The Blessed Hope

THE BLESSED HOPE

George Eldon Ladd

INTRODUCTION
At the heart of Biblical redemptive truth is the Blessed Hope of the
personal, glorious second advent of Jesus Christ. Salvation has to do both
with the redemption of men as individuals and as a society. Salvation of
individual believers includes the "redemption of the body" (Rom. 8:23).
We must not only be saved from the guilt of sin, and delivered from the
power of sin. Redemption is not completed until we are delivered from
the very effects of sin in our mortal bodies. The Biblical doctrine of the
resurrection is a redemptive truth : it means the salvation of the body.
This salvation will be realized only by the personal second coming of
Christ.

Redemption also includes society. God's redemptive purpose involves

not only the salvation of individuals ; God has a purpose and a goal for
mankind as a society inhabiting the earth. The Bible teaches that
throughout the entire course of this age, the power and reign of Satan
manifests itself not only in the sinfulness and the physical sufferings and
mortality of individuals, but also in the evils of corporate historical
experience. Satan offered to our Lord authority over the nations, "for it
hath been delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it" (Luke
4:6). While God is sovereign and Satan can do nothing apart from the will
of God, there is truth in this declaration of the Evil One. God has
permitted Satan to exercise his power in human history. Our generation
has witnessed diabolical evils which the preceding generation would have
said were impossible for enlightened, civilized men. The demonic
element in history is increasingly manifesting itself.

God will not permit Satan to exercise his power in human history
forever. Man will not destroy himself from the face of the earth, nor will
this planet become a cold, lifeless star. The day is surely coming when the
knowledge of God shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, when
peace and righteousness shall prevail instead of war and evil. The day is
surely coming when God will take the reins of government into His hands
and the kingdom of God will come on earth and His will be done even as
it is in heaven. This glorious destiny for man will be achieved only by the
personal, visible, glorious return of Christ. He is destined to be Lord of
lords and King of kings. The second coming of Jesus Christ is an
absolutely indispensable doctrine in the Biblical teaching of redemption.
Apart from His glorious return, God's work will forever be incomplete.
At the center of redemption past is Christ on the cross ; at the center of
redemption future is Christ returning in glory.

There have been eras in the history of the Church when this precious
truth has been lost sight of. In the middle ages, the reign of the Catholic
Church was thought to be identical with the reign of Christ. At other
times, earnest Christians have taught that the true Church through the
preaching of the Gospel was to win the entire earth and thus inaugurate
the kingdom of God without the personal return of Christ.

In our day among evangelical churches, the doctrine of the second

coming of Christ generally receives a wholesome and Biblical emphasis.
The interpretation of the book of Revelation which scholars call
"futurism" is widely held, and the author is convinced that this is the
correct view. The main features of this system of prophetic truth are as
follows. The manifestations of evil which have marked human history
will at the end of the age be concentrated in one final incarnation of evil,
a "super-man," the Antichrist, who will exercise a world-wide rule, deify
the state and achieve a union of church and state so that men will be
forced to worship him or suffer economic sanctions and death. Antichrist,
energized by satanic powers, will especially direct his hostility against
God and the people of God. During his ascendency, there will befall
God's people the most fearful persecution history has witnessed. This
time of suffering is called the "Great Tribulation," and will be of three
and a half years duration. However, God will not be inactive, and during
the final period of the Tribulation, God will manifest impending judgment
by the outpouring of divine wrath upon the Antichrist and those who
worship him.
 Another important element in these end times is God's treatment of the
Jewish people. They are destined to be restored; the veil will be taken
from their minds and they will turn at last as a people in faith to Jesus as
their Messiah. Refusing to worship Antichrist, they will become the
object of his anger and will suffer fearful martyrdom.

While Antichrist will prevail temporarily, his reign will be short. Christ
will return personally and visibly in power and glory to inflict
punishment upon Antichrist along with those who have worshipped him,
to deliver His people from the midst of tribulation, and to establish His
millennial kingdom upon the earth.

In this outline of prophetic teaching, the kingdom of God in its outward

manifestation will not come until the Lord Jesus returns in glory. The
present mission of the Church is not to save the world and thus establish
the kingdom of God but to evangelize the world by the proclamation of
the Gospel. The second coming of Christ is thus both the Blessed Hope of
the Church and the hope of human history. His coming will mean both
salvation and judgment. To this glorious truth the author steadfastly holds
; it may be designated by the term premillennialism. That this Biblical
pattern of prophetic truth has become so widely accepted among our
evangelical churches is due in good part to the fact that during the last
decades of the nineteenth century, God raised up a group of devout
students of the Word to place a new emphasis upon the Blessed Hope.
These men have exercised a profound influence for the study of the Word
of God and a love for prophetic truth. This has meant essentially a return
to the interpretation which prevailed throughout the first centuries of the
history of the Christian Church.

However, the program of prophetic events which they taught included

important elements which are not found in the early church. Among these
were the teachings of the Rapture of the Church at the beginning of the
Tribulation and the expectation of an any-moment secret coming of Christ
for the purpose of rapturing the Church. Since the coming of Christ
would precede the appearance of Antichrist and the Tribulation, it would
be unheralded by any preceding signs and could therefore occur at any
moment after His ascension to heaven. The coming of Christ is
"imminent"; i.e., it can take place at any moment. "Imminence" means
that no prophesied event must take place before Christ's return to rapture
the Church.

We may designate this teaching by the word pretribulationism, because

it teaches a pretribulation rapture of the Church so that it escapes the
Tribulation. Premillennialism and pretribulationism hold much in
common. Both look for a personal Antichrist. Both expect a short period
of fearful tribulation at the end of the age. Both are looking for the
glorious coming of Christ to establish His millennial kingdom.
Pretribulationism adds several other features which are not essential to
the main outlines of premillennial truth. Thus premillennialism and
pretribulationism are not synonymous. All pretribulationists will be
premillennialists, but not all premillennialists will be pretribulationists.
Many premillennialists believe that the Scriptures do not teach that Christ
will return secretly to rapture the Church before the Tribulation.
However, this teaching has been spread widely throughout American
Fundamentalism through the godly influence of such men as James M.
Gray, A. C. Gaebelein, R. A. Torrey, W. B. Riley, I. M. Haldeman, H. A.
Ironside, L. S. Chafer, and many others.

No instrument has been more influential than the Scofield Reference

Bible in implanting this view in the thinking of millions of Christians.
Most of the Bible schools which have trained a host of young people in
the Word of God have been devoted to this pattern of prophetic teaching,
and the prophetic conference movement along with many summer Bible
conferences has propagated this view. So deeply intrenched has it become
that many pastors and Christian leaders have been led to assume that this
teaching has been an essential doctrine in the history of the Church
extending back to apostolic times and has prevailed widely in all ages
among believers who have had a sincere love for the Word of God and
who have cherished the Blessed Hope of Christ's return.

During the first half of the present century, occasional voices were
raised within the circle of premillennial interpretation in defense of a
modification of some of the details of this prophetic program. Honored
leaders such as Robert Cameron, W. J. Erdman, Rowland Bingham and
Henry Frost were compelled from their further study of the Word to
dissent from pretribulationism. Holding steadfastly to the premillennial
coming of Christ to establish His kingdom, they felt they could no longer
accept the teaching of a secret return of Christ to rapture the Church
before the Tribulation. If the Tribulation were to precede Christ's return, it
was obvious that the doctrine of an any-moment coming was impossible.
Some of these men were sharply criticized for their deviation from the
teaching of an anymoment coming of Christ to remove the Church from
the world before the Tribulation begins. They were nevertheless
recognized to be men of God who were true to the Gospel and
unswerving in their defense of the faith once delivered to the saints, and
men who loved His appearing. Although they were thought to be in error
in their teaching about the Rapture and the Tribulation, this deviation was
not considered to be ground for attacking their essential soundness,
orthodoxy, and loyalty to the Word of God.

Recently the question has assumed a somewhat different complexion.

Within premillennial circles there have been few voices raised on behalf
of any view except that of a pretribulation eschatology. The great
majority of premillennialists have been also pretribulationists. However,
the author is personally acquainted with a good number of Christian
leaders who are posttribulationists, but they have not been led to speak or
to write in defense of their understanding of the Word. At the same time,
there has grown up a large literature both in books and religious
magazines devoted to pretribulationism. The modern prophetic
conference movement has selected its speakers from the circle of
pretribulationists, and any deviating point of view is seldom heard.

As a result there has been a growing tendency among premillennialists

to feel that this teaching is identical with pretribulationism and that a
theology to be conservative must include the teaching of the Rapture of
the Church before the Tribulation. Some Christian institutions and leaders
appear to be genuinely fearful that any deviation from a pretribulation
eschatology is a step toward liberalism. Schools or Bible teachers which
are not pretribulationist are accused of departing from a Biblical faith. We
have come even to the point where serious evangelical scholars in their
published writings defend a pretribulation eschatology by the accusation
that anything less smacks of liberalism.

These are serious matters. If indeed the Word of God clearly and
unambiguously teaches the Rapture of the Church before the Tribulation
in as distinct terms as it teaches the bodily, visible, glorious second
coming of Christ, then such a doctrine must of course be considered as an
essential element in conservative theology. If, however, the teaching of a
pretribulation rapture is an unnecessary inference and not a clear
affirmation of the Word of God, then men may be free to accept or reject
it, depending up on the apparent validity of the inference and the degree
to which it has the support of Scripture. To make such an inference an
essential element of doctrine would only split churches, schools, and
Christian institutions and would label a great host of men who are utterly
unswerving in their defense of the Word of God and who love and teach
the truth of the Lord's coming as men who are tainted with unbelief.

The present book has been written because a number of Christian

leaders have expressed the need for a fresh statement on this subject
which would consider both points of view. There are many Christians,
both laymen and pastors, who are earnestly seeking light. They wish to
hear what can be said on the other side for they are not satisfied with the
usual pretribulationism.

The central thesis of this book is that the Blessed Hope is the second
coming of Jesus Christ and not a pretribulation rapture. The Blessed Hope
is not synonymous with pretribulationism. Many who hold a
pretribulation rapture feel that the coming of Christ cannot be a Blessed
Hope if the Church must go through the Great Tribulation. Is not the
Blessed Hope the hope of deliverance from tribulation? Who wants to
suffer the terrible experiences of those awful days? The question is not,
what do we want, but, what does the Word of God teach? No one wants to
take the Church through the Tribulation. No one is looking and praying
for tribulation. How then can one look for the coming of Christ, how can
it be a Blessed Hope if it is to be preceded by tribulation?
Pretribulationists insist that those who expect the coming of the Lord to
rapture the Church only at the end of the Tribulation really cannot have a
Blessed Hope.

Such a line of reasoning is persuasive; but if it happens not to agree

with the teachings of Scripture, it is dangerous for that very reason.
Persuasiveness is no authority; the one question must be, what does the
Word of God teach? This book is written to study that question and to
point out that the Word of God does not make the Blessed Hope
synonymous with a pretribulation rapture. The Blessed Hope is the
coming of the Lord, whether that glorious event occurs before or after the
Tribulation.

The Blessed Hope is not deliverance from the Tribulation; it is union

with the Lord at His coming.

In carrying out our purpose, it will be necessary to devote much of our

discussion to a careful examination of the teaching of pretribulationism.
Does the Word of God actually teach that the Church will be raptured
before the Tribulation? To answer this question, we must look at the
reasons usually given to support pretribulationism. It will perhaps appear
to some of our readers that the approach is negative. But this is necessary
in the nature of the case. If the Scriptures teach pretribulationism,
posttribulationism is impossible. But if the Scriptures do not really teach
pretribulationism, then the natural result is a posttribulation position. (We
may be permitted to assume that so-called "midtribulationism" is a
variant of pretribulationism). The author trusts that this study will not be
interpreted primarily as an attack on pretribulationists or
pretribulationism. It is not his desire to attack anyone, but to encourage
devout study of the Word of God. Several of the author's colleagues at
The Fuller Theological Seminary devoutly hold a pretribulation position,
and two of them have contributed helpful criticisms and valuable
suggestions to this study. The author certainly is not attacking them, nor
any others who hold the same position.
 Because of this irenic purpose, the names of authors and the sources of
quotations of those who hold a different position have usually been
omitted. Since the book is designed to help laymen as well as pastors in
their study of the Scripture, the paraphernalia and jargon of scholarship
have been laid aside and technical questions have been avoided as far as
possible.

We have frequently quoted from pretribulation writers, but we trust

always in a kindly and generous spirit. In fact, one of the main objectives
of the book is to promote courteous discussion of the problem. We would
set forth the claim that those who hold that the Scripture teaches that the
Church will be raptured only at the end of the Tribulation should have full
liberty to hold that position, even as we would allow others the right to
hold a pretribulation rapture. For the most part, the Word of God is not
explicit about the order of events. Matthew 24 says nothing about the
resurrection ; the book of Revelation says nothing about the Rapture of
the Church; Paul's epistles say nothing about the resurrection of the
unrighteous. Our problems arise when we begin to ask questions which
were not in the minds of the authors.

We hold that pretribulationism is an inference and not the explicit

teaching of the Word of God. Therefore, it is not to be identified with the
Blessed Hope. Furthermore, we feel it is not a necessary inference, but is
a view which has arisen in comparatively modern times in light of which
Scripture has been interpreted. We do not expect pretribulationists to
agree with the interpretation of Scripture here set forth, but we do trust
them to permit us the right to differ "in the Lord."

One thing should be emphasized : the author would affirm his belief in
the personal, premillennial second advent of Jesus Christ. He is looking
for His coming; it is his Blessed Hope. His pulpit ministry has continually
sounded the expectation and the necessity of the Lord's glorious return.
His teaching ministry has placed great emphasis upon the fact that
theology is incomplete without the personal coming of Christ to complete
the work of redemption. One of the main objectives of an earlier book
was to defend premillennialism. However, pretribulationism is not
identical with premillennialism; and this book is sent forth with the
earnest prayer that it may be used by the Holy Spirit to bring a better
understanding to a difficult subject and to promote Christian liberty in the
interpretation of prophetic truth. Until "we all attain unto the unity of the
faith," until we see "face to face" when we "shall know fully even as [we
are] fully known," we must ever hold the truth in love, "giving diligence
to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 5

1. THE HISTORIC HOPE OF THE CHURCH 19

2. THE RISE AND SPREAD OF PRETRIBULATIONISM 35

3. THE VOCABULARY OF THE BLESSED HOPE 61

4. THE TRIBULATION, THE RAPTURE, AND THE RESURRECTION

71

5. A VALID INFERENCE? 89

6. WATCH 105

7. WRATH OR TRIBULATION? 120

8. RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE WORD 130

9. THE BLESSED HOPE 137

CONCLUSION 162
1
THE HISTORIC HOPE OF THE
CHURCH

HE QUESTION of the relationship of the Rapture to that of the

Tribulation may be set in proper perspective if we first survey the history
of prophetic interpretation. The hope of the Church throughout the early
centuries was the second coming of Christ, not a pretribulation rapture. If
the Blessed Hope is in fact a pretribulation rapture, then the Church has
never known that hope through most of its history, for the idea of a
pretribulation rapture did not appear in prophetic interpretation until the
nineteenth century.

Pretribulationists are reluctant to admit this. Books which defend this

pattern of prophetic teaching frequently try to show that it is an ancient
teaching extending all the way back to apostolic times. They usually seek
proof in the assertion that the early fathers believed in the imminence of
Christ's return. If the return of Christ was an event for which men were
looking - so the argument runs - then the coming of Christ was expected
to occur at any moment, i.e., before the Tribulation and before Antichrist
appeared. In this chapter, we shall trace the broad outlines of the history
of prophetic interpretation with reference to the Church and the
Tribulation to discover whether a pretribulation rapture was an element in
the hope of the Church.

Let it be at once emphasized that we are not turning to the church

fathers to find authority for either pre- or posttribulationism. The one
authority is the Word of God, and we are not confined in the strait-jacket
of tradition. Our purpose is to place this question in a proper historical
perspective, inasmuch as some teachers claim that pretribulationism is an
ancient and honorable doctrine and one which is necessary for Christian
faith. While tradition does not provide authority, it would nevertheless be
difficult to suppose that God had left His people in ignorance of an
essential truth for nineteen centuries.

The early church lived in expectation of Christ's return. "Ye perceive

how in a little time the fruit of a tree comes to maturity. 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'
" (I Clement 23). To deduce from this attitude of expectancy a belief in a
pretribulation rapture and an any-moment coming of Christ, as has often
been done, is not sound. The expectation of the coming of Christ included
the events which would attend and precede His coming. The early fathers
who emphasized an attitude of expectancy believed that this entire
complex of events - Antichrist, tribulation, return of Christ - would soon
occur. This is not the same as an any-moment coming of Christ.

The Didache

This is proven by the teaching of one of the earliest pieces of Christian

literature after the New Testament, the socalled Didache, a piece of
Christian instruction dating from the first quarter of the second century.
The last chapter is devoted to exhortations in view of the woes expected
at the end of the world. The author urges an attitude of watching in view
of the uncertainty of the time of the end. "Watch over your life; let your
lamps be not quenched and your loins be not ungirded, but be ready, for
you know not the hour in which your Lord cometh" (16.1). This
language, however, cannot be taken to mean an "any-moment rapture,"
for the author proceeds to sketch the con summation of the age in which
he warns the Church against the peril of falling away from the faith when
Antichrist appears. There "shall appear the deceiver of the world as a Son
of God, and shall do signs and wonders and the earth shall be given over
into his hands and he shall commit iniquities which have never been since
the world began. Then shall the creation of mankind come to the fiery
trial and many shall be offended and be lost, but they who endure in their
faith shall be saved by the curse itself. And then shall appear the signs of
the truth. First the sign spread out in Heaven, then the sign of the trumpet,
and thirdly the resurrection of the dead : but not of all the dead, but as it
was said, The Lord shall come and all his saints with him. Then shall the
world see the Lord coming on the clouds of Heaven."

The Didachist looks forward to the appearance of Antichrist who will

rule the world and inflict men with severe persecution. The many who are
to be offended and be lost are professing Christians who do not stand
true; for only those who endure in their faith shall be saved. (The
meaning of the phrase "by the curse itself" is unknown.) After the
Tribulation will appear signs of the end, the final sign being the
resurrection of the righteous. Then at last the Lord will come, bringing
with Him the saints who have died. The purpose of the Didachist in
writing this exhortation was to prepare the Church for the Great
Tribulation and the sufferings to be inflicted by the Antichrist, and to urge
steadfastness; "for the whole time of your faith shall not profit you except
ye be found perfect at the last time."

While the author of the Didache emphasized the spirit of expectancy

and watchfulness in view of the uncertainty of the time of the coming of
Christ, he expects the Church to suffer at the hands of Antichrist during
the Great Tribulation, and he expects the coming of Christ to occur only
at the end of this time of woe.

Barnabas

A second piece of Christian literature which is really anonymous bears

the title "The Epistle of Barnabas." It stems from about the same period
as the Didache. The author of this little tract is looking not only for the
second coming of Christ but also for the last time of trouble. He warns
believers to seek out earnestly those things which are able to save them,
and to flee from all the works of lawlessness and to hate the era of this
present time that they might be loved in that which is to come. They are
to shun fellowship with sinners and wicked men, for "the final
stumblingblock is at hand of which it was written, as Enoch says, `For to
this end the Lord has cut short the times and the days, that his beloved
should make haste and come to his inheritance' " (4.3). This means that
the Antichrist is at hand, but the Lord will cut short the time of the
Tribulation that His Beloved - the Lord Jesus - might make haste and
return to His people. According to this, Barnabas expected the Church to
go through the Tribulation and Christ to return only at its termination.
This is again asserted in 15.5: "When his Son comes, he will destroy the
time of the wicked one and will judge the godless, and will change the
sun and moon and the stars, and then he will truly rest on the seventh
day." The second coming of Christ will destroy the wicked one, the
Antichrist; and if so, the appearance of Antichrist is expected to precede
the Lord's return.

That Barnabas could not have looked for an any-moment return of

Christ is proven by his expectation that the end would not come until the
Roman empire should fall. "Ten kingdoms shall reign upon the earth and
there shall rise up after them a little king, who shall subdue three of the
kings under .one" (4.4). Antichrist would arise after the Roman empire
had broken'down into ten kingdoms. This obviously could not occur at
once, for in the first century Rome's might and stability was at its apex.

The Shepherd of Hermas

An expression appears in the Shepherd of Hermas (cir. 150 A. D.)

which has been claimed by pretribulationists to teach a pretribulation
rapture. The words are, "If then you are prepared beforehand, and repent
with all your hearts toward the Lord, you will be able to escape it, if your
heart be made pure and blameless, and you serve the Lord blamelessly for
the rest of the days of your life. Go then and tell the Lord's elect ones of
His great deeds, and tell them that this beast is the type of the great
persecution which is to come" (Vision 4,2,5). When this phrase is lifted
out of its context, it might be understood to teach some such idea as that
of a rapture from tribulation. However, when one reads the entire passage,
he finds that the exact opposite is taught, for the author is referring to
preservation in and through tribulation.
 Hermas was walking down the road and met a fearful monster like a
leviathan with fiery locusts going out of its mouth, about a hundred feet
in size, with four colors on its head : black, blood red, gold, and white.
Hermas began to pray to the Lord to rescue him from the beast, but
instead he was reminded of his faith in the Lord and the great things he
had been taught. Then boldly he faced the beast head-on, and after the
beast rushed at him as though it would destroy a city, it came near and
stretched itself out on the ground and put forth nothing except its tongue,
and did not move at all until Hermas passed it by.

The beast was a symbol of the Great Tribulation to come. The escape
promised was not deliverance from the presence of tribulation, but
preservation in the presence of tribulation. This is proven by the
interpretation of the four colors. Black means the world, fiery red means
the destruction of the world, gold represents the Church purified by fire,
and white means the world to come. Here we have a teaching common in
the early church that tribulation effects purity. "The golden part is you,
who have fled from this world, for even as gold is `tried in the fire' and
becomes valuable, so also you who live among them [that is, the fire and
blood of tribulation] are being tried. Those then who remain and pass
through the flames shall be purified by them." "Therefore do not cease to
speak to the ears of the saints. You have also the type of the great
persecution to come, but if you will [warn them] it shall be nothing."
Hermas is admonished to prepare the Church for the Tribulation, to warn
that it is God's purpose to purify the Church by the fiery trial of
persecution. If the Church is prepared, it need not fear the sufferings to
come; they will be as nothing to those whose faith is fixed in the Lord.

Justin Martyr

One of the earliest fathers (cir. 150) who was an avowed

premillennialist was Justin Martyr. He makes only passing reference to
Antichrist, but this reference proves that Justin expected the Church to go
through the Tribulation and to be persecuted by Antichrist. Speaking of
Christ's second advent, he says : "He shall come from heaven with glory,
when the man of apostasy, who speaks strange things against the Most
High, shall venture to do unlawful deeds on the earth against us
Christians, who, having learned the true worship of God from the law,
and the word which went forth from Jerusalem by means of the apostles
of Jesus, have fled for safety to the God of Jacob and the God of Israel."
Justin has no fear of this coming Tribulation, for he says, "Now it is
evident that no one can terrify or subdue us who have believed in Jesus
over all the world. For it is plain that, though beheaded, and crucified,
and thrown to wild beasts, and chains, and fire, and all other kinds of
torture, we do not give up our confession ; but the more such things
happen, the more do others and in larger numbers become faithful, and
worshippers of God through the name of Jesus" (Dialogue with Trypho,
110). Justin, who himself became a martyr, feels that the sufferings to be
inflicted by the "man of apostasy," the Antichrist, will be little worse than
what Christians were already gladly and fearlessly suffering for Christ.

Irenaeus

The first of the church fathers who devotes an extensive discussion to

the coming of Antichrist and the Great Tribulation is Irenaeus, Bishop of
Lyons in the late second. century A. D. Irenaeus was a thoroughgoing
premillenarian, the first, in fact, to give us a premillennial system of
interpretation; but he did not believe in an any-moment coming of Christ
and a rapture of the Church before the Tribulation and coming of
Antichrist. On the contrary, he looked forward to a series of significant
historical events within the Roman empire before Antichrist could arise
and Christ return. "In a still clearer light has John, in the Apocalypse,
indicated to the Lord's disciples what shall happen in the last times, and
concerning the ten kings who shall then arise, among whom the empire
which now rules [the earth] shall be partitioned. He teaches us what the
ten horns shall be which were seen by Daniel, telling us that thus it had
been said to him [see Rev. 17:12]. It is manifest, therefore, that of these
[potentates], he who is to come shall slay three, and subject the remainder
to his power, and that he shall be himself the eighth among them. And
they shall lay Babylon waste, and burn her with fire, and shall give their
kingdom to the beast, and put the church to flight. After that they shall be
destroyed by the coming of our Lord" (Against Heresies, 5,26,1).
 Three important points are to be noted in Irenaeus' expectation of the
future. First, he does not believe that the end is immediately at hand. A
little further on he warns the Church against teachers who are propagating
false views about the identity of the Antichrist. Like Barnabas, he urges
them rather to await the division of the kingdom into ten parts which
must occur before Antichrist can arise. Rather than expecting an
immediate end, men are to await the fulfillment of these prophesies.

Second, Antichrist, when he appears, will put the Church to flight.

Speaking of this tribulation which will befall the Church at the hands of
Antichrist, Irenaeus says, "And for this cause tribulation is necessary for
those who are saved, that having been after a manner broken up, and
rendered fine, and sprinkled over by the patience of the Word of God, and
set on fire [for purification], they may be fitted for the royal banquet"
(27,4). Again, as in Hermas, God is expected to use the Great Tribulation
to accomplish the purification of the Church.

Third, the second coming of Christ will take place at the end of the
Tribulation to destroy the Antichrist and to deliver His Church. "But
when this Antichrist shall have devastated all things in this world, he will
reign for three years and six months, and sit in the temple at Jerusalem ;
and then the Lord will come from heaven in the clouds, in the glory of the
Father, sending this man [Antichrist] and those who follow him into the
lake of fire; but bringing in for the righteous [the Church] the times of the
kingdom" (30,4). At this time the resurrection of the saints and the rapture
of the living saints will take place. "For all those, and other words, were
unquestionably spoken in reference to the resurrection of the just, which
takes place after the coming of the Antichrist, and the destruction of all
nations under his rule; in (the times of) which (resurrection) the righteous
shall reign on the earth, waxing stronger by the sight of the Lord : and
through Him they shall become accustomed to partake in the glory of
God the Father, and shall enjoy in the kingdom intercourse and
communion with the holy angels, and union with spiritual beings; and
(with respect to) those whom the Lord shall find in the flesh, awaiting
Him from heaven, and who have suffered tribulation, as well as escaped
the hands of the Wicked one" (35,1).
 In this first detailed outline of prophetic events after the New
Testament, Irenaeus looks for the overthrow of Rome and the division of
the Empire among ten kings. Then An tichrist will appear and will kill
three of the ten and rule over the other seven. Antichrist will direct his
wrath particularly against the Church and put her to flight, but God will
use the Tribulation to purify the Church. After three and a half years,
Christ will return in glory to punish Antichrist, raise the dead saints, and
bring the living saints, both those who have suffered persecution by
Antichrist and those who have escaped his anger, into the millennial
kingdom.

Tertullian

Along with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, another avowed

premillennialist was Tertullian of North Africa of the late second and
third centuries. "But we do confess that a kingdom is promised to us upon
the earth, although before heaven, only in another state of existence ;
inasmuch as it will be after the resurrection for a thousand years in the
divinely built city of Jerusalem" (Adv. Marcion 3,25). In one passage,
Tertullian writes as though he believed in an any-moment coming of
Christ. "But what a spectacle is that fast approaching advent of our Lord,
now owned by all, now highly exalted, now a triumphant one !" (The
Shows, 30).

However, Tertullian cannot be designated a pretribulation rapturist. He

did not look for a restoration of the Jews to their land and a time of
tribulation which would primarily concern the restored Israel. "As for the
restoration of Judea, however, which even the Jews themselves, induced
by the names of the places and countries, hope for just as it is described,
it would be tedious to state at length how the figurative interpretation is
spiritually applicable to Christ and His church, and to the character and
fruits thereof" (Adv. Marcion, 3,25). Furthermore, Tertullian believed that
the end could not come at any moment but would be heralded by signs of
warning. In his tractate "On the Resurrection of the Flesh" (22), Tertullian
speaks of directing his prayers "toward the end of this world, to the
passing away thereof at the great day of the Lord - of His wrath and
vengeance - the last day, which is hidden (from all), and known to none
but the Father, although announced before hand by signs and wonders,
and the dissolution of the elements, and the conflict of nations." After
describing some of the heavenly signs which would announce the coming
of the end, Tertullian quotes the Biblical exhortation, " `Watch ye,
therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all
those things, and to stand before the Son of man'; that is, no doubt, at the
resurrection, after all these things have been previously transacted." The
object of Tertullian's hope and prayers is not a secret any-moment coming
of the Lord to rapture the Church; it is the hope of standing before the
Son of man after a series of cosmic signs have appeared and "all of these
things have taken place." He places this event at the day of the Lord and
the resurrection of the dead at the end of a series of preceding signs and
events.

Lactantius

Lactantius was a Latin father of the late third and early fourth centuries
who devoted considerable attention in his "Divine Institutes" to the
coming of Antichrist and the consummation of the age. There is one
quotation which, if taken out of context, might suggest the expectation of
an any-moment rapture. "It is permitted us to know respecting the signs,
which are spoken by the prophets, for they foretold signs by which the
consummation of the times is to be expected by us from day to day, and
to be feared" (7,25). However, it is not the coming of Christ which was
daily expected but the appearance of a series of signs which would
precede the end. Lactantius believed that human history was to run a six
thousand year course and to be followed by a millennium. Of the six
thousand years, there remained in his day some two hundred years before
the end would come (25).

During this period, profound rearrangements of the political situation

must take place. The Roman empire must be taken away from the earth
and the government returned to Asia, for the East must again bear rule
and the West be reduced to servitude (7,15). Rome was doomed to perish
and from the ruins would arise ten kings who would divide the world
among them. Only then would appear the Antichrist to reign over the
whole world.

