A Challenge to the Pre-Trib Rapture? (Pt.2)

Part One

If we take a look at 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 we can try and track what the apostle is teaching:

But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. – 4:13

Paul’s concern is that the embattled believers at Thessalonica are not unaware of a certain doctrine concerning those saints who have passed since it will give them hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. – 4:14

Those who are said to “sleep” are of course those believers who have died. They are with Jesus even though their bodies lie in the dust. These people (their souls) will accompany Jesus when He comes.

For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. – 4:15

When this event occurs there will not be any two or three stage rendezvous with Christ, but all who have died and all who are alive at that time will be included in what happens when the Lord returns.

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. – 4:16

The Lord will come from heaven in great acclamation and those who have died in Christ (i.e., those Christians who are “asleep”) will rise. That is to say, their bodies will rise so that all the saints will be embodied souls together.

Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. – 4:17

Those who have not died but who are “alive” will be snatched up (harpazo) at the same time as those whose bodies have been raised. All will “meet the Lord in the air” not upon earth. This meeting brings the Lord and His saints together from thereon in.

Notice that nowhere in these verses are we told when this snatching up will occur. Will it happen at the second coming of Christ to the earth as depicted in Matthew 24:29-31 and Revelation 19:11-16? That is possible from this context. If so this “rapture” will be at the end of the Tribulation. Might it happen before the Tribulation? Again, that is possible. Clearly we need more information. Does the wider context helps us?

Pretribulationists have pointed to what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:1:

But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you.

Paul then refers to the Day of the Lord and its decidedly unpleasant effects on those who endure it (1 Thess. 5:1-2). He then admonishes the saints to look expectantly, hoping for the day of final salvation (1 Thess. 5:4-8).

For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. – 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10.

It is important to pay attention to comparisons and contrasts here. As far as comparisons go we see the same emphases on hope and togetherness for the living and the dead as we saw in chapter 4. But we see something different too. Look at these two sentences:

A. But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. – 1 Thess. 4:13.

B. But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. – 1 Thess. 5:1.

Who cannot see the difference? In ‘A’ the Apostle was informing them of something they did not know, but in ‘B’ he was reminding them of something they already knew! This means that the two sentences could not be referring to the same thing!

Again, no time-indicator is present, but clearly our antenor’s need to be up. This is where 1 Thess. 5:9-10 come in:

C. For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. – 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10.

Please note the “togetherness” language, which combined with the reference to waking and sleeping calls us back to 4:17. So, either Paul was using these terms (e.g., “together”, “asleep”) to refer to different matters, or he was using them univocally to speak about the same thing, and that thing would have to be the new information in 4:13-17 as opposed to the old information in 5:1ff.

1 Thessalonians 5:9 tells us that “God has not appointed us to wrath” and that wrath is equated with “the Day of the Lord” in 5:2-4. I and pre-tribulationists generally attribute this “Day” to be the coming Tribulation. We may interpret this then as asserting that we are not appointed to the Day of the Lord. to me at least, this is an indicator of the strong possibility of a pre-tribulational rapture.

Now Jerry’s view is as follows (in his words):

So it is Christ and specifically our being in Him that makes us worthy, and one being worthy to be resurrected was Jesus’ requirement this age of which He spoke. So when Paul states in 1Thess. 4 that the dead “in Christ” will rise first and then the Rapture is taught to occur; is it not that proclamation, which if heard would end the discussion on the Rapture’s timing? 

I have told Jerry that he is not easy to understand. But in my dissection of his main points in Part One I included two quotations from Jerry as points 3 and 4 of his argument. Here they are again:

1. “Anyone who has died in Christ must be raised or resurrected before there will be a Rapture.”
2. “We further know that there are many who will die “in Christ” as saved individuals during the Great Tribulation; therefore the Rapture must await their resurrection”

Reviewing these quotes one can see that Jerry assumes that those in the Tribulation are “in Christ” (along with every saint in both Testaments). But this cannot be substantiated from the Scriptures. The phrase “in Christ” always refers to Christians in the Church. Consider these two passages.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. – 2 Corinthians 5:17.

