the main ideas, that
will be developed within the text of 1 Thessalonians, within this epistle. In 1
Thessalonians 1:10 we find key terminology, key vocabulary, that relates to the
doctrine of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture. In 1 Thessalonians 1:10 we read that
we are “to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even
Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.”
This is a very important verse and there are some
things we need to pay attention to as we look at this verse. The last phrase is
the key one that we are going to look to. “Jesus, who delivers us from the
wrath to come.” The word for deliver there is not the
word SOZO which sometimes is translated deliver, more often translated saved; it
is the Greek word RHUOMAI which has the idea of deliverance or rescue from a physical calamity.
This is not the most significant or controversial aspect of this verse. It
really comes from the next phrase, “from the wrath to come.”
We have to look at this verse because there are more
than a couple of problems here. The first thing we have to determine is just
what in the world does the Word of God actually say here because there is a
textual problem in the manuscript tradition. We have two different readings in
the Greek text. The first thing we have to do is determine what the best
reading from the verse is. Then it is going to open the door to some things for
us.
The first thing we see here is that there are two different
readings and the difference is in the prepositions. EK TES ORGES versus APO TES ORGES. You have two different words, two
different prepositions indicating the idea of something coming from a source.
There is the first word, EK, and the second word, APO. We have to understand that and what the difference is. This really
does not come through in English translations because “from” is “from”. So
whether you have a NASB or a KJV or NKJV, they
are all going to read basically the same in English. The difference is in the
Greek.
After we determine the reading, then we have to
determine the significance of what that reading is, if anything. I am going to
just give you the summary of a lot of information here. EK is the reading that is found in the Nestle-Aland
Greek New Testament, 27th Edition, the
Critical Text edition that is usually the backdrop for the NASB, the NIV, the ESV, and more of the modern
translations. On the other side we have what is called the Byzantine Text or
the Majority Text view which is the view that the oldest manuscripts are not
necessarily the best manuscripts and the reading of Scripture is primarily
preserved in the Majority Text manuscripts, hence the name Majority Text.
There is a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary
who was actually as classmate of mine when I went to seminary by the name of
Dan Wallace. Dan is considered one of the premier textual critics among
evangelicals. Dan has an interesting background because in his studies at BIOLA
before he came to DTS he was a Majority Text guy. Then when he came to DTS he changed his views to the Critical Text and he has written a number
of articles, theological articles, and technical articles
which are critical of the Majority Text view. He is sort of like a lot
of ex-smokers, a lot of people who have quit one thing and then they start
attacking what it was they formerly belonged to. Dan is a good scholar but I
disagree with him on this. I believe the Majority Text has the best view.
If you are interested in studying anything about
textual criticism there is a course on
textual criticism on the Dean Bible Ministries website that was
taught three or four years ago at the Chafer
Conference that forms the backdrop for a course in textual criticism
that we have. It helps people understand what these issues are. They get pretty
abstruse and pretty technical. A lot of time people just get lost in all of that technicality. If you are a little more
interested in these issues, then you can look at those lectures.
The reason I bring that to bear is about ten or twelve
years ago Dan wrote a technical article on this textual problem for Bibliotheca Sacra which is the theological journal
that DTS publishes. Dan looked at this and the first reading is the reading in
the Critical Text and the second reading APO is the view that is in the majority
of manuscripts. Dan took the position that looking at both the external
evidence of the manuscript tradition as well as internal evidence within the
epistle of 1 Thessalonians itself, his conclusion was that APO was the superior reading. It had
the greatest attestation of readings in the ancient world, not just some of the
ancient manuscripts, but there was very little evidence of the EK reading among church fathers and
among others. It had very limited textual evidence.
He takes the position that APO is the superior reading. Now, what
in the world difference does that make since both of these are roughly
synonymous but there may be a slight difference? In his conclusion to dealing
with that, I am just going to quote from Dan’s article. He says, “Hence all
that can be argued from the variant reading in question is that if Paul [he is
a pre-Trib guy so he believes that Paul is talking
about the Pre-Trib Rapture later on in 1
Thessalonians 4:13–5:11] is affirming a pre-Trib
Rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4:13–5:11, then the preposition APO fits quite naturally with such a
doctrinal stance. On the other hand, if EK were original, it would not
necessarily affirm deliverance out of the coming wrath.” That is, the idea of
being present in it and then being delivered from it. APO would clearly indicate that you do
not enter into the Tribulation at all. You are kept out of it completely.