Before these final events, a severe deterioration must occur in human

society, and Lactantius devotes considerable space to the description of
these evil times. So terrible will they be that nine-tenths of the human
race will be destroyed. The Church, along with the world, is destined to
suffer the evils of the end-times. "Of the worshippers of God also, two
parts will perish; and the third part, which shall have been proved, will
remain" (7,16). Finally, Antichrist will appear and will terribly afflict the
righteous and will rule the earth forty-twa months. The righteous will flee
from the ravages of Antichrist but will be pursued and surrounded. Then
they will call upon God and God will hear them and send a Great King to
rescue them and to destroy the wicked with the fire and sword (7,17).
This coming of Christ will be preceded by a special sign : "There shall
suddenly fall from heaven a sword, that the righteous may know that the
leader of the sacred warfare is about to descend" (19). After this, the dead
will rise and the world be renewed for the millennial kingdom.

Such an expectation is far removed from that of an anymoment coming

of Christ and a deliverance of the Church from the tribulations of the end-
times.

Hippolytus

One of the first Christians to give us a treatise on the Antichrist is

Hippolytus, a Bishop of Rome during the first decades of the third
century A. D. Hippolytus applies the fourth beast of Daniel to the Roman
empire then ruling the world, and interprets the ten toes of the image in
Daniel 2 of ten kings who would arise out of the Roman empire. This is
also symbolized by the ten horns of the fourth beast. The horn which will
root up three horns is Antichrist. He is to destroy the kings of Egypt,
Libya and Ethiopia, after which he will rule the world and persecute the
saints. Hippolytus tentatively suggests that the mark of the Beast, 666,
may mean Latinus, but he is uncertain. "Wherefore we ought neither to
give it out as if this were certainly his name, nor again ignore the fact that
he may not be otherwise designated. But having the mystery of God in
our heart, we ought in fear to keep faithfully what has been told us by the
blessed prophets, in order that when these things come to pass, we may
be prepared for them, and not be deceived" (50).

Hippolytus interprets Revelation 12 of "the tribulation of the

persecution which is to fall upon the Church from the adversary" (60).
There the "saints" are identified as the Christian Church. The time and
times and half a time refer "to the one thousand two hundred and three
score days (the half of the week) during which the tyrant is to reign and
persecute the Church, which flees from city to city, and seeks
concealment in the wilderness among the mountains" (61). After the
Abomination of Desolation and all of the attendant events, "what remains
but the coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ from heaven, for
whom we have looked and hoped? who shall bring the conflagration and
just judgment upon all who have refused to believe on Him. For the Lord
says, `And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift
up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.' `And there shall not a
hair of your head perish.' `For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and
shineth even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be'
" (64). After the return of Christ will take place the resurrection and the
kingdom of the saints as announced in Revelation 20, and I Thessalonians
4.

In this survey of the early centuries we have found that the Church
interpreted the book of Revelation along futurist lines; i.e., they
understood the book to predict the eschatological events which would
attend the end of the world. The Antichrist was understood to be an evil
ruler of the end-times who would persecute the Church, afflicting her
with great tribulation. Every church father who deals with the subject
expects the Church to suffer at the hands of Antichrist. God would purify
the Church through suffering, and Christ would save her by His return at
the end of the Tribulation when He would destroy Antichrist, deliver His
Church, and bring the world to an end and inaugurate His millennial
kingdom. The prevailing view is a posttribulation premillennialism. We
can find no trace of pretribulationism in the early church ; and no modern
pretribulationist has successfully proved that this particular doctrine was
held by any of the church fathers or students of the Word before the
nineteenth century.

The Middle Ages

After the first centuries, the expectation of an Antichrist as an evil

world ruler to appear just before the return of Christ gradually
disappeared. Revelation came to be interpreted along spiritual lines, and
after the time of Augustine, his "amillennial" view that the thousand years
began with Christ's earthly life and would continue to the end of the
church age became the predominant interpretation.

During the Middle Ages, the "historical" interpretation of Revelation

arose in which the book was thought to give in symbolic form an outline
of the history of the Church. Antichrist was frequently interpreted to
mean the Saracens, and the false prophet to mean Mohammed. Pope
Innocent III made effective use of the Revelation to stir up support for his
crusade.

The "Protestant" Interpretation

The Reformers took over this type of historical interpretation of

prophetic truth and found in the Antichrist a prophecy of the Papacy.
Luther at first felt that Revelation was defective in everything which
could be called apostolic or prophetic and was offended by the visions
and symbols of the book; but he came to feel that the prophecy was an
outline of the whole course of church history and that the Papacy was
predicted both in chapters 11 and 12 and in the second beast of chapter
13. The number 666 represented the period of papal domination.

This "historical" type of interpretation with its application of the

Antichrist to papal Rome so dominated Protestant study of prophetic truth
for three centuries that it has frequently been called "the Protestant"
interpretation. Some historical interpreters were premillennialists. They
found the history of the Church symbolized in the seals, vials, and
trumpets, with the second coming of Christ in chapter 19. After the return
of Christ, there would be a millennial reign before the final
consummation. We would emphasize that there have been many students
of the Word who have been thorough-going premillennialists who shared
very little of the outline of prophetic truth which today is called
premillenialism. Such were Joseph Mede, Isaac Newton, William
Whiston, J. A. Bengel and Henry Alford. These men, and many others,
taught the premillennial return of Christ, but they did not believe in a
personal Antichrist who would appear at the end of the age to persecute
the saints during a three and a half year period of tribulation. Neither did
they believe in what we call "the Great Tribulation." They believed that
the Tribulation extended throughout the history of the Church, and the
three and a half years or twelve hundred and sixty days were frequently
interpreted to mean twelve hundred and sixty years of church history
before the end times could arrive.

A new and different interpretation was created by Daniel Whitby

(1706) who thought that the world was to be completely evangelized and
the Church to rule the world. Vitringa (d. 1722) applied this view to the
interpretation of the Revelation producing postmillennialism. He
followed the historical interpretation for the first nineteen chapters and
interpreted the first part of chapter twenty as a future era when the
Church would reign over the world after the destruction of anti-Christian
Rome. The millennium was thus placed in the future but before the return
of Christ; and the meaning of "postmillennialism" is that Christ's return
would occur only after the millennial period. One of the most famous
exponents of this view was David Brown (1891), one of the co-editors of
the widely used Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's Commentary on the
Bible.

It is obvious that so long as the Roman church and the Papacy were
identified with the Antichrist, no idea of a pretribulation rapture could be
possible, for in this interpretation the period of tribulation was not 1260
days but 1260 years. Such a view lent itself to date-setting. Whiston
predicted that the millennium would begin in 1715. When it failed to
occur, he deferred the date to 1734. When he survived both dates, he
projected the time to 1766 but did not live to see his prediction fail a third
time. Bengel expected the end to come on June 18, 1836.

Many of the great Christians of Reformation and postReformation

times shared this view of prophetic truth and identified Antichrist with
the Roman Papacy. This is a fact which should be well pondered by
modern students who insist that a pretribulation eschatology is essential
to an orthodox theology. Among adherents of this interpretation were the
Waldenses, the Hussites, Wyclif, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Melanchthon,
the Baptist theologian John Gill, the martyrs Cranmer, Tyndale, Latimer
and Ridley. John Wesley, following Bengel, thought that the papal
Antichrist would be overthrown in 1836 and would be succeeded not only
by a millennium but by two millenniums, the first on earth and the second
in heaven. Jonathan Ed wards held that the fulfillment of the Revelation
in the history of the Church was an unanswerable argument for the
inspiration of the Scriptures. He held that the 1260 years of Revelation
began in 606 A. D. and that he was therefore living in the last days.

Some of these men were premillennialists, but Edwards adopted the

Whitbyan postmillennialism. However, they all shared the historical
view; none of them was a futurist, looking for a short tribulation with a
personal Antichrist just before the return of Christ. Therefore, the idea of
a pretribulation rapture had no place in their interpretation of prophecy.
2
THE RISE AND SPREAD OF
PRETRIBULATIONISM

N THE preceding chapter, we traced the broad outlines of the history

of prophetic interpretation and found no trace of pretribulationism. The
first three centuries were characterized by a futurist, premillennial
interpretation but not of the pretribulation type. The Middle Ages forsook
this primitive interpretation for either a spiritual interpretation or the
historical view. The latter was so widely accepted in the sixteenth,
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that it has been called the
"Protestant" view.

The Return to Futurism

With the dawn of the nineteenth century, there occurred a movement

which brought about a return to the primitive view and which also gave
rise to pretribulationism.

Whitby's new postmillennial view exercised great influence in Europe

in the eighteenth century and resulted in a minimizing of the importance
of the doctrine of the Lord's return. At the turn of the century, a strong
reaction arose which reasserted the importance of the personal coming of
Christ and often emphasized the place of the earthly kingdom after the
Lord's return. Outstanding among the leaders of this prophetic revival
were William Cuninghame, Joshua W. Brooks, Edward Bickersteth, T. R.
Birks, and E. B. Elliott - all of whom proclaimed the personal,
premillennial coming of Christ but continued to follow the historical
method of applying the prophecies of Antichrist to the Papacy and
interpreting the 1260 days as years.

Many periodicals appeared which were devoted to the exposition of

prophecy and to heralding the imminent return of Christ. Most of them
experienced only a short life but exercised great influence for a few years.
One of these periodicals was The Investigator (1831-36), edited by J. W.
Brooks, the last volume of which contained a Dictionary of Writers on the
Prophecies in which Brooks compiled over 2,100 titles of books on
prophetic subjects, together with 500 commentaries on books of the
Bible. Numerous anonymous tracts appeared bearing such titles as "The
End of All Things is at Hand."

Prophetic conferences began to spring up. A wealthy banker, Henry

Drummond, sponsored a series of prophetic conferences at his villa at
Albury Park from 1826-1830. Drummond's own interpretation was of the
historical, premillennial type. To this conference came Edward Irving, an
eloquent preacher who expounded prophetic themes to a London
congregation of over a thousand drawn from the most brilliant circles of
society. Irving later toured Scotland to proclaim the imminence of Christ's
coming and there won the Bonar brothers to a millennial view, preaching
sometimes to out-door crowds of ten to twelve thousand. It is a tragedy
that a young man of such great gifts and promise experienced so sad an
end. In 1830, he wrote a tract in which he asserted that Jesus possessed a
fallen human nature. Shortly after this, tongues broke out in his
congregation. Heresy proceedings were initiated and he was deposed in
1833 and died, broken-hearted, the next year.

Just before Irving attended the Albury meeting, he had come upon a
copy of the work on the Coming of the Messiah by the Spanish Jesuit,
Lacunza (Ben-Ezra). Lacunza had rediscovered the truth of the second
advent of Christ to establish His millennial kingdom which had been lost
in Catholicism. Even though he was a Catholic, he applied the prophecy
of the second beast in Revelation thirteen to a corrupted Roman
priesthood. In 1827, this book and the millennial question became the
main objects of study at the Albury conference. Lady Powerscourt
attended these meetings and became so interested that she established
similar meetings at Powerscourt House. It was in these Powerscourt
meetings that some of the characteristic doctrines of "Darbyism" can be
discovered for the first time.

Out of this revival of interest in prophetic truth came two new

interpretations : futurism and "Darbyism."1 The futuristic interpretation
was essentially a return to the method of prophetic truth found in the
early fathers, essential to which is the teaching that the Antichrist will be
a satanically inspired world-ruler at the end of the age who would inflict
severe persecution upon the Church during the Great Tribulation. At the
end of the Tribulation, Christ would return to deliver the Church, punish
Antichrist, raise the righteous dead, and establish His millennial kingdom.
Darbyism modified this outline of truth by teaching a coming of Christ to
rapture the Church before the Tribulation and before His coming in glory
to establish the millennial kingdom.

The rediscovery of futurism is associated with the names of S. R.

Maitland, James Todd, and William Burgh. Before we turn to these men,
we should note that a futurist interpretation of prophecy had earlier been
recovered within the Roman Catholic Church. It will probably come as a
shock to many modern futurists to be told that the first scholar in
relatively modern times who returned to the patristic futuristic
interpretation was a Spanish Jesuit named Ribera. In 1590, Ribera
published a commentary on the Revelation as a counter-interpretation to
the prevailing view among Protestants which identified the Papacy with
the Antichrist. Ribera applied all of Revelation but the earliest chapters to
the end time rather than to the history of the Church. Antichrist would be
a single evil person who would be received by the Jews and would
rebuild Jerusalem, abolish Christianity, deny Christ, persecute the Church
and rule the world for three and a half years. On one subject, Ribera was
not a futurist: he followed the Augustinian interpretation of the
millennium in making the entire period between the cross and Antichrist.
He differed from Augustine in making the "first resurrection" to refer to
the heavenly life of the martyrs when they would reign in heaven with
Christ throughout the millennium, i.e., the church age. A number of
Catholic scholars espoused this futuristic interpretation of Antichrist,
among them Bellarmine, the most notable of the Jesuit controversialists
and the greatest adversary of the Protestant churches.

This futurist interpretation with its personal Antichrist and three and a
half year period of tribulation did not take root in the Protestant church
until the early nineteenth century. The first Protestant to adopt it was S. R.
Maitland. He received a legal training but abandoned the profession in
1823 to become a curate. In 1826 he published a pamphlet whose title is
self-explanatory : An Enquiry into the Ground on which the Prophetic
Period of Daniel and St. John Has Been Supposed to Consist of 1260
Years. This small pamphlet was an attack on the yearday theory of the
historical interpreters, insisting upon a period of 1260 literal days of
tribulation before the return of Christ. The pamphlet resulted in a "paper-
war" with the historicists which lasted many years.

James H. Todd, professor of Hebrew at Dublin, met Maitland and

became his follower. In 1838 he gave the Donnellan lectures using the
subject, Discourses on the Prophecies Relating to Antichrist in the
Writings of Daniel and St. Paul, dedicating the published lectures to Mait`
land. This is a detailed study of over five hundred pages on these
prophecies. Todd repeatedly refers to Antichrist as "the head and leader of
a formidable persecution of the Christian Church," "the great enemy and
persecutor of the Church," and the like. In 1840, he published a second
series of studies on Antichrist in the Apocalypse.

William Burgh has given us the first systematic treatment of prophetic

events following the new futurist interpretation in Lectures on the Second
Advent of Our Lord Jesus Christ (1835). In 1820, Burgh had published a
tract in which he followed the historical premillennial view, but he
became converted to the new futurist interpretation.

Burgh knows of only one coming of Christ, at the end of the Tribulation
when the dead in Christ will be raised and the living believers raptured.
He believed that Israel was to be restored at the end of the age when the
seventieth week of Daniel 9 would occur. Antichrist will make a covenant
with Israel only to break it in the midst of the week and to turn in wrath
against Israel. The second coming of Christ will bring destruction to
Antichrist and a great outpouring of the Spirit upon Israel who will then
become the center of the millennial kingdom to preach the Gospel of
grace and to be the agency in the salvation of the Gentile nations.
Christianity will then be extended without hindrance throughout the earth
and the Gentiles will be brought en masse into the Church. The first
resurrection at the beginning of the millennium will not include all the
Church, for the greater part of the Church will come to salvation during
the millennium. The first resurrection of saints to reign with Christ will
be a blessing granted to those who have been willing to share Christ's
sufferings and humiliation during this present evil age and especially in
the time of Tribulation at the hands of Antichrist.

These early futurists followed a pattern of prophetic events similar to

that found in the early fathers, with the necessary exception that Rome
was not the final kingdom. In fact they appeal to the fathers against the
popular historical interpretation for support of their basic view. A
pretribulation rapture is utterly unknown by these men, and while Israel is
to be restored, the Gospel which Israel will preach in the millennium is
the Gospel of grace, and those who are saved are included in the Church.
The Tribulation concerns both Israel and the Church ; in fact, it will be
the time of testing an apostate Christianity.

The Rise of Pretribulationism

A second out-growth of the prophetic awakening of the early nineteenth

century was Darbyism, or Dispensationalism, which had its birth within
the Plymouth Brethren movement. A pretribulation rapture is an essential
element of this system. The Brethren movement had its beginnings in
Dublin in 1825 when a small group of earnest men, dissatisfied with the
spiritual condition of the Protestant church in Ireland, met for prayer and
fellowship. Soon others joined the fellowship and other similar groups
sprang up. In 1827, J. N. Darby entered the fellowship. Although there
was an interest from the start in prophetic truth, the center of emphasis
was "The Nature and Unity of the Church of Christ" (the title of Darby's
first tract) in reaction to the deadness and formalism of the organized
church and the ordained ministry. Outstanding among the new groups
which arose in Ireland and England was the fellowship in Plymouth, from
which the movement derived its name. Leader of the Plymouth
fellowship for many years was B. W. Newton, a man of considerable
learning and scholarship. Two other outstanding Brethren were S. P.
Tregelles, recognized by the entire world of Biblical scholarship for his
contribution to the study of the history of the Greek text of the New
Testament, and George Muller, the great man of prayer.

We have already mentioned the Albury Park conference and the

Powerscourt meetings. Darby and other leaders of the new movement
attended the meetings at Powerscourt, and Darby's leadership in the area
of prophetic interpretation here became evident. It was at Powerscourt
that the teaching of a pretribulation rapture of the Church took shape.
Tregelles, a member of the Brethren in these early days, tells us that the
idea of a secret rapture at a secret coming of Christ had its origin in an
"utterance" in Edward Irving's church, and that this was taken to be the
voice of the Spirit. Tregelles says, "It was from that supposed revelation
that the modern doctrine and the modern phraseology respecting it arose.
It came not from Holy Scripture, but from that which falsely pretended to
be the Spirit of God."2 This doctrine together with other important
modifications of the traditional futuristic view were vigorously promoted
by Darby, and they have been popularized by the writings of William
Kelly.

Not all of the Brethren accepted the teaching of a pretribulation rapture.

In 1842, B. W. Newton of Plymouth published a book entitled Thoughts
on the Apocalypse8 in which he taught the traditional view that the
Church would go through the Tribulation. There arose a sharp contention
over the issue of pretribulationism between the two men. Newton
"considered Mr. Darby's dispensational teaching as the height of
speculative nonsense" (H. A. Ironside). He was supported in his
posttribulation views by Tregelles.4 A rift followed which was never
healed. This was the first of a series of many contentions which marred
the history of the Brethren movement.
 Within early Brethrenism, we find two types of prophetic interpretation
: the traditional futurism, and Darbyism or Dispensationalism. The
influence which has extended to prophetic study in America has been the
latter. Doubtless Newton's views on the Church and the Tribulation were
discredited because he was accused of holding unsound views on the
person of Christ.

Pretribulationism in America

In the early nineteenth century, postmillennialism was the prevailing

interpretation of prophecy in America. Jon athan Edwards had accepted
Whitbyan postmillennialism, and the publication of several popular
commentaries widely disseminated the doctrine. Matthew Henry's famous
commentary was published in America in 1828-29, and we are told that
more than two hundred thousand volumes circulated by 1840. Henry
applied the prophecies on Antichrist to the Papacy, and interpreted the
first resurrection and the millennium to mean political restoration of those
who had suffered at the hands of papal Rome. He understood the second
resurrection to be the revival of political power of wicked men.

Thomas Scott's commentary, the most popular and widely quoted of the
early nineteenth century works of its sort, spread the Whitbyan theory.
Adam Clarke's commentary was first published in America in 1811-25.
Clarke saw in Daniel's vision of the stone crushing the image a prophecy
of the victory of the Church over the Roman empire, a victory which
would extend until the Church filled the earth. Two of the most effective
agencies in accomplishing this end were the British and Foreign Bible
Society and the contemporary missionary enterprise. Clarke interpreted
the second coming of Christ in Matthew 24 of the destruction of
Jerusalem by Rome, and he understood the "end of the age" in Matthew
24:3,14 to refer to the end of the Jewish age accomplished at that time.

A reaction to postmillennialism arose in America as it had in England.

This may be illustrated by two prophetic magazines. The Literalist was
published in Philadelphia between 1840-1842 advocating, as its name
indicates, a literal view of prophetic interpretation in opposition to the
spiritualizing method of the predominant Whitbyism. The American
Millenarian and Prophetic Review appeared in New York in the years
1842-44 with a similar objective. Both journals drew heavily upon writers
of the English prophetic awakening such as Bickersteth, Brooks, and
Cun- inghame. In fact, the Literalist consisted largely of English reprints.
Both journals followed the path marked out by their English exemplars of
the historical "Protestant" interpretation with its 1260 years and papal
Antichrist. Thus although thoroughly millenarian, they were not futurist
in their understanding of the Tribulation and the Antichrist.

Against this background of prevailing postmillennialism and a groping

search for a more satisfying interpretation of prophecy, it is easy to see
how Darbyan futurism possessed such attraction and impelling power. It
came with a freshness and vitality which quite captured American
Christians. Darby visited America six times between 1859 and 1874 and
was warmly welcomed. His system of prophetic interpretation was
eagerly adopted, not because of the attractiveness of the details of his
system, but because its basic futurism seemed to be a recovery of a sound
Biblical prophetic interpretation - which in fact it was - and to give to the
doctrine of the Lord's return the importance it deserved. In other words,
Darbyism to many Christians meant the rediscovery of the precious
Biblical truth of Christ's glorious second coming, even though the basic
truth was accompanied by some important details which were not
essential to the premillennial return of Christ and which many later came
to feel were not in the Word of God. Once more, as in the early church,
the return of Christ became a living and vital expectation in the lives of
Christian people and in the pulpit ministry of many a preacher. Little
wonder that the view has been cherished and defended with such deep
emotional overtones. Darbyism in fact restored something precious which
had long been lost.

This new prophetic emphasis at once found expression in the prophetic

and Bible conference movement. A. C. Gaebelein, telling the story of the
Scofield Reference Bible, finds its background within this movement.
Interest in premillennialism grew to a point where a great prophetic
conference was suggested by Nathaniel West. A call was issued by a
committee of eight men, among whom were James H. Brookes and A. J.
Gordon, with the indorsement of one hundred and fourteen "Bishops,
Professors, Ministers and Brethren." The conference was called to meet in
the church of the Holy Trinity (Episcopal) in 1878. 11 A second prophetic
conference was held in Chicago in 1886. 6 Prominent in these
conferences were such men as Stephen Tyng, W. R. Nicholson, Nathaniel
West, S. H. Kellogg, A. J. Gordon, James H. Brookes, W. J. Erdman, W.
G. Moorehead and A. T. Pierson.

Another series of meetings of even greater importance was that which

met at Niagara on Lake Ontario from 1883-1897. This conference was the
outgrowth of a small Bible study fellowship initiated in 1875 by a handful
of men among whom were Nathaniel West, J. H. Brookes and W. J.
Erdman. They were joined the next year by A. J. Gordon. This group met
from place to place until the conference at Ontario was undertaken.
Among the leading teachers of the Ontario conferences, according to A.
C. Gaebelein, were James H. Brookes, A. J. Gordon, W. J. Erdman,
Albert Erdman, George C. Needham, A. C. Dickson, L. W. Mundhall, H.
M. Parsons, Canon Howitt, E. P. Marvin, Hudson Taylor, J. M. Stiffer,
Robert Cameron, W. G. Moorehead and A. T. Pierson. After this pioneer
of American Bible conferences was discontinued, a new conference at
Seacliff, Long Island, was opened in 1901, and it was here that the plan
for the Reference Bible embodying the dispensational system of
interpretation occurred to Dr. C. I. Scofield.

In view of the modern notion that pretribulationism has been one of the
foundational tenets of a sound presentation of prophetic truth, it is
important to note that many of the leaders of this early prophetic, Bible
conference movement either were or became posttribulationists. Many of
the teachers at the Niagara Conference accepted J. N. Darby's
pretribulation rapture along with the doctrine of Christ's return. Of the
men named above, James H. Brookes, A. T. Pierson, and C. I. Scofield
have been among the most influential supporters of this view. However,
other teachers did not accept it, and still others accepted it at first only to
give it up after more mature study of the Word of God. Since it is often
thought that all good and godly premillennialists must be
pretribulationists, we shall note the views of several of these leaders who
did not adhere to the pretribulation teaching.

Nathaniel West suggested and arranged the first prophetic conference in

1878 and was one of the leading teachers. His book, The Thousand Years
in Both Testaments (1880), has been called the most important defense of
premillennialism which has been written. However, West had no patience
with pretribulationism. He taught that the 144,000 who are sealed in
Revelation 7 are the fulfillment of the promise in Romans 11 - the
salvation of literal Israel. Their salvation will occur at the beginning of
the seventieth week as a result of the ministry of the two witnesses (Rev.
11), and they are sealed that they might take the place of the Church
which is seen in the great multitude in Revelation 7 - a multitude which is
to suffer near extinction at the hands of Antichrist in the Great
Tribulation. "They (these two groups) assure us also that the Christian
Church will not be removed from the earth, or become extinct under
persecution, but, reduced and suffering, will also live to see the Advent"
(p. 245). "They (the 144,000) are ... the Israelitish Church of the Future ...
It is not that Gentile believers have utterly perished in the apostasy, for
Paul teaches the contrary. I Thess. iv :16,17 ; nor that no Jewish believers
become martyrs, for John teaches otherwise, Rev. vii :9 .... But it is that,
in the height of the apostasy, when the true Church is almost gone, God
will restore Israel, and preserve of Israel an election, undestroyed by the
tribulation, who shall live to see the Advent" (p. 249). West believed not
that the Church would be removed by rapture and its place taken by a
Jewish remnant, but that the Church would be removed by persecution
and martyrdom.

These views were published in 1880 when emphasis upon

pretribulationism had not yet become strong. In a later book (Daniel's
Great Prophecy, 1898) when the issue had become more important and
pretribulationism had won many supporters, West expressed himself in
far more vigorous terms. Speaking of the 70th week, he said, "All the
devices of interpretation which torture the Word of God to support a vain
theory of exemption of the church from the tribulation are forever
shattered" (p. 128). "It is needless to say that the apostles followed their
Master's teaching, and took his Olivet discourse as the textbook of their
eschatology. It ruled the whole faith of the early church. It settled every
heresy as to the time of the advent. It corrected the Thessalonlan error as
to the `any moment view.' Paul appeals to it to decide the question" (p.
130). "When the Antichrist and the Jews are in covenant, at the beginning
of the 70th week, and clearer still, when the breach occurs between them
at the middle of the week, then the determination of the year, perhaps the
month, but never the day or hour will be certain, i.e., to all believers" (p.
131). Is pretribulationism a device which tortures the Word of God? a
vain theory? a heresy? an error? So West believed.

A. J. Gordon

Another great man of God and student of the prophetic Word was A. J.
Gordon, famed pastor of Clarendon Street Baptist Church in Boston,
where he experienced many movings of the Spirit of God in revival.
Gordon joined the Bible study fellowship in its second year and was a
constant speaker at the Niagara conference. Yet if he were alive today,
many zealous brethren would be ready to pronounce him dangerous.

In his book on the Lord's coming (Ecce Venit, 1889), Gordon parts
company with the whole Darby system of interpretation. Although he
constantly emphasized the importance of the truth of the Lord's return and
often sounds like one who holds the "any-moment" view, Gordon did not
look for a personal Antichrist and a three and a half year Tribulation. In
its stead, he embraced the historical interpretation believing it is "more
scriptural, and rests upon the more obvious and simple interpretation of
the Word" (p. vi). Antichrist was the Papacy; the temple of God in which
Antichrist sits in II Thessalonians 2 was the Church. "Where a Judaizing
interpretation would lead us from this phrase of the apostle, to imagine a
future temple rebuilt in Jerusalem, enthroning an infidel Antichrist, we
have only to collate the passages in which the expression occurs to find
how invariably it stands for Christ's mystical body, the church" (pp. 110f).

What then of the three and a half years of Antichrist's reign? Adopting
the usual day-year theory of the historical school, Gordon believed that
by the use of the 1260 years, "If the rise of the papacy could be fixed as to
the exact day and year, we might not err in seeking by computation for
the day and year of its fall, and so approximate closely the date of the
coming of the Lord" (p. 205). Where does this leave the usual "any-
moment" theory which holds that Christ could have returned at any
moment after His ascension? How could the coming of Christ have been
"imminent" to anyone living before the 1260 years had elapsed?

As to the details of Christ's return, Gordon said, "Will He be visible to

His Church alone at His Parousia, manifesting Himself unto them, but not
to the world until a later epiphany, when He shall appear in glory with His
saints? Already there has been too much dogmatizing on these points;
therefore we prefer to leave them for the day to reveal" (p. 211). On the
secret rapture, he said, "upon the whole question of a secret rapture, we
would speak with reserve, knowing that there are scriptures which give a
different impression" (p. 246). There is no hint in Gordon's book of
anything but a single, glorious, visible coming of Christ.

W. J. Erdman

One of the key men in the movement was W. J. Erdman, who served as
secretary and leader of the Niagara Bible Conference for more than
twenty years, and who also was one of the consulting editors of the
Scofield Reference Bible. In his story of the Scofield Bible, A. C.
Gaebelein describes Erdman as "an able, logical, and spiritual teacher of
the Word." Dr. Erdman was pastor of the Moody Church in Chicago when
Darby visited that city and at first he accepted Darby's pretribulation, any-
moment view of Christ's return. Upon further searching of the Scriptures,
Erdman decided that this view was not taught in the Word, and he felt he
could no longer support a view for which he could not find Scriptural
warrant. He thereupon wrote a tract entitled, "A Theory Reviewed" in
which he questioned the any-moment theory, concluding with these
words : "Should any deplore the adoption of the belief that the Lord will
not come any moment, as if it would take away all joy and comfort, it is
enough to answer in the words of another, `Better the disappointment of
truth than the fair but false promises of error.' " Erdman continued to
believe in Christ's premillennial coming and that His return might take
place within his own generation. However, he believed that the Church
must pass through the Tribulation. In his Notes on the Revelation,
Erdman said of the saints who are to be persecuted by Antichrist, "unless
the contrary can be proved, it is a fair inference from many facts that by
the `saints' seen as future by Daniel and by John are meant `the Church'
which consists of Jews and Gentiles" (p. 47).