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. – Ephesians 2:10.

In the first we see that to be “in Christ” involves the new birth. Without at all questioning the salvation of OT saints no one can show that their salvation resulted in this change. In the second passage we see that those “in Christ” will do good works (doubtless because they have been changed). Again, Jerry’s attempt to freight OT saints into the Body of Christ post-mortem cannot work with this verse. If being “in Christ” is to be applied to believers before the inception of the Church then it has to be an assumption not an exegetical conclusion. And the same is true for Tribulation saints, IF the Church is removed before the “Day of the Lord”.

To sum up; Jerry assumes that every believer from every age is “in Christ” even though the phrase is always used for Christians in the NT Church. As it is used in connection with the Church it is an extrapolation on Jerry’s part to try to wrap it around OT saints. But OT saints knew they would be resurrected though they were never “in Christ” (e.g., Job 19:25-26). The contrasts between 1 Thess. 4:13-17 and 5:1-10 lead me to conclude that Paul is talking about separate things, with the former being a reference to the rapture (or catching out) of Christians prior to the Tribulation.

Can I absolutely prove a pre-trib rapture? No, but I don’t need to. Jerry seems quite adamant that he has a solid argument for a post-trib rapture and I believe I have demonstrated that his contention also falls short of a clear proof. In my opinion a pre-trib rapture is the best interpretation of the biblical data. I may be wrong of course, but Jerry’s objection fails to move me any closer to abandoning my hope.

I want to thank Jerry for his civil way of disagreeing with me.

A Challenge to the Pre-Trib Rapture? (Pt. 1)

I have received the following objection to the Pre-Trib Rapture from a brother named Jerry Parks. Jerry is a good man who blogs here. He states his argument thus (I have brought together his main assertions from several comments etc.):

“Paul makes clear in his discussion of the resurrection in 1 Cor. 15 that it is being in Christ that is the only means to the resurrection of which Paul is speaking. Specifically he says: ‘For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.’ (KJV).”

“Paul plainly states that no one will see a resurrection to life eternal without being in Christ, and that anyone who has died in Christ must be raised or resurrected before there will be a Rapture.”

“How are we to interpret the apostle’s statement in 1 Corinthians 1:22 that “in Christ all shall be made alive”? I don’t think it is difficult. Paul is writing to the Church, so he is speaking about the Church.”

This then seems to be the bricks and mortar of Jerry’s objection. Let me break it down as I understand it:

1. One has to be in Christ in order to be resurrected
2. The dead in Christ rise first and then we get the rapture
3. “Anyone who has died in Christ must be raised or resurrected before there will be a Rapture.”
4. “We further know that there are many who will die “in Christ” as saved individuals during the Great Tribulation; therefore the Rapture must await their resurrection”
5. Ergo, a post-trib rapture.

The first thing to note is that according to this objection a person must be in Christ to be resurrected. But what does it mean to be in Christ? Does it mean in Christ’s Body, the Church? The objection states that the rapture only occurs after every saint (presumably from all ages) has been resurrected. At that time they are all “snatched out” of the world. And so we arrive at a post-tribulation rapture.

This objection separates the resurrection from the rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4. It precludes any pre-trib rapture since this view posits Church saints being glorified and brought up to heaven after meeting Christ in the air, but it allows for many to be saved in the seven-year tribulation, many of whom will be martyred but resurrected in the Millennial Kingdom. That is to say, pretribulationists do not have a problem with saints in the Church being resurrected seven years before the resurrection of martyred saints at Christ’s return. But does Jerry’s argument have purchase?

A key assumption at work here seems to be that the Church has always existed, since according to Paul to be “in Christ” equates to being in the Church which is His Body (Col. 1:24; Rom. 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 12:12-13). If every saint from every age is in Christ it follows that they are in the Church.