He goes on to say, “For Paul elsewhere uses this same
phrase RHUOMAI EK where the sense seems to be ‘delivered away from’ in 2 Corinthians 1:10
where the Lord states, ‘The Lord delivered us from such a death’. That is, they
never actually entered into death but they were delivered from it, using the
preposition EK with this same verb. When you look at this, it is clear that this is
clearly talking about a pre-Trib Rapture. The APO seems to be the superior reading
and would indicate that.”
We are not limited to just that one verse. First of
all, you should never base theology on a preposition unless you have more
detailed information. Then you also have to make sure that there are corollary
passages that support your view. You would not hang everything just on this.
Especially, you would not hang everything on a passage where there is a textual
variant but there are other passages.
One of the most significant of these passages is found
in Revelation 3:9-10. This too involves a little technical understanding of
translation. I have often found this is one of the more interesting passages.
There have been a couple of guys who have done some technical work on this. Let
me just read it to you and then we will get into details. Let’s just turn in
our Bibles to Revelation 3:9 because we are going to spend a little bit of time
here this morning. This is a letter to the church in Philadelphia. This is the
critique that Jesus is giving to the church.
He says, “Indeed, I will make those of the synagogue
of Satan, who say they are Jews and are not, but lie—indeed I will make
them come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you.”
Notice there is a period at the end of that verse. Then Revelation 3:10 begins,
“Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also
will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to
test those who dwell on the earth.” There are a couple of things we have to
look at here.
In verse 10 we have a statement that begins with
“because”. It states the cause of an action. The way Revelation 3:10 reads it
looks as if the promise to keep you from the hour of trial is caused by their
keeping the command to persevere. That would indicate that if they failed to
persevere, they would not be kept from the hour of trial. We have to look at
this. There are a couple of interesting things we have to pay attention to. One
is that it is very likely that the punctuation here is wrong, that the causal
phrase, “because you have kept my command to persevere” really belongs with
verse 9 and not with verse 10.
We have a case of a misplaced period. These kinds of
things happen because in the original text of Scripture there were not any
punctuation marks. There were not any commas or periods or anything like that.
In fact, they do not even put spaces between the words. It is just like one
long list of letters and you have to break those down.
Grammar is very important so we have to look at some technical things related
to grammar.
You will see that if we move the causal statement to
verse 9 instead of verse 10 it reads very differently. Just looking at the end
of verse 9 Jesus would be saying, “Indeed I will make them come and worship
before your feet, and to know that I have loved you, because you have kept my
command to persevere.” If this is the correct punctuation, then Jesus is
stating that the reason He has loved this congregation is because they have
been obedient consistently.
Then He is making an additional statement in what
would be the next verse: “I also [in other words, in addition to making them
know I have loved you because you have kept My commands, to persevere] in
addition to that I will keep you from the hour of trials which shall come upon
the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.” The issue here is understanding this Greek word and this Greek phraseology.
HOTI is the
Greek word and it can be translated “because”, introducing a causal statement.
It can be translated “for” which would be introducing an explanation.
In English sometimes we use the English preposition
“for” as a synonym for “because”. Then the third option is to translate HOTI as that. This often is used in Greek
to introduce an indirect quotation. So HOTI has a broad and dynamic range of
meaning. Another thing we need to recognize in terms of English translations is
that the King James Version translators attempted to make each verse an
independent sentence, even though the Greek sentence may be very long and
extend to eight or nine verses. Often the King James translators tried to break
those down into as small a component as possible. If they could, they tried to
make each verse a standalone sentence. This is why they would translate
Revelation 3:9 as a sentence and end it with “I have loved you.”
Remember versification was not entered into the New
Testament until the middle of the 1500s, somewhere around 1530 to 1540, somewhere
in there was when you had the verses set into the Greek New Testament. It was
not until another 100 years or a little bit less, that you had the King James
translations. They tried to make each verse a standalone sentence. The first
option is to make verse 10 a separate causal statement and the other option is
to put that into verse 9 and separate out the sentence in verse 10. We have to
understand what is going on here.
When ‘because’ begins a statement in English, as we
have in this example, it states the cause of the following clause. That would
be the cause for the statement: “I also will keep you from the hour of trial”.
When ‘because’ follows a comma such as, “I have loved you, because you have
kept my commandments to persevere,” it links to the previous clause. The least
common use of ‘because’ begins the sentence. This is called technically in
grammar, the suspensive use of HOTI.
Here is what is important. Of the approximately 450
uses of the causal HOTI in the Greek New Testament, grammarians recognize 12 as suspensive. Now let me remind you that suspensive
is using HOTI at the beginning of a sentence with a causal sense. Only
12 out of 450 uses are recognized by grammarians as fitting that category.