Robert Cameron

Another teacher, coming into the fellowship in 1878, was Robert

Cameron. He like Erdman at first accepted the Darby teaching but later
turned from it. In 1922, he wrote Scriptural Truth About the Lord's
Return in which he set forth his mature conclusions. "The Coming for and
the Coming with, the saints, still persists, although it involves a manifest
contradiction, viz., two Second Comings which is an absurdity" (p. 16).
"Everywhere in the New Testament it is taught that to suffer for Christ is
one of the highest honors Christians can have bestowed upon them. A
desire to shirk suffering for Christ is a sign of degeneracy. At the close of
this dispensation, it will still be counted an honor to suffer shame for our
adorable Lord" (p. 18). The entire book is devoted to a refutation of the
any-moment theory of Christ's coming.

Henry W. Frost

In 1885, Henry W. Frost attended the Niagara Conference for the first
time and there received his first impulse toward missionary service, an
impulse which blossomed in a ministry of thirty-six years of service for
the China Inland Mission as Home Director. Frost also served as
recording secretary for the Niagara conference.

In 1924, Frost wrote Matthew Twenty-four and the Revelation, and

from it we would extract one passage. Frost discusses interpretations of
Matthew 24 which he believes to be unscriptural. One such view is that
"Christ taught that the saints, dead and living, would be caught up to meet
Him in the air at His coming, that this coming would occur before the
seven-year-rule of the Antichrist, that during the tribulation of the
following seven years many persecuted ones would be converted, that
these would form a last band of Christians, and then, that these too, dead
and living, would be caught up to meet the Lord in the air as He descends
to the earth with those saints who were previously resurrected and
translated." This view, says Frost, "might be held as truth if there were
any scripture to confirm it, but (it) may not be held in view of the fact that
no scripture even suggests such a process of events and many scriptures
positively contradict it . . . . Nowhere do the Epistles state that the coming
will take place before the tribulation, most passages being silent as to the
time and some passages strongly teaching a post-tribulation advent."
Frost's conclusion is that "living Christians will go into and through the
tribulation" (p. 69).

W. G. Moorehead

The name of W. G. Moorehead of Xenia Theological Seminary from

1873 to 1914, appears in the call for the first prophetic conference in
1878. He was active in the Niagara movement from 1882; and his name
will be found in the Scofield Reference Bible as a consulting editor. Yet
he has written, "What becomes of (the saints) and of the Lord whom they
encounter in the air (at the Rapture) ? Do they abide there? No, their stay
in the air is but brief, - momentary. There are only two other places in the
New Testament where the phrase `to meet' occurs ... and in both of them
the party met continues to advance still in the direction in which he was
moving previously. Augustine perceived this: `It is as He is coming, not
abiding, that we shall go to meet Him.' Christ does not return to heaven
with His saints ; He comes on with them to the earth. As an ancient writer
expresses it, -'We shall be caught away to meet Christ, that all may come
with the Lord to battle.' " Here is a clear rejection by an editor of the
Scofield Bible of the pretribulation rapture of the Church with the two
comings of Christ which is found in the Scofield Bible.

Charles R. Erdman
 Among the scholars who contributed to the formation of the Scofield
Reference Bible was Dr. C. R. Erdman of Princeton. In the Introduction
of the Reference Bible, Scofield includes him among those "learned and
spiritual brethren in Europe and America to whose labours he is indebted
for suggestions of inestimable value."

Yet Erdman did not follow the prophetic outline taught by Scofield.
Referring to the idea of a secret, any-moment rapture before the
Tribulation with its two comings of Christ, Erdman says, "The doctrine
appears to be founded upon a false interpretation of the translation, in the
King James Version, of the opening verse of the second chapter of
Second Thessalonians.... The Revised Version, however, directly
contradicts this mistaken view ... He (Paul) clearly stated that the day in
which believers were to be delivered from their tribulations, the day of
Christ's coming and of their `gathering together unto him,' would not
dawn `except the falling away' came first and `the Man of Sin' was
revealed" (The Return of Christ, pp. 54f).

How are we to account for the fact that a view which was at first quite
widely accepted was later given up by so many of the outstanding leaders
of the prophetic and Bible conference movement? Was it because of
pernicious influences which turned them away from the pure teaching of
the Word of God? Was it due to enemies of pretribulationism who
prevailed upon these leaders to abandon the truth? Was it due to inroads
of liberalism? None of these suggestions gives us the correct answer,
which appears to rest in a simple historical fact. At the beginnings of the
movement, the premillennialism which was so warmly received and
taught was the Darby type of premillennialism with its pretribulation
rapture. The two doctrines were thought by most of the teachers to be
synonymous; but the emphasis was placed on the Lord's return, not on
such details as the relationship of the Rapture to the Tribulation.
Pretribulationism was accepted "uncritically" along with a sound
premillennialism. The thrust of James H. Brookes' influential book
Maranatha (1878) shows that the enemy of that day was
postmillennialism. Pretribulationism or posttribulationism were not
issues. The Darby view of a pretribula tion rapture was accepted without
much question or careful study.

However, some of the outstanding teachers were unable to go along

with the pretribulation theory, among them Nathaniel West and A. J.
Gordon. Later in the movement, when greater emphasis began to be laid
upon the details, the teachers began to study the Word more carefully, and
many of them came to realize that along with sound Biblical
premillennialism, they had accepted a teaching which upon mature
reflection and study they decided was not Biblical. They had the courage
publicly to reverse themselves at this point without in any way giving up
the essentials of a Biblical doctrine of the Lord's premillennial return.

Throughout the entire movement as we have traced it, pretribulationism

was never a teaching which was considered essential to a sound, Biblical
view of The Blessed Hope. Men who differed at these points were not
accused of betraying the Bible. In more recent times, due to the influence
of the Scofield Reference Bible, the Bible school movement, etc.,
pretribulationism has been more widely accepted than ever before with
the result that many Christians have never heard any sound Bible teachers
who held a different position and therefore have naturally concluded that
pretribulationism is essential to premillenialism. This is not true
historically, and it is not true theologically or Biblically.

The teachers of the Word whose views we have discussed were all
associated with the prophetic and Bible conference movement of a half
century ago when pretribulationism was taking root in American
Christian thought. We must add the views of others of more recent date
who are outstanding men of God and defenders of the faith, who have
found themselves compelled to abandon pretribulationism.

Philip Mauro was a patent lawyer who, after conversion, gave himself
vigorously to the defense of the faith. He is included among the writers of
the Fundamentals and produced some twenty-five books.
 Mauro at first espoused dispensationalism. In 1913 he wrote Looking
For the Saviour in which he defended the usual pretribulation rapture of
the Church. In The Kingdom of Heaven (1918) he departed from the
dispensational view of the postponed kingdom but was still a
premillenarian. In The Patmos Visions, A Study of the Apocalypse (1925)
he forsook the usual futurist interpretation of the Revelation, seeing in the
two beasts the Roman empire and the Papacy. Finally, in The Gospel of
the Kingdom (1928), Mauro broke completely with dispensationalism.
Among the reasons was the sudden realization that the Scofield Bible
"has usurped the place of authority that belongs to God's Bible alone." He
says further, "It is mortifying to remember that I not only held and taught
these novelties myself, but that I even enjoyed a complacent sense of
superiority because thereof, and regarded with feelings of pity and Conte;
npt those who had not received the `new light' and were unacquainted
with this up-to-date method of `rightly dividing the word of truth.' . . .
The time came .... when the inconsistencies and self-contradictions of the
system itself, and above all, the impossibility of reconciling its main
positions with the plain statement of the Word of God, became so
glaringly evident that I could not do otherwise than to renounce it."

Rowland V. Bingham was General Director of the Sudan Interior

Mission, President of Canadian Keswick Conference, and Editor of The
Evangelical Christian. In 1937, Bingham published a little book under the
title, Matthew The Publican and His Gospel in which he set forth his
changed views. In the Introduction, he tells us that during the first period
of his Christian lr: he accepted the Gospel of Matthew at face value and
revelled in its truth. But later he came in contact with dispensational
writings which for the first time presented to his mind the reality of the
second coming of Christ. "Never having listened to a single address on
the Second Coming of Christ, I at once became infatuated with prophetic
study." The second period of his life thus was dominated by a
dispensational interpretation. "The reiteration of these (dispensational)
propositions by such great and godly men whose names are known and
beloved by the whole Church, many of them personally known and loved
by me, had made their impression upon me."
 There came a day, however, when his wife asked him, "Rowland, where
do you get the `Secret Rapture' idea in the Bible?" Bingham had no
satisfactory answer; and he was driven to study the Word of God afresh
but in deep confusion. Finally, faced with a week's Bible conference but
with no message, "in sheer desperation I took out my Bible and threw
myself helplessly on the Lord. And I know the blessed Illuminator, the
Holy Spirit, responded. I commenced to read in Matthew, and all day long
I read and reread, with such an unveiling that my soul was filled to ...
overflowing... My old theories were being dispelled like mists before the
sunshine. It means a great deal to have the cherished teaching of years
upset in a day, and that without argument or human instrument." After
outlining the interpretation to which he was driven, he adds, "As time has
gone by, all my future study has confirmed me in the changed views of
that day. In the study of this book I cannot expect to carry with me all
those whose cherished teaching of years it upsets. I simply in the whole
prophetic sphere plead for that liberty of interpretation which I gladly
accord to others."

G. Campbell Morgan was one of the most gifted Bible teachers and
expositors of the Word of God of the preceding generation. It is difficult
indeed to discover Dr. Morgan's position in matters of prophetic
interpretation, for different writings suggest different viewpoints.
Sometimes he writes as though he were a thorough-going
dispensationalist. In an early book (God's Methods with Man, 1898)
Morgan distinguished between the Gospel of the Kingdom and the
Gospel of Paul and offered the usual dispensational outline of prophetic
events (p. 172). In The Teaching of Christ (1913), he devoted a third of
the book to our Lord's teaching about the Kingdom of God, but no
dispensationalism is to be found. Almost no reference is made to Israel's
relation to the Kingdom. Rather, the Kingdom is primarily the rule of
God, then the sphere in which the rule is realized, and finally the results
of that rule. The Kingdom is to be established by processes leading to,
and culminating in a crisis - the second coming of Christ. Speaking of the
Olivet Discourse, he says that the Church is the instrument of the
Kingdom in the economy of God. In this book, Morgan sounds more like
an amillennialist than a dispensationalist.
 How can we account for these two points of view? We can only
conclude that Morgan changed his interpretation of prophetic truth.
Perhaps Philip Mauro's writings contributed to the change. We quoted at
some length from Mauro's The Gospel of the Kingdom. Of the argument
of this book, Morgan wrote, "It is unanswerable." Furthermore, Morgan
reviewed Mauro's Study of the Apocalypse which departs radically from
the usual futurist interpretation and wrote, "(My) reading results in a
conviction that the general thesis is completely established. It is the most
lucid and satisfying work on the Apocalypse that I have ever read."

Nor is this all. When Rowland Bingham's Matthew the Publican

appeared, Morgan wrote to Bingham in the following words : "I suppose I
may say that across the years I have passed through very much of your
own experience with regard to these prophetic matters. At any rate, at the
moment I accept without any qualification the philosophy of your
interpretation .... I think the view that makes Matthew Jewish is utterly
false. The phrase `secret Rapture' has to me for a long time been a very
objectionable one, and utterly unwarranted in its wording, and in what it
is made to stand for by the teaching of Scripture."

Bishop Frank Houghton, General Director of the China Inland Mission

since 1940, has written, "While our primary emphasis must surely be
upon the fact of our Lord's personal coming, and the obligation upon us
who have this hope to `purify ourselves, even as He is pure,' and to bear
witness to His Gospel in all lands, I cannot but say that, as the years go
by, I am more and more amazed that any one should claim to have found
in the Scriptures justification for the view that the coming is to be in two
stages (one secret and the other public), and that the Church will escape
the Tribulation.

"We are on unsafe ground as soon as we begin to conjecture, apart from

the clear statements of Scripture, what God is, or is not, likely to do."

Oswald J. Smith is known around the world because of his great zeal
for world evangelization. We are compelled to conclude that Dr. Smith
experienced a change of view about the Rapture and the Tribulation. In
his book, Is the Antichrist at Hand? (1926) he wrote, "I have always held
the view that the rapture precedes the revelation by some seven years, and
that the Church therefore will not go through the Tribulation." He admits
that he cannot be dogmatic and that his mind is open toward the other
view.

Apparently his mind was shortly changed, for a year later appeared
When Antichrist Reigns in which he sees the Church in the Tribulation.
He holds that Matthew 24 is the seventieth week of Daniel. Verses 1-14
describe the first half of the week, and verses 15-51 the second half of the
week. Of verses 9-10 which fall in the first half of the final seven year
period, Smith says, "So the church will again be bitterly persecuted even
to the point of martyrdom." Of the Great Tribulation and the appearance
of Antichrist, he says, "For when the Antichrist emerges from the temple
it will be to exterminate both Jews and Christians alike." False prophets
will tell "the fleeing Christians and Jews that the Messiah has come and is
at Jerusalem." Applying these truths, he writes, "Surely the hour is at
hand. The great tribulation must be almost upon us, the fearful reign of
the Antichrist about to commence. And then the battle of Armageddon,
and then - the glorious revelation of our blessed Lord. And then, ah, then,
at last, at last, the Golden Age, the Millennium. Hasten, glad Day !
Hasten, judgment and tribulation! Hasten, oh hasten, Thou Christ of God,
Thou mighty Prince of Peace !" He then describes the return of Christ
which he finds in verse 31: "As He descends the trumpet sounds, and the
angels are dispatched to gather the elect and to bear them in the twinkling
of an eye to their Lord and Master." This apparently is the Rapture of the
Church.

That this represents Dr. Smith's present views may be seen from the
fact that this chapter was reprinted, with only minor verbal changes, in
Prophecy - What Lies Ahead? (1952). In this book, Christ's return is
placed after the Tribulation. If the question of the Rapture and
Tribulation, Dr. Smith says, "But, you ask, is the Church to go through
the Tribulation? That is not the question. It is this : Is the Church ready?
Are you ready, ready either for Tribulation or Rapture? If you are, that is
all that matters. What difference does it make so long as you are ready? ...
If you are to be in it, you cannot escape, and, if you are to escape, you
will not be in it." This is hardly the language of pretribulationism.

Dr. Harold John Ockenga, Pastor of Park Street Church, Boston, has
been raised up by the Lord to be one of the giants of our day in defending
the faith, in the winning of souls through the promotion of evangelism in
New England and through evangelistic campaigns, and in the prosecution
of worldwide evangelization. When he came to his present church, the
missionary budget was less than $2500. After nineteen years this has been
raised to $220,000.

Writing in Christian Life (February, 1955), Dr. Ockenga tells us how he

came to give up his pretribulation eschatology and to believe that the
Church would enter into the Great Tribulation. The article is very brief
and is more a personal testimony than a defense of posttribulationism.
Insuperable difficulties were recognized in pre tribulationism. "Is it
conceivable that the Jews without the Pentecostal presence and power of
the Holy Spirit will do during the tribulation what the church in Holy
Spirit power could not do in 2,000 years?" "No amount of explaining can
make (I Thess. 4:16,17) a secret rapture. It is the visible accompaniment
of the glorious advent of the Lord. No exegetical justification exists for
the arbitrary separation of the `coming of Christ' and the `day of the
Lord.' It is one `day of the Lord Jesus Christ.' " "Another shattering blow
to my dispensational eschatology came when I realized that the church
age is not a parenthesis in the divine redemptive plan but is the great era
of redemption, of salvation, and of revival."

These men, like those of the earlier generation, passed through the
experience of accepting dispensational teaching but of being driven to
conclude that it did not coincide with the teachings of the Word of God.
But who is to say that Mauro, Bingham, Morgan, Houghton, Smith and
Ockenga are any less men of God and true to the Word? The author is
personally acquainted with other Christian leaders who have given up
pretribulationism ; but they have not gone on record and so cannot be
quoted.
 Pretribulationism has not been and never ought to be a test of a sound
view of prophetic truth. Pretribulationism is a recent view which was
formulated 125 years ago by one wing of the Plymouth Brethren and
accepted in America by a circle of devout and godly men but rejected by
others who were equally devout and godly and equally devoted to the
propagation of the truth of the Lord's return.

There ought to be today liberty in the interpretation of the Word at this

point. It is a reversal of history and Scripturally indefensible to label any
deviation from a pretribulation eschatology a step toward liberalism, and
it is holding up a human interpretation as though it had the authority of
Scripture itself.

One of America's outstanding pretribulationists was H. A Ironside; we

would do well to imitate his words of char ity toward those who differed
with him. Speaking of Baptist theologian A. H. Strong's accusation of
heresy in Brethren doctrine, Ironside replied, "It passes our
comprehension how any man, or set of men, with an atom of genuine
love for the Lord and His people, can deliberately brand as heretics
fellow-believers whose lives are generally fragrant with Christian graces,
who stand unflinchingly for the inspiration of the entire Bible, simply
because they hold different views on prophecy. Dr. Strong evidently does
not believe in the secret rapture of the saints, but in the coming of the
Lord in judgment at the end of the world. `Brethren' would not brand him
as a heretic for this, though they feel he has lost much by his defective
views." Let us distinguish if we will between adequate and defective
views of prophetic interpretation, but let us not be guilty of accusing
another of heresy or liberalism because he does not agree with our pattern
of prophetic truth.

Those who "love His appearing" should close ranks and stand together
on the great fundamentals of the Word of God. A monument to American
Fundamentalism is the series of twelve small volumes, published in 1909-
11, financed by two laymen and sent to every Protestant minister in
America. The purpose of The Fundamentals was to unite those who stood
squarely on the fundamentals of the faith and to make a powerful
statement in face of the inroads of liberalism. Included in the circle of
defenders of the faith were not only dispensationalists like R. A. Torrey,
A. T. Pierson, J. M. Gray, C. I. Scofield and A. C. Gaebelein, but non-
dispensationalists like W. G. Moorehead, W. J. Erdman, H. W. Frost and
C. R. Erdman, and even postmillennialists James Orr, B. B. Warfield, and
E. Y. Mullins. Why can such unity not be demonstrated today?

Ten years later, the Fundamentalist movement within the Northern

Baptist Convention was organized. Describing the first Fundamentalist
convention held in Buffalo in 1920, Curtis Lee Laws wrote, "The
movement . . . was in no sense a premillennialist movement, but in every
sense a conservative movement. Premillennialists were much in evidence
because premillennialists are always sound on the fundamentals, but
eschatological questions did not enter into any of the Buffalo
controversies. Standing solidly together in the battle for the re-
enthronement of the fundamentals of our holy faith were
premillennialists, postmillennialists, promillennialists and
nomillennialists. Fortunately the conservative group contains no one who
repudiates the blessed doctrine of the second coming of our Lord, but the
group does contain those who differ radically with one another
concerning the whole millennial question." If those who are "set for the
defense of the faith" can stand together in the same spirit of basic unity in
spite of differences in details, they will win far more ground than they
will if they squander their energies in controversy.
3
THE VOCABULARY OF THE
BLESSED HOPE

N THE first two chapters, we have traced the history of prophetic

interpretation and discovered three things. The Blessed Hope of the early
church was not a pretribulation rapture but the second coming of Christ at
the end of the Tribulation. Pretribulationism is a teaching which arose in
the nineteenth century among the Plymouth Brethren whence it came to
America where, for historical reasons which can be discerned, it was
warmly received and widely propagated. However, many devout men
who first accepted this teaching were later, upon mature study, compelled
to reverse themselves and admit that they could not find this doctrine in
the Word of God.

We must now look more closely into the Scriptures to discover what
they teach concerning the return of Christ, the Rapture and the
Tribulation, and we would first look at the vocabulary which is used of
Christ's second advent. Strictly speaking, the Bible has little to say about
a "second advent." Hebrews 9:28 says that he "shall appear a second
time," and Acts 1:11 reads, "this Jesus, who was received up from you
into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him going into
heaven."1 The expression, "the second advent" is the language of
theology; the expression does not occur in Scripture. The Word speaks of
His coming (parousia), His revelation (apokalypsis) and His
manifestation (epiphaneia).

Pretribulationism teaches that the second coming of Christ is to be

divided into two aspects which, it is assumed, are separated by the Great
Tribulation. These two events are called the Rapture and the Revelation.
The Rapture, or catching up of the Church to meet the Lord in the air, is a
different event from the Revelation when He will appear in the
manifestation of His glory. The Rapture occurs before the Tribulation,
while the Revelation occurs when Christ comes to end the Tribulation and
to execute righteous judgment upon the earth. At the Rapture, Christ
comes in the air for His saints (Jn. 14:3) ; during the interval of the seven
year Tribulation, the saints are with the Lord in the air receiving their
rewards at the bema of Christ. At the Revelation, Christ comes to earth
with His saints (I Thess. 3:13). As one writer has said, "He certainly must
come for them before he can come with them."

Since the Rapture precedes the Tribulation, it is assumed that it may

occur at any moment; but the Revelation cannot occur until after the
appearance of Antichrist and the Great Tribulation. "The failure to make
this distinction has led to great confusion among commentators on this
subject." The coming of Christ for the Rapture of the Church will be a
secret coming and will be invisible to any except the Church; while the
Revelation will be a glorious outshining which will be evident to all the
world.

Such is the outline of prophetic events taught by pretribulationists. Is

this view really taught in the Word of God? If such a pattern of truth is
really embodied in the Scriptures, it should be evident from an analysis of
the terminology which is used in connection with the coming of Christ. If
however this terminology does not sustain the teaching of two aspects in
Christ's coming, we shall be forced to conclude that His return will be a
single, glorious event.

Parousia. Three words are employed in the New Testament to describe

the second advent. The first is parousia which means "coming," "arrival"
or "presence." This is His people glory and honor because of their
steadfastness is used in connection with the Rapture of the Church. "We
that are alive, that are left unto the parousia of the Lord, shall in no wise
precede them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend
from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the
trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first : then we that are
alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord" (I Thess.
4:15-17). It is very difficult to find a secret coming of Christ in these
verses. His coming will be attended with a shout, with the voice of the
archangel, and with the heavenly trumpet. Someone has said that the
shout and the trumpet sound will be loud enough to wake the dead!

Furthermore, the parousia of Christ will occur not only to rapture the
Church and to raise the righteous dead, but also to destroy the Man of
Lawlessness, the Antichrist. "And then shall be revealed the lawless one,
whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of his mouth, and bring to
naught by the manifestation of his parousia" (II Thess. 2:8). This is
obviously no secret event, for the parousia of Christ will be an outshining,
a manifestation. Furthermore, this verse locates the parousia at the end of
the Tribulation. One would naturally conclude by comparing the verses
just cited that the Rapture of the living saints, the resurrection of those
who have died, and the judgment upon the Antichrist will all take place at
the same time, namely, at the parousia of Jesus at the end of Tribulation.

Furthermore, it is at His parousia that Jesus will be accompanied by all

His saints. Paul prays that God may establish the Thessalonians in
holiness "at the parousia of our Lord Jesus with all his saints" (I Thess.
3:13). At His parousia the Lord will come to bring His saints with Him, to
raise the righteous dead, to rapture the living believers, and to destroy
Antichrist.

The parousia will be a glorious event. Christ will destroy the Man of
Lawlessness by the breath of his mouth and "by the manifestation
(literally, "epiphany" or "outshining") of his parousia" (II Thess. 2:8). The
rendition of the King James version is not wrong: "by the brightness of
his coming." This epiphany will be a glorious event, for Paul speaks of
"the epiphany of the glory of our great God and our Saviour" (Titus 2:13).

We find the same teaching of a glorious visible parousia in Jesus'

words. "For as the lightning cometh forth from the east, and is seen even
unto the west; so shall be the parousia of the Son of man" (Matt. 24:27).
It will be like a bolt of lightning, glorious, visible, evident to all.

The usual answer given to these facts by those who separate the coming
of Christ into two parts is that parousia means "presence" and therefore
covers the entire period of time which is introduced by the Rapture and
the beginning of the Tribulation. Thus, we are told, parousia can refer
either to the coming of Christ at the Rapture or to His Revelation at the
end of the Tribulation.

It is true that sometimes parousia does mean "presence." Paul contrasts

his presence (parousia) with the Philippians with his absence (apousia)
from them (Phil. 2:12). The Corinthians accused Paul of inconsistency,
because "his letters ... are strong, but his bodily presence is weak" (II Cor.
10:10). However, the word does not always mean "presence"; more often
it means "arrival." When Paul in Ephesus received envoys from Corinth,
he rejoiced at their parousia, i.e., their coming or arrival (I Cor. 16:17).
When Paul was concerned about the condition of things at Corinth, he
was comforted by the arrival (parousia) of Titus (II Cor. 7:6). It was not
the presence of Titus but his arrival with good news from Corinth that
provided the comfort. To translate parousia by "presence" would empty it
of its particular point. This is illustrated in the following instances : "Be
patient, brethren, until the parousia of the Lord . . . Be ye also patient;
establish your hearts; for the parousia of the Lord is at hand" (Jas. 5:7-8).
"Where is the promise of his parousia?" (II Pet. 3:4). In these verses it is
the coming, the return, the advent of the Lora which is called for;
"presence" does not suit the context.

It is not the "presence" so much as the "coming" of Christ which is

required in the verses we have just discussed. It is at the coming, the
advent of Christ, that the dead will be raised and the living caught up;
"presence" does not fit. It is at His coming, His advent, not His presence,
that He will be accompanied by His saints. His coming, His advent, will
be like a bolt of lightning. The parousia of Christ is His second coming,
and it will bring both salvation and judgment : salvation of the saints, and
judgment of the world.
 Apokalypse. A second word used of our Lord's return is apokalypsis
which means "revelation." The apokalypse or Revelation of Christ is
distinguished by pretribulationists from the Rapture of the Church and is
placed at the end of the Tribulation when Christ comes in glory to bring
judgment upon the world. If this view is correct, then the apokalypse of
Christ is not primarily The Blessed Hope of the Christian. When the
Revelation occurs, the saints will have been raptured and will have
received from the hand of Christ their rewards for the things done in the
body. They will already have entered into the full enjoyment of life and
fellowship with Christ. The apokalypse of Christ is for judgment of the
wicked, not for the salvation of the Church. According to
pretribulationism, the Rapture at the secret coming of Christ is our
blessed hope and the object of our fond expectation, not the Revelation.

This, however, is not what we find in the Scripture. We are "waiting for
the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Cor. 1:7). According to
pretribulationism, we are not waiting for the Revelation but for the
Rapture. The Church is to suffer affliction until the time of the
apokalypse of Christ. Paul says that "it is a righteous thing with God to
recompense affliction to them that afflict you, and to you that are
afflicted, rest with us, at the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ from
heaven, with the angels of his power in flaming fire" (II Thess. 1:6,7).
According- to pretribulationism, this rest from persecution has already
been experienced at the Rapture ; it does not await the Revelation of
Jesus Christ. But the Word of God says it is received at the Revelation.

It has recently been argued that the expression in the Greek does not
mean "when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed," but "in the revelation of
the Lord Jesus," i.e., not the moment when Christ is revealed but the
period of time during which His revelation occurs. When Christ is
revealed, the afflicted will already be enjoying rest.

This however is a very unnatural interpretation of Paul's language. Let

us take note of the full expression: "if indeed it is a righteous thing with
God to recompense ... to you who are afflicted rest with us, in the
revelation of the Lord Jesus." The verb "to recompense" controls two
objects: 1. affliction to those who afflict you ; 2. rest to you who are
afflicted. Both the recompense of affliction and of rest will be "in the
revelation of the Lord." If affliction is to be given when Christ is
revealed, then the rest must also be given when Christ is revealed. To say
that the rest has already been received and is being enjoyed is imposing
upon the verse an assumption which is controverted by the wording of the
passage.

Peter employs the same expression. Now we are partakers of the

sufferings of Christ, that "at the revelation of his glory also ye may
rejoice with exceeding joy" (I Pet. 4:13). This suggests that the fiery trial
will be terminated only at the apokalypse of Christ. Furthermore, Peter
says that the genuineness of our faith will bring "praise and glory and
honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (I Pet. 1:7). According to
pretribulationism, this glory and honor has already been experienced at an
earlier time at the Rapture of the Church. This verse, however, asserts that
one of the purposes of the apokalypse of Christ is to bring to His people
glory and honor because of their steadfastness in their faith. Finally, Peter
assures us that our hope of the perfection in grace will be brought unto us
at the Revelation of Jesus Christ (I Pet. 1:13). All of these promises direct
our hope of the fullness of our salvation not to the Rapture but to the
Revelation of Christ. If these two events are one and the same, these
verses are full of meaning. If, however, these blessings are not received at
the Revelation but at an earlier Rapture, these verses are quite perplexing
and difficult. It is difficult to see how a distinction can be made between
these two events. The Revelation is continually made the object of our
hope; the Rapture must therefore occur at the Revelation of Christ. The
Scripture nowhere asserts that there is a Rapture which will take place
before the Revelation.

Epiphany. The third word which is used of Christ's second coming is

epiphaneia which means "manifestation" and must therefore, according to
the pretribulation scheme, refer not to the Rapture of the Church and a
secret coming of Christ at the beginning of the Tribulation but to the
Revelation of Christ with His saints at the end of the Tribulation to bring
judgment upon the world. It is indeed used in this latter meaning, for
Christ will slay the man of lawlessness by the "epiphany of his parousia"
(II Thess. 2:8). It is clear that His epiphany will occur at the end of the
Tribulation.

This epiphany of Christ is, however, like His apokalypse the object of
the believer's hope, as it could not be if the Church had received the
object of its hope at an earlier time at the Rapture. Paul exhorts us to keep
the commandment without spot and without reproach "until the epiphany
of our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Tim. 6:14). At the end of his life, Paul
expresses confidence that he has fought a good fight, and looking forward
to the day of rewards at the judgment seat of Christ, he says, "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 also to
all them that have loved his epiphany" (II Tim. 4:8). One can only
conclude from a passage such as this that "that day" which Paul
anticipates as a day of rewards is the day of Christ's epiphany. It is
therefore a day upon which Christians have set their affection, the object
of Christian hope. And it is the day of giving rewards to believers.
Pretribulationism places the judgment of rewards between the Rapture
and the Revelation. Here, it is located at the epiphany, which is the same
as the Revelation, at the end of the Tribulation.

