THE RAPTURE EXAMINED
I was on two internet lists where all the other members believe in a secret pretribulation rapture. I was dropped from each list because I cannot see in Scripture any basis for the idea that the rapture will come before the Great Tribulation. Each list offered a summary using a great number of Bible verses intended to support the pretrib rapture view. But every verse given in this summary would be accepted by those who hold to the rapture after the tribulation. None of the verses actually requires a pretrib. interpretaion.
What in Scripture compels a thinking man to accept the pretrib rapture view? There is nothing. The question goes unanswered. Believers in the pretrib rapture have no biblical basis for the view, only the force of popular opinion.
Those who hold to a pretrib rapture cannot give any verse that requires the idea. They believe their view because they did not notice that the Bible teaches something quite different.
Those who believe and teach a rapture before the Great Tribulation do not think clearly. The idea appeared about the year 1830. John N. Darby, considered by some to be the discoverer of this "truth," wrote in some of his letters that it was a new idea. The Church existed for eighteen hundred years before it was discovered?
If it were true, it would have been found in the 24th chapter of Matthew where Jesus told His followers about the future. It is not there.
A pretribulation rapture is known to be false for three good reasons. First, no verse of the Bible can be shown to teach the view. Second, there are portions of the Bible that teach a post tribulation rapture. Third, the pretrib. view is unreasonable because if it were true, it would be found in Matthew 24 where Jesus instructed His disciples about the future. If one believes the pretrib. view, he believes that the Church existed for eighteen hundred years without this "truth." To John N. Darby it was a new view.
Belief in a pretrib rapture is widespread. But it may be predicted in the Bible. Luke 21:34 warns, "But watch yourselves lest ... that day come upon you suddenly like a trap." It will come like a trap on people who believe in the pretrib coming because that is not God's plan.
This, my fourth book, book was written after I found some scriptures that require that the rapture will come after the Great Tribulation. This forbids a pretrib interpretation. There is a biblical basis for the postribulation rapture view. There is no biblical basis for the pretrib view. If anyone disputes this statement, he needs only to show us the scriptures that require his view. We have searched for it in vain for some years.
Since the 1930's I have searched the Bible intensively and find no support for a pretrib. rapture. I have found no author who can provide such a verse. If the view were true, it should have been in Matthew 24 because that is where Jesus told His followers about about His parousia. Paul wrote that the gathering of the believers, the rapture, will be at the parousia.
When this book was first advertised, I was surprised at the number of persons who told me I was wasting my time because the subject is not important. But at least six times in Matthew 24 Jesus warned that we may be misled in the study of prophecy. Six times! Jesus thought the subject is important.
The Scriptures used to support a secret pretrib rapture can just as well support a post tribulation rapture.
The Rapture is that event in the future when Jesus will return to raise from the dead His redeemed people, to gather them together, and to take them to be with Him forever as described in John 14:1-3. The Great Tribulation is a terrible future time when great numbers of true believers will be put to death under the rule of the antichrist, Revelation 7:14 & 20:4
Jesus said, "As were the days of Noah,so will be the coming [parousia] of the Son of Man." What were those days like? They were marrying and giving in marriage, unconcerned about the trouble ahead until it fell on them. The earth was "corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence." Genesis 6:12
This book outlines the order of some future events as given in the Bible, an order that dispensational authors miss. The idea of a rapture before the Great Tribulation is never stated in the Bible. It should be rejected by those who accept the plain sense of the words of the Bible. You cannot find it in Matthew 24. That is where it would have been if it were true. But this chapter tells of things that must happen before He gathers His people, the Church.
My view is called classical premillennialism because it seems to be the view of the Church generally in its early history. I see two phases of Christ's future coming. One is a coming to raise and rapture the Church. Then He will come later to defeat all resistance on the earth to His rule as is seen in Revelation chapter 19.
Students who seek a biblical basis for a petrib rapture cannot find it because such a basis cannot exist. Here is a biblical basis for the post tribulation rapture. Here is the testimony of seven different authors of scripture, four of them from the Old Testament and three from the New. They give an order of future events that makes impossible either a pretribulation or a midtribulation rapture.
The Biblical order is this: the Great Tribulation; then the Resurrection and Rapture of saints; and then the Wrath of God poured out on earth dwellers. That is Bible, and it seems plain enough. The Bible comes from God. Therefore truth in all its parts is consistent. The biblical order is in Isaiah 26:18-21; in Jeremiah 30:6-9; Daniel 12:1-3; Hosea 13:13,14; Matthew 24:21-31; I Thessalonians 4:15-17; and the book of Revelation. Check it out.