The preponderance of evidence is against beginning the sentence with a causal
statement. This is extremely rare. John uses HOTI about 180 times in his writings and
only 11 of those times is it suspensive.
This makes it very unusual that this would have started this sentence this way.
What we find if we translate it this way, Revelation
3:9b-10a is a very strong statement of Jesus’ love for the congregation at
Philadelphia. He praises that congregation because they have persevered in the
midst of difficulty, in the midst of persecution and in the midst of
opposition. This would mean that Jesus Christ is promising the church at
Philadelphia two things. First of all, He is saying, “I will make those who
persecute you come and bow down before you because of your perseverance.”
Second, He says, “I also will keep you from the hour of testing.” He is really
stating two things. First of all He is going to deal with those who persecute
them in one way. Second, He adds an additional promise that He is going to keep
this congregation from the hour of testing.
So Revelation 3:10 is important because of the role it
plays in understanding the relationship of the church to the events known as
Daniel’s 70th Week or the Tribulation. As a result we have to look
at this particular verse and come to understand it and see how this fits. The
language here is very similar to the language in 1 Thessalonians 1:10. The
language here uses the preposition EK just as the Critical Text uses the preposition EK in 1 Thessalonians 1:10 and
therefore, they are complementary. There are three things that must be
understood as we look at verse 10. First of all is the phrase, “I will keep you
from…” What does that mean and what is the sense of ‘keeping from’? The second
thing is what is the hour of testing and the third phrase is the relative
clause that defines the hour of testing, the clause “which is about to come
upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.”
He says, “I will keep you from…” These are various
issues we have to look at these verses. We have this phrase on the screen, TEREO, which is
the Greek verb and the preposition EK. We have to look at TEREO. We have to look at EK and we have to look at the compound
phrase TEREO EK to see what this indicates. The verb TEREO which is often translated by the word ‘keep’ sometimes has the sense of
‘obey’. You keep God’s commandments. You obey God’s commandments. But it also
has the sense of protect or preserve something.
Now the context of Revelation 3:10 indicates the
preservation or protection of this congregation since it is from a time of
testing, a time of difficulty. What we are going to see is this phrase ‘hour of
testing’ refers to the time period we also call Daniel’s 70th Week,
which in some sense is a more correct term to describe the seven-year period we
most commonly call the Great Tribulation. The reason that scholars often come
up with an issue is that the Great Tribulation uses that term tribulation or THLIPSIS.
The criticism of the pre-Trib
Rapture position that you often hear is that we are just teaching some sort of
escapism from the problems of life. You hear this over and over again and it is
really kind of irritating that somehow the opponents of dispensationalism and
pre-tribulationism do not quite get it. It is not
what we are teaching. I pointed this out last time that there are many times in
the Scripture that talk about the fact that believers are going to face a lot
of adversity and a lot of persecution. Down through the church age they have
faced incredible persecution. In terms of persecution, that is universal, and
the intensity might be a little bit worse during the Tribulation period. When
you are being tortured and imprisoned for your faith, it does not really matter
if more people are the object of that persecution, such as in the Tribulation,
or just a few, which is what may be experienced in smaller persecutions
throughout the church age. If you are the believer being persecuted, it just
does not feel any better to know that there are only five or six hundred being
persecuted as opposed to 3 or 4 million that are being persecuted.
There are persecutions all the time. This is not some
kind of escape hatch that will make life easier for believers. This term ‘hour
of testing’ really refers to Daniel’s 70th Week and the Great
Tribulation, the seven-year period, which is an understandable term and we all
know what we are talking about. It is also indicated in the Scripture as the
“time of Jacob’s trouble”, indicating the focus is on Israel.
There are different views related to the Tribulation.
The pre-Trib Rapture is the view that the Lord
returns in the air for His church. We will be caught up with Him. This is
described in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 and following. We will be caught up with the
Lord. The dead in Christ will rise first and then we who remain shall be caught
up together with them to meet the Lord in the air. Not on the ground but in the
air. And thus we shall ever be with the Lord. This is a view that indicates
that we do not go into the Tribulation at all.
The debate over this is really over whether the Lord
is going to preserve the church in the midst of the Tribulation or not. If you
truly understand the intensity of the Tribulation (we have done this in our
study of Revelation) and if we realize how universal it is, how extensive it
is, how horrendous it is, then I do not think that anyone could logically infer
that somehow there would be millions of believers, millions of Christians on
earth, and that they are going to somehow skate through. The book of Revelation
indicates there will be millions, tens of millions, of martyrs who are
slaughtered through the persecution that arises from the Antichrist. We look at
this and we try to understand the meaning of this particular word. The question
is does EK mean out from, implying that the person is in something and preserved
through it or does it refer to being removed from something without any
reference to ever being in it?