This line of thought is clinched by Titus 2:13 and 14: "looking for the
blessed hope and the epiphany of the glory of the great God and Saviour
Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all
iniquity and purify unto himself a people for his own possession, zealous
of good works." The Blessed Hope of the Church is the epiphany of the
glory of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.

If the Rapture of the Church, when we are caught up to meet Christ in

the air, is separated by a considerable period of time from His apokalypse
and His epiphany, then this is strange language indeed. For according to
pretribulationism the coming of Christ at the end of the Tribulation has
nothing to do with the reward of His saints or with the salvation of the
righteous. The dead have already been raised and the living translated
into their resurrection bodies. The judgment of works is now past and the
rewards of Christ to His faithful servants have been distributed. The
apokalypse and the epiphany of Christ at the end of the Tribulation have
as their object judgment and not salvation. Yet according to the Word of
God, this epiphany is our blessed hope; it is the time when we shall be
rewarded ; it is the time when we shall be redeemed from all iniquity and
purified to become God's perfect possession; it is the Blessed Hope of
perfect union in fellowship with Christ. Does it not seem then that the
Rapture of the Church is to take place at the epiphany, not seven years
earlier?

Certainly if one can make anything of language at all, no distinction

can be made between the parousia, the apokalypse, and the epiphany of
our Lord. They are one and the same event. Furthermore, as we have
already indicated, although it is argued that the parousia means
"presence" and therefore covers the entire period of time introduced by
His coming to rapture the Church, it is clear from Scripture's use of the
words apokalypse and epiphany that the Revelation of Christ is not an
event which has to do exclusively with judgment. It is also the day upon
which the believer's hope is set when 2e will enter into the completed
blessings of salvation at Christ's second coming.

We can only conclude that the distinction between the Rapture of the
Church and the Revelation of Christ is an inference which is nowhere
asserted by the Word of God and not required by the teminology relating
to the return of Christ. On the contrary, if any inference is to be drawn,
the terminology suggests that the Revelation of Christ is, like the Rapture,
the day of the believer's salvation when he enters into consummated
fellowship with the Lord and receives his reward from the hand of the
Lord. The parousia, the apokalypse, and the epiphany appear to be a
single event. Any division of Christ's coming into two parts is an
unproven inference.

The fact that even pretribulationists feel some embarrassment in trying

to separate the second coming of Christ into two events or even into two
separate parts may be seen in the contention of one of the most recent
writers of this school who maintains that the return of Christ for His
Church is not the second coming of Christ. This view makes a distinction
between the return of Christ and His second coming. This is an utterly
unwarranted distinction. No support is sought for it in the words used to
describe Christ's return. The words "return" and "second coming" are not
properly speaking Biblical words in that the two words do not represent
any equivalent Greek words. There is no difference in the concepts
conveyed to the mind by re turn and coming. It is in other words an
artificial and impossible distinction. Christ's parousia is His return ; His
return is His coming; His coming is His second advent.

The vocabulary used of our Lord's return lends no support for the idea
of two comings of Christ or of two aspects of His coming. On the
contrary, it substantiates the view that the return of Christ will be a single,
indivisible glorious event.
4
THE TRIBULATION, THE
RAPTURE, AND
THE RESURRECTION

'E TURN now to a consideration of the passages of Scripture

which deal with the Great Tribulation, the Rapture of the Church, and the
Resurrection to determine whether or not the Rapture and the
Resurrection occur at the beginning or the end of the Tribulation.

Everyone agrees that the Scriptures teach that Christ will appear in
glory at the end of the Tribulation. The Word of God is indisputably clear
on this point. "Immediately after the tribulation of those days," cosmic
signs and convulsions will occur. "Then shall appear the sign of the Son
of man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and
they shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power
and great glory" (Matt. 24:29, 31). The preceding chapter has discussed
many verses which place the coming of Christ at the end of the
Tribulation.

Furthermore, we have found no support in our study of the vocabulary

used of Christ's return for the theory that before this glorious
manifestation of Christ, He will come secretly to rapture the Church.
Thus far, all evidence points to a single, indivisible coming of the Lord.

The natural assumption is that the Rapture of the Church and the
Resurrection of the dead in Christ will take place at His glorious coming.
The burden of proof rests on those who teach that this is not the proper
order of events. We know Christ is coming at the end of the Tribulation.
We know the living saints are to be caught up to be with Christ when He
comes. We know the dead in Christ will be raised at His coming. The
Word of God is clear on these points.

If we are to have equal certainty that the Rapture and the Resurrection
do not occur at the coming of Christ at the end of the Tribulation but at a
secret coming before the Tribulation begins, the Word of God should be
equally clear. We cannot lend the authority of the Word of God to an
assumption in light of which the Scripture is interpreted, unless such an
assumption is explicitly taught or is demanded by the data of Scripture. If
the Rapture is to precede the Tribulation, certainly some of the Scriptures
which predict the Rapture and the Tribulation and the Resurrection should
make clear this order of events. We must examine carefully these
passages to determine what they teach.

In this chapter we shall first look at the three great passages which
describe the Great Tribulation to discover if they place the coming of
Christ and the Rapture of the Church at its beginning. Then we shall
examine the passages which prophesy the Rapture to ask if this event is
placed before the Tribulation. We shall turn then to the verses which deal
with the resurrection of believers to see where this resurrection is located.
Finally, we shall consider several single verses which are held to affirm
the removal of the Church before the Tribulation.

We may be permitted to limit this study to the New Testament teaching,

for pretribulationists assert that the Church does not appear in the Old
Testament predictions. Since our study has to do with the Church and the
Tribulation, any evidence deduced from the Old Testament would be
considered irrelevant by pretribulationists.

The Great Tribulation in the Olivet Discourse

In the Olivet Discourse, our Lord sketched the course of this age (Matt.
24:4-14),' the events of the Great Tribulation including the coming of
Antichrist who is called the Abomination of Desolation (vv. 15-25), and
the glorious second coming of the Son of Man (vv. Z6-31). The only
verse in this discourse which can possibly be construed to refer to the
Rapture is verse 31, "And he shall send forth his angels with a great
sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four
winds, from one end of heaven to the other."

There are elements of striking similarity between this verse and Paul's
teaching about the Rapture of the Church. "For the Lord himself shall
descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and
with the trump of God (I Thess. 4:16). In both passages are mentioned the
coming of Christ, the sounding of a trumpet, and the accompanying
presence of angels. Furthermore, the word "gather together" (episunago)
in Matthew 24:31 is the verb whose noun (episunagoge) is used in I
Thessalonians 2:1 of our "gathering together" unto the Lord at the
Rapture. If this is not the Rapture of the Church, then our Lord was
altogether silent about this subject in His Olivet Discourse; and
pretribulationists assert that this is indeed the case. It is, however,
customary for many pretribulation teachers to assume that the Rapture is
to be placed somewhere before verse 14 of Matthew 24, for "this gospel
of the kingdom" is taken to be the announcement of the millennial,
Davidic kingdom which is about to be established by the return of Christ,
and whose establishment is to be proclaimed throughout all the world by
a Jewish remnant after the Church has been raptured. There is, however,
no hint in the Gospels that this is the case. The Rapture of the Church
before the Tribulation is an assumption; it is not taught in the Olivet
Discourse.

11 Thessalonians 2

The coming of Antichrist and the persecution which he will inflict upon
God's people are prophesied by Paul in II Thessalonians 2. Nowhere does
Paul say that the Rapture of the Church is to precede these events. The
prophecy of the Rapture of the Church in I Thessalonians 4 says nothing
about the Tribulation. Indeed, as one reads the opening verses of the
prophecy of Antichrist, one gains the impression that such events as the
great apostasy and the appearance of the Man of Lawlessness are to take
place before "the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering
together unto him" (II Thess. 2:1). For if the Church is not to be in the
world when the Man of Lawlessness appears, Paul's argument to the
Thessalonians seems to be rather badly directed. In his first letter, Paul
had taught them of the resurrection of the dead and the Rapture of the
Church at the second coming of Christ. He did not assert that these events
would precede the Tribulation. This letter created the reaction that the
Day of the Lord had already come and that the end of the world was
immediately at hand (II Thess. 2:2). If this "day of the Lord" is to be
identified with the glorious Revelation of Christ at the end of the
Tribulation, then Paul's argument in this prophecy has omitted its most
important point, namely, that the Rapture is the first event which will take
place; and since the Rapture had not taken place and the Thessalonian
Christians were still on earth, it was impossible that the Day of the Lord
had come. Such things as the apostasy and the appearance of the Man of
Lawlessness could have only an academic interest for the Thessalonians
if they were to be caught up from the earth before these events took place.

On the contrary, Paul writes as though Christians needed to be warned

against the deception of the Antichrist, and he rejoices that God has
chosen them from the beginning to be saved (vs. 13), not to perish
through delusion by the Antichrist (vs. 10f). One would naturally
conclude from reading Paul's words that the coming of the Lord, our
gathering together unto Him, and the day of the Lord are one and the
same event which will be preceded by the apostasy and the Man of
Lawlessness. Since the Man of Lawlessness was not on the horizon, one
might know that the day of the Lord had not yet come.

Paul's failure at this point to assert that the Rapture of the Church
would be the first in this succession of events would be a surrender of his
strongest argument to settle the Thessalonian problem. The day of the
Lord could not possibly have come, for the Rapture had not taken place.
Why did he not simply assert this to be true? He does not do so; there is
no affirmation of a pretribulation rapture here.

The force of this line of reasoning may be illustrated by the attempt of a

recent important study on pretribulationism to find the Rapture in this
chapter in the word aposta- sia. The word is construed to mean
"departure," i.e., the departure of the Church from earth in the Rapture.
This rendition results in the following order of events : the departure
(Rapture), Man of Lawlessness, the Revelation of Christ.

"Departure" is an unnatural rendition of apostasies. Before the book

was published, this interpretation appeared in Our Hope and the reactions
of a number of outstanding Christian teachers were solicited. Suffice it to
say that a strong majority of the men consulted felt that this interpretation
was extremely improbable. (See Our Hope, June, 1950).

Revelation 8-16

The third passage dealing with the Great Tribulation is in the book of
Revelation, chapters 8 through 16, where we have the appearance of the
Beast whom we call the Antichrist, the terrible persecution which he
inflicts upon the saints of God, the sounding of the seven trumpets and
the outpouring of the seven vials which constitute the Great Tribulation
from the point of view of the divine judgment on the world. There is no
pretribulation rapture in this prophecy. The only description of the second
coming of Christ in the book of Revelation is His glorious coming in
chapter 19; and the Rapture of the Church is altogether omitted. His
coming is also mentioned in 1:7, 2:25.

Some students find the "door opened in heaven" and the voice which
said to John, "Come up hither" (Rev. 4:1) to be a reference to the Rapture
of the Church; but this is interpretation, human opinion, and not the
declaration of Scripture. One of the most influential writers of this school
tells us that the Church is raptured between the close of chapter 3 and the
opening of chapter 4, but the Seer does not record this event; he takes it
for granted. This is just the point. To find a pretribulation rapture in the
book which says most about the Great Tribulation, one must take it for
granted. The Word of God nowhere says that the Rapture will precede the
Tribulation.

The "rapture" of John in Revelation 4:1, if we may call it that, is his

way of indicating that he entered into an ecstatic experience when, "in the
Spirit," he was given visions of the last things. Paul speaks of a similar
experience when he was "caught up into the third heaven" (II Cor. 12:2).
So completely overwhelmed was he, so utterly were his faculties under
the control of the Holy Spirit that he was not sure whether he was "in the
body or apart from the body" (vs. 3). The open door and the voice from
heaven in Revelation 4:1 have nothing to do with the Church but only
with the experience of the Apostle.

The argument that the Church must be in heaven after 4:1 because the
view-point of the book thereafter is heavenly does not reckon with the
fact that John's heavenly view-point is not sustained throughout the book.
In 10:1. John sees an angel "coming down out of heaven" ; John is now
apparently on earth (see also 18:1). In chapter 11, he is on earth to
measure the Temple. But in 11:14ff., he is in heaven again. In 13:1, he is
on earth and sees the Beast arising out of the sea; and in 14:1, he sees the
144,000 in Jerusalem in the millennial kingdom. John's view-point
alternates between heaven and earth ; but throughout the entire
experience, he is in ecstasy beholding visions imparted to him by the
Spirit of God. Both view-points re fer to the subjective visions of the
inspired Apostle and provide no clue for the interpretation of the book.

Our survey of these three great passages which set forth the coming of
Antichrist and the Great Tribulation shows clearly that none of them
asserts that the Church is to be raptured at the beginning of the
Tribulation. When such a doctrine is attributed to these Scriptures, it is an
inference and not the assertion of the Word of God.

The Rapture and the Tribulation

If a pretribulation rapture is a Biblical doctrine, it ought to be clearly set

forth in the Scriptures which prophesy the Rapture of the Church. In fact,
pretribulationists tell us that the Rapture is a mystery, first revealed to
Paul; and we are led to assume that this mystery, this new truth now
divinely disclosed is the time of the Rapture, viz., that it will occur before
the Tribulation.

Only one passage in the Word of God describes the Rapture by name.
Other passages describe the change which will take place in the living
saints at that day, especially I Corinthians 15:51-53 and Philippians 3:20-
21. The latter verse contains no indication of time and therefore
contributes nothing to our study.
 The Thessalonians were concerned about the fate of believers who died
before the coming of Christ. Paul assures them that they need not sorrow
as do men who have no hope. "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose
again, even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring
with him. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we that are
alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede
them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from
heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump
of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we that are alive, that
are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the
Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord" (I Thess. 4:14-17).

The word "Rapture" is derived from the Latin word rapio which is
found in the Latin Bible in verse 17 and translated "caught up." This
Rapture will occur at the parousia of Jesus. The only aspect of the
parousia which Paul has in mind is its relationship to believers. In this
passage he says nothing about its relationship to the world. The parousia
of Jesus in this passage has for its object union with all believers, whether
they are dead or living. The dead "in Christ," i.e., believers only, will be
raised in their glorious resurrection bodies. Then the remaining believers,
those who are still alive, will be caught up, raptured, to meet the Lord in
the air.

The Rapture means two things : 1). Union with the Lord. This is the
thought emphasized in the Thessalonian epistle. Paul says nothing about
the character of the resurrection body; in fact, he does not even mention
it. He speaks only of blessed union with Christ. The emphasis in this
meeting is not upon the place - in the air. Pretribulationists place the
emphasis here and insist that Jesus does not come to the earth. This,
however, is not asserted by the Scripture. Nothing is said about what
happens immediately after the meeting. It is just as possible, and, as we
shall show later on, even suggested by the word used for the "meeting,"
that after this meeting, Jesus continues His descent to the earth, but now
accompanied by His saints. The one point of emphasis is the fact of union
- we are raptured to meet the Lord. Thus shall we ever be with the Lord,
whether in the air, in heaven, or on earth.
 This meeting is illustrated in the parable of the virgins. They were
waiting for the hour of the wedding feast. When the bridegroom
approached, they went out to meet him and then accompanied him into
the marriage feast. The Rapture has as its first objective the union of the
living Church with her returning Lord.

2). The second significance of the Rapture is the transformation of the

bodies of living believers. The Rapture is not only the moment of union
with Christ when faith is translated into sight; it is the symbol of the
redemption of the body (Rom. 8:23). The resurrection of the dead saints
is not a revivification, i.e., a return to the level of experience and to the
conditions which prevailed during mortal life on earth. Lazarus
apparently experienced such a resurrection. He was restored to physical
life and, we may assume, died again after filling out the natural span of
life. His was a physical resurrection.

The resurrection of saints at the parousia of Christ is not a physical

resurrection, although it is a bodily resurrection. It is not a restoration to
physical life; it is an introduction into a new level of life which
transforms the very bodily existence. At His coming, Christ will "fashion
anew (literally, metamorphose) the body of our humiliation that it may be
conformed to the body of his glory" (Phil. 3:21). Our Lord's resurrection
body was the same and yet very different from His physical body. It was a
real body, visible, palpable, recognizable ; and yet it moved on a higher
level of life. Apparently, from our Gospel accounts, we are to conclude
that it no longer was limited to what we call natural laws. Jesus could go
and come at will as He never did in the days of His flesh.

So will it be with the resurrection body of believers. Paul describes it as

an incorruptible, glorious, powerful, spiritual body (I Cor. 15:42-44). This
is not a body made out of spirit or constituted of spirit; it is a body
completely infused by the power and quickened by the life of the Holy
Spirit, a body perfectly designed for the enjoyment of eternal life. What a
glorious realization that even our bodies are to be redeemed from
weakness, pain, decay and death.
 This transformation will occur for the dead saints at the first
resurrection; it will occur for the living saints at the Rapture. The
Rapture, the catching up to meet the Lord in the air, is the sign that the
living, as well as the dead, have put on the glorious resurrection body.
They are no longer earthbound, mortal creatures but have entered into the
fullness of life, which means a new level of existence whose character we
can now only faintly discern. "We shall not all sleep (in death), but we
shall all (dead and living saints) be changed . . . the dead shall be raised
incorruptible, and we (the living) shall be changed" (I Cor. 15:51-52).

This glorious event, the Rapture of the Church, is a mystery (I Cor.

15:51). A mystery is a divine truth, purposed by God ages ago, but
revealed to men only in due time (Rom. 16:25-26). The mystery of the
Rapture is not the time of the Rapture as pretribulationists assume; it is
the fact of the Rapture. God had never before revealed to men what
would be the particular lot of the living saints at the end of the age. The
doctrine of resurrection had long been taught (cf. Dan. 12:2), but the fact
that the living are to put on their resurrection bodies at the moment of
Christ's return without passing through death and join the resurrected
dead in the presence of Christ is revealed for the first time through the
Apostle Paul. There is an intimation of it, we believe, in Matthew 24:31
when Jesus spoke of the angels gathering the elect from the four corners
of the earth; but this prophecy lacks the details which give to the Rapture
its specific character. How the elect are to be gathered together is not
indicated by our Lord.

The mystery of the Rapture therefore is not the truth that the Rapture is
to occur before the Great Tribulation. It is the fact that the living dead
will be bodily transformed at Jesus' parousia and as a result of the
transformation will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air and so be
ever with the Lord. There is no affirmation in the Scripture that the
Rapture will take place before the Tribulation begins. Such a teaching is
an inference, not the assertion of the Word of God.

The Resurrection and the Tribulation

 If the teaching of a pretribulation rapture is in the Word of God, it ought
to be asserted in the passages where the doctrine of the resurrection is set
forth; for according to pretribulationism, the resurrection of the righteous
will occur before the Great Tribulation takes place. Pretribulationism in
effect divides the resurrection into three parts : the first resurrection (Rev.
20:4-5) - the resurrection of all the saints, which will occur at the coming
of Christ for His Church at the beginning of the Great Tribulation ; the
resurrection of the tribulation martyrs at the end of the Tribulation ; and
the second resurrection at the end of the millennium (Rev. 20:12-15). The
martyr-resurrection is, according to pretribulationism, a part of the first
resurrection.

If in fact the first resurrection is divided into two parts, the first part, the
resurrection of the saints, occurring at the time of the Rapture of the
Church before the Tribulation, and the second part, the resurrection of
martyrs at the end of the Tribulation, the Word of God ought to make this
clear. The two stages of the first resurrection should be as clear as the fact
of .the two resurrections.

Amillennialists deny that there are in fact two resurrections. They speak
of the General Resurrection of all the dead. However, the teaching of two
resurrections is a clear assertion of Scripture, and the teaching of a single
resurrection must pass over several important passages in the Word. The
Revelation speaks explicitly of a first resurrection at the beginning of the
millennium, and it then describes a second resurrection at the end of the
millennium (Rev. 20:4-15). Any interpretation of this first resurrection
which spiritualizes it and refuses to see a bodily resurrection of the same
sort as the second resurrection does not do justice to the demands of
language.2 Two literal bodily resurrections are demanded.

This twofold character of the resurrection is also suggested elsewhere

in the Scriptures. Our Lord spoke of a resurrection of life (the first
resurrection), and a resurrection of judgment (the second resurrection, Jn.
5:29). He spoke of the resurrection of the just as though it was to be
distinguished from the resurrection of the unjust (Lk. 14:14). He spoke of
those "that are accounted worthy to attain to that age, and the resurrection
from the dead" (literally, the resurrection which is from dead ones, Lk.
20:35), indicating that it is a resurrection of some of the dead which will
be an attainment of a favored group who have been accounted worthy of
this particular blessing. Similarly, Paul's hope for the future is set not
upon a general resurrection - a doctrine which he would have held as a
Pharisee (Acts 23:6), but upon the attainment to the "out-resurrection
which is from dead ones" (Phil. 3:11). At the parousia, not the dead in
general, but "they that are Christ's" will be raised (I Cor. 15:23). All of
these passages reinforce the teaching of Revelation 20 that there will be
two resurrections of the dead. This is not an inference but the explicit
affirmation of Scripture, reinforced by other Scriptures which have
inferential value.

Does the Word similarly teach that the first resurrection will consist of
two stages, the first of which will occur at the beginning of the
Tribulation? No such teaching appears in the Scripture. Notes of time
which define the resurrection are very few. The resurrection will occur at
"the last day" (Jn. 6:39, 40, 44, 54; 11:24). A reference to the resurrection
is included in Paul's longing for the transformation of the body at the
coming of Christ (Phil. 3:20-21), but the time is not clearly stated.
References to the resurrection are found in Romans 6:5, 8:11, II Timothy
2:18, Acts 17:18, 24:15, Hebrews 6:2, 11:35, but no indications of time
enable us to place the resurrection before the Tribulation.

Other references having more specific temporal reference are I

Corinthians 15:23, where it occurs at the parousia of our Lord, and I
Thessalonians 4:16, where it occurs when the Lord descends from
heaven; but these passages say nothing about the relationship of the
resurrection to the Tribulation. The question of the time of the parousia
will be discussed below.

The one passage which explicitly locates the first resurrection is the
prophecy in Revelation 20, and this is also the only passage which
describes the resurrection of martyrs. In chapter 19, Christ comes on a
white horse as a victorious conqueror to destroy the Antichrist and to
punish the kings who supported him. After the battle of Armageddon
occurs the resurrection. John saw two groups of people: he saw thrones
and people seated upon them to whom judgment was given. John says
little about this first group because his main concern is with those who
have been slain by Antichrist. He at once singles out for special attention
this second group : the souls of them who had been martyred by the Beast
in the Great Tribulation. Both groups come to life at the same time in the
first resurrection.

The identity of the second group is clear. But who are contained in the
first, undefined group? Only one possibility commends itself. They are
the righteous who have died naturally, who have not been martyred. They
are the saints in general, the "dead in Christ" (I Thess. 4:16). To say that
this resurrection occurred back before chapter 4 is contradicted by the
clear assertion of the passage : "They came to life" (vs. 4). The subject of
the verb is both groups - those seated on thrones, and the martyrs. There
is no mention or suggestion of a resurrection earlier than the glorious
return of Christ at the end of the Tribulation, and this passage locates the
resurrection both of saints and martyrs at the Revelation of Christ.

The teaching that a resurrection of saints takes place at the beginning of

the Tribulation is an assumption utterly unsupported by the Scriptures
that teach resurrection, and it is contradicted by Revelation 20.

I Thessalonians 5:9

We must consider finally a number of verses which are held by

pretribulationists to teach that the Church will be removed from the world
before the Tribulation occurs. In I Thessalonians 5:9, Paul says, "For God
appointed us not unto wrath, but unto the obtaining of salvation through
our Lord Jesus Christ." Since the Great Tribulation is to consist in part of
the outpouring of God's wrath upon a decadent and sinful society (Rev.
16:1), and since God has not appointed His people to experience wrath,
must we not conclude that the Church is to be removed before God's
wrath is poured out upon the earth?
 We hasten here to agree that the Church which Christ has redeemed by
His precious blood will never experience the wrath of God. If the
question of the Rapture and the Tribulation is to be settled on this issue
alone, the only alternative is a pretribulation rapture, for the Church will
never suffer God's wrath.

However, this admission does not lead to pretribulationism, for the

verse in question says nothing about either the Rapture or the Tribulation.
All it asserts is that the Church will not fall under God's wrath. The wrath
in question may not refer to the Tribulation at all, but to God's wrath in
the final judgment (Rom. 2:5). However, if it does include the Great
Tribulation, the verse neither asserts nor suggests that the Church will be
removed from the world; it is only promised deliverance.

The Israelites were in Egypt during the visitation of the plagues upon
the Egyptians but they were sheltered from the worst of these plagues
which befell the Egyptians. In a similar way it is possible that the Church
may find herself on earth during the period of the Tribulation but will by
divine protection be sheltered from the sufferings entailed by the
outpouring of the bowls of wrath and thus be delivered from the wrath to
come. I Thessalonians 5:9 says nothing about the Rapture. That it does is
an unjustified inference. It says only that the Church will be delivered
from wrath. How the deliverance is to be effected is not suggested. If the
Church is on earth during the Great Tribulation but is divinely sheltered
from wrath, this verse is fulfilled. This is all it asserts.

Revelation 3:10

This verse appears at first sight to teach a pretribulation rapture.

"Because thou didst keep the word of my patience, I also will keep thee
from the hour of trial, that hour which is to come upon the whole world,
to try them that dwell upon the earth." This prophecy refers to the Great
Tribulation, and it is directed not against God's people but against the
"earth-dwellers." This phrase is a recurring one in the Revelation by
which the author designates the people of a godless society who have
surrendered themselves to the worship of Antichrist and who are to suffer
the wrath of God (cf. 6:10, 8:13, 11:10, 13:8, 14, 17:8). The language of
this verse, taken by itself, could be interpreted to teach complete escape
from the coming hour of Tribulation. The language is, "I will keep thee
out of the hour of trial" (tereso ek).

This language, however, neither asserts nor demands the idea of bodily
removal from the midst of the coming trial. This is proven by the fact that
precisely the same words are used by our Lord in His prayer that God
would keep His disciples "out of the evil" (Tereses ek tou ponerou, Jn.
17:15). In our Lord's prayer, there is no idea of bodily removal of the
disciples from the evil world but of preservation from the power of evil
even when they are in its very presence. A similar thought occurs in
Galatians 1:4, where we read that Christ gave Himself for our sins to
deliver us from (literally, "out of," ek) this present evil age. This does not
refer to a physical removal from the age but to deliverance from its power
and control. "This age" will not pass away until the return of Christ.

In the same way, the promise of Revelation 3:10 of being kept ek the
hour of trial need not be a promise of a re moval from the very physical
presence of tribulation. It is a promise of preservation and deliverance in
and through it. This verse neither asserts that the Rapture is to occur
before the Tribulation, nor does its interpretation require us to think that
such a removal is intended.

Luke 21:36

A third verse which appears to teach bodily deliverance from the

Tribulation and thus to suggest a pretribulation rapture is Luke 21:36.
"But watch ye at every season, making supplication, that ye may prevail
to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the
Son of Man." Many teachers assume that "all these things" refers to
everything which will occur during the period of the Great Tribulation.
However, we must ask, Is this a mere assumption, or does the Word
actually teach it? Does "all of these things" refer to the persecutions of the
Great Tribulation which shall be inflicted upon the people of God by the
Abomination of Desolation - a persecution which is described in Matthew
24:15 through 22?

This eschatological persecution by the Antichrist of the "elect" recorded

in Matthew is not recorded by Luke. Instead, Luke relates the words of
our Lord pertaining to the destruction of Jerusalem which occurred in 70
A. D. In the verses which follow (25-28), Jesus announced the events
which would immediately precede His second coming. There will be
signs in the heavens and distress among the nations as men are filled with
foreboding over "the things which are coming on the world" (v. 26). The
context makes it clear that this fear is caused by the expectation of divine
judgment, of God's wrath, "for the powers of the heaven will be shaken."
The thought is not greatly expanded ; but it clearly has to do with
supernatural events which will attend the return of the Son of Man with
power and great glory. Then we meet the striking statement, "Now when
these things begin to take place, look up and lift your heads, because your
redemption draweth nigh" (v. 28). The events which indicate the
imminent coming of Christ strike fear to the hearts of some but hope to
the hearts of others, who see in these very signs the promise of coming
redemption. This verse excludes the idea of a secret, any-moment coming
of Christ. Recognizable signs are to precede His return to herald its near
approach.

Then, as in Matthew, we read a warning against lapsing into spiritual

stupor, "lest that day come on you suddenly like a snare" (v. 34). From the
context, "that day" can be nothing but the day of the glorious coming of
Christ which will bring judgment to all mankind (v. 35). In light of this
impending judgment, spiritual alertness is imperative. Therefore Jesus
warned, "But watch ye at every season, making supplication, that ye may
prevail to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand
before the Son of man." The antecedent of "all these things" which the
watchful will escape is found in verse 26, "the things which are coming
on the world" which strike fear to the hearts of man - the divine
judgments which will be inflicted at the return of Christ. The world is to
fear the judgments of God's wrath which will accompany "that day," but
the watching believer need not fear them. It is indeed these judgments
which those who are spiritually awake will escape.

This promise has nothing to do with the Tribulation described in

Matthew 24:21 which involves persecution of God's elect by Antichrist.
The parallel verse to Luke 21:26 is not Matthew 24:21f., which describes
the persecution of Antichrist during the Great Tribulation, but Matthew
24:29, 30, which describes the judgment which will fall at the end of the
Tribulation at the appearing of the Son of man. Then, all the tribes of the
earth will mourn because of the impending judgment. "Immediately after
the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall
not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of
the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of
man in heaven; and then shall the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall
see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great
glory .... But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what
watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have
suffered his house to be broken through" (Matt. 24:29, 30, 43). Those
who are spiritually asleep will suffer judgment; but those who are
"watching," that is, who are spiritually awake, will escape judgment and
will stand before the Son of Man.