I find a number of problems with this view. Firstly, the Church is espoused to Christ (2 Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:25-27, 32), and will be married to Him (Rev. 21:9-10). Israel, on the other hand, is said to be married to Yahweh (Isa. 54:5; Jer. 3:14; Hos. 2:14-20), even though Israel played the harlot. The Church is not a harlot. So what needs to be done before this first assertion is accepted is to prove that the Church (i.e. those said to be “in Christ”) is in the OT. If this cannot be proven then the assertion is in trouble at the starting gate.

But adding to the problem of equating those “In Christ” with the Church of all ages is the fact that the NT very definitely teaches that the Christian Ekklesia (Church) is a post-resurrection phenomenon. It did not exist before the resurrection of Jesus. We can verify this in at least two ways; A. The Church is said to be “new”, a “mystery”, and future from the perspective of Christ’s ministry. B. Those “in Christ” are connected to His resurrection life. Let me explain:

A. After stating that Gentile believers have been “brought near” by Christ’s blood (Eph. 2:13), Paul asserts that “the middle wall of separation” between Jews and Gentiles has been “broken down” at the cross so that Christ has created “in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace.” (see Eph. 2:14-15). The context is unavoidable. The Body of Christ is “post-resurrectional,” and therefore the “new man”, the Church, cannot be in existence prior to the cross and resurrection. But also, although there might be some wiggle-room in Paul’s language about the Church as a “mystery” not before revealed (in Ephesians 3:3-6), there is no ambiguity at all in Colossians 1:26, – unless one wishes to dispute the fact that “Christ in you” (Col. 1:27) does not require us to be “in Christ,” which would in any case defang Jerry’s argument, but would fly in the face of Paul’s mention of “His body, which is the church” (Col. 1:24).

When one includes alongside these substantial reasons the fact that Christ referred to the Church as future in Matthew 16:18 argument looks in real trouble. If being “in Christ” refers to being in Christ’s resurrected body, which is the Church, then there is no such thing as the Church in the OT and therefore not every saint is in the Church. QED.

B. Perhaps even more destructive to Jerry’s thesis is that fact, so often ignored, that the Church is connected through the Spirit to Christ’s resurrection life. This is Paul’s point in Romans 6:4-11. It is augmented in Ephesians 1:15-23 and 2:4-6, 10. OT saints are not said to be linked to the resurrection of Christ in this way.

Before looking at 1 Thessalonians 4 I want to zoom in on the fourth premise of Jerry’s argument as I have reconstructed it. He says, “We further know that there are many who will die “in Christ” as saved individuals during the Great Tribulation.”

What needs to be fleshed out here? Obviously, the claim to “know” that Tribulation saints will be “in Christ” in Paul’s sense. My response is that Jerry does not “know” this, he assumes it. In fact, he is guilty of begging the question here since pre-tribulationists deny this very thing. Hence, what needs to be done is to provide clear proof for the statement. This ought to include reasons why Revelation does not mention the Church in its central (Tribulational) section, as well as the difficulty of finding the Church in the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24-25; Mk. 13; Lk. 21). .

Trying to Get the Rapture Right (12)

Part Eleven

This is the final part of this exploratory series on the rapture of the Church.  It’s main purpose has been to show that none of the competing positions on the “taking out” of the saints merits more than an “inference to the best explanation.”  Within the Rules of Affinity this would be a C3.  I have looked at posttribulationism and midtribulationism in the last post; here I shall look at the prewrath and pretribulational views.

PreWrath

This view is of very recent vintage, but for all that it has articulated its position well and has won many advocates.  In my opinion this position mounts some serious challenges for the other approaches.  It deserves to be taken seriously.

The arguments in favor of prewrath rapturism are quite impressive taken as a whole.  Examined individually less so.  PreWrathers, as Postmils, have the psychological advantage of having the rapture and the Second Coming coincide.  But the edge might seem to be lost by having the Lord zip back off to glory for the wrath to get meted out on the Earth.  Although they explain the logic of the wrath (from the first trumpet, through the bowls of wrath and the Battle of Armageddon) coming on the earth-dwellers after the Second Coming/Rapture, the posttribulational option looks less complicated.