I drew this diagram to indicate the two differences.
On the left we have the idea that you are in the situation, you are inside the
circle, and you are taken out of it. You are preserved in or through it. The
one on the right indicates the nuance that you are kept out from something but
you are never, ever within it. So those are the two differences. The predominate
meaning is the one on the right, that a position is outside its object with no
thought of prior existence within the object or of emergence from the object
itself. Sometimes EK does mean what is on the left. It has a broad range of meaning. It
primarily means that you are kept from something and you are never in it but
sometimes it does mean that you are in it and then you come out of it. We have
a couple of examples of that right here in our passage in 1 Thessalonians 1:10.
This is one of the things that Dan points out that argues from the internal
evidence that APO is more than likely the correct reading because we read in verse 10
that we are to wait for His Son from Heaven.
That is the preposition EK. Jesus is in Heaven at the right
hand of God the Father and He comes from a place where He is within Heaven and
He comes out of it. Then He says, describing Jesus’ resurrection, “Whom He
raised from the dead.” That is out from the dead. He was dead and then He is
taken out from that. In both of these cases the circle would describe Heaven
and Jesus comes from inside heaven to outside heaven. The circle describes
dead. Jesus is resurrected out from the dead and in both of those examples He
goes from inside to outside.
But this is the minor understanding of EK. Primarily EK has the idea of being outside and
being kept from being inside. Let me just give you just a couple of examples of
that. What we see here in conclusion is that the predominant meaning of EK is outside its object, with no
thought of prior existence within the object or emergence from the object. So
if you are going to take the minority view, which is just a few examples in the
New Testament relatively speaking, then you have to be able to demonstrate that
from context.
This is one of the arguments that Dan points out that
it would make more sense by the writer if he were to use EK OURANOS and then he would use EK NEKRON and then for parallelism use EK ORGES. This
would be all three prepositional phrases using the same
preposition. That would give it a certain parallelism and a certain
symmetry and so it would be likely that if you had EK, EK, and then APO that a scribe in order to make
things appear more symmetrical would be more likely to change APO to EK than to change EK to APO. If it was originally EK why would you change it to another
preposition when the other two prepositional phrases in the verse are the same
thing. So it is more likely that you would have a better explanation of the
change from APO to EK than a change from EK to APO. Also, in a scribal, depending upon just how the lines broke down on a
page, it is very easy to understand how a scribe’s eye would go to these other
two EKs and just pick those up and change the APO just through a scribal error from APO to EK because his eye just goes to the wrong word and he
writes that down. That is why you do not have that many manuscripts or that
many quotations in the tradition that use the preposition EK there in the last prepositional
phrase.
Now if we look at the evidence we have from the broad
range of examples we have of classical literature in The Iliad, Liddel, Scott, Jones gives the
example of a sentence, “Therefore will we hold ourselves aloof from the fight
beyond the range of missiles?” There he uses the preposition EK indicating they are not in the
range and then they pull back but they are kept completely from going within
the range of missiles. So there is an example from a classical work, The Iliad, where EK has the same sense that it is kept
from ever being within.
In the Septuagint it is used that way in a number of
passages. One of these is Psalm 59:1–2. This is a michtam of David when Saul sent
men to watch the house in order to kill him. David prays, “Deliver me from my
enemies. Defend me from those who rise against me. Deliver me from the workers
of iniquity.” In each of these cases when that is translated into Greek in the
Septuagint it uses the preposition EK, which does not mean to keep him safe after he has
fallen under the control of those of his enemies, but to prevent him from ever
coming within the control of his enemies.
In the New Testament we have an example in Acts
15:28-29 where James says, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to
lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain
from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from
sexual immorality.” This was the conclusion of the Jerusalem Council. So you
abstain from things offered to idols. That would indicate that you never did
enter into that sphere of idolatry but that you were prevented from entering
into that sphere of idolatry. Abstain from blood, not that you would be eating
bloody or raw meat, but that you were outside of that. You never did that.
“From things strangled, and from sexual immorality.” Each of these indicate
examples of that chart I made showing on the right side that you never entered
into the sphere but you are kept from ever being in the sphere, whatever that
object might be.