Luke 21:36 has nothing to do with the question of the Rapture of the
Church. It is a promise that God's people will not be subjected to the
divine judgments which will fall upon an evil world at the second advent
of Christ. We have already met this promise in Revelation 3:10 and I
Thessalonians 5:9. It was also given by our Lord.

We have now completed our survey of the passages which have to do

with the Tribulation, the Rapture, and the Resurrection. Nowhere is the
Rapture placed before the Tribulation. On the contrary, problems of
exegesis are frequently raised if it is assumed that the Rapture precedes
the Tribulation. Most of the Scriptures contain no specific temporal
references as to the relation of these events. We must again emphatically
point out that nowhere does the Word of God affirm that the Rapture and
the Resurrection of believers will precede the Tribulation. The one
passage which contains clear indications of time is Revelation 20, and it
places the resurrection at the end of the Tribulation at the coming of
Christ in glory. Pretribulationism is an inference in light of which
Scripture is interpreted. It is not supported by any affirmations in the
Word of God.
5
A VALID INFERENCE?

E HAVE now examined the terminology used of our Lord's

coming and have found no support for the idea that the return of Christ
will be divided into two aspects - one before and one after the Tribulation.
We have studied the passages which deal with the Tribulation, the
Rapture and the Resurrection and have found that nowhere in these
passages does the Word of God place the Rapture before the Tribulation.
On the contrary, the Resurrection is placed after the Tribulation in the
Revelation.

Pretribulationism is in fact an inference in light of which the Scriptural

teachings about the second coming of Christ and the attending events are
interpreted. We must now examine the most important bases of this
inference to determine if it is a necessary and valid one. We will admit
that even if Scripture did not explicitly affirm a pretribulation rapture, it is
possible that the totality of Scriptural data would demand such a
conclusion ; and in this case, it would be a valid inference. There are in
fact many positions accepted in theology which are inferential in
character. The bases for such inferences must be closely examined. If it
turns out that the reasons for the inference of pretribulationism are
equally susceptible to another interpretation, we shall be compelled to
conclude that it is an unnecessary or even an invalid inference, especially
since the Scriptural data already covered point towards a posttribulation
rapture.

Coming For and With the Saints

 The phrases most commonly used to sustain pretribulationism are those
which describe Christ's coming "for His saints" and "with His saints." At
the Rapture, Christ comes for the saints that He may catch up the living
and raise the dead saints to meet Him in the air. In I Thessalonians 3:13,
Paul spoke of the parousia of the Lord Jesus with all His saints. It is
argued that it is impossible for Christ to come with His saints unless He
has first come for them. There must have been a previous gathering of the
saints unto Christ in the air that He now comes to earth accompanied by
the saints. Therefore, the Rapture must occur in advance of Christ's
coming with the saints and be a separate event.

This interpretation possesses a deceptive simplicity. On the face of it, it

appears very persuasive, but it by no means proves a pretribulation
rapture. What does the Word mean when it says that Christ will come
"with His saints?" The word "saints" means "holy ones," and may not
refer to men at all but to the event described by our Lord in Mark 8:38,
"For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous
and sinful generation, the Son of Man shall also be ashamed of him when
he cometh in the glory of his father with the holy angels." The phrase in I
Thessalonians 3, literally translated reads, "with all his holy ones," and
may mean His holy angels. This at least was the opinion of one of the
editors of the Scofield Reference Bible, William J. Erdman. Of this verse,
Erdman said, "These saints or holy ones are the angels who in other
scriptures are said to come with the Lord ; they accompany him when he
comes for the church as in this verse." If the "holy ones" of this verse are
angels, then it cannot be used to support a pretribulation rapture.

But even if the phrase does refer to redeemed men, which we feel is
more likely, it still provides no necessary support for the idea of two
aspects of Christ's coming. The most natural meaning of the passage is
that it refers to the same event described in I Thessalonians 4:14: "For if
we believe that Christ died and rose again, even so them also that are
fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him." This "coming with
Christ" is simultaneous with the Rapture and the Resurrection as this
verse indicates and is not an event which will occur at a considerable time
after the Rapture. When Christ returns at the time of the Rapture, those
who are dead in Christ God will bring with Him.

Paul's thought may be understood by turning to the word used of

meeting the Lord in the air, apantesis. This noun is used in only three
other places in the New Testament. We find it used of the second coming
of Christ in the parable of the virgins who were waiting for the hour of
the wedding when the bridegroom would come. Finally the cry is raised,
"Behold, the bridegroom ! come ye forth to meet him" (Matt. 25:6). The
virgins then went out to meet the approaching bridegroom and
immediately returned, accompanying him to the wedding. The word is
again used of Paul's visit to Rome. As he approached the city, some of the
brethren heard of his approach and they went out to meet him outside of
the city and so accompanied him as he entered Rome (Acts 28:15,16).

In the same way, the second coming of Christ will be a coming which is
at the same time a coming for His saints and a coming with them. The
Rapture of the Church is essentially an indication of the transformation of
living believers into their glorious resurrection bodies without passing
through death. They are caught up from the earth to be with the Lord and
thus enter into the new realm of their glorified existence along with the
resurrected dead. Thereafter they shall ever be with the Lord, and they
accompany Him as He continues on to the earth. There is no ground
whatsoever to assume that there must be a considerable interval of time
between the Rapture and Christ's coming with His Church. They may be
two aspects of a single indivisible event. In any case the phraseology of
Christ's coming for His saints and with His saints is no proof for the
inference that these are two separate events divided by a number of years.
Such an inference may be drawn, but it is a human interpretation, not the
clear assertion of the Word of God. Other interpretations are equally
possible. There is no proof here of a pretribulation rapture.

Day of Christ, Day of the Lord

Appeal for support of this inference is also made to the phrases "the day
of Christ" and "the day of the Lord." It is maintained that these are two
different days. The day of Christ refers to the time of Christ's coming to
rapture the Church before the Tribulation when He will bestow rewards
upon His people. The day of the Lord is always a day of judgment and
has reference to the apokalypse of Christ at the end of the Tribulation to
bring the visitation of judgment upon the world. Thus when we read of
the events attending the day of the Lord in II Thessalonians 2:2, we are
not to think of the Rapture of the Church, for the day of the Lord refers to
the apokalypse of Christ for judgment at the end of the Tribulation. The
Church has already been raptured.

The day of Christ is indeed a day of blessing and reward, and the day to
which the believer eagerly looks forward (Phil. 1:6, 1:10, 2:16). It is also
true that the day of the Lord will be a fearful day of judgment (Acts 2:20,
II Thess. 2:2,8). This acknowledgment, however, by no means supports
the inference that these are two different days separated by the period of
the Tribulation.

In II Thessalonians, the day of the Lord is the day of the parousia of our
Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together unto him (II Thess. 2:1-2).
In I Thessalonians, after describing the parousia of Christ to rapture the
Church and raise the dead, Paul adds that there is no need for instruction
as to the times and seasons, "for yourselves know perfectly that the day of
the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night" (I Thess. 5:2). The world will
be saying "peace and safety" but there shall come upon them sudden
destruction. Believers, however, "are not in darkness, that that day should
overtake you as a thief" (v. 4). The day of the Lord will not come upon
believers unawares; "so then let us ... watch and be sober" (v. 6).
Believers are to "watch" with reference to the day of the Lord. It will be a
day of surprise only for the world; Christians will be prepared for it, for
they will not be asleep. The day of the Lord will for the Church mean
salvation ; for the world it will mean wrath (vv. 8 and 9). Certainly this
language suggests that the day of the Lord whose coming Paul warns
about in chapter five is the same as the parousia of Christ for the Rapture
and the resurrection; otherwise the exhortation has no point. If the
Rapture has already taken place before the day of the Lord, then Paul
could not say, "But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should
overtake you as a thief" (vs. 4), for "that day," the day of the Lord, will
not overtake believers at all; they will be in heaven, raptured. According
to pretribulationism, they do not need to "watch and be sober" for the day
of the Lord but for the day of Christ; but this passage is concerned not
with the day of Christ, but with the day of the Lord. Surely Paul's warning
to believers to be prepared for the day of the Lord means that they will
see that day but will not be surprised and dismayed by it. The warning is
without point unless believers are to see that day; and if so, the day of
Christ and the day of the Lord are synonymous.

The identity of the day of the Lord and of the day of Christ is further
substantiated by the conflation of these two phrases. God will confirm
His people unto the end that they may be unreprovable "in the day of our
Lord Jesus Christ" (I Cor. 1:8). The day of Jesus Christ and the day of the
Lord are one and the same day, the day of Christian expectation.
Christians are to find delight in one another "in the day of our Lord Jesus"
(II Cor. 1:14). Here again the object of Christian expectation is the day
which is both the day of the Lord and the day of Jesus.

Where does the Word of God assert that the day of Christ is to be
distinguished from the day of the Lord? Where does it say that the day of
Christ occurs before the Tribulation while the day of the Lord occurs at
its end? These are inferences of good and godly men, but not the clear
teaching of the Word of God. If any inference is to be drawn, we must
infer that the two expressions refer to one and the same day which will
bring salvation to the Church but judgment to the world.

Removal of the Holy Spirit

Another basis for the inference that the Church will be raptured before
the Tribulation is the claim that the Word of God teaches that the Holy
Spirit is to be taken out of the world before the Tribulation begins ; and
since the Holy Spirit indwells the Church, we must conclude that the
Church will be taken out of the world when the Holy Spirit is removed.
 This teaching is found in II Thessalonians 2:6, 7: "and now ye know
that which restraineth, to the end that he may be revealed in his own
season. For the mystery of lawlessness doeth already work; only there is
one that restraineth now until he be taken out of the way."
Pretribulationism quite universally maintains that "the one that restraineth
now" is the Holy Spirit. The mystery of lawlessness is already working in
the world, but the Spirit of God who indwells the Church exercises a
restraining power upon lawlessness. There will come a day when this will
no longer be true and when the restraint is removed. This can refer, we
are told, only to a removal of the Holy Spirit from the world in the
Rapture of the Church.

This however is a human interpretation. The Word of God does not say
that the Holy Spirit is the restrainer. In fact, this is a very difficult
passage, for Paul is speaking in very concise language which was
intelligible to the Thessalonians because Paul had already taught them in
person, but it is very difficult for us. We must content ourselves with
pointing out that the passage says nothing at all about the Holy Spirit.
That it refers to the Holy Spirit is nothing more than an inference. Nor
does it say anything about the Rapture of the Church.

A different and a much more natural interpretation is the following. The

expression "until he be taken out of the way" (literally "until he come out
of the midst") may not refer to the restraining power at all but to the
Antichrist. In this case the restraining power is the power of God Himself.
The passage might be paraphrased, "for the mystery of lawlessness
already is working; only there is the one who restrains now, namely God,
until he, the Antichrist, arises out of the midst." This is precisely what
verse six says. "And now do you know that which restraineth, to the end
that he (the Antichrist) may be revealed in his own time." Verses six and
seven thus say the same thing and there is a similar balance in the two
parts of verses six and seven.
We readily admit that this is a human interpretation and is not
authoritative. But it is at least as possible as the interpretation that the
restraining one is the Holy Spirit, and it fits the movement of the passage
more naturally. In any case, any support for a pretribulation rapture from
this passage is nothing more than an assumption. The Scripture says
nothing about a removal of the Holy Spirit or a Rapture of the Church. It
is an inference and not an assertion of the Word of God.

The Teaching of the Revelation. Pretribulationists find ground for the

inference of a pretribulation rapture in the book of Revelation. This
ground is twofold. First, it is claimed that the Church is seen in heaven in
the twentyfour elders (4:4) ; and second, the word "church" appears
frequently in the first three chapters but not at all in chapters four to
nineteen. We must therefore conclude that the Church is no longer on
earth; it has been raptured and taken to heaven. The "saints" seen in the
Tribulation are not the Church but either the Jewish remnant or men
converted in the Tribulation by the world-wide proclamation of the
"Gospel of the Kingdom" by this Jewish remnant.

The Twenty-four elders. Pretribulationalists claim that the twenty-four

elders are the Church in heaven, for they are clothed in white, they are
crowned, and they are seated upon thrones. If the Church is seen in
heaven, we must conclude that it has already been raptured.
 This however is an inference; we are not told that the twenty-four
elders are the Church. The elders may represent the Church and yet
involve no idea of a previous rapture. Many scholars see in the elders the
ideal Church - an anticipation of the final state of things (Alford, Swete,
Lange). The fact that the elders are clothed in white, crowned with
stephanoi - the victor's wreath to be awarded to the Church at the bema of
Christ - and seated on thrones does not prove that they are the Church
after it has been raptured and rewarded. White is the array of angels
(Matt. 28:3, John 20:12, Acts 1:10). The distinction between stephanos,
the victor's wreath, and diadema, the ruler's crown, is not always
followed. Stephanos is used of the ruler's crown in the Greek Bible at II
Samuel 12:30, I Chronicles 20:2, Jeremiah 13:18, Esther 8:15 and
elsewhere. The use of stephanos of the twenty-four elders does not prove
that they are the Church which has received their rewards after the
Rapture; the crowns may be symbolic of rule, not reward.

In the Old Testament, God is sometimes pictured surrounded by a

council of heavenly beings (Ps. 89:6-8). Paul refers to angels as "thrones,
principalities, rulers" (Col. 1:16, Romans 8:38, Eph. 3:10). So the twenty-
four elders may be angelic beings who are pictured as executing the
divine rule of the universe. This interpretation agrees with the fact that
John addresses one of the elders as his superior (7:14), with the same
deference which he displays toward angels (19:9, 22:8). And like the
angel, the elder is sent to interpret one of John's visions (7:14). Probably
therefore the elders are angels (Zahn) ; but if they do represent the
Church, nothing is said whatsoever or intimated about a rapture.

Some have interpreted the open door and the voice calling, "Come up
hither" to symbolize the Rapture (4:1) ; but the voice was addressed to
John, not to the Church, and the open door is associated with the visions
given to John. One of the most influential pretribulation commentators on
Revelation says that the Rapture occurs between chapters three and four,
but John passes over it in silence leaving his readers to assume that it has
taken place. However, if we are to interpret Scripture by assumption, we
can find almost anything we desire in the Word of God by assuming it is
there.
 Evidence for the identification of the elders with the Church is sought
in the rendering of the King James Version of 5:9 where the elders sing a
new song to the Lamb "who hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of
every kindred, tongue and people and nation ; and hast made us unto our
God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth." In this song, the
elders appear to be the Church for they are identified as those redeemed
by the blood of the Lamb, who are to share Christ's millennial reign.

This however is misleading, for the Authorized Version does not give
us the correct form of the song. The American Revised Version, followed
by the Williams and Verkuyl editions and most other modern translations,
correct ly renders their song, "for thou didst purchase unto God with thy
blood men of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation and madest
them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests and they reign upon the
earth." The elders themselves are not the redeemed, but they sing of those
who are redeemed. A distinction is thus made between the two groups.
This use of the third person is not to be explained merely by the fact that
the four living creatures join in the song, for in 11:18 the elders again
distinguish themselves from the prophets and saints and all who fear
God's name. Rather than supporting the identification, the evidence
distinctly differentiates the elders from those who are redeemed through
the blood of the Lamb. In 14:3, the elders are a third time set over against
those who have been purchased out of the earth, who sing a new song
which the elders cannot learn. Whoever they are, the Word of God does
not say that they represent the raptured Church in heaven during the
Tribulation. This is an unwarranted inference without support by the
Scripture.

The Use of the Word "Church." The contention that the fact that the
word "church" occurs many times in chapters one and three of Revelation
and not at all in chapters four through twenty suggests that the book does
not deal with the Church but with the Jewish period of the Tribulation
after the Rapture of the Church is a tenuous inference, not a declaration of
inspired Scripture.
 "Church" occurs nineteen times in chapters one to three. It occurs four
times in chapter one and in each instance it is a specific reference to "the
seven churches" of Asia. It is used in the introduction of each of the seven
letters in the address, "To the angel of the church in Ephesus," etc. ; and it
occurs at the conclusion of each of the letters in the phrase, "he that hath
an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches." The reference
in 2:23 "to all the churches" refers to all of the seven churches in Asia
Minor. The word "church" therefore is never used in the Revelation to
designate the Church in its totality; it is employed only of the several
historical churches to which John sent the seven letters and the
Revelation itself.

One could reason with equal plausibility that the consummation in

chapters nineteen and twenty has nothing to do with the Church, for the
word "church" is nowhere found in the concluding chapters except in
22:16. To be sure, the bride of Christ is seen in 19:6-9; but it is not called
the Church. If the argument is sound that the "saints" of 13:7, 10; 16:6;
17:6; 18:24 who suffer at the hands of Antichrist are not the Church
because the word is not used and because we are on Jewish ground, then
the bride of 19:6 cannot be the Church because the word is not used; the
people involved are called saints (vs. 8). Furthermore, the bride is called
the Lamb's wife. Pretribulationists usually distinguish between the
concepts of wife and bride. "Israel is Jehovah's earthly wife ; the Church
is the Lamb's heavenly bride." But in Revelation 19:7, the bride is the
Lamb's wife ; and if we are indeed on Jewish ground, this term ought to
refer only to Israel. However, pretribulationists agree that the bride is the
Church. One very important fact they do not recognize: the marriage feast
does not occur until after the return of Christ in glory.

The Marriage of the Lamb. Pretribulationists appeal to the picture of

the marriage feast in Revelation 19:6-9 to prove a pretribulation rapture.
We are told that in this vision, the Church is seen in the presence of
Christ, arrayed for the marriage banquet, and this position of the Church
at His return requires a Rapture at an earlier time - before the Great
Tribulation, else the Church would not be in heaven prepared for the
feast.
 We must look at the passage closely, and when we do, we discover that
Revelation 19:6-9 is a prophetic hymn of the marriage supper of the
Lamb and not an actual portrayal of that event.

Practically all interpreters agree that this refers to the union of Christ
and His Church. The picture of a wedding feast pictures the joy of this
union. It is the day when believers are presented to Christ as a bride to her
groom (Eph. 5:27). It represents the restoration of the fellowship Jesus
enjoyed with His disciples in the days of His flesh (Mark 14:25). Our
Lord used the picture of a wedding feast several times to describe the joy
of the future kingdom (Matt. 22:1-14; 25:1-13; Luke 14:15-24). This is an
event which pretribulationists hold will take place at the Rapture. "At the
Rapture He appears as the Bridegroom to take His Bride to Himself. At
the Revelation He will come with His Bride to establish His reign over all
the earth." In the prophecy of Revelation 19, this glad day is at hand. The
Church which has been betrothed to Christ and has lived in a hostile
world in faithfulness and devotion to her Beloved now is about to realize
the object of her hope - union with her Lord.

The time of the wedding feast is specifically indicated. The wedding,

the reunion with Christ, occurs at the Revelation of Christ in glory. The
feast does not actually occur in chapter 19. The prophetic hymn is not a
description of the marriage; it is a hymn of anticipation. John beholds in
vision what actually takes place in chapter 20.

This prophetic character of the hymn is proved by the first line:

"Hallelujah; for the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigneth" (vs. 6). This
reign has not yet begun ; it is about to begin. Students of Greek speak of
the form of this verb as an ingressive aorist, and the meaning is, "The
Lord our God . . . has begun his reign." But the announcement is
proleptic. The reign actually begins only after Christ appears as the
victorious conqueror on the white horse, clad in a warrior's battle-stained
garments for the battle of Armageddon (16:16; 19:17-18). Only after the
destruction of the Beast and the False Prophet, together with the kings
who served them (19:19-21), and the binding and imprisonment of the
Devil does the kingdom come and the reign announced in 19:6 actually
begin.

The prophetic hymn sings of this reign as though it had already taken
place, for it is actually about to occur. This proclamation of impending
events occurs frequently in the Revelation. A prophetic announcement of
the kingdom is found in 11:15, "The kingdom of the world is become the
kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and
ever." This proclamation of the coming millennial kingdom occurs before
the out-pouring of the seven bowls, before the sounding of the seven
trumpets, before the appearance of Antichrist. Yet the announcement is
heralded in the past tense as though it were an already accomplished fact.
Chapter 14 is a series of such proleptic announcements. The 144,000 are
seen standing on Mt. Zion in the millennial kingdom. The fall of
Babylon, the capital city of Antichrist, is announced as though it had
already occurred. The harvest of both the righteous and the unrighteous is
proclaimed. All of these events are to take place in the future; but the end
is so near and the events so certain that they were announced as though
they were already history.

Such is the character of the prophetic hymn of chapter 19. We stand at

the very threshold of the event. Babylon has been destroyed (18) ; civil
strife has arisen within the kingdom of Antichrist (17:16-18) and
economic chaos results. Now the King is about to appear and give the
final death blow to Antichrist; and then He will begin His glorious reign,
the reign of the millennial kingdom. The reign sung in 19:6 begins after
19:19-21.

The marriage of the Lamb is associated in the prophetic hymn with the
beginning of the kingdom and the coming of the conquering Christ. It has
not yet occurred. It did not occur at a supposed rapture at an earlier time.
The actual union of the bride and Groom is not even pictured; only the
announcement of it is given. As the hymn proclaims the future beginning
of the kingdom, it proclaims the future marriage feast; but both are in the
immediate future, and both take place after Christ returns.
 The full force of the prophetic character of this vision may be felt by
referring again to the visions of chapter 14. In vision, John sees the
144,000 standing on Mount Zion. In vision, the millennium has begun,
Christ has returned, and the 144,000 have entered into their millennial
reign. They "follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth," and when He
reigns on earth, they share His reign. The reality which is seen in vision
does not occur until chapter 20.

So the vision of the bride prepared for the wedding feast is prophetic. In
vision, John sees the bride ready for the marriage; but this is not a vision
depicting either the saints in the intermediate state or the Church in
heaven prior to the return of Christ. It is a vision of what shall be after
Christ returns. Then will occur the resurrection of the dead in Christ, both
saints and martyrs (20:4). The final proof that this is a prophetic vision is
the fact that the dead in Christ are not yet raised ; their resurrection occurs
after the return of Christ (20:4).

In the Revelation, there is only one coming of Christ, and it takes place
at the end of the Tribulation. It has a twofold significance. To the Church,
it means a banquet of joy, the marriage supper of the Lamb (19:9) ; to the
world, it means a banquet of death (19:17-18), a visitation of judgment.
Christ is both the Blessed Groom and Conquering King.

The Necessity of an Interval

We would append to this chapter a brief word about a common

argument used for separating the Rapture from the Revelation. It is
frequently said that since the saints must appear before the judgment seat
of Christ to receive rewards for the things done in the body before they
come to earth with Him, there must of necessity be an interval of time
between the Rapture and the Revelation for this judgment to take place.

To this, two questions must be raised. First, where does the Word of
God say that the saints are to be rewarded before Christ returns in glory?
What is there to prevent this judgment of rewards from taking place after
Christ has come in victory and established His millennial kingdom? In
the millennium, the saints are to reign with Him, and perhaps the first
period of the millennial reign will be devoted to the apportioning of
kingly authority on the basis of the faithfulness manifested in earthly
existence. Something like this may be involved in the parable of the
pounds in Luke 19:11-19.

Secondly, if a period of time must intervene for this judgment to take

place, will seven years be enough? It is estimated that there are two
hundred million living Christians. In seven years, there are just over two
hundred million seconds. How much of a fraction of a second is
necessary for the judgment of each believer? If an interval of time is
needed, then far more than seven years will be required.

Summary

We have now examined closely the main bases within Scripture upon
which pretribulationism rests. We have found that in each instance, the
Biblical data require interpretation. Nowhere is a pretribulation rapture
asserted. Furthermore, in no instance are the facts such that they require
the theory of a pretribulation rapture. Theoretically, it is possible that such
expressions as Christ's coming for His saints and with His saints, the day
of Christ and the day of the Lord could refer to two different events.
However, we have examined the Scriptures closely and have found other
interpretations which are at least equally possible and valid. Therefore,
pretribulationism is an unnecessary inference. It is an assumption in light
of which the Scriptures are interpreted. Nowhere can its adherents really
say, "Thus saith the Lord." Students of the Word may be permitted to
make such an inference if they care to do so, but in such an important
matter, they should be willing to admit that it is an assumption and not the
sure Word of God ; and that another inference, viz., that of a single
coming of Christ to rapture the Church at the close of the Tribulation has
an equal if not a stronger claim to support.
6
WATCH

HERE ARE other reasons which are used to support the idea of a
pretribulation rapture. One of the most persuasive and most frequently
repeated arguments is that which rests upon the frequent exhortations of
the Scripture for believers to watch. In view of the repeated exhor. tations
for Christ's coming, His return must be imminent, and therefore it must
occur before the Great Tribulation. It is said that it is impossible to watch
for something which cannot occur for a fixed interval of time. If for
instance, I know that my friend is to visit me but I know he is not coming
until some time next week after a certain convention which he is
attending is over, I will not watch for him to come today or tomorrow. I
will not watch until the convention is over and the time for his visit has
come.

If Christ's coming is to occur only after the Great Tribulation has run its
course, it would be impossible for me today to watch for the Lord's
return, for I know He will not come today. He will not return until the
Tribulation has taken place. The command to watch, therefore, could
have relevance only for tribulation saints and could not be directed to the
Church throughout the centuries. Yet we are told to watch. We can watch
for His coming only if it is imminent. Imminence means that no
prophesied event stands in the way and must be fulfilled before the return
of Christ. Therefore the next event on the prophetic calendar after Christ's
ascension must be His return to rapture the Church. It can occur at any
moment; it must therefore precede the Tribulation. Thus the Church is
destined to be raptured before the Tribulation takes place.
 This line of reasoning appears to be very persuasive ; but all such
questions must be answered by an appeal to the Word of God. What does
the Scripture really teach? Does it teach that we are to watch for an event
which can take place at any moment.

There are five different words in the New Testament which are
translated by our English word "watch." Two of these words, tereo and
paratereo bear the meaning of "watching" in the sense of keeping the
attention focused upon the object of concern. The soldiers at the cross
were there for the purpose of keeping watch over Jesus (Matt. 27:36, 54).
The Pharisees watched Jesus to see if he would perform a miracle on the
Sabbath (Mk. 3:2; Lk. 6:7; see also Lk. 14: 1 ; 20:20). The Jews watched
the gates at Damascus that they might apprehend Paul when he attempted
to leave the city (Acts 9:24). These words which refer to the physical act
of fixing one's attention upon some object are never used of the second
coming of Christ.

Another word is nepho. In I Peter 4:7, this word is translated in our

Authorized Version as follows : "But the end of all things is at hand : be
ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer." This word, however, which is
here translated by the word "watch," literally means "to be sober." The
Revised Version of 1900 renders this verse "Be ye therefore of sound
mind, and be sober unto prayer." In I Peter 1:13, even our Authorized
Version translates the word "be sober" in view of the hope of the
revelation of Jesus : "be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to
be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." Nepho does not mean
"to watch" but to have a sober mind and character.

The two words commonly used to admonish watchfulness with relation

to the Lord's return are gregoreo and agrupneo. And they have a similar
meaning. Agrupneo means "to be sleepless" or "wakeful," and thus "to be
vigilant." The noun, agrupnia, occurs only twice in the New Testament
where it is used to refer to loss of sleep and to wake ful nights (II Cor.
6:5; 11:27). The verb is used of general spiritual vigilance in Ephesians
6:18, and in Hebrews 13:17; it refers to the vigilance of Christian leaders
over their flock.
 The verb is used only twice in connection with the end of the age.
"Take ye heed, watch and pray: for you know not when the time is" (Mk.
13:33). We shall discuss this verse below when we study this entire
passage. The other use is in Luke 21:36: "But watch ye at every season,
making supplication, that ye may prevail to escape all these things that
shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man." This verse was
treated in the preceding chapter, where we found that "these things"
which the believer is to escape are "the things which are coming on the
world" in verse 26, viz., the divine judgments of the end from which the
believer will be sheltered. These will occur in the last part of the Great
Tribulation. This verse cannot teach a pretribulation rapture for it is
addressed to people who find themselves in the midst of that Tribulation.
Furthermore, the command to watch does not mean "to look for" but "to
be wakeful." Those who are spiritually asleep, i.e., the worldly, the
ungodly, will be caught in judgment as in a snare. Those who are
spiritually awake, God's people, will escape judgment and will stand
before the Son of man; i.e., they will be given the joy of entering into His
presence and fellowship at His coming. There is no hint of watching for a
secret coming of Christ in this passage.

The word gregoreo means "to be awake." In the deep shadows of the
Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus' soul was agonizing in the face of the
cross, He longed for His closest disciples to "watch" with Him, that is, to
join Him in His spiritual watch and in the exercise of prayer (Matt.
26:38,40,41). In I Thessalonians 5:10, the word means "to be alive" in
contrast to the sleep of death. In a number of places, the word is used of
general spiritual alertness. Paul exhorted the Ephesian elders to
watchfulness (Acts 20:31). To the Corinthians he wrote, "Watch ye, stand
fast in the faith" (I Cor. 16:13). The Colossians are exhorted to "continue
stedfastly in prayer, watching therein with thanks. giving" (Col. 4:2).
Peter exhorts to sobriety and watchfulness in view of the fierceness of the
hostility of the adversary the Devil, who goes about as a roaring lion
seeking whom he may devour (I Pet. 5:8). The exhortation in Revelation
3:2,3 to the church in Sardis to watch does not mean that they were
neglecting the doctrine of the Lord's return. The word refers to their
spiritual lethargy and their dead condition. Williams correctly translates
the passage "wake up, and strengthen what is left, although it is on the
very point of dying .... If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and
you will never know the hour when I came unto you" (Rev. 3:2,3).
Verkuyl translates it, "In case you do not keep wide awake, I will come
upon you like a thief." The "coming" of Christ to the church in Sardis
does not refer to His glorious second advent but to a visitation in
judgment. This is recognized by the Scofield Bible which has no marginal
reference associating this verse with the second advent.

In all of these verses, gregoreo is used of general spiritual vigilance

without immediate reference to the second coming of Christ. There
remain nine uses of the word in which God's people are exhorted to watch
in view of the impending end.