I do think they have an argument for claiming that the wrath of God is restricted to the end of the seven year period.  Many pre-trib replies to this are not always satisfying.  But it suffices me at least to read that the “horsemen” released in the first four seals come forth only after Christ opens each one.  In Revelation 6:1-8 (the first four seals), the sequence is, the Lamb breaks the seal, then a living creature invites John to witness the result.  We also see what appears to be Divine empowerment and permission in, for example, Revelation 6:2 (“a crown was given to him”), 6:4 (“it was granted to [him] to take peace from the earth,…and there was given to him a great sword”), and 6:6 where a voice (from the throne?) issues directions to the rider on the black horse.  Even though the word “wrath” isn’t used until the end of the chapter (the sixth seal), certainly all this calamity wrought by the riders stems directly, not from the Antichrist, but from God Himself.  Is that not God’s wrath?  Yes, I know the wrath of 6:16-17 is connected with Christ specifically, but 14:19 with 19:15 with Isaiah 63:1-6 persuade me that the sixth seal is about the Second Advent.

Another attraction of PreWrath is the use of Matthew 24 (Mark 13), and Luke 21 alongside of 1 Thessalonians 4. Hart’s pretrib exegesis manages this, but the PreWrath view is more natural.  Still, I can’t get over the fact that the Olivet Discourse is so Israel-directed (Pt.8).  And if that is so then I think it is hard not to have both the Church and Israel raptured at the same time.  PreWrath advocates may be just fine with that, but this underlines even more the conflation of Israel and the Church within the Tribulation.  (Are they two distinct entities, or one – the Church?)  I see Israel there clearly enough (Pt.9), but not the Church (Pt.10).  Plus, as I pointed out, if Christians are in the Tribulation under Antichrist, then they will be tempted to take the mark and even worship the beast to save their lives (as Christian’s compromised during Diocletian’s persecution).  That raises the specter of Christians losing their salvation according to Revelation 14:9-11.

It would be wrong to accuse the PreWrath position of merging Israel with the Church, since many would stop short of doing this.  But mixing the two programs of God together in the Tribulation makes it hard to avoid making the two into one body of believers.

Their interpretation of 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3 seems plausible (Pt.7).  But this demands a more static and technical sense be given to the “Day of the Lord”; values which I have shown to run contrary to the biblical data on the varied usage of the phrase (Pts 6 & 7).  In Part 6 we also saw that Armageddon and the final days of the Seventieth Week just prior to Christ’s return appear to be what is indicated by the “Day of the Lord” as used in Joel 3:14-16 (cf. Rev. 19:15).

Further, Daniel 12:1 with 12:6-7 measures the “Great Tribulation” coming upon Israel as “a time, times, and half a time”, or three and a half years.  Since this period starts at the mid-point in the Seventieth Week (Pt. 5), and is terminated by the Second Coming (see Dan. 7:20-25), there is just no room for the PreWrath teaching.

For these and other reasons I think the PreWrath view is finally implausible, although it deserves a C3 as a solid attempt at the rapture question.

Trying to Get the Rapture Right (11)

Part Ten

As I bring this series to a close, I want to provide some summaries of the various rapture positions, along with a few pros and cons.  Of course, I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, and I understand that much more could be said in support of each position.  Still, my main goal has been to come at the doctrine from a slightly different angle and to present the theological issues which arise.

Posttribulationism

The posttrib position is that the church goes through the Tribulation.  Proponents of this view rightly call attention to what they see as a natural correspondence between the Second Coming of Jesus and the rapture of the Church.  Christ only comes once, they say, and it makes no sense to seek out any other event slotted into God’s calendar seven years before that great event.

Passages like 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, and John 14:1-3 do not refer explicitly to the timing of the rapture, and it is understandable that posttribulationists think that the burden of proof would be on those who want to separate the rapture and the Second Coming.  Also, while I hesitate to call Matthew 24:40-41 a rapture passage, I have said that (accepting it as an end trib passage), in light of Revelation 14 it has something going for it.

For me, the strongest verses for postribulationism are those in 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10.  These words are spoken to the church, and yet they imply that the saints are awaiting the revealing (apokalypsis) of the Lord in terms very reminiscent of advent passages like Isaiah 63 (cf. Rev. 14:19-20), Malachi 3:2 and 4:1. I admit that of all the texts appealed to by posttribulationists, 2 Thessalonians 1 gives me the most trouble.