In John 12:27, Jesus says, “Now My soul is troubled,
and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this
hour.’ But for this purpose I came for this hour.” The word “from” here when
Jesus says to save Him from this hour, He indicates He does not want to enter
into it at all. He does not want to enter into any of the suffering that is in
relationship to the cross. He wants to be prevented and kept completely out of
it.
In John 17:15 in Jesus’ high priestly prayer where He
is praying for His disciples He says to the Father, “I do not pray that You should
take them out of the world [Greek word AIRO, to take up; to lift up, to raise
up] but that You should keep them from the evil one.” There we have the same
Greek phraseology that we have in 1 Thessalonians 1:10, TEREO EK, so Jesus is praying that they would
not ever come into the influence of Satan, the evil one. This second half of
this verse clearly indicates that the believer is to be protected from entering
the sphere of the evil one. He is not viewed as being in Satan but to be
protected and preserved in his current position outside of Satan.
From all of this what we understand in Revelation 3:10
is that they would be kept from a position outside the hour of testing that
will come upon the whole world. So that tells us if we look at the last question
I addressed earlier, that this is the worldwide conflagration of the Great
Tribulation. The hour of testing refers to that period known as Daniel’s 70th
Week which comes upon the entire world. It is referred
to in Revelation 14:7 as the hour of judgment. “Fear God and give glory to Him
for the hour of His judgment has come and worship Him who made heaven and
earth, the sea, and the springs of water.” The time of testing is this hour of
judgment and they are to be kept from it completely.
Now this is stated in Revelation 3:10 as the time
which is about to come upon the whole inhabited earth, using this Greek word MELLO which indicates imminency,
that it could come at any particular time. It is about to come. This letter
written to the church at Philadelphia was written about 1,950 years ago and yet
this time of testing has not come yet. For the Philadelphians they had no
knowledge of when this would come. Historically they were kept from the hour
and by application, all other believers will also be kept from the hour.
It is important because the purpose for the hour is to
test those who dwell upon the earth. What we see in Revelation is the term
“earth dwellers” which refers to the unbelievers, the kings of the earth who
are hostile to God during the seven-year Tribulation period. So there is a
testing, an evaluation, and a judgment upon the earth dwellers during the time
of the Tribulation. That clearly is referencing that the hour of trial is the
period of Daniel’s 70th Week. It is the time of testing of the earth
dwellers. Again, this indicates the future period known as the Tribulation.
Back in 1 Thessalonians 1:10 we read that they are “to
wait for His Son from heaven Whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who
delivers us from the wrath to come.” Now these words “wrath
to come” is an important phrase. We ought to understand a little bit
about wrath. We find a parallel to this phrase in Matthew 3:7 and Luke 3:7
where John the Baptist confronts the Pharisees when they come down to evaluate
his ministry and his claims. He calls them the seed of Satan, actually. It says
there the “brood of vipers”. The word “brood” means the descendants or seed of
someone. This ought to remind us of Genesis 3:15 that the “seed of the serpent
will bruise the heel of the seed of the woman but the seed of the woman will
crush the head of the seed of the serpent.” The seed of the serpent refers to
those who are followers of Satan, carrying out his mission.
John is very confrontational here when he calls the
Pharisees the seed of Satan. Then he says, “Who warned you to flee from the
wrath to come?” In both of these places we need to understand what this wrath
is. It is a future wrath and I believe that in context of the message of the
coming kingdom that this would probably describe the judgment of what is known
as the Day of the Lord that precedes the establishment of the kingdom in
passages like Joel 2:28 and following going on into the next chapter. There are
other passages in the Old Testament.
It is a time of worldwide cataclysm
which immediately precedes the establishment of the kingdom. They are
trying to escape that future Day of the Lord, which is Daniel 70th
Week, or flee the wrath to come. Luke 21:23 Jesus warns, “Alas for those who
are with child and for those who give suck in those days! For great distress
shall be upon the earth and wrath upon this people.” Again, in context it is
talking about judgment and as a matter of fact, this in Luke 21:23 is talking
about the judgment that came in AD 70. This is a wrath in time.
My point in both of these examples is that they are
not talking about the lake of fire or eternal punishment. They are talking
about wrath or judgment in time. Romans 1:18 does this
as well, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth.” This is in
the present tense. It is going on right now. God’s divine discipline and divine
judgment on the human race at this time is being discussed. The wrath of God is
revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their
wickedness suppress the truth. So this, again, is divine judgment of God in
present time.
