Why I Believe in the Pre-Tribulation
Rapture. Part 3
The study of prophecy and the
revelation of future things has always been given by
God in the context of comfort and encouragement so that when we go through times
of national crisis, world-wide calamity, or personal adversity, we know that
God has a plan that He is going to bring to completion. And even though things
may look bad in the near future there is certainty in God’s plan. So the
doctrine of the Rapture is designed for comfort.
When is the Rapture?
Within pre-millennialism
there are different views about the Rapture. Premillennialism, amillenialism, and post-millennialism have to do with the
relationship of the Second Coming to the Millennium, whereas the Rapture views
have to do with the relationship of Christ’s coming for the church to the
seven-year period known as the Tribulation. The pre-Tribulational
Rapture view states that the Rapture will occur before the Tribulation and will
include all believers who will be immediately taken to be with the Lord in the
air. This is followed at some point by the seven-year Tribulation and then the
Millennium.
The second view is the
partial Rapture view, that spiritual Christians get raptured at the end of the church age but carnal
Christians, immature Christians, have to go through the Tribulation. This view
is defined as the view that only those faithful,
totally dedicated Christians will be caught up, leaving carnal Christians
behind to be chastened by the Tribulation.
Then we have the
mid-Tribulation Rapture view in which all church age believers will be forced
to endure the first three and a half years of wrath, but then when it comes to
the most intense form of the Tribulation we will be removed. Not a large number
of people have held this view over the years, but a new view came along about
15 years ago called the pre-wrath view. This was the idea that the wrath of God
is poured out most intensely during the last quarter or so of the Tribulation,
so this is a sort of three-quarter Rapture view which is similar to the
mid-Tribulation view. These views all forget the fact that the wrath of the
Lamb is poured out on the earth from the very beginning of the Tribulation, as
we will see in Revelation chapters six and seven. So why would the bride of
Christ receive the wrath of her groom just before the wedding?
The post-Tribulation Rapture
view is that all believers go through the Tribulation and the Rapture occurs at
the end of the Tribulation, forcing all believers to endure the entire
seven-year period.
Problems with the
post-Tribulation view
1)
Believers are
subject to the time of wrath. This would mean that church age believers, the
bride of Christ, are subject to the wrath of the Lamb and the wrath of God
during the Tribulation period. The term “wrath of God” is a term that is used
in several passages as a technical term for the extreme judgments that come
upon the earth during the Tribulation.
2)
This is not
talking about divine discipline upon believers, this is talking about divine
judgment on the earth, and the object is the earth dwellers, which is almost a
synonymous term in Revelation for those who are unbelievers in the Tribulation.
3)
The Antichrist is
to appear before Jesus Christ, but according to Titus 2:13 we are looking for
the blessed hope of the appearance of our God and Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ. If that is preceded by anything then that is what we are
to be looking for. And if the Antichrist is going to appear before Jesus Christ
then we should be looking for the Antichrist so that we can be prepared for the
return of Jesus Christ. The Antichrist is not going to appear until after the
Rapture occurs.
4)
Populating the
Millennium. There is no one left to populate the Millennium on a post-Tribulational viewpoint.
5)
The Rapture,
then, is equivalent to the Second Coming, according to a post-Tribulation
viewpoint; they are not distinguishable events.
Basic approaches to prophecy:
We need to think of three views as past, present, and future.
The first view is called preterism. Preterism is simply a
Latin word meaning “past.” Perterism is the view that
all prophecy was fulfilled by 70 AD, that all the language in Matthew 24 and in
Revelation 4-19 was simply symbolic language related to the destruction of the
temple in AD 70 and Israel’s being taken out in judgment. Only
a few passages in Revelation 20 & 21 that would be yet future. It is
most consistent with a covenant theology and post-Millennial viewpoint.
Then there is the view known
as historicism in which prophecy is being fulfilled during the church age. In
historicism we go into various passages and try to find out where we are today
in light of this panorama of biblical prophecy. It is the view that prophecy is
being fulfilled throughout the church age. We see dispensationalists act like
historicists when they try to identify when the Rapture is going to occur. Date
setting is consistent with historicism but not dispensationalism,
because dispensationalists believe that the Rapture could occur at any time, it
is a non-sign event.
We believe in futurism, that
passages like Matthew 24 and Revelation 4-19 are yet to be fulfilled.
Pre-Tribulation doctrine is
based on several critical things. It is the culmination of certain theological conclusions.
The foundation is literal interpretation, that we
believe the Bible should be interpreted in its normal plain sense.
The first essential element
is pre-Millennialism. If you are not thinking pre-millennially that Jesus is
going to return before the Millennium then you are not going to be at all
concerned about the Tribulation or when the Rapture occurs in relation to the
Tribulation because neither post-millennialism nor amillennialism
deal with a seven-year Tribulation. So for all that period of church history
when no one was thinking in terms of premillennialism no one
was thinking about when the Rapture would occur. Then, futurism has to be in
place, the idea that these prophecies haven’t been fulfilled and they are yet
to be fulfilled. Third, there has to be an understanding of the distinction
between Israel and the church. For much of the church age, under amillennialism, the church was viewed as a replacement to Israel,
and so they have spiritualized the promises to Israel to make them apply to the
church.
There are other elements that
are built upon that foundation. The first is a contrast between the comings,
that there is a distinction between the Rapture of the church and the Second Coming.
Therefore there must be an interval between the comings,
they can’t be the same event. We believe in imminency,
that the Bible teaches that Christ could come at any moment, so therefore no
signs indicate the Rapture. Then the nature of the Tribulation, that it is
centred on Israel. Israel is a focal point in the Tribulation period and the
judgments during the Tribulation are such that the church would not be here. The
nature of the church is another aspect. Because of the nature and the purpose
of the church we do not see a role of the church in the Tribulation period. Then the work of the Holy Spirit. 2 Thessalonians 2 says
that the restrainer will be removed before the
Antichrist will be revealed. The restrainer is a
reference to God the Holy Spirit.
The result of all this is that a study of these things is a practical motivation for spiritual growth, evangelism and missions. During the last 200 years as this has been taught more and more it has stimulated missions, especially to Jews. It is only out of dispensationalism that many of these Jewish ministries have emerged. As a result of that thousands of Jews have come to understand Jesus as the Messiah.