Can a doctrine of an any-moment rapture of the Church and a sudden

unexpected coming of Christ be built upon these verses? Only two of
these exhortations occur outside of our Lord's teachings. Only once does
Paul specifically exhort believers to watch in view of Christ's return. He
had taught the Thessalonians the blessed truth of the resurrection of the
dead and the Rapture of the Church at the return of Christ. As to the time
of Christ's return and the Rapture, Paul says that it will come
unexpectedly. When men say "Peace and safety, then sudden destruction
com,eth upon them, as travail upon a woman with child ; and they shall in
no wise escape." Then Paul adds, "But ye brethren, are not in darkness,
that that day should overtake you as a thief ; for ye are all sons of light,
and sons of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness; so then let
us not sleep, as do the rest, but let us watch and be sober" (I Thess. 5:3-5).

Two observations are necessary. First, watching is required not in view

of the Rapture of the Church, but in view of the day of the Lord, which
according to the dispensational outline comes at the end of the
Tribulation. This command to watch, therefore, cannot be used to prove
an any-moment unexpected coming of Christ for which the believer is to
watch, for the day of the Lord will come only after definite signs such as
the Antichrist and the apostasy which will indicate to those who are
watching that the end is near.
 It is very easy in these things to confuse apparently logical inference
with the explicit teaching of the Word. For instance, a current article in a
prophetic journal asserts that the commands to look for Christ's return are
"exhortations which would be meaningless unless that event is an ever-
present possibility." The writer then quotes several proof-texts to support
his statement and adds, "None of these Scriptures is capable of
misunderstanding, if it be taken at face value." But the first proof-text is
Titus 2:13, "looking for the blessed hope and appearing (epiphany) of the
glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ." We ought to take this
verse at its "face-value," and when we do, we find that we are to look not
for a secret coming of Christ before the Tribulation, but for the glorious
epiphany of Christ which admittedly occurs at the end of the Tribulation.
This verse is, we agree, quite incapable of misunderstanding, but it is
incapable of supporting the teaching of watching for a pretribulation,
secret coming of Christ. The epiphany of Christ cannot occur at any
moment. It can occur in our generation but only after the Tribulation has
run its course. Yet the Word of God corn- mands us to look for this
glorious event. This is surely no meaningless exhortation.

Secondly, the exhortation to watch is a warning lest the coming of

Christ be an event which will catch believers unprepared. The fact is that
Christ's coming will not be unexpected to those who are watching. To
them, it will not come as a thief, for those who belong to Christ will not
be asleep but will be sober and watching. It is clear that unexpectedness
of that day "like a thief" has its application to those who are not
Christians. To those who are not watching, who are saying, "Peace and
safety," the day will come like a thief and will bring sudden destruction.
To those who are watching the day will be no surprise. It is equally clear
that the "watching" enjoined does not refer to fixing the attention upon
some event which is likely to occur at any moment. The context makes it
clear that the "watch" means to be spiritually awake in contrast to the
world which is slumbering in the sleep of sin. "For they that sleep sleep in
the night; and they that are drunken are drunken in the night. But let us,
since we are of the day, be sober" (I Thess. 5:7,8). Williams again
correctly translates the word "watch" in this passage: "So let us stop
sleeping as others do, but let us stay awake and keep sober." If there is
any teaching of a sudden unexpected coming of Christ in this passage, it
refers to the world. Paul explicitly says that believers will not be taken
unexpectedly, not because they are looking for the coming of Christ to
take place at any moment, but because they are awake whenever it
occurs.

An exhortation to watchfulness is found in Revelation 16:15, connected

with the outpouring of the sixth bowl, an event which brings us to the
very end of the Great Tribulation immediately preceding the glorious
return of Christ with His saints. "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he
that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see
his shame." If Christ's coming "as a thief" means a coming which is
entirely unexpected, with out any preceding signs, this verse should never
have been written. At the pouring out of the sixth vial, we are at the end
of the period when according to uniform pretribulation teaching, the
seventieth week of Daniel is drawing to its close. In the middle of the
week, Antichrist has broken his covenant with the nation Israel and has
launched upon a fearful persecution of the restored Jewish nation. God
will then pour out the vials of His wrath upon the Beast and the
worshippers of the Beast. In such a day, any believers who on the earth,
whether they be within the Jewish restoration or the circle of Gentile
believers, by turning to the Word of God could know almost the precise
time of Christ's return at the end of the three and a half years. However,
they are exhorted to watch, because Christ is coming as a thief. Whatever
this means, it cannot involve a secret, anymoment, unexpected return of
Christ. The exhortation obviously is to spiritual wakefulness, and is
similar to Paul's exhortation just discussed.

There remain eight uses of the word in our Lord's teachings concerning
the end of the age and His return. The word is used twice in Luke
12:37,39 where it is practically parallel to Matthew 24:43ff. Five times in
the Olivet Discourse, Jesus exhorts to watchfulness; and here the
exhortation is distinctly associated with the uncertainty of the time of the
end. The passages need to be studied, in a harmony of the Gospels,
because there is some overlapping. We shall quote from Mark and
Matthew, arranging the material in the order in which it appears in a
harmony.

"Take ye heed, watch (agrupneo) and pray: for ye know not when the
time is. It is as when a man, sojourning in another country, having left his
house and given authority to his servants, to each one his work,
commanded also the porter to watch (gregoreo). Watch therefore: for ye
know not when the Lord of the house cometh, whether at even, or at
midnight, or at cock crowing, or in the morning; lest coming suddenly he
find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, watch" (Mk.
13:33- 37). "But know this, that if the master of the house had known in
what watch the thief was coming, he would have watched, and would not
have suffered his house to be broken through. Therefore be ye also ready;
for in an hour that ye think not the Son of man cometh" (Matt. 24:42-44).
These verses set before us, along with the parallel passages in Luke
12:37, 39, and Matthew 24:42 every exhortation which Jesus made to
"watch" because of the uncertainty of the end.

Let us admit at the outset that if we take these verses out of their setting
and read them superficially, they give the impression that the event
described is to take place without any warnings or signs to indicate that it
is near, and in view of its utter unexpectedness, men are exhorted to
watch. It is this impression which is gained from a casual reading that the
verses have been interpreted to teach an any-moment coming of Christ.
We must, however, study every command in the Word of God within its
own context. When this is done, it becomes immediately apparent that no
teaching of an any-moment rapture of the Church and an unexpected
secret coming of Christ can be built upon these exhortations. For the fact
is, all of these exhortations have reference to the glorious appearing of the
Son of man at the end of the Tribulation.

The main structure of the Olivet Discourse is quite clear. Matthew 24:4-
14 describes the character of the age down to its end. Verses 15-28
describe the fearful events which will immediately attend the
consummation of the age. They consist of three events: the Antichrist (v.
15), the Great Tribulation (vv. 16-26), and the glorious coming of Christ
(vv. 27, 28). The following paragraph (vv. 29-31) enlarges upon verse 27
to describe in greater detail the revelation of Christ when He shall come
on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. The rest of the
chapter which contains the passages we are discussing gives the spiritual
application, the main thrust of which is to watchfulness.

For what are we to watch? For a secret coming of Christ? No such

coming is mentioned or even intimated in the entire chapter. The only
coming of Christ which is suggested is His glorious Revelation which
takes place at the end of the Great Tribulation. Are we to watch for a
secret rapture of the Church? The only verse in the chapter which can
possibly refer to a rapture is verse 31, when the Son of man sends forth
His angels with the sound of a trumpet to gather His elect from the four
winds, from one end of heaven to the other. But if this is the Rapture, it
occurs at the end of the Tribulation, and therefore is an event whose time
can be approximately understood. Therefore, most Bible teachers who
hold to an any-moment rapture of the Church and a secret coming of
Christ are forced to conclude that these doctrines are not revealed in the
Olivet Discourse. We are told that the Rapture of the Church is a mystery
which was revealed for the first time to Paul and is found nowhere in the
Gospels.

Then are we to conclude that Jesus exhorted believers to watch for an

event about which He said absolutely nothing? Would He exhort them to
watch for an event which He does not mention and which does not appear
upon the horizon of His instruction? Such a procedure empties the
exhortation to watch of its significance. I cannot watch for something of
which I have no knowledge; and certainly Jesus did not teach men to
watch for something about which He did not instruct them.

Some Bible teachers who hold a pretribulation rapture have felt the
force of this argument and therefore have applied the commands of our
Lord to watch in Matthew 24 to the Jewish remnant in the Tribulation. A.
C. Gaebelein, interpreting the meaning of verses 43 and 44 says, "with
these words of warning and exhortation to watch, our Lord closes the
predictions relating to the end of the Jewish age. This warning will be
understood and heeded by the Jewish remnant, to which it is addressed.
They are to watch for the Son of man; the church is to wait for the Lord"
(The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. II, p. 217). One of the most recent
statements of a pretribulation rapture applies these verses in the same
way. After quoting Matthew 24:37-42, English says, "The same
circumstances that attended the time just prior to the judgment of the
flood will pertain before the return of Christ in judgment upon the world.
Business will be going on as usual. People will be occupied with the
normal duties of life. . . . Then suddenly the Lord will come.... The
allusion is most certainly to the time of the coming of the Son of man in
power and glory. That coming is unquestionably after the tribulation....
This passage cannot be used as a proof text that the church will pass
through the tribulation. It has to do with those who are on earth when
Christ returns to earth - those taken will be those who have rejected God
and his Christ; those left will be tribulation saints, Israel primarily, who
will enter the earthly kingdom" (Rethinking the Rapture, pp. 49, 50).

Such admissions as these are fatal to the theory of an any-moment

rapture and a secret coming of Christ which is based on the argument that
the exhortations to watch require such an any-moment return of Christ. If
pretribulationists can apply these words without difficulty to the Jewish
remnant in the Tribulation and yet admit that they are exhorted to watch
for an event which will take place at the end of the seventieth week,
although they "do not know the day or the hour," then two results
inevitably follow. First, if the exhortations do belong to the Jewish
remnant, they do not apply to the Church. Jesus then did not exhort the
Church to watch for an unexpected event. In this case, there does not
appear either in the Gospels or in the Epistles or in the Revelation a
teaching that the Church is to watch for a sudden, any-moment coming of
Christ.

Secondly, if pretribulationists can apply the command to watch to

anyone in the midst of the Tribulation whose end can be approximately
known, then they cannot object to the application of these same
exhortations to the Church on the ground that it is impossible for
believers to watch for an event whose time can be approximately known.
If the Jews can be told to "watch" for an event which will take place three
and a half years after Antichrist breaks covenant with them, then
Christians can be told to watch for an event which will not take place
until the end of the Great Tribulation. In either case, it is impossible to
build the teaching of a secret, any-moment coming of Christ to rapture
the Church on these exhortations.

The entire argument that the exhortations to watch require an any-

moment coming of Christ is based on a misunderstanding. The true
meaning of the command to watch is not to watch for Christ's return.
Scripture does not use this language. Nowhere are we told to watch for
the coming of Christ. We are exhorted, rather, in view of the uncertainty
of the time of the end, to watch. "Watching" does not mean "looking for"
the event; it means spiritual and moral "wakefulness." We do not know
when the end will come. Therefore, whenever it happens, we must be
spiritually awake and must not sleep. If we are awake and Christ comes
today, we are ready. If we are awake and Christ does not come until
tomorrow, we will still be ready. Whenever it happens, we must be ready.

There remain warnings to watch which are combined with the idea of
looking for Christ's return; and these are found outside of the Olivet
Discourse and provide the strongest basis for the idea of watching for an
any-moment event.

In Luke 12:22-24, Jesus exhorted the disciples against becoming

inextricably involved in the cares and concerns of earthly existence so
that the true character of their life is lost. These sayings are parallel to
those in the Sermon on the Mount. The disciple is not to find his treasure
on earth but in heaven (vs. 34), for present existence is transitory ; he is to
live all his life in expectation of the return of Christ which will bring the
present state of existence to its end. The believer is living for the life of
the age to come. Therefore, life is to be characterized by an attitude of
expectancy toward the attainment of that life. We are to be looking for
Christ's return. "Be ye yourselves like unto men looking for their lord"
(vs. 36).
 The use of the word "looking for" does not carry with it the necessary
idea of an any-moment event, although it does connote a complex of
events which might begin at any time. We may discover the meaning of
the word from its uses elsewhere. Simeon was a righteous and devout
man who was "looking for the consolation of Israel" (Luke 2:25). Joseph
of Arimathea was "looking for the kingdom of God" (Luke 23:51). Both
of these pious Jews were living in constant expectation of a complex of
events which would include the appearing of Messiah, the over-throw of
the enemies of God, and the inauguration of the kingdom of God - events
which we now know include the totality of all that is involved in both
advents of Christ.

This may provide the clue for the understanding of our Lord's
admonitions. S. P. Tregelles has pointed out that Jesus employed a
metaphor to describe His return in which a sign preceded the actual event.
"Be ye yourselves like unto men looking for their lord, when he shall
return from the marriage feast; that, when he cometh and knocketh, they
may straightway open unto him." (vs. 36). The hope of Christ's coming
does not exclude that His knock shall first be heard. His actual coming is
preceded by this signal which indicates that He is at the door.

The interpretation of this passage in the interests of an any-moment

coming of the Lord overlooks its main thrust. The reason for the
exhortation to watch is not so much that Christ may come at any moment
as it is that He may not come for some time. The central problem is the
delay of the parousia. His return may not be until the second watch, or
even the third watch, late into the night. The point of the warning is that
we cannot say it will be soon ; we do not know when. Therefore, we must
be always ready, for we do not know when He will come.

It is because of the uncertainty of the time, not its imminence, that we

are to watch ; and the idea again is of wakefulness rather than
concentration of attention. The servants are always to be awake that they
may be ready to open to the master and serve his needs (vs. 37). This
thought is further developed in the next paragraph. Watching is defined
not,so much as an attitude as a conduct. "Blessed is that servant, whom
his lord when he cometh shall find so doing" (vs. 43). Jesus Himself
suggests that there will be delay (vs. 45) ; the important thing is what is
done with the interval during which the Lord delays His return. He who
"watches" is the faithful and wise steward (vs. 42), who is busy in his
master's service. He who does not watch is the steward who begins to
beat the servants, and to become drunk (vs. 45-6). "Watching" then means
faithfulness in service. It means spiritual awakeness.

Furthermore, the difference between those who watch and those who do
not is not between two classes of Christians - those who are worldly and
separated, but between two classes of professing Christians - true servants
and false servants. This is seen in the punishment meted out to those who
did not watch : they are cut asunder and punished with the unfaithful (vs.
46). The delay of the master made no difference to the true servant; he
busied himself about his Lord's business. He was continually watching.
But the master's delay induced the false servant to a sinful course of
action. The Lord's delay brought out the true character of his servants :
whether they were truly his servants or only professing to be servants
when in reality they had no affection for their master.

If we apply this line of reasoning to our present situation, a rather

unexpected conclusion emerges. We must conclude that we ought not to
need an any-moment coming of Christ as a necessary incentive to
faithfulness in service and conduct. The true motive is a heart devotion,
and even though Christ tarries, the true servant will always watch ; he
will never lapse into the state of spiritual somnambulance and moral
laxity.

Again, the unexpectedness of the Lord's coming is directed primarily to

the faithless servants. It is of the steward who, in light of the lord's delay,
begins to beat the servants and to get drunk that Jesus said, "the lord of
that servant shall come in a day when he expecteth not, and in an hour
when he knoweth not, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint his portion
with the unfaithful" (vs. 46). This is the further elaboration of the saying
in verse 40, "Be ye also ready, for in an hour that ye think not the Son of
man cometh."
 Finally, and most conclusively, the coming of the Son of man for which
we are to be ready is not the secret coming of Christ at the beginning of
the Tribulation to rapture the Church. It is the event described in Matthew
24:27 and 30, the glorious appearing of the Son of man on the clouds of
heaven at the close of the Tribulation. This is the only aspect of Christ's
coming taught in the synoptic Gospels. If then, all of the exhortations to
watch in the Gospels are related to the Revelation of Christ at the end of
the Tribulation, it is obviously impossible to base an any-moment coming
of Christ on the exhortations to watch for this event; for in the
pretribulationist outline, this event will be preceded by the Antichrist and
the Great Tribulation.

We have now surveyed all of the references in the New Testament

where the Spirit exhorts us to watch. Nowhere are we told to watch for a
secret, any-moment coming of Christ to rapture the Church. The
commands to watch mean to be spiritually awake, to be ready to meet the
Lord whenever He comes. The exhortations to watch in the Gospels are
all addressed to people who will be looking for the glorious appearing of
Christ at the end of the Tribulation.

The argument therefore that the Biblical teaching to watch demands an

any-moment coming of Christ and therefore a pretribulation rapture is not
well grounded. It is an apparently logical inference, an interpretation
which seems very persuasive; but when we turn from the assumption of
this interpretation to examine carefully what the Word of God actually
says, we find no assertion of an anymoment coming for which we are to
watch. We are indeed to be ready for the coming of Christ, for we do not
know when the Lord will come. Therefore we must always be awake.
Even though His coming is delayed, we must be awake so that His return
will be no surprise.
7
WRATH OR TRIBULATION?

HERE IS another reason used by pretribulationists to support their

position which is equally persuasive and widely used. It is the argument
that God never confuses His judgments. The Great Tribulation will see
the outpouring of God's wrath upon the world ; and it is inconceivable
that God will permit His Church - those redeemed by the blood of the
Lamb, His bride - to suffer the judgments of the Great Tribulation, which
are a manifestation of the wrath of God against a sinful and rebellious
civilization (Rev. 15:1). Therefore we must infer that the Church is to be
taken out of the world before the Tribulation begins.

We have already pointed out that it is a clear teaching of Scripture that

the Church will never suffer the wrath of God. At this point we are in
agreement with pretribulationists. If the position rested upon this one fact
alone, pretribulationism would be inevitable.

There are however two alternatives to that of a pretribulation rapture.

One is that the Church will be raptured toward the end of the Tribulation
just before God pours out His wrath upon unbelieving men. This view is
usuallly called midtribulationism, for it holds that the Church will be
raptured somewhere in the midst of the period of Tribulation.

This view was suggested by Dr. Harold John Ockenga, Pastor of Park
Street Church in Boston, in a recent article in Christian Life (February,
1955). Ockenga correctly distinguishes between tribulation and wrath,
and suggests that the Church will be taken out of the world just before the
period of the wrath of God at the very end of the Tribulation. Ockenga
apparently classes himself with those who believe "the church will suffer
man's wrath but not God's wrath."

Dr. J. Oliver Buswell, Jr., formerly president of Wheaton and Shelton

Colleges also rejects the usual pretribulation rapture in favor of
midtribulationism. "I do not believe that the Church will go through any
part of that period which the Scripture specifically designates as the wrath
of God, but I do believe that the abomination of desolation will be a
specific signal for a hasty flight followed by a very brief but a very
terrible persecution, and that followed very quickly by the rapture of the
Church preceding the outpouring of the vials of the wrath of God" (Our
Hope, June, 1950).

It should be pointed out that such a midtribulation view as that

suggested by Buswell and Ockenga destroys the usual "any-moment"
view of Christ's coming. The Lord will not return, according to this
interpetation, until Antichrist appears and the Great Tribulation comes
upon the world and the Church. No one can expect the Lord to come at
any moment until he finds himself well in the midst of the Great
Tribulation.

Midtribulationism however is faced with the same exegetical problems

which confront pretribulationism. The Scripture nowhere asserts that the
Rapture will take place at the beginning of the period of wrath.
Furthermore, it is difficult to determine the temporal limits of this period
if it is not the last three and a half years.

There is a second alternative. It is possible, and we believe that the

Scriptures indicate, that the Church will be on earth throughout the entire
period of the Tribulation but will be divinely sheltered from the wrath of
God.

As Dr. Ockenga pointed out in the article mentioned above,

pretribulationist are in error in identifying tribulation and wrath. The
Great Tribulation will consist of these two elements : tribulation at the
hands of Antichrist, and the wrath of God. These two are not to be
confused. Since this is important for a solution to this problem, we must
survey the New Testament teaching about tribulation and wrath.

Everyone must agree that it is inconceivable that the Church will suffer
the wrath of God. The Word of God is very clear in its teaching that those
who have found salvation through the shed blood of Christ are thereby
forever delivered from the wrath of God which is revealed from heaven
against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men (Rom. 1:18). The
wrath of God rests only upon the one who refuses to believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ (Jn. 3:36). God in the kindness of His love would turn men
unto repentance, but men who persist in the way of impenitence and who
harden their hearts against the kindness of God store up wrath for
themselves on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be
revealed (Rom. 2:5). However, those who have turned in penitence for
their sins to repose faith in Christ are now justified by His blood and shall
be saved by him from the wrath of God (Rom. 5:9). We who were once
children of wrath are now the children of a loving God (Eph. 2:3). In the
day of judgment, the wrath of God will come upon the sons of
disobedience, not upon those who have become the sons of God (Eph.
5:6). Those who believe in Jesus and are living in expectation of His
glorious return shall be delivered from the wrath to come (I Thess. 1:10)
which shall be inflicted upon those who do not know God and who do not
obey the Gospel of the Lord Jesus (II Thess. 1:8). God has not destined
His people to wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ
(I Thess. 5:9). Such verses refer primarily to God's wrath in the final
judgment. But the Great Tribulation will in one of its aspects be the
outpouring of the divine wrath upon a rebellious and sinful civilization. It
is the out-reaching of final judgment just before the end comes. It is in
fact the beginning of that judgment.

The book of Revelation is the book of consummations. The

consummation is effected in three different directions. There must be in
the first place the consummation of the salvation of God's people. At the
very heart of salvation in the book of Revelation is the cross of Christ; for
it is a Lamb bearing the marks of slaughter and sacrifice who stands at the
throne of God who is the key to the whole book (Rev. 5:6). What Christ
has accomplished on His cross is a finished work, but the salvation of
God's people is not complete and will not be brought to consummation
apart from the glorious return of Christ. The state of the martyrs seen at
the opening of the fifth seal (Rev. 6:9-11) is not one in which they are
enjoying the full blessings of the final consummation. They are indeed
enjoying a rest of blessedness, but it is not one in which they have entered
into the enjoyment of perfect final bliss. They are admonished rather to
rest a little longer until the time of full consummation has arrived. Perfect
blessedness will be enjoyed only after the marriage supper of the Lamb
(Rev. 19:9). And this awaits the glorious return of Christ.

A second line of consummation is seen in the evil character of human

civilization. The entire New Testament agrees in the portrait of an age
which is dominated by evil powers and which will never become the
scene of the full realization of God's kingdom until Christ Himself has
returned to transform this age into the age to come. There is no room in
the Biblical portrait either for a postmillennial scheme of a perfect
conquest of the world through the preaching of the Gospel until this age
becomes the scene of God's perfect kingdom, or for idealistic schemes of
social amelioration which interpret the mission of the Church in terms of
social action. The character of this age is evil (Gal. 1:4). Satan is called
the god of this age (II Cor. 4:4). While indeed the children of God are the
light of the world and the salt of the earth (Matt. 5:13, 14) and must
inevitably exercise a salutary influence for righteousness and godliness
upon the society of which they are a part, the Word of God makes it very
clear that it is not within the purpose of God by such means to accomplish
the complete salvation of this age. On the contrary, evil is seen to be like
a vineyard which is ripening until the harvest is necessary (Rev. 14:17-
20). The rise of Antichrist at the end of the age will be the embodiment in
its most concentrated form of the powers of evil which have been
operative throughout the course of human history. When evil has come to
its fruition, Christ will then appear in judgment.

The third line of consummation is that of divine judgment. God's

judgments against evil have been operating throughout the course of
human history. The fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Jewish
state was a manifestation of God's judgment in righteous wrath against a
nation which had rejected their Messiah. It is in anticipation of this
historical judgment that Paul asserts that God's wrath has come upon
Israel in full measure (I Thess. 2:16).

All the Scriptures point to a day when the wrath of God will find its
fullest manifestation in a supernatural manifestation which will issue in
the final condemnation and just punishment of all wickedness and evil.
The second coming of Christ to a godless civilization will mean a
visitation of wrath. The sixth seal (Rev. 6:12-17) gives a brief anticipation
of this day when men of every social and economic status will flee and
seek to hide "from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the
wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath is come, and who is
able to stand?" The representation of the second coming of Christ in
Revelation 19:11-16 places its primary emphasis upon His coming in
judgment. His robe which is dipped in blood (v. 13) is not sprinkled with
His own blood shed on the cross but is stained in blood as though He had
been engaged in victorious battle. In this visitation, "he treadeth the
winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of God, the Almighty" (v. 15).

Against this background we may understand that one aspect of the

Great Tribulation is the beginning of this outpouring of wrath.
Immediately preceding the victorious return of Christ, great supernatural
events will take place which will embody the beginnings of the visitation
of wrath upon a godless and corrupted society. At the sounding of the
seventh trumpet, the twenty-four elders offered a song of thanksgiving
unto God because He is at the point of assuming His power and
inaugurating the fullness of His reign upon the earth. This involves the
visitation of wrath upon the world (Rev. 11:17,18). The plagues which
were involved in the sounding of the seven trumpets and the outpouring
of the seven bowls may be thought of as the beginning of the day of
judgment. By these plagues, God is manifesting His holy wrath and
warning men that the day of final judgment is beginning. But this has a
merciful purpose; there remains a final moment of time. Repentance is
still possible. It is implied in Revelation 9:20 that these visitations were
designed to be a warning to men and to lead them to repentance from
their idolatry and their wickedness. This basically merciful purpose in the
preliminary outpourings of God's wrath is again suggested in Revelation
16:8 at the outpouring of the fourth bowl.

Now it is quite clear that it is contradictory to the character of the

divine purpose to inflict these woes upon God's own people. And this
again we would assert : the Church will certainly not experience these
outpourings of the wrath of God. The seven bowls of the wrath of God
are designed not for the world at large but for "the men who bore the
mark of the beast and worshipped its image" (Rev. 16:2). In preparation
for the seven bowls, an angel cried with a loud voice, "If any man
worshippeth the beast and his image, and receiveth a mark on his
forehead or upon his hand, he also shall drink the wine of the wrath of
God, which is prepared unmixed in the cup of his anger" (Rev. 14:9).

During the Tribulation, a company of 144,000 are seen on earth who

have been sealed with the seal of the living God, the specific purpose of
which is to protect its recipients from participation in the sufferings
imposed by the last plagues of God's wrath. This appears in the sounding
of the fifth trumpet, for the plague which follows is directed specifically
against "such men as have not the seal of God on their foreheads" (Rev.
9:4).

The identity of this sealed and protected group is disputed by

interpreters of the Revelation. Some insist that they are literal, racial
Jews, for they are derived from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Others
insist that they cannot be literal Jews for the twelve tribes by which they
are described are not the twelve tribes of Israel. It is a fact that these
twelve tribes nowhere appear in the Old Testament in any of the listings
of the twelve tribes of Israel. Dan is omitted, yet according to Ezekiel
48:1, Dan is to have his portion in the land. How then can these twelve
tribes be literal Jews since they are not the literal twelve tribes of Israel?

Furthermore, we must note that the Apocalypse specifically

distinguishes between true and false Jews, i.e., between those who are
Jews literally but not spiritually (2:9, 3:9). It is possible therefore that by
the 144,000 from twelve tribes, the Spirit of God means to suggest that
the true Israel, the true people of God will be preserved absolutely
complete. Not one person who really belongs to the true Israel will be
lost, even in the Great Tribulation.

However, whether literal or spiritual Israel, one fact is clear : God will
protect His people from the outpourings of wrath in the Great Tribulation,
whether they are Jews or Gentiles. Whoever they are, we are assured that
the people of God, even though they are living on the earth during these
last terrible days, will be sealed by God that they may be protected and
sheltered from the experience of the outpouring of wrath which will be
directed against those who are worshipping and. following the beast. We
are therefore in essential agreement at this point with those who teach a
rapture of the Church before the Tribulation, that the Church will not
experience the wrath of God. God protected the children of Israel in
Egypt; and as the sign of the blood over the doorway spared every
Israelite family from the loss of the firstborn son, so will God's people be
spared from the supernatural visitation embodied in the outpouring of the
wrath of God at the end of the age, be they Jews or Gentiles.

This protection from the wrath of God, however, is not identical with
deliverance from the wrath of the Beast. It would be contrary to the entire
history of God's dealings with His people both in the Old and New
Testament dispensations if God should in the consummation of the age
reverse Himself to do something He has never previously done, namely,
to protect His people from the hostility of an evil age. Israel was
permitted to groan in slavery for many years under the harsh hand of
Egypt. First Assyria and then Babylon were used as divine agencies to
discipline Israel and in the process, the people of God were reduced to an
abject state of servitude. In the intertestamental period, the Jews
experienced the most fearful persecution of their history at the hands of
Antiochus Epiphanes, a persecution which is predicted in the eighth
chapter of the prophecy of Daniel. Here for the first time in history, the
hostility of Satan was directed toward the objective of the complete
obliteration of the worship of God, and it is for this reason that this
persecution is included in the prophecies of Daniel. Indeed the objectives
of Antiochus were of such a character that he becomes a type of the last
persecuting enemy of God's people, Antichrist himself.

Throughout the history of the Christian Church, God has permitted His
people to suffer again and again at the hands of civil governments and
rulers who were hostile to the things of God and therefore became
instruments in the hands of the prince of evil. Jesus Himself prophesied
that throughout the course of the age, His disciples would experience
tribulation and death; they would be hated by all nations for His name's
sake (Matt. 24:9). Because of the character of the age, Jesus promised
that in the world His disciples would have tribulation (Jn. 16:33). It is
indeed the divine order that "through many tribulations it is necessary for
us to enter into the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22). The Christians in
Thessalonica received the Gospel accompanied by much tribulation (I
Thess. 1:6), an experience which Paul assures them is destined to be their
lot. "For when we were with you, we told you beforehand that we were to
suffer tribulation; just as it has now come to pass, and as you know" (I
Thess. 3:4). Indeed, Paul assured the Thessalonians that they may expect
deliverance from tribulation only at the revelation of the Lord Jesus with
His mighty angels when He comes to inflict judgment upon those who
have afflicted His people with tribulation (II Thess. 1:5-8). It must be
pointed out to those who teach that the coming of Christ is to be twofold,
a secret coming to rapture the Church at the beginning of the Tribulation
and a public manifestation in divine judgment at the end of the
Tribulation, that the promise of deliverance in this passage does not point
to the Rapture of the Church, but to the day of the Lord when He is
gloriously manifested in judgment. Until that day comes, tribulation may
be expected.