Here is an example of the biblical order of future events.
First will come the time that Daniel called "Jacob's trouble," but Matthew called it the Great Tribulation.
Isaiah 26:16- 18 (ESV) O Lord, in distress they sought you; they poured out a whispered prayer when your discipline was upon them. Like a pregnant woman who writhes and cries out in her pangs when she is near to giving birth, so were we because of you, O Lord; we were pregnant, we writhed, but we have given birth to wind. We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth, and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.
Then Messiah will come and there will be a resurrection, but not of all the dead. This is only of the righteous.
Isaiah 26:19 (ESV) Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.
These righteous dead will be removed out from earth to the place where Elijah had been staying -- heaven. This event is commonly called the Rapture.
Isaiah 26:20 (ESV) Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until the fury has passed by.
Then the Wrath of God will be poured out on earth's inhabitants. Revelation called it the seven last plagues of the Wrath of God. Isaiah 26:21 (ESV) For behold, the Lord is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it, and will no more cover its slain.
Then that evil being called Satan will be punished. The word "sea" seems to represent a multitude of people.
Isaiah 27:1 (ESV) In that day the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.
God has a special plan for Israel. In the Revelation this is called the Millennium. Isaiah 27:6 (ESV) In days to come Jacob shall take root, Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots and fill the whole world with fruit.
Notice that this does not follow the pretribulation rapture scheme.
For more information check my web site. www.clearerview.org
Notice that the Great Tribulation is not the Wrath of God. And the elect in Matthew 24 who suffer in the Tribulation are the Church, not unconverted Jews. The average Christian who has not been instructed otherwise and reads Matthew 24 recognizes that it refers to the rapture of the Church. If he has been instructed, he quite likely has received a perverted idea.
The pretribulation rapture view is not logical. It claims that Matthew 24 relates to Israel. But the chapter was given specifically to Peter, Andrew, James, and John, it is found in the New Testament, it is found in three gospels, it was committed to writing after the Church was well known, it deals with the parousia of Jesus which is the time of the rapture, the "blessed hope" of the believer. Some of those to be gathered will come from heaven if we examine Mark 13:27 which clearly says some of the elect will come from heaven. That refers to the "dead in Christ," not Jews gathering to go to Israel. How could this not be about the rapture of the Church? Is that reasonable?
The word "heresy" properly describes the view that Jesus will return before the Great Tribulation. The word comes from the Greek word haireomai which means to choose, or to form an opinion.
The pretrib view expects to find the rapture at Revelation 4:1. The text itself gives no evidence of this. There is good evidence for locating the rapture later in the book of Revelation.
If these verses are really in the Bible, and if they really give this order, then pretribbers are wrong in identifying the Great Tribulation as the Wrath of God. And the pretrib rapture theory is invalid.
We read in 2 Cor. 3:14 about a veil that keeps the Jew from understanding when readng the Tanakh. One wonders about the veil that blinds evangelicals who hold to a pretrib rapture. They ignore relevant passages in the Bible to protect their theory.
Why do they imagine the schedule for resurrection of O. T. saints is different from that of the N. T. ones when the same schedule is found in both parts of the Bible?
Why do some say that the elect in Matthew 24 are Jews returning to Jerusalem when Mark 13:27 says that some of them will come from heaven?
Look at the context. Mark 13:5 says, "See that no one leads you astray." Is that for Jews or for members of the Church? Jesus said you wil be "beaten for My sake." V. 9. Would this be about Jews or about the saints? Jesus said, "It is not you who speak but the Holy Spirit." v. 11 Is Jesus here talking to Jews or to his own saints? Isn't it common sense that the elect here are the Church?
Since this fact that the gathering of the elect in the Olivet Discourse, Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21, must be the rapture of the Church, why do some say it will be a secret rapture in view of Jesus' words, "And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory."
Why do some of them say that the Antichrist will start his evil work after the rapture, the Parousia, when St. Paul wrote in 2 Thess. 2:8 that the antichrist will be destroyed at the Parousia?
Why do some say that Matthew knew nothing about the Church when in fact he wrote his gospel long after the Church was in existence and his is the only gospel that mentions the church?