Romans 2:5 and Romans 2:8 also talk about this wrath
of God as something that is stored up for those who are rebellious against God
and refuse to turn to Him. They are in verse 5, “treasuring up for yourself
wrath in the day of wrath.” That’s looking forward to a future time of
judgment, not the Tribulation period but the time of the Great White Throne
judgment.
Hebrews 4:3 refers to God’s
judgment in past time, His discipline upon the wilderness generation. He says,
“As I swore in my wrath [His judgment against them], ‘They
shall never enter my rest’.” In context entering My
rest was entering into the Promised Land so that is very clear. We see from
these examples that wrath has to do with God’s judgment in time. It refers to
past events, present events, and as well, some future events within time.
Then we have passages that specifically talk about the
Tribulation judgment. 1 Thessalonians 5:9 along with 1
Thessalonians 1:10. “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to
obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Then we have statements, as I
mentioned earlier, related to eternal judgment. Romans 2:5 refers
to the Judgment Seat of Christ. Romans 9:22 is not as
clear.
John 3:36 is clear, “He who believes in the Son has
everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but
the wrath of God abides on him.” This is eternal
judgment. So wrath has a range of meanings. The primary use of wrath has to do
with divine judgment in time although there are a few examples that refer to
eternal judgment. That is the minority view. When we look at this passage as it
is in the introduction here, it is focusing on what will come up. 1
Thessalonians is a book that is mostly concerned with prophetic events related
to the church and we need to just look at the doctrine of imminency.
Imminency of Christ’s return. This is
a really important doctrine that I do not think a lot of people teach today and
it is the historic view of the church that Jesus Christ can return at any
moment. It is not the doctrine of the Soon Coming of Christ but that He could
come at any moment; that nothing has to take place before the Rapture occurs.
That does not mean that some prophecies related to the Tribulation or to Israel
might not take place before the Rapture but they are not related to the Rapture;
they are not necessary for the Rapture to take place. Imminency
refers to the fact that no prophecy needs to be fulfilled or must be fulfilled
before the coming of Christ at the Rapture.
What that means is that if nothing has to take place
before that, then there are no signs for the Rapture. You cannot look out and
say, “Look at what is happening in the Middle East. Look at what is happening
politically in the world. Look at what technology is doing. We now have the
capability to tattoo everyone with some sort of barcode or something that would
allow them to buy or sell.” That is what people are doing. It is newspaper
exegesis. We could go another 100, 200, or 500 years before Jesus returns
because nothing has to take place before He comes. I do not think it will be
that long.
What we do see is that things related to events within
the Tribulation seem to be set up. It seems to be that at this time there are
things that are going to take place in the Tribulation that would seem more
likely to be fulfilled. I caution everyone and this caution is really important.
There is a wide range of people who are speculating on all kinds of
eschatological fulfillment but we have to remember that no one knows the time.
No one knows the day or the hour. Satan does not even know the day or the hour.
Satan has to be ready at every generation with his man who he could move into
position to be the Antichrist because when the church goes up, then he has got
to move. He has got to be ready at any time.
This means that you can look out on the political,
economic, and spiritual scene and you can always pick someone. You can always
look at circumstances and say, “See, we are ready right now. This could happen
next week.” Satan has to be ready. He has got to move things into position
continuously so that if the church is raptured, he can move on his plan to
destroy Israel and to finally defeat God. All of this fits
into the doctrine of the Imminency of Christ’s
Return.
This is a doctrine that was taught in the early
church. We have a quote here from 1 Clement. This was written by Clement who
was a pastor in Rome. Sometimes he is called the Bishop of Rome. Sometimes
Roman Catholics claim him as one of the early popes even though the papacy did
not come into existence in their sense until around the first century. He
wrote, “Of a truth, soon and suddenly shall His will be accomplished, as the
Scripture also bears witness, saying, ‘Speedily will He come, and will not
tarry;’ and, ‘The Lord shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Holy One,
for whom ye look.’ ”
He expected Jesus to return in his generation, just as
Peter and Paul and the other writers of the New Testament did. They did not
believe anything had to happen prior to the return of Christ for the church. Ignatius,
another important writer in the early part of the 2nd century in his
epistle to the Ephesians writes, “The last times are come upon us. Let us
therefore be of a reverent spirit, and fear the long-suffering of God, that it tend not to our condemnation. For let us either stand in awe
of the wrath to come, or show regard for the grace which is at present
displayed—one of two things.” What he is saying here is that Jesus can
come at any moment, the last times are upon us, and so we need to be prepared
because Jesus can come at any time and take us away from the wrath to come.