It is furthermore to be noted that in all of the verses which we have

cited, the word which is used in the Greek New Testament is thlipsis,
though it is variously translated in our English versions. This is the same
word used in Matthew 24:21 to refer to the Great Tribulation. The final
Tribulation will be the most fearful the world has ever seen, but the
difference will be quantitative and not qualitative. God's people have
always suffered persecution, tribulation ; why then should we expect God
to change the divine order which has marked the entire course of
redemptive history? Why should God do something for the Church at the
end of the age when He has never done it before? Granted that the Great
Tribulation and the sufferings which will be inflicted by the Antichrist
will be more fearful than anything previously experienced, yet they are
not different in kind from all the tribulation and persecution of the ages.
The final persecution of God's people by Antichrist is nothing but the
consummation of the same hostility which the world and the prince of
evil have manifested against God and His people throughout the entire
course of the age. God will not deliver His people from such tribulation,
but He will preserve them in it. Jesus assured His disciples of this fact.
Even though they are put to death, not a hair of their head would perish
(Lk. 21: 16-18). Physical death, bodily suffering is not to be feared,
fearful as it is, by those who have been redeemed by the suffering and the
death of Christ. Martyrdom has ever been a mark of faithfulness to Christ.
Believers have been ready, often glad, to die for Christ's sake. Why
should it be any different at the end?
8
RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE
WORD

N THIS brief chapter, we shall deal with the most important reason
used by pretribulationists for refusing to apply the prophecies about the
Great Tribulation to the Church. It is so important that it may be called
the major premise of dispensationalism. It goes back to J. N. Darby, and
is a method of handling the Scriptures which B. W. Newton, one of the
earliest and most learned of the Brethren, called "the height of speculative
nonsense." The most vigorous recent defense of pretribulationism devotes
an early chapter to the establishment of this principle as the foundation
for the entire subsequent discussion.

This principle has frequently been called, "Rightly dividing the Word of
Truth." It is the method of deciding in advance which Scriptures deal with
the Church and which Scriptures have to do with Israel, and then to
interpret the passages concerned in the light of this "division" of the
Word. "No one can possibly have a clear perception of Scripture as a
whole, or of Bible prophecy in particular, who does not discern the
distinction between two of the things that differ, namely, Israel and the
Church."

In both Matthew and the Revelation where the Great Tribulation is

prophesied, the people of God are seen in the Tribulation. They are to be
put to flight by the Abomination of Desolation (Matt. 24:20). The
Tribulation will bring martyrdom to the elect, a martyrdom so extensive
that they would be wiped out except for the fact that God will shorten the
days for their sake to spare them (Matt. 24:22). Spiritual deception will be
so strong that it will lead astray, if possible, even the elect (Matt. 24:24).
At the close of the Tribulation, when the Son of man comes in glory, He
will send His angels to gather His elect from the four winds (Matt.
24:31).

In the midst of the Tribulation, God's elect will experience terrible

suffering, and they will be finally delivered by the return of Christ. Who
are the elect? Are they the Church, or Israel? Dispensationalism solves
this problem by the application of its major premise. One of the most
influential dispensationalist commentaries on Matthew begins the
discussion of this chapter with these sentences : "The disciples knew
absolutely nothing of a Christian age. Such an age could not even begin,
when they asked the question about the end of the age. They did not mean
a Christian age, but their Jewish age .... The reference to Daniel and the
great tribulation, which never concerns the church, but Israel, shows us
that we are not on Christian, but Jewish ground." Therefore, the
references to the elect in Matthew 24 must be references to the elect of
Israel, not to believers who are elected to salvation.

In the Revelation, the people of God are seen on earth suffering at the
hands of Antichrist. The Beast is given power "to make war with the
saints and to overcome them" (Rev. 13:7). The capital of the Beast is
described as a woman "drunken with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus"
(Rev. 17:6). Who are these saints who suffer martyrdom? Are they the
Church or Israel?

Again, dispensationalists apply their major premise. "One difficulty so

many postribulationists have is due to the fact that they get part of the
book of Revelation in the grace age.... If we distinguish the ages and
recognize the ground on which we stand, whether it be Jewish or Gentile,
we will find little difficulty in relation to the issue in hand." Therefore we
must conclude that the saints and martyrs are not the Church but Jews.

Back of this Jewish interpretation is the assumption that the Great

Tribulation has to do exclusively with the Jews and not with the Church.
It is the time of Jacob's trouble (Jer. 30:7). It is the last week of the
seventy in Daniel 9:25-27 which have to do with the destiny of Israel, not
the Church. During the sixty-nine weeks, God was dealing with Israel ;
and in the last week, the seven years of the Great Tribulation, God will
resume His dealings with Israel which, during the parenthesis of the
church age, have been suspended. Since the seventieth week has to do
with Israel, we must assume that the Church does not enter into the
picture at all. The passages in Matthew 24 and the Revelation which
predict the Tribulation have nothing to do with the Church ; they are
concerned altogether with Israel. Therefore, the words "elect" and
"saints" are to be understood as belonging to Old Testament terminology,
not to the New Testament age of grace and the Church.

To this line of reasoning, we must raise the question : Where does the
Word of God say that the Great Tribulation is exclusively Jewish?
Dispensationalists say this, but does the Word of God really assert this to
be true? Is this an inference, or is it the express declaration of Scripture?
There is very strong evidence which suggests that the Great Tribulation
applies to the Church as well as to Israel.

The promise of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was given by God
through the prophet Joel to Israel. The prophecy looks forward to a
national restoration of Judah and Jerusalem when God would pour out
His Spirit upon all Israel, not only upon the few spiritual leaders of the
nation. One would search in vain in Joel for any reference to the Church.
The promise has to do with the final destiny of God's people, Israel. Yet
dispensationalists usually recognize that this promise has a double
fulfillment to the Church at Pentecost and to Israel at the end of the age. It
"has a partial and continuous fulfillment during the `last days' which
began with the first advent of Christ; but the great fulfillment awaits the
`last days' as applied to Israel" (Scofield).

The same double fulfillment is to be recognized in the prophecy of the

new covenant which God will write in the hearts of His people. As the
prophecy was given in Jeremiah 31:31-34, it had to do only "with the
house of Israel, and with the house of Judah." The Church does not
appear in the prophecy at all. However, the Spirit of God Himself in
Hebrews 8:7-13 applies this prophecy to the new covenant made by our
Lord with the Church. Scofield recognizes that this prophecy, given
exclusively to Israel, has its fulfillment in the Church, when he says of
Hebrews 8:8, "The New Covenant rests upon the sacrifice of Christ, and
secures the eternal blessedness, under the Abrahamic Covenant, of all
who believe" (italics ours). The new covenant, promised in Jeremiah 31,
was made by our Lord with the Church and is now in effect; and at the
end of the age, Israel as a people will be saved and brought within the
blessings of the new covenant.

If then we have the principle clearly established that prophecies which

in the Old Testament have to do with God's future purpose for Israel have
their fulfillment both in the Church and in Israel, why should we not
conclude that the prophecies about the Great Tribulation which have to do
in their prophetic form with Israel will find their fulfillment both in the
Church and in Israel, unless the Word of God clearly asserts the contrary?
We are on church ground, not Jewish ground in Acts 2 and Hebrews 8
even though the Old Testament predictions appear to be exclusively on
Jewish ground. Why are we not also on church ground as well as on
Jewish ground in Matthew 24 and Revelation 13? The assumption that
this is exclusively Jewish ground is a human interpretation which is not
supported by the Word of God.

This method of "dividing the Scriptures" leads to grave, and - we feel -

insoluble difficulties. Not only is Matthew 24 thought to be Jewish, but so
are the entire first twelve chapters, because they have to do with the
"kingdom of the heavens" which Jesus offered to Israel ; and this could be
nothing but the earthly, millennial, Jewish kingdom. The Sermon of the
Mount in Matthew 5-7 is not for the Church in the age of grace but for the
Jew in the restored age of law in the Davidic kingdom.' If this is true, is
Mark's Gospel also Jewish? And is Luke's Gospel Jewish too? Matthew
was written for Jews, but Mark and Luke were written to Gentiles. Yet the
"elect" are seen in the Great Tribulation in Mark 13:20, 27 even as in
Matthew. Is this also Jewish ground? When Jesus said, as recorded in
Luke 18:7, that God would avenge His elect, did He refer to Jews or to all
the elect, all the company of the saved?
 If Matthew, Mark, and Luke are on Jewish ground, then how much
more John. The first three Gospels record Jesus' ministry in "Galilee of
the gentiles," but John records the ministry in Jerusalem, the capital of
Israel, the seat of the Temple of God. Is John's Gospel on Jewish ground
too? If the first part of Matthew's Gospel recording the Galilean ministry
is Jewish, then the first part of John's Gospel recording the Jerusalem
ministry must also be Jewish, for it has to do with our Lord's ministry in
the Holy City.

When Jesus told Jewish Nicodemus at the beginning of His ministry

that he must be born again to see the kingdom of God, did He refer to the
Davidic, millennial kingdom? Is this Jewish ground? Does the eternal life
promised the believer (John 3:36) have reference to admission into the
millennial, Davidic kingdom, as the same phrase in Matthew 25:46 is
interpreted by dispensationalists to mean ; or is it really eternal life -
salvation in the age to come? Yet dispensationalism interprets John on
church ground, not Jewish. Where does the Word of God say that
Matthew is on Jewish ground but John on church ground? These are
questions which anyone who is seeking a clear directive from Scripture
instead of an inference asks without finding an answer.

The same problem is raised in the book of Revelation. Where does the
Word of God say that we have left behind the age of grace and have
returned to Jewish ground? This inference is contradicted by the very key
to the prophecy: the seven-sealed book. John saw a scroll, written on both
sides, and sealed not with a single seal but with seven seals. We are not
told what the book contained, but Walter Scott, foremost recent
commentator on the Revelation of the dispensationalists, is right when he
says that the books contain "the revelation of God's purpose and counsel
concerning the world." What lies ahead for mankind? Where is the race
headed for? Is it to go on forever like a book which has no final chapter?
Is it to end in self-destruction like a book which breaks off in the middle
of the plot? Or does the story have a real conclusion in which the
problems are solved and the many threads of the narrative are picked up
and woven together in a meaningful plot? The sevensealed book of
human destiny contains the answer.
 Human history has a purpose, a destiny, a goal. The fact that the book is
sealed suggested two things. Man does not write the story ; that is, man
cannot solve the problems of history. It must be God, not man, who
authors the story of the consummation. Secondly, the future is a closed
secret to man. He cannot of himself discover its contents. The future is a
book both closed and tightly sealed. The goal of history, the future
prophetic destiny of the race is God's story, not man's.

John wept much because no one was found who could open the book,
who could read meaning and destiny in the prophetic future. Then One
was found. He is the Lamb who has been slain. He is the Lion of Judah,
the Root of David, i.e., the One foretold in Old Testament prophecy. He is
the One who was slain and who purchased to God with His shed blood
men of every tribe and tongue and people and nation (5:9-10). The Lamb
of God who takes away the sin of the world holds the key to the future.
Only because there was One who was willing to die upon the cross is
there One who can destroy Satan and sin and bring the people of God into
the blessedness of God's kingdom. Were it not for the slain Lamb who is
also the kingly Lion, the world would be only the kingdom of evil. But
Christ will open the sealed book, bring judgment upon the prince and the
kingdom of evil, and bring the redeemed into the kingdom of God. This is
history's divinely decreed destiny.

The book of Revelation places the grace of God, displayed in the slain
Lamb and the redemption freely provided, squarely in the center of the
future. The Lamb of God alone can solve the enigma of human history.
He alone can bring God's purposes to their consummation. This is the
central theme of the Revelation. This destiny does indeed concern Israel,
and "all Israel" is destined to be saved. It also concerns "men of every
tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation" (5:9). It concerns all men. No
reason appears in the Revelation to interpret this prophecy on Jewish
ground ; but the centrality of the Lamb of God who redeems by His blood
men from every nation suggests that we are on church ground, the age of
salvation and grace.
 Scripture says nothing about the end of the church age and a restoration
of the Jewish age. Therefore the conclusion that the saints seen in the
Tribulation are not the New Testament saints of Revelation 19:8 but are
Old Testament saints in the person of restored Israel is an inference, not
the assertion of the Word of God; and it is an inference which appears to
contradict the indications of Scripture.

There appears to be no valid reason, therefore,-no assertion of Scripture

which would require or even suggest that we must apply the prophecies
about the Tribulation to a restored Jewish nation rather than to the
redeemed of the New Testament, the Church. On the contrary, we have
ample reason to apply the prophecies about the Great Tribulation both to
Israel and to the Church.
9
THE BLESSED HOPE

HE REASON why pretribulationism has held such an important

place in prophetic teaching is that it has been thought to be inseparable
from premillennialism and from the Biblical doctrine of the Lord's
personal, visible return. Christians have felt that the only alternative to a
pretribulation position was a liberal doctrine which discounts the hope of
Christ's second coming.

While it is true that the modern emphasis on the Lord's return has been
strongly supported by men who held to a pretribulation rapture, this fact
does not prove that the teaching is Biblical or essential to premillennial
doctrine.

The one question ultimately must be, What does the Word of God
actually teach? and not, What have men taught? The teaching which is
absolutely essential, because it is Biblical, is that of the personal, visible,
glorious return of Christ to bring the kingdom of God. If one holds to this
hope, he has lost nothing essential to Christian life and doctrine even
though he does not hold to a pretribulation rapture. On the contrary, the
teaching of pretribulationism and the undue emphasis which is being
placed on some of these details of eschatology are attended by certain
grave dangers.

First, the contemporary concern with the question of the Rapture and
the Tribulation has overshadowed the really important questions having
to do with the Blessed Hope itself. The preoccupation of students of the
Bible with such details incurs the risk of losing sight of far more
important issues. It is a tragedy of the first order that those who "love his
appearing" are dissipating their energies contending about such questions
when the doctrine of Christ's coming itself is today under heavy attack.

One of the most highly lauded and honored missionaries in the world
today is Albert Schweitzer. Let it be admitted that we should give due
recognition to the man's eminence of character, to the spirit of self-
sacrificial humanitarianism he has manifested in turning his back upon a
fabulously successful career in Europe to bury himself in the African
jungles to minister to the bodies of men in their sicknesses and sufferings.
Nevertheless, it must also be pointed out that this same famous man has
written a book which has proven to be one of the most influential
volumes of our generation in which Jesus is portrayed as a deluded
fanatic, a man who tragically sacrificed himself to fantastic apocalyptic
conceptions that the world was at once to come to an end, when he would
be raised to heaven to be a heavenly messianic son of man. To
Schweitzer, the Jesus who actually lived in history is an offense, not a
savior. In many circles today, young men are being taught this is the
actual Jesus who lived on earth. For Christianity deriving from such a
deluded personage, any teaching of a second coming of Christ is at once
fantastic and impossible.

A very different interpretation is prevalent in Great Britain today.

Students are taught that everything men used to look for at the return of
the Lord in His messianic kingdom has now become available to men in
and through the Church. "All that the church hoped for in the second
coming of Christ is already given in its present experience of Christ
through the Spirit." The author recently asked a minister from the Church
of England with whom he shared a Bible conference how influential this
view was in Great Britain, and he replied that it was the only view which
many students were taught. This view means "that it is impossible ever to
revive the belief that the Lord would in literal truth arrive to judgment
upon the clouds of heaven during the thirties of the first century. He did
not do so. To work up a fantastic expectation that He will arrive in the
thirties of the twentieth century is not primitive Christianity, whatever it
may be."
 The impact of liberalism upon American Christian thought may be seen
in this statement by one of the most learned men in an outstanding
theological seminary : "He (Jesus) was certainly no mad fanatic, no
deluded pretender to a celestial and really mythical title, no claimant to a
throne which did not exist, no prophet of a coming judgment to be carried
out by a heavenly figure seated on the clouds with whom he identified
himself-which judgment never took place, never could take place."

While assaults like these are being directed against the fundamental
doctrine of the personal return of the Lord, it is almost a fantastic thing
that men who love His appearing and recognize its indispensable place in
Christian doctrine are off in a corner disputing among themselves about
the details which will attend Christ's return, when they ought to be
standing shoulder to shoulder in defense of the doctrine of the second
coming of Christ itself. How helpful it would be if we could see a great
prophetic Bible conference whose purpose was designed to make an
impact upon the Christian Church at large in behalf of the essential place
of the doctrine of the second coming of Christ in Christian life and
thought. What a contribution to the study of the Word and to real
Christian unity if instead of dedicating itself to the objective of
propagating a pretribulation type of. eschatology, the prophetic
conference movement was really concerned to hear both sides of the
question and to place its emphasis on the great fundamental essentials
held by all who believe the Word and hold the Blessed Hope.

Many Christians believe, and without doubt sincerely, that any

deviation from the popular pretribulation teaching is a step away from the
Word of God toward liberalism. This belief does not square with the
facts. It is said that liberals are never found among premillennialists but
are often found among a- and postmillennialists. This, how ever, is not an
accurate representation of the situation. A man who is a theological
liberal will not call himself an amillennialist any more than he will a
premillennialist. An amillennialist is one who shares with the
premillennialist the real hope of the visible, personal, glorious return of
Christ to inaugurate the final stages of the kingdom of God.
Amillennialism and premillennialism stand together in the insistence that
salvation will never be brought to its consummation and the kingdom of
God come in its fullness without the personal, visible return of the same
Jesus who was taken up into heaven. No theological liberal will share this
doctrine. "There is a considerable morbid interest attaching to many of
the discussions about the future. Christians may learn better how to
employ their time if they will look about them at the world's present dire
need. The future may well enough be left to take care of itself." Thus
writes one of the more "conservative" liberals of the present day. To such
a man, the entire discussion over pre- and amillennialism is an occupation
for fanatics, not for modern scholars.

Any man who will accept the designation "amillennialist" is not a

liberal, for he is looking for the personal glorious second coming of
Christ. The entire debate over the question of whether or not there will be
a literal millennium or an earthly kingdom after the return of Christ has
nothing to do with the distinction between an orthodox and a liberal
theology. Only men who believe in a prophetic Scripture, inspired by the
Holy Spirit, will debate the question. Was B. B. Warfield moving toward
liberalism because he was a postmillennialist? Was J. Gresham Machen
any less a fundamentalist because he was an amillennialist? We must not
lose our perspective nor permit our attention to be diverted from the main
issues of the day to those which are relatively unimportant.

The man who believes that the kingdom of God is to be fully realized
only by the visible personal return of the Lord will not preach a social
gospel of liberalism whose ob ject is to build the kingdom of God.
Perhaps postmillennialism is in danger of moving in that direction. There
may be close similarities between the idea of christianizing the world by
the preaching of the Gospel (postmillennialism) and that of christianizing
the world by building the kingdom of God (the social gospel), although
there need not be. Postmillennialism, for all its apparent similarity to the
social gospel, can be thoroughly supernaturalistic in its understanding of
Christ and the Gospel. This was certainly true of Warfield.

However, both the amillennialist and the premillennalist insist that the
world is evil, that the business of the Church primarily is to preach the
Gospel of salvation, and that the Christian must be living in constant
expectation of the personal second coming of Christ. The fullness of the
kingdom will come only with the coming of the King. This is Biblical
doctrine, and on it premillennialists, whether they believe in a pre- or
posttribulation rapture, and amillennialists stand together.

Secondly, a teaching of a pretribulation rapture is not essential for the

preservation of the purifying influence of the Blessed Hope. Many of
God's people are sincerely afraid that unless they hold to a pretribulation,
anymoment coming of Christ, this doctrine will no longer be a purifying
hope. They fear that an event which cannot take place until the end of the
Tribulation and which therefore cannot occur at any moment cannot
exercise the purifying influence upon the lives of believers which the
Scriptures teach.

We must again ask, What does the Bible really teach? Is it the fact of
the coming of Christ or its imminence which is a purifying hope? The
Word of God does not teach that it is the any-moment character of the
coming of Christ which is to exercise a purifying influence; it is the
glorious reality of that coming itself.

The one verse which explicitly sets forth this purifying hope is I John
3:2, 3: "We know that if he shall be mani fested, we shall be like him; for
we shall see him even as he is. And everyone that hath this hope set on
him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." The incentive of this verse is
not the fear of being caught in some sort of impurity at the moment when
Christ comes. It is rather the hope of being like Christ whenever He
comes which exercises the purifying influence. Because I have my hope
set on Christ, because I know that I shall be like Him, because He is the
object of my affection, I purify myself even as He is pure.

It is to be emphasized, furthermore, that if we take this verse at its face

value, the time we shall see our Lord as He is, is at His "manifestation."
"If he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even
as he is." This word "to make manifest" is used frequently of the
appearance of our Lord in the flesh (I Tim. 3:16, II Tim. 1:10, Heb. 9:26,
I Pet. 1:20). Certainly this was a manifestation of the Son of God for all
to see. It was not limited to believers. The verb is used of the second
coming of Christ outside of I John only in Colossians 3:4: "When Christ,
who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with him be
mainfested in glory." Of this verse, Dr. Ironside says, "He is coming back
to the earth that rejected Him, and all His saints are coming with Him,
not, of course, to take up human conditions here in the world again; but in
resurrection bodies to appear with Him before the astonished eyes of
those who still reject Him." This manifestation, says Dr. Ironside, is
described in I Thessalonians 1:5-11. With this we agree. We are therefore
led to the inescapable conclusion that our purifying hope is that of
becoming like Christ when we shall see Him at His manifestation or
Revelation at the end of the Tribulation period. The Blessed Hope is
therefore not the Rapture of the Church, unless the Rapture and
Revelation are identical in time.

A recent article defending pretribulationism says, "If any part of it (the

Tribulation) must be fulfilled before the Rapture, then the Scriptures
which speak of our expectancy of seeing Him imminently are nullified
and the exhortations to godly living, based on this expectancy, lose their
power. For the hope of our Lord's imminent coming carries with it a
restraint upon the flesh and an incentive to a Spirit-filled walk that are not
found in any other doctrine of the Scriptures." This author then quotes
Titus 2:12-14 to prove his point, "Instructing us, to the intent that,
denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly and
righteously and godly in this present world ; looking for the blessed hope
and appearing of the glory of ... Jesus Christ."

To this, three things are to be said. Firstly, this passage does not use the
second coming of Christ as the main incentive for godly living. The main
incentive is the fact that "the grace of God hath appeared, bringing
salvation to all men" (vs. 11). In this Scripture, our purity results not from
the return of Christ, but because Christ "gave himself for us, that he might
redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a people for his own
possession, zealous of good works" (vs. 14). The present author has no
intention of suggesting that the coming of Christ is not a purifying hope,
but he must insist that this is not the main teaching of this passage. We
are to be pure because we have been redeemed, purchased unto God by
the shed blood of Jesus Christ. We are to be pure because we no longer
belong to the world, or to sin, or to ourselves ; we belong to God. We are
His own special possession. Because we belong to God, we are living in
expectancy of the appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
We long to see Him who has redeemed us. We no longer belong to the
world, but as citizens of heaven, we desire eagerly to enter into the full
experience of what heavenly citizenship means. Citizenship in the world
means weak, corruptible bodies ; but the perfection of heavenly
citizenship means the transformation of the body when humiliation is
exchanged for glory. Thus we long for the return of Christ.

Secondly, the coming of Christ which is referred to in Titus 2:13 is not

the alleged secret any-moment coming; it is rather the epiphany of His
glory which pretribulationists admit occurs at the end of the Tribulation.
Yet the Word of God explicitly says that we are to look for an event
which is to be preceded by the Tribulation.

Thirdly, the idea of the restraining influence of the imminent, "any-

moment" coming of Christ, as frequently interpreted, suggests that the
highest motive for Christian conduct and for separation from the world is
that of fear. Since the Lord may come at any moment, I do not dare to do
some things I would like to do and might otherwise do, lest He come and
catch me.

Undoubtedly, the motive of fear has its place in Christian experience,

and our Lord Himself warned men to fear Him who is able to cast both
body and soul into hell (Matt. 10:28). An element of warning is indeed
found in the commands to watch in Matthew 24 :36ff ; but the warning is
not grounded upon the fact that the return of Christ may occur at any
moment, for the coming of the Son of man (vs. 44) is His coming on the
clouds with power and great glory at the end of the Tribulation.
Furthermore, the warning is not directed to disciples who are becoming
careless ; it is addressed to those who are not really disciples at all.
 In the days of Noah, the signs of approaching judgment were evident.
The ark was arising before the eyes of wicked men ; and Noah's
preaching of imminent judgment was the clearest sign of all. Yet the day
came upon men when they "knew not . . . and took them all away; so
shall be the coming of the Son of man. Then shall two men be in the
field; one is taken, and one is left; two women shall be grinding at the
mill; one is taken, and one is left. Watch therefore; for ye know not on
what day your Lord cometh" (vv. 39, 42). Whether this refers to being
taken by rapture or by judgment, the separation involved is between true
and false disciples, between believers and unbelievers, not between
consecrated and worldly Christians. The mo tive of fear is not addressed
to the disciple of the Lord, but to the unbeliever. The motive inspiring the
believer to a holy walk is not the fear of being apprehended by a sudden
return of the Lord in some worldly conduct, but the joy of meeting the
Lord who has redeemed us. It is our love for Him and the joy of the
anticipated consummation of perfect fellowship which impels us to a pure
life. This is the thought of Titus 2:11-14.

The motive of shame is indeed employed in I John 2:28. "And now, my

little children, abide in him; that, if he shall be manifested, we may have
boldness, and not be ashamed before him at his coming." But it is the
shame which can only hurt love. And the possibility of being shamed in
the presence of Christ is not related to an imminent, any-moment coming
but rather to His person whenever He is manifested.

It is often maintained that an event cannot exercise a direct influence

upon my life unless it is able to take place at any moment. As plausible as
this reasoning sounds, it does not square with the Scripture or with
experience. Peter directs the attention of his readers to the day of God
when "the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall
melt with fervent heat." This day of God will bring the final
consummation of God's purposes at the end of the millennium, and
speaking of this day, Peter says, "We look for a new heavens and a new
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." This objective is at least a
thousand years away. Yet Peter says, "seeing that these things are thus all
to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy living
and godliness, looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of
God" (II Peter 3:11-13). It is the character and the certainty of the final
consummation when there will at last be a new earth which has no room
for unrighteousness which is the motivation for holy living and godliness;
for it is only the holy, godly man who can expect to have a place in this
new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.

Perhaps the author may be permitted to illustrate the continuing

influence of a future event from his personal experience. When he was a
freshman in college, he fell in love with a girl who three and a half years
later became his wife. He knew the wedding day was more than three
years away. There were intervals when they could not be together for
months at a time and there were indeed lonely hours; but they both knew
that the day would come when they would be together as man and wife
and when their love would find its full realization in the formation of a
home. If any one suggests that this affection, even though it would not be
brought to its normal fruition for more than three years, did not exercise a
continual and deep influence upon my life, he does not know what love
:s. During those years I had no serious interest in any other. I had given
my love to one, there was no room for another.

The hope of the Christian is "the Marriage of the Lamb" when faith
shall be translated into sight, when our love for Christ shall be brought to
its consummation in that happy day. However, it is not primarily the day
itself which exercises the purifying hope so much as it is the Person with
whom we shall be united ; and we have already given our affection and
love to Him. The verse in I John 3:3 does not say, "and everyone that hath
this hope within himself purifieth himself," as the King James translation
might suggest. It reads, "and everyone that hath this hope set on Christ
purifieth himself, even as Christ is pure." It is the Lord who is the object
of our hope; and whether His coming be near or far, the glorious fact of
His person and the certainty of our union with Him is the ground and the
incentive for our holy walk.

Third, pretribulationism sacrifices one of the main motives for world-

wide missions, viz., hastening the attainment of the Blessed Hope. The
pretribulation doctrine as it is usually taught robs the Church of one of the
most dynamic incentives for world-wide evangelization. At the Sec and
New York Congress on Prophecy held in 1943, Samuel M. Zwemer gave
an address on the subject "The Return of our Lord and World-wide
Evangelism." His text was Matthew 24:14, "And this gospel of the
kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all
nations and then shall the end come." It is doubtful whether Zwemer
would be invited to give this address in a modern prophetic conference,
for according to the usual pretribulation interpretation, Matthew 24:14
does not belong to the Church but to the Jewish remnant which will be
brought into existence after the Rapture of the Church to be the witness
for God to the nations after the Church has been taken away. The "Gospel
of the Kingdom" is said to be not the Gospel of grace by which we are
saved, but the good news that the millennial kingdom is about to be
established. Within a period of seven years, the Jewish remnant, although
lacking the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit - for according to the
theory, the Spirit has been taken out of the world at the Rapture of the
Church - will evangelize the entire world with this announcement about
the coming kingdom. This task the Christian Church, indwelt by the
Spirit of God, has failed thus far to accomplish in two thousand years.

This interpretation which applies Matthew 24:14 to a Jewish remnant is

an inference and not the clear teaching of the Word of God. It has not
been proven that the Gospel of the Kingdom is anything other than
redeeming grace. Almost the same phrase is found in Acts 8:12 where we
read that Philip went to Samaria, "gospeling concerning the kingdom of
God and the name of Jesus Christ." The one great mission of the Church
is to evangelize the world. This is not a theory, it is a fact. Jesus gave the
Church its marching orders to go and make disciples of all nations; and in
carrying out the task, He promised to be with them even unto the end of
the age (Matt. 28:19, 20).

Matthew 24:14 conveys the same thought. The good news about the
kingdom of God 1 must be carried into the whole world for a witness to
all nations. This is the divinely appointed task of the Church. The Church
is not to save the world; it is not to christianize the world; it is not to
transform the world so that it becomes the kingdom of God. This will be
accomplished only by the glorious second coming of Christ. Until Christ
comes, this age remains an evil age (Gal. 1:4) under the influence of
Satan (II Cor. 4:4). The Church's task must ever be carried out in frank
recognition of the character of the age. Nevertheless it has a task which is
divinely given and in which the Church must be victorious : world-wide
evangelization and the gathering of the saved into the body of Christ.
Only when this commission has been completed will Christ return. Those
who "love His appearing" are those who should have the greatest concern
for the evangelization of the world.