Why do pretribbers say that Old Testament saints are not part of the Church when the Bible says that "apart from us they should not be made perfect"? This word "perfect" can be translated as complete.
The word "church" is ekklesia and means "called out ones." The theory that it began at Pentecost and will end at a pretribulation rapture is probably wrong. The saved from the Great Tribulation, Rev. 7:14, are not a different Church. The saved in the Old Testament are not a different Church. Scripture says in 1 Cor. 12:13 "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit." There is only one body of believers, and it includes the saints from the Old Testament.
It would seem that such interpreters either do not know the Bible, or else they choose not to believe it. One strange idea in some pretrib writing is that at the rapture, Jesus will come FOR His saints, and at the glorious appearing" He will come WITH His saints. Such people miss the fact that at the rapture Jesus will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep.
Pretrib writers sometimes say the tribulation will be seven years long. They get this from the seventieth week of Daniel. But the Bible shows that it is three and a half years long, maximum.
The scheme presented by Pre-Wrath writers is much closer to what the Bible teaches. To the best of my knowledge they have not yet found the proper location in Revelation for the Rapture. Even my beloved teacher, Dr. John Barton Payne, author of the Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy, did not know that the rapture will come at Revelation 11:15. Biblical proof for this fact is found in my commentary, Revelation, A Clearer View.
Some folks criticize the advertising for my books and say thay we should be concentrating on getting souls saved and we should ignore the study of prophecy. Why did Jesus emphasize so often the danger of being misled in the study of prophecy? You can find His warning given about seven times in Matthew 24. Does Jesus not know what doctrines are important?
The Bible does not teach the pretrib rapture theory. When believers find themselves in that terrible time of trouble, some will give up their faith. This has happened before. See 2 Tim. 2:18. The pretribulation rapture error has serious consequences.
There are some who will argue that there will be only one future resurrection. Perhaps this is based on this text: "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation."
Please notice that a proper rendering from the Greek would read, "An hour is coming ...." That hour will come at Revelation 20:13 when all who had not been previously raised will stand for judgment. It does not negate the fact of the previous one, called the first resurrection in 20:5, which refers to the parousia when the Church will be caught up.
The resurrection of the righteous, called the first resurrection, will be at least a thousand years before the general resurrection, according to Rev. 20:5.
Some commentators write of a man's conversion as if it is the "first resurrection." This is not a biblical use of the term resurrection. The Greek word for resurrection is anastasis and it means literally standing up or standing again. Souls do not stand up but bodies do. The term resurrection in 1 Cor. 15 refers to a bodily resurrection.
People who refer to a "resurrected soul" use a term never found in the text of the Bible.
Some folks deny there will be a rapture on the basis that Jesus said "Let both grow together until the harvest, and at that time I will tell the reapers, 'Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into My barn.'" But this has no reference to the rapture. The burning of the weeds relates to Revelation 16, and the gathering into the barn relates to the Milennium of Rev. 20.
FACTS ON THE RAPTURE QUESTION
The resurrection and rapture of the saints will occur at the parousia (coming) of Jesus. I Thess. 4:15-17 Matthew 24 is explicitly dealing with the parousia and therefore concerns the Church.
The antichrist will appear in the temple of God (starting the Great Tribulation) but he will be destroyed by the parousia of Jesus, which is the time of the rapture. 2 Thess. 2:4,8
The parousia, when the saints will be gathered to Jesus, will come after the Great Tribulation, according to Matt. 24:3,27,37, 39 Some of these saints will be gathered from earth, and some from heaven. Mark 13:27 Those who come from heaven must be part of the Church.
Some say a pretrib rapture is required because Matt. 24 says it will be like the days of Noah, marrying and giving in marriage. That sounds like normalcy, following the natural inclinations of the flesh. But God said the earth was corrupt and filled with violence so He destroyed it. The Tribulation will also be a time of violence.
The Bible teaches two judgments, one for redeemed men, Rev. 11:18, and all others who ever lived, Rev. 20:12.
The Bible teaches two future resurrections. The saints will be raised at Rev. 11:15 when it is said that Jesus has "taken thy great power and hast reigned," and He gives reward to prophets and saints. The second resurrection is of all that are left in the grave after the thousand years at the "great white throne." Rev. 20
140 pages. This book is now available for $14.99 from WinePress Publishing, PO Box 428, Enumclaw, WA 98022. It is also listed by some book distributors.
More information about this subject may be obtained from the author.
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