Irenaeus, who writes in the middle of the 2nd century states, “And
therefore, when in the end the church shall be suddenly caught up from this, it
is said, ‘There shall be tribulation such as has not been since the beginning,
neither shall be.’ ” This indicates probably a pretty unsophisticated but
never-the-less accurate view that the church is caught up before the
Tribulation. This is in Irenaeus’ writing “Against
Heresies” which was written about AD 160.
Now just a reminder of God’s panorama. We currently
live in the church age. What we see in terms of the Pre-Trib
Rapture is that Christ is going to return in the air. He is going to be in the
clouds. Christians are going to be caught up to be with Him in the air. Then
there is going to be a gap that comes, a transition period, and then the
Antichrist will sign a treaty with Israel and this will begin seven years of
Tribulation.
In the heavens we will have the Judgment Seat of
Christ and then the final Marriage of the Lamb. At the end of the Tribulation
Jesus Christ returns to the earth. He will destroy the Antichrist and the false
prophet and send them directly to the Lake of Fire. He will send the devil and
his angels to the Abyss and they will be in chains through the thousand years
of the Millennium. Then they are released and will lead a brief rebellion
against God. Millions [of people] will join them. God will destroy them with
fire and brimstone from Heaven.
Then the present heavens and earth are destroyed and a
new heavens and a new earth are created and we will go into eternity. This is
the attitude the Christian should have, expressed in 2 Timothy 4:8, “Henceforth
there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous
judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them that
love His appearing.” We should love the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So what does imminency mean?
Imminency means the “at any moment” return of Jesus
Christ. It could happen right now. It could happen this afternoon. It could
happen tomorrow. It could happen 100 years from now. We do not know but we need
to be prepared because we do not know when He will show up. The term “imminency” in the Oxford
English Dictionary means that something is hanging overhead, it is constantly
ready to befall or overtake us, and it is something that is close at hand in
its incidence. It is something that could be at any moment. It is impending. It
is not necessarily soon or immediate, but it might be.
It is something that is certain that it will occur but
it is uncertain when it will occur. It is not contingent on any other event.
That means that no prophecy has to be fulfilled so you cannot look at anything
going on in the newspapers or the world around us and say that Jesus is coming
soon. A lot of us believe that. I think a lot of people hope that because they
just want to get out of the devil’s world, but that should not be our
mentality. We need to not count on that. We need to live our lives as if Jesus
might come back today and yet, we need to plan and prepare as if Jesus is not
going to come back for 1,000 years. There is no excuse for being irresponsible
for the future but we need to live every day as if we are going to give account
to the Lord that day or the next day.
Basically imminency means
there is no prerequisite for the return of the Lord for the church. There is no
sign. We are looking for the blessed hope. We are not looking for the Antichrist. We are not looking for
these other events that will take place. We are looking for Jesus Christ, not
the Antichrist. The next thing that Christians are supposed to expect is the
blessed hope of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The second thing we learn about this in the doctrine
of imminency is that it is important to understand
the Pre-Tribulation Rapture of Jesus Christ for the church. The Rapture is the
resurrection of all dead church age believers and the removal of all living
believers from the earth at the end of the church age before the Tribulation
begins—the resurrection of all dead church age believers. Technically the
word rapture or HARPAZO is the word for the dead in Christ will be caught up with Him. That is
the word HARPAZO in the Greek. We who are alive and remain go to meet the Lord in the
air. It is the resurrection of all dead church age believers and the removal of
all living believers from the earth at the end of the church age before the
Tribulation begins. The dead in Christ will rise first, then
we who are alive and remain will be caught up with Him. That is HARPAZO. That is the Rapture. It applies
only to those who are alive at Christ’s return, not to those who have died
already. They rise from the dead.
Let’s look at the views. Here is the pre-Trib Rapture view. All believers go up to be with the Lord.
The dead in Christ will rise first. We who are alive and remain will be caught
up with Him in the clouds. That precedes the coming of the Tribulation. It includes
all believers. There is another view that is a minority view, which is called
the Partial Rapture view, which is the view that only those who are faithful,
only those who are spiritual, only those who are growing will be caught up.
Carnal Christians, out of fellowship Christians, will not be raptured. They
believe there are different raptures during the Tribulation period
which depend on you reaching a certain stage of maturity. That is not a
very popular view.
The other view is the mid-Tribulation Rapture view and
a modification of that called by some people the pre-Wrath Rapture. The pre-Wrath
view is towards the end, sort of like the three-quarter Trib
view, not the mid-Trib view, but the last quarter
being viewed as the intensification of the wrath of God. And again, it ignores
passages such as the wrath of the Lamb being poured out at the very beginning
in Revelation 4. There you have the kings of the earth hiding from the wrath of
the Lamb, which shows that the wrath of the Lamb comes from the very beginning
of the Tribulation. So the mid-Trib view again is a
minority view that the Rapture occurs at the time of the abomination of
desolation.