Using the Rules of Affinity we might display it like this:

Proposition: “The church remains on earth until the Second Coming (viz. post-trib rapture)”

Text: “and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels” – 2 Thess. 1:7

On the face of it this looks like at least a C2 (an inevitable conclusion).  But the “Rules” only function properly when the context is verified.  And the context does not mention the rapture at all.  This means that the rapture view must still be studied via other pertinent verses.  The “Rules” would have to be brought in there and the conclusions may effect the “inevitability” of the result above.

The way I interpret it is that the comforting of the saints happens before the Second Advent on whichever view is taken, so these verses are not standalone verses which settle the wider argument.  What this means is that, like it or not, posttrib advocates must cast their nets wider to draw in specific rapture texts and fit them into their scenario.  While I am happy to admit that beginning with this passage the preponderance of evidence is with the post-tribulational position, I think it begins to weaken when other texts come fully into view.

Some problems for posttribulationism are, firstly, (and circumstantially) that one might expect the three main verses (1 Thess.4; 1 Cor. 15, and Jn. 14) to make reference to the Tribulation, but none of them do, which seems unusual, especially since this period of time does receive emphasis at various points within Scripture.

Second, as noted in Part 2, the ignorance of the rapture doctrine in 1 Thessalonians 4 compared to the knowledge of the Day of the Lord (1 Thess.5) indicates that they are not the same thing.  All one can say is that the one comes before the other, but more data is needed to try to understand when.

Another problem is what has been seen as the “yo-yo” effect of the church being caught up and coming right back down.  This looks pointless and appears to flatly contradict John 14:3.  One might get from under this by claiming that the “coming again” (erchomai) of which the Lord speaks is His coming to a saint at death, but I can not accept that as an explanation.

Fourthly, the fact that the church appears to be absent from the chapters in the Book of Revelation which refer to the Tribulation (i.e. Rev. 6-18), which appears to coincide with Daniel’s Seventieth Week (See Parts 4, 5, & 6) throws suspicion upon a posttrib scenario, especially when it is accepted that this period has national Israel squarely in mind.

In the fifth place, this position conflates national Israel with the Church and thus violates OT covenants with Israel, and has to do interpretive gymnastics with several crucial NT texts (e.g. Acts 1:3, 6-7; Rom. 11:24-27).

When we come to the interpretation of Daniel 9:24 things become even more suspect.  The transgression (of Israel in the context) is certainly not finished, and and an end of sins has not occurred.  Everlasting righteousness has not in any way arrived, and “the Holy Place” (not Messiah) has not been anointed.  Even if one spiritualizes the other prophecies in the verse, and ignores the introductory clause, it won’t work.  How could the stoning of Stephen or the armies of Titus be interpreted as a fulfillment of any of the six prophecies in this verse?

Finally, the teaching on Imminency must be faced (Part 8), along with the problem that all alternatives to pretribulationism must deal with, and that is the fact that once in the Tribulation and its troubles, however they are allocated according to mid, prewrath, or posttrib perspectives, people will know the year when Christ is coming back.  That surely goes against Matthew 24:36.  But the Church is instructed to watch for Christ (e.g. 1 Thess. 1:9-10), which would be an exercise in futility if the rapture were not imminent, since signs and events do precede the Second Advent.

Still, posttribulationism does have enough data to pull together a hypothesis which can claim some scriptural support and is thus a C3.

Trying to Get the Rapture Right (10)

Part Nine

This installment may be thought of as a digression, but I think it belongs to the overall argument.

Imagine a world where the removal of the saints from Planet Earth happened but no one had the foggiest idea of when that might be.  If the NT alluded to such a thing there would still be some hope that we just may be the ones to get called up.  The doctrine of the rapture would still be a “sure thing”, it just wouldn’t be very concrete in our minds. Well, as a matter of fact, as a starting place for considering the rapture this isn’t that bad; there are far worse ones.  A “worse” one would be the dogmatic insistence that the catching away of the Church as pretribulational is a dead-cert.  Another would be the blithe notion that the rapture occurs when Jesus returns to earth and any theories to the contrary are speculative fancies.