Christ is tarrying until the Church has completed its task. When
Matthew 24:14 has been fulfilled, then Christ will come. There is no
more notable "sign of the times" than the fact that the greatest impetus in
world-wide evangelization since apostolic times has taken place in the
preceding century. The world is nearly evangelized ; any generation
which is really dedicated to the task can complete the mission. The Lord
can come in our own generation, in our life-time - if we stir ourselves and
finish our task. Let us then not be dissipating our energies in differences
over the Rapture and the Tribulation. Rather let every believer who
cherishes the Blessed Hope give himself in unstinted measure to the
prosecution of world-evangelization; for then will Christ come.

How can anyone say that posttribulationism cuts the nerve of foreign
missions? How can anyone accuse posttribulationism of lacking
evangelistic drive? The opposite is the case. It is impossible to conceive
of a stronger mo tive for world evangelization and for the salvation of the
lost than the realization that Christ is waiting to return until the Church
has completed this mission.

The author is not alone in this conviction. Listen to the roll-call of some
of the mightiest missionary statesmen and men of God of our generation.
R. H. Glover, Home Director of the China Inland Mission said, "Christ
did not return at the end of the first generation, nor has He yet returned
after 1900 years, the obvious reason being that there were still millions
then, and there are still millions today, who have never heard the Gospel."
 G. W. Playfair, General Director of the Sudan Interior Mission, said,
"Does the Lord delay His Coming? Yes, and for only one reason. Until an
unfaithful Church awakes fully to the fact that the Gospel `must first be
published among all nations,' until His Church is complete, and it cannot
be complete from the favored half of the world which has heard the
Gospel. The Church will only be complete by receiving into its
membership men of every nation, language and people."

Charles R. Erdman, of Princeton Theological Seminary, said, "In spite

of all differences and disturbances, the work of his followers is to be
pressed. Their task is clear. Until it has been completed, the King will not
return. Whatever differences of opinion may exist among the servants of
the King relative to the details of his return, all should be united in the
accomplishment of their common task and inspired by the same blessed
hope."

Samuel H. Kellogg, in his strong defense of premillennialism against

postmillennialism entitled, Are Premillennialists Right?, wrote, "The
Premillennialist believes, no less than those who differ with him, that the
Gospel must be published among all nations before the kingdom will
come. Premillennialism furnishes (a motive for world wide
evangelization) of great power peculiar to that doctrine. It makes the
appearance of the glorious kingdom a practical possibility of the near
future, as the contrary doctrine can not. For to convert the world in our
own time is not in man ; but to witness to all nations is in the power of the
Church, even in this generation. We believe that, if but that be done, the
Lord will come, and with Him the great victory of the ages, the first
resurrection and the everlasting kingdom. We believe this, because we
find it plainly declared by our Lord Himself, that when `this Gospel of the
kingdom shall be preached for a witness to all nations, then shall the end
come.' "

One of the most zealous and successful promoters of the modern

missionary movement is Oswald J. Smith. Billy Graham says of Dr.
Smith, "As a missionary statesman he has no peer. Around the world the
name Oswald J. Smith symbolizes world-wide evangelization .... As a
missionary he exemplifies a passion for souls." This judgment few will
question.

In his recent book, The Passion for Souls, Dr. Smith has a chapter
entitled, "Will Christ Return to Earth Before the World has been
Evangelized?" in which he takes as his texts Mark 13:10 and Matthew
24:14. He refuses to recognize the dispensational difference between the
Gospel of grace and the Gospel of the Kingdom. He says, "I am
preaching both the Gospel of the grace of God and the Gospel of the
Kingdom, constantly. The Gospel of the grace of God is the good news
that Jesus died for sinners. The Gospel of the Kingdom is the good news
that Jesus is coming back to reign. Both messages must be proclaimed ;
and whether it is the Gospel of the grace of God or the Gospel of the
Kingdom, it makes no difference. In both cases, it is the Gospel, the good
news. And it must be published before the end comes."

Under the heading "A Dangerous Heresy," Dr. Smith says, "But I know
what some are saying. I hear it everywhere. They are saying : `This is not
the task of the Church at all, the Jews are to do it; we should leave it for
them after we have been raptured away.'

"I know of no heresy that can do more to cut the nerve of missionary
endeavour. Moreover, I know of no definite statement in the entire Bible
that would lead me to believe for one single moment, that the Jews are to
evangelize the world during the days of the great tribulation, as some
people seem to think. Were I to believe that I would fold my arms and do
nothing.

"Do you mean to say that after the Holy Spirit has gone, and we are told
that He is to go when the Church goes, do you mean to say that the Jews
can accomplish more in some seven years or less, without the help of the
Holy Spirit, in the midst of persecution and martyrdom, than we have
been able to accomplish in nearly two thousand years, with the Holy
Spirit's aid, when it has been easy to be a Christian? Preposterous !
Impossible!
 "Christ wants to return. He longs to reign. It is His right. Then why
does He wait? He is waiting for you and me to complete the task. He is
waiting for us to do what He has told us to do. Many a time He must say
to Himself as He sits there, `How long, I wonder, are they going to keep
Me waiting? When will they let Me come back? How soon can I return to
earth to sit on My throne and reign?'

"This then is His answer to their question. `What shall be THE sign of
thy coming, and the end of the age?' That was what they wanted to know
- THE sign preceding and indicating the end. His answer to their question
in verse 3 of Matthew xxiv is found in verse 14. Here it is: `This gospel
shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations; and
THEN shall the end come.' All His other predictions indicate the
approaching end; this one, THE end .... It is God's programme: first world
evangelization ; then, the reign of Christ."

A. B. Simpson is one of the great saints of modern times. He wrote,

"The work of missions is the great means of hastening that end (the return
of Christ). The work of the Holy Ghost through the church was chiefly
intended to gather out from all nations a people for His name, a bride for
the Lamb.... Until the whole number of His elect shall have thus been
called and gathered home, He cannot come. .... We know that our
missionary work is not in vain, but, in addition to the blessing it is to
bring to the souls we lead to Christ, best of all it is to bring Christ
Himself back again. It puts in our hands the key to the bridal chamber and
the lever that will hasten His return. What a glorious privilege. What a
mighty incentive. Do we long to see Him in His glory and to meet our
loved ones once more? Then we shall work with redoubled energy to
spread the Gospel, to tell the story, to evangelize the world and to 'prepare
the way of the Lord.' "
(A. B. Simpson).

Fourth, an attitude of expectancy is not identical with a belief in an any-

moment coming of Christ. There will doubtless be some who read this
book who will say that its position discourages an attitude of expectancy
because it does riot support the view of an any-moment coming. This
attitude is based on a false assumption : that belief in the any-moment
return of Christ is identical with a Biblical attitude of expectancy.

We would meet this possible criticism by an ad hominem argument.

The fact is that those who teach the usual pattern of a pretribulation
rapture cannot consistently hold to a true any-moment coming of Christ.
According to their view, the final seven years before the millennium are
the seventieth week of Daniel 9. Since these seventy weeks have to do
exclusively with the destinies of Israel, the seventieth week has nothing to
do with the Christian Church or the age of grace. One of the most
consistent presentations of this position is that of C. L. Fowler in his
Building the Dispensations (1940) where the period of tribulation is made
a separate dispensation intervening between that of the "Body" (the
church age) and the "Kingdom." Since the "Tribulation Age" has to do
with Israel alone, we must conclude that the Church is to be raptured at
its beginning. Thus no prophetic events are to take place before the secret
coming of Christ to rapture the Church. All of the predicted events
attending Christ's return will take place during the seven years following
the Rapture. The next prophetic event, therefore, after the Ascension of
Christ is the Rapture. No signs will herald its approach. It is a "signless"
event. Therefore it could occur at any moment after the Ascension.

So the argument runs. But it overlooks one very important fact.

According to this system, the Rapture occurs at the beginning of the
seventieth week predicted in Daniel 9:27: "And he (Antichrist) shall make
a firm covenant with many (the Jews) for one week; and in the midst of
the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease." The last
seven years begins when Antichrist - who is not yet recognized as such -
makes a covenant with Israel, now restored in Palestine as a nation. In the
"midst of the week," i.e., after three and a half years, Antichrist manifests
himself as such, breaks the covenant, compels the Jews to discontinue
their sacrifices, and launches the terrible persecution of the Great
Tribulation.

If this is a correct interpretation of the prophetic future, the Rapture of

the Church is not the next event upon the prophetic calendar; it is rather
the return of Israel to her land. The Rapture of the Church is then
preceded by a sign, the "sign of the fig tree," the sign of Israel. After the
fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. and the destruction of the Jewish state and
after the dissolution of the Roman empire, the Rapture could not take
place until Israel was restored to Palestine as a nation and until there
arose another emperor or king who would rule over all Europe. In other
words, it would have been impossible for Christ to have returned to
rapture the Church during the nineteenth century, or even as late as 1900
when the Turk was ruling Palestine and the Jew was scattered over the
earth outside the land. It is furthermore quite impossible to imagine the
machinery being set in motion to dislodge the Turk, to reverse the course
of history and open Palestine to the Jew, to reassemble a few hundred
thousand Jews in the land, to forge a national entity out of the
heterogeneous people, to see an Antichrist arise out of the relatively
stable European political scene who would dominate the continent and
enter into covenant with restored Israel - all within a few months; and
precisely this would be demanded by a true any-moment theory which
would admit that Christ could have returned in 1900. Such a complex of
historical events is conceivable in a generation, but hardly in a few
months.

A real "any-moment" expectation is neither Biblically nor historically

sound. This is not to say that we are not to be possessed with a spirit of
expectancy. The Word is full of such an attitude. No man can possess a
Biblical outlook without looking for the personal coming of the Lord.
Paul taught the Thessalonians to "wait for his Son from heaven" (I Thess.
1:10). The word used is instructive. It is a word which would not be used
of a patient sitting in a dentist's office waiting his turn to sit in the
dentist's chair; nor of a sick man dying of an incurable disease, resignedly
waiting the end. The word involves eagerness, longing, expectancy. It
expresses an earnestness and intensity of desire which is to be the attitude
of every believer toward the Blessed Hope.

That this attitude is not based on an any-moment expectation is shown

by the objects of hope. We are looking eagerly not only for events which
will occur, according to pretribulationism, at the Rapture (Rom. 8:23;
Gal. 5:5; Phil. 3:20; Heb. 9:28) ; we are also looking eagerly for the
Revelation of Christ at the end of the Tribulation (I Cor. 1:7). We are also
looking for the day of God, the new heavens and the new earth which will
come only after the millennium (II Pet. 3:12-13. A different but similar
word is here used.)

There is in fact in the Word of God a tension, a "dialectic," a balance of

two attitudes. This may be best illustrated by our Lord's teachings. He
admonished to watchfulness because of the uncertainty of the day and
hour of the coming of the Son of man. Yet he also taught explicitly that a
long time would intervene between His departure and His return. When
He came to Jerusalem for the last time, the people thought the kingdom of
God was immediately to appear; but to correct their false "any-moment"
expectation, He uttered a parable of a "certain nobleman [who] went into
a far country, to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return" (Luke
19:12). Again, He illustrated His departure from earth and His second
coming by a parable of a man going into another country, who entrusted
to his servants his goods; and "after a long time the lord of those servants
cometh, and maketh a reckoning with them" (Matt. 25:19). Furthermore,
such sayings as Mark 13:10 and Matthew 24:14 about the proclamation
of the Gospel in all the world, and Luke 21:24 about the times of the
Gentiles involve a considerable historical perspective.

There is in our Lord's teachings a twofold emphasis : expectancy and

perspective. He wished to leave every generation of His people in the
position where they might feel that their generation might be the last and
yet be unable to set dates. The reaction which this should create is seen in
the Apostle Paul. Paul lived his entire life with an attitude of expectancy
toward the return of Christ. He talks as though his generation would
witness the end ; yet he nowhere expressly affirms that the end will come
in his lifetime. On the other hand, he has a long-range historical
perspective. He sees the salvation of the Gentiles and then the final
salvation of Israel. Paul lived as though Christ were coming back in his
own generation ; but he worked and planned as though the world would
go on for a long time.

This is the Biblical tension ; and this is the attitude God would find in
every generation. The author has the conviction that we are now living in
the last days. The restoration of Israel, the progress of world-wide
evangelization, the contemporary deification of the state, the inroads of
rationalistic thought in the Christian Church which may be an element in
the apostasy - all these appear to be preparing the stage for the end in a
way which no previous generation has witnessed. The Lord may well
return within our lifetime. But we do not know that this is to be the case.
If we knew we had only a few years, we would do some things
differently. Life insurance and savings for retirement would be of no need
if the Lord is to return within a few years. The investment of large
amounts of money in the erection of church buildings, the creation of an
indigenous church on the mission field, or the building of a theological
seminary with its necessary buildings, library, etc., are unwise if the Lord
is to appear within a decade. All of these are long-range projects. If we
know that the world has only a few more years, nothing else counts. The
Thessalonians were right. Work, savings and planning for the future are
all beside the point; there is no future to plan for.

The Biblical attitude is expressed by Paul in his first letter to the

Thessalonians. It is a working faith, a laboring love, and a patient hope.
While we "wait for his Son from heaven," the Word is to sound forth into
all the world (I Thess. 1:3, 9-10). Expectancy - perspective; this pleases
God, avoids error, and motivates to Christian service.

Fifth, pretribulationism misinterprets the Blessed Hope. The second

coming of Christ and the expectation of entering into a perfected
fellowship with Him when we shall see Him face to face is the Blessed
Hope of the Church. Perhaps the most common objection raised against a
posttribulation teaching is this. The second coming of Christ is no longer
a Blessed Hope if the Church must first pass through the Tribulation. If
we must look for tribulation rather than for a rapture before the
Tribulation, then the Blessed Hope has lost its blessed character and
becomes instead a day of dread and fear.

In answer to this position, two things are to be said. First, we have

already demonstrated that the Church will not experience the wrath of
God. The Great Tribulation so far as it involves the outpouring of God's
wrath will not engulf the Church. If that were not the case, the Tribulation
would be an experience of unimaginable horror. However, God has not
destined us to wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Secondly, the Word of God does not teach that the Blessed Hope of the
Church is a hope of deliverance from persecution. The coming of Christ
is described as the Blessed Hope in one verse: Titus 2:13. "Looking for
the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour
Jesus Christ." Did the Spirit of God know what He was doing when He
inspired these words? Did He give to Paul a vague thought leaving him to
confuse it with inaccurate language? We think not. The Blessed Hope is
not deliverance from tribulation; it is not even the Rapture itself ; it is the
epiphany, the outshining of the glory of our great God and Savior. If this
verse is any guide, the Blessed Hope is not a secret coming of Christ; it is
not the resurrection of the dead; it is not the transformation of the living;
it is not the catching up of the Church ; the Blessed Hope is the glorious
epiphany of Our Lord Himself, which occurs at the end of the Great
Tribulation.

To insist that the Blessed Hope must be escape from the Great
Tribulation is to place the emphasis where the Scripture does not place it;
it is in fact to impose an interpretation upon the Scripture in place of what
the Word of God actually says. As we indicated in an earlier chapter, the
Word of God everywhere assures us that in this age we are to expect
tribulation and persecution. The last great persecution of Antichrist will
indeed be worse and more fearful than anything the world has ever seen;
but when we contemplate the history of martyrdom, why should we ask
deliverance from what millions have already suffered? When we read in
the books of the Maccabees of the tortures inflicted upon the Jews who
were faithful to the teachings of the Law by the manifestation of
antichrist in the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes ; when we recall the
thousands of Christians who fell in torture and death and did it gladly in
the name of Christ at the hands of the manifestation of the spirit of
antichrist in the Roman emperors ; when we are reminded of the
Inquisition with its rack and wheel and flame; when we remember from
our own generation the liquidation of several millions of Jews by a
modern antichrist, and even more recently the martyrdom of tens of
thousands of Korean Christians, what kind of a faith does the Church of
today exemplify and what sort of a gospel is it which we proclaim if we
insist that God must deliver us from the hands of the last manifestation of
antichrist at the end of the age?

There is one very sobering question which weighs heavily upon the
writer's heart, and he would ask his readers to share it. Many of God's
people are being assured today that the Rapture will take place before the
Tribulation and that the Church will not experience those terrible days.
Those who hold a different view and believe that the Church will suffer in
the Tribulation from Antichrist have not been vocal. The author knows of
a good number of outstanding Christian leaders who hold this
expectation, but they do not wish to be quoted and they have not publicly
expressed themselves.

However, can we afford to be silent on this question? In light of the fact

that the Word of God nowhere expressly asserts a pretribulation rapture,
and since there is no plain affirmation that the Church will be taken out of
the world before Antichrist appears, let us suppose that we are in fact in
the very last days, and within a matter of months or a few years at most,
God moves upon the events of world history so that suddenly a new
Caesar or Mussolini or Hitler or Stalin appears who is unquestionably the
Antichrist. Suppose that such a person, the incarnation of satanic power,
actually gains domination of the entire world as neither Mussolini or
Hitler or Stalin were able to do. Suppose that he uses this power to
demand a worship of himself and his state upon penalty of death.
Suppose that martyrs begin to fall by the hundreds of thousands, not only
of Jews but particularly of Christians who will not worship the Beast or
receive his mark. Suppose that suddenly the people of God find
themselves engulfed in a horrible persecution at the hands of the
Antichrist when they had been assured repeatedly on the authority of the
Word of God that this experience would never befall them. What will be
the result? We leave it to the reader's imagination. Certainly we dare not
propagate a teaching of safety about which the Word of God is not
indisputably clear, nor should we accept the responsibility of filling the
hearts of God's people with what may be a false hope and thus leave them
utterly unprepared for terrible days of persecution when and if they fall. If
there is the possibility that the Church is to suffer tribulation at the hands
of Antichrist, do not those who believe it have a God-given responsibility
to do what they can to prepare the Church for what may be ahead, even
though it is a very unwelcome message? Our responsibility is to God, not
to man.

Finally, pretribulationism is not essential to premillennialism. We

would conclude by reinforcing the thesis for which we are pleading by
quoting from several outstanding men of God. C. C. Ryrie, Professor of
Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary : ". . . let it be said that one's
attitude toward the tribulation or the rapture is not a decisive factor in
premillennialism." "Premillennialism as a system is not dependent upon
one's view of the rapture." "Premillennialism does not stand or fall on
one's view of the tribulation. It is not the decisive issue."

Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer : "Certain phases of prophecy find good men
taking positions which are opposed the one to the other. The prophetic
word has come plainly enough for all to agree on it, but just the same its
meaning cannot always be ascertained to the satisfaction of all
conservative minds. There is room for a difference of viewpoint on
prophetic points where none exists in the realm of salvation truth, basic as
that doctrine must be for all time."

President John Walvoord of Dallas Theological Seminary: "Before the

first coming of the Lord, there was confusion even among the prophets
concerning the distinction between the first and second comings (I Peter
1:10-11). At the present time, there is similar confusion between the
translation of the church and the second coming to establish the
millennial kingdom. An attitude of Christian tolerance is called for
toward those who differ on this doctrine. But may we all `love his
appearing' (II Tim. 4:8).

Dr. Charles E. Fuller said on the Old Fashioned Revival Hour, "A word
of warning, sweetly given : do not make this difference a test of
orthodoxy. Be tolerant in this matter. If a truly born again believer differs
with you, don't withdraw your fellowship because of this difference on
this matter; it is not a test of orthodoxy. Churches should not be divided
over this point of doctrine. The test of orthodoxy, beloved - listen, and I
will give my life for it - is based on the Virgin Birth, the Incarnation :
God manifest in the flesh, the atoning sacrifice, the bodily resurrection of
Christ from among the dead, His ascension, His intercession and His
coming again. If a man bring any doctrine other than I have stated,
receive him not into your home.

"It gives me grief to see the contention over some secondary - shall I
put it - point of doctrine. Satan loves to divide and bring division in the
body of believers. If you believe one point, or the second point, or the
third point, of this pre-, mid- and posttribulation rapture, God bless you."
CONCLUSION
We have now concluded our study both of the Biblical teaching about
the Blessed Hope and of the history of pretribulationism, and have come
to the following conclusions. The idea of a pretribulation rapture was not
seen in the Scriptures by the early church fathers. They were futurists and
premillennialists but not pretribulationists. This of itself indicates that
pretribulationism and premillennialism are not identical and that the
Blessed Hope is not the hope of a rapture before the Tribulation.
Pretribulationism was an unknown teaching until the rise of the Plymouth
Brethren among whom the doctrine originated. From this source, it has
come to America where, although warmly received by some, it has been
rejected by other devout students of the Word, or has been at first
accepted and later rejected by others. This very fact should suggest
caution in making pretribulationism an essential element in prophetic
interpretation.

The vocabulary of the Blessed Hope knows nothing of two aspects of

Christ's coming, one secret and one glorious. On the contrary, the
terminology points to a single indivisible return of Christ. Scripture says
nothing about a secret coming of the Lord.

The Scriptures which predict the Great Tribulation, the Rapture and the
Resurrection nowhere place the Rapture and the Resurrection of the saints
at the beginning of the Tribulation. Nor does Scripture know anything of
two phases of the first resurrection - that of the saints and that of the
tribulation martyrs - separated by a seven-year period of tribulation. On
the contrary, the one passage which is most specific as to chronology
places the resurrection of both martyrs and saints after the Tribulation.
Furthermore, the isolated verses which are claimed for pretribulationism
do not in fact assert a pretribulation rapture. This doctrine is nowhere
affirmed in the Word of God; it is an assumption in light of which the
Word is interpreted.
 We have examined the arguments on which the assumption rests and
have found that they do not require this inference. Such terminology as
that of Christ's coming for and with His saints, the day of the Lord and
the day of Christ do not establish two events. Scripture says nothing
about a removal of the Holy Spirit. The Revelation says nothing about the
Rapture and does not see a raptured Church in heaven during the
Tribulation. In fact, the union of Christ with His bride does not take place
until His return after the Tribulation.

The Biblical teaching of watching is not the equivalent of watching for

an any-moment coming of Christ.

The Scriptures which promise deliverance from God's wrath do not

prove a pretribulation rapture, because God's people who will find
themselves on earth during the Tribulation will be divinely sheltered from
the outpourings of wrath. On the other hand, it would be a reversal of
God's providences in history if He were to remove the Church from the
last attack of human and satanic hostility even though it will be the worst
history has known.

The concept that the Scriptures which refer to the Great Tribulation
have to do only with Israel and not with the Church is an arbitrary method
of interpreting the Word which, if carried out consistently, would make
havoc of Biblical interpretation. We have found that dispensationalists
themselves do not apply this method of "dividing the Word" in a
consistent manner.

Finally, we concluded that the undue concern with the question of

pretribulationism tends to cause neglect of more important and vital
issues having to do with the Blessed Hope; that it is not necessary for the
preservation of the purifying influence of the Blessed Hope; that it tends
to misunderstand the most fundamental element in the purifying Hope;
that it sacrifices one of the greatest incentives for world evangelization ;
that a Biblical attitude of expectancy is not identical with a belief in an
any-moment coming of Christ; that it misrepresents the Blessed Hope by
defining it in terms of escape from suffering rather than union with Christ
and thus may be guilty of the positive danger of leaving the Church
unprepared for tribulation when Antichrist appears ; and that
pretribulationism is not essential to a premillennial eschatology.

In short, pretribulationism is neither affirmed by the Word of God, nor

is it an inference required by the Word, nor is it essential for the
preservation of the highest spiritual values. It is, on the contrary, beset by
certain grave dangers.

What is to be said of posttribulationism? Let it be here clearly affirmed

that the author has no desire to be represented as a protagonist of
posttribulationism, although this is probably inevitable. A Christian
leader of national stature recently wrote, "One of these days you are
going to be greatly surprised and you will be caught up to meet the Lord
before the Tribulation breaks upon us. Don't you hope so?" To this
question, we reply with an emphatic, Yes, we do. Let no one say that the
author wants to see the Church suffer persecution or tribulation, or that he
desires to find himself in the Great Tribulation. However, questions of
theology are not decided by our desires or our dislikes ; they are decided
by appeal to the Word of God. And since we do not find pretribulationism
taught in the Word of God, we must insist that this position should not
claim that it is synonymous with the Blessed Hope. The author has
frequently heard the reaction expressed both by laymen and pastors that
they believe in a pretribulation rapture because they do not want to suffer
the Great Tribulation. Who does desire it? However, the question is, What
saith the Word? And unless the Word is clear on such an important point,
can we run the risk of promising God's people what may be a false
security of deliverance from trouble when what they need is warning and
preparation to endure trouble?

The question will be asked, Does the Word assert that the Church will
go through the Tribulation? Is not posttribulationism equally an
inference? Is the student of the Word to throw up his hands and make an
arbitrary choice between two inferences, selecting the one he prefers?
 With the exception of one passage, the author will grant that the
Scripture nowhere explicitly states that the Church will go through the
Great Tribulation. God's people are seen in the Tribulation, but they are
not called the Church but the elect or the saints. Nor does the Word
explicitly place the Rapture at the end of the Tribulation. Most of the
references to these final events lack chronological indications. Perhaps
God wishes us to be certain about the great verities of Christ's return, the
Rapture and the Resurrection, but has deliberately refrained from
answering all of our questions as to the order of events. However, in one
passage, Revelation 20, the Resurrection is placed at the return of Christ
in glory. This is more than an inference. Furthermore, even apart from the
clear teaching of Revelation, if we were left only to inference, our study
has suggested that a single indivisible return of Christ, which requires a
posttribulation view, is the inference which is more naturally suggested
than that of two comings of Christ with a pretribulation rapture.

The author takes it as a basic hermeneutical principle that in disputed

questions of interpretation, the simpler view is to be preferred; the burden
of proof rests upon the more elaborate explanation. We know that Christ
is coming back in power and great glory. We know that every eye shall
see Him for He shall come as lightning blazes from one end of heaven to
the other. We know that when He comes, the dead in Christ will be raised,
the living saints will be raptured, Antichrist will be judged, and the
millennial kingdom inaugurated. If the Coming of Christ, the
Resurrection and the Rapture are not a single indivisible event followed
immediately thereafter by the punishment of Antichrist and the
inauguration of the kingdom, the burden of proof rests on those who
would elaborate this basic outline by dividing the coming of Christ into
two aspects and the first resurrection into two parts. Unless such a proof
is forthcoming, the necessary inference is that this division of the coming
of Christ and the resurrection into two parts is invalid, and one is not
required to accept it as the teaching of the Word of God. Students and
teachers of the Word may hold this position if they feel it helps them to
understand the Scriptures, but they ought not insist that this doctrine is
essential to sound doctrine and an indispensable element in premillennial
eschatology. It should be held as a teaching about which there may be
legitimate differences of opinion within the area of prophetic
interpretation.

The analogy has been drawn between the prophetic expectation of the
first coming of Christ and our expectation of His second coming. We
have quoted Dr. Walvoord to the effect that "before the first coming of the
Lord, there was confusion even among the prophets concerning the
distinction between the first and second comings (I Peter 1:10-11)." The
prophets were not given sufficient light to make an accurate detailed chart
of prophetic events. The distinction between the two advents of Christ
could not be appreciated until He came the first time. If the analogy
holds, God has not even now given us enough light to make an accurate,
detailed chart of all the events which will attend the second advent. Jesus
did not criticize the disciples for failing to have a correct interpretation of
the Old Testament prophecies before the event but only for failure to
recognize the fulfillment when it actually occurred.

Following this analogy, we must conclude that there could be

distinctions involved in events attending Christ's return, but these
distinctions will not become really clear until the events themselves
actually take place. Meanwhile, we must insist that the contemporary
inference of two aspects in the second coming does not have the explicit
confirmation of Scripture. The natural interpretation of the return of
Christ is that of a single glorious event at the very end ; and this was
always the expectation of the futurist views of the Church until the
creation of the dispensational distinctions. The burden of proof rests upon
those who insist that the natural and simplest explanation is not the
Biblical teaching. Pretribulationism is not asserted in the Scripture; it is
not proven. It is an assumption in light of which Scriptures are
interpreted. The strong balance of probability rests with the simpler view,
especially since this view is not burdened by contradictions.

Having said this, we would revert to our original thesis, only to broaden
it: neither pretribulationism nor posttribulationism should be made a
ground of fellowship, a test of orthodoxy, or a necessary element in
Christian doctrine. There should be liberty and charity toward both views.
 That which is essential is the expectation of "the blessed hope and
appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ."

1. We do not like the word, but it is useful and not inaccurate because J.
N. Darby was associated with the formation of the particular teaching under
discussion and became the most influential advocate of these views,
especially through his travels and writings. This pattern of prophetic
interpretation has now more commonly been designated Dispensationalism,
of which pretribulationism is an essential element.

2. S. P. Tregelles, The Hope of Christ's Second Coming, first published in

1864, and now available at Ambassadors for Christ, Los Angeles,
California.

3. This can be procured from The Sovereign Grace Advent Testimony, 9

Milnthorpe Rd., Chiswick, London, England.

4. See the book named above.

5. The addresses were published in Premillennial Essays, edited by

Nathaniel West.

6. Prophetic Studies of the International Prophetic Conference.

1. Scriptural quotations are from the American Version of 1901.

Occasionally, the author has varied the translation in the interests of closer
conformity to the Greek.

1. It is not important for our present discussion whether these verses

sketch the course of the age as we believe, or refer to the first half of the
period of Tribulation as some believe.

2. Cf. the author's book, Crucial Questions Concerning the Kingdom of

God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952), Chapter 7.

1. The present author has dealt with this problem of the "postponed
kingdom" at length in his book, Crucial Questions About the Kingdom of
God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. 1952).

1. See John 3:3; Acts 20:25; 28:23, 31; Rom. 14:17; I Cor. 4:20; Col.
1:13; Heb. 12:28.