Then we have the post-Trib
Rapture view. It is a view that the Rapture occurs at the end of the
Tribulation, forcing all believers to endure the entire seven years. There are
several problems with that view. I am not going to go into that right now. I
just want to clarify this in terms of vocabulary. What we see is the doctrine
of imminency pretty much precludes all views except
the pre-Trib view. If anything has to happen before
the Rapture, then it is not imminent. If we have to wait for the Antichrist to
appear, then it is not imminent. If we have to wait for the seal judgments to
begin, if we have to wait on the abomination of desolation, or we have to wait
four and half years before the wrath of God appears, or for something else to
happen, then it is not imminent.
Imminency is usually rejected by the other views. The idea is that we are waiting
for Him to appear today. The purpose of the doctrine of imminency
is to keep every believer in a constant state of expectancy. We are looking. We
are waiting. We are watching. We are hoping for the return of Christ that we
might be ready, prepared, and not be ashamed at His coming. So it keeps us in a
state of watchfulness and in being prepared and making sure we are walking in
obedience to the Lord. If Christ did not return until after the Tribulation,
after the Antichrist, after the seal, trumpet, and bowl judgments, then
Christians would say, “Well, Jesus is not coming back for a long time. I can
wait until later to get serious about my Christian life.” So it is to keep us
watchful and prepared.
The fifth point is that believers are to look for the
blessed hope. We are to look for the Savior, according to Hebrews 9:28 and
Titus 2:13. We are looking for Him. He is the blessed hope. We are to watch for
the Savior according to 1 Thessalonians 5:6 and Luke 12:37. We are to wait for
the Savior, according to 1 Corinthians 1:7 and 1 Thessalonians 1:10.
The sixth thing we need to realize about imminency is that there is no prophecy between the baptism
of the Spirit and the Rapture, which means that the Rapture is imminent. There
is no necessary prophetic fulfillment. That is what we mean when we say there
is no prophecy fulfilled between the baptism of the Spirit and the Rapture. It
can occur at any moment.
The seventh point is that the timing of the
resurrection of the church, the timing of the Rapture is completely out of our
control. We cannot do anything to speed it up. We cannot try to hurry up the
return of all the Jews to Israel. That is one of the lies that is out there, that Christians just want all the Jews to get
back. They just want to hurry it up to get all the Jews back in the land so the
Rapture can occur. Nothing we do can speed up the time or the manner of the
Rapture. That is set by God and is not based or predicated on anything else.
Eighth point is that the resurrection of the church is
totally beyond our control because resurrection is the Lord’s victory. 1
Corinthians 15:57 says, “Thanks be to God who gives us
the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The ninth point is that while the
Rapture is imminent, the Second Coming, the Second Advent, is not. There are
many signs for the Second Advent. That is what the Apostles are asking at the
beginning of Matthew 24. “What are the signs of Your
coming?” There are no signs related to the Rapture. There are only signs
related to the Second Coming.
The tenth point is that the Rapture could have
occurred at the time of James or Paul or even Clement as we read in the quote
earlier because no prophecy had to be fulfilled before the resurrection of the
church occurs. Now what happened is that a distortion of imminency,
when people do not understand this, results in instability. Christians are
always looking and speculating wondering when the Rapture is going to occur. We
are warned by James in James 5:7–8 that we are to just patiently wait for
the coming of the Lord. In James 5:7 he says, “Be patient, therefore brethren,
before the coming of the Lord. Behold the farmer waits for the precious produce
of the soil being patient about it until he gets the early and late rains. You,
too, be patient. Strengthen your hearts for the coming of the Lord is near.”
That word “near” indicates the doctrine of imminency.
So 1 Thessalonians 1:10 indicates the pre-Trib
Rapture relies upon or assumes the doctrine of imminency
and sets us up for what will be discussed in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5. Let’s
close in prayer.
“Father, thank You for this opportunity to study these
things and to be reminded that Jesus Christ is coming soon. It could happen at
any moment and we need to be motivated to be prepared, to make ready, to make
sure that we are spiritually prepared for the end game that will be taking us
to Heaven, the Judgment Seat of Christ, and preparation for our future role to
rule and reign with the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that You
will challenge us with what we have studied this evening. In
Christ’s name. Amen.”