What we want when faced with studying the rapture is a method which casts its procedural net over all the relevant scriptures and tries to incorporate its results within the boundaries of more readily identifiable doctrines.  Taking fundamental and necessary (C1 & C2) biblical truths as a baseline, the various snippets of prophetic teaching which intersect what can be known about the rapture must be weighed and set within the most comfortable theological context: a context from which many objections can be answered, and the number of those that can’t are at least reduced.  This comes down to ones best choice among competing explanations (a C3).

In these posts I have put quite a bit of weight on Daniel’s Seventy Weeks prophecy in Daniel 9.  A full exegesis of that passage (9:24-27) is beyond the scope of this series, and what persuades me may not persuade others.  One reason for this is the amount of work I have put into studying the biblical covenants and how they connect with the Return of Christ and His kingdom.  This is an important theme of Daniel 2, 7, 9 and 12, and it connects with many other elements in the Prophets.  (Chapters 2, 7 and 12 all concern events just before or at the final culminative kingdom of Christ (on earth!), so it is more than likely that chapter 9 does too).

Before bringing this series to an end with two summary posts I ask the reader’s forbearance once more as I again make an argument from this future time period. I have also tried to show that there exists a correspondence between the 70th week, especially from its halfway (3 1/2 year) point, and what is known as the Great Tribulation.  An obvious point of contact is the “time, times and half a time” formula found in both Daniel and Revelation.  In Matthew 24:8 our Lord speaks about “the beginning of sorrows”; an expression even prewrathers like Marvin Rosenthal believe refers to the first part of the Seventieth Week, even if he does not associate it with the “Tribulation” as such (nor the “wrath of God” for that matter), which he thinks comes after.  So it is pretty much agreed upon by all except those who try to squeeze it into the first century that the 70th week lies ahead of us.  However, a major difference surfaces between the pretrib position and mid, post and prewrath views concerning what I would see as an incongruity with God dealing with Israel and the Church in the 70th week.  As I have said before, in my reading of Scripture this period is determined on Israel (with whom God is not explicitly dealing right now), not the Church.  Moreover, it centers on Jerusalem and the temple.

The “Temple” and “Abomination” in the Seventieth Week

Daniel 9:26 stipulates that Messiah will be “cut off” after 69 of the 70 weeks.  The next verse says that “He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering”.  Some hold that this refers to the finality of the cross-work of Christ, which effectively made the sacrificial system redundant.  But this “positive spin” on the text has some problems.  For one thing the context (v.26) refers to “the people of the prince who shall come” destroying the city (Jerusalem), and the sanctuary (the Temple), which is hard to think of positively.  These two connected entities – Jerusalem and the temple – are featured heavily in the chapter (9:12, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 24, 25, 26, 27).  In the book Kingdom through Covenant, Peter Gentry tries to vindicate the “positive” interpretation, although he admits to difficulties.  I have the bad manners to quote myself in my review of that work:

To put it in a nutshell, the authors believe that the six items listed in Daniel 9:24 were all fulfilled in Christ at the first advent (541, 553-554 – though they admit “anoint the most holy person” is abnormal, typology again steps in to help).  “Messiah the Prince” or “Leader” of 9:25 is equated with “the prince [or leader] who shall come” of verse 26 even though it appears that he comes after “Messiah is cut off.”  From chapter 7:8, 23-25 the antichrist arises from the fourth kingdom (the Roman empire), seemingly just prior to the second coming (7:13-14 with 7:21-22).  This prepares the reader for “the people of the prince who is to come” who “shall destroy the city and the sanctuary” (9:26).  Two questions loom before us if we follow Gentry’s and Wellum’s interpretation.  The first concerns the fact that the “he” of verse 26b causes the sacrifice and offering to cease “in the middle of the [seventieth] week.”  If this refers to Jesus then it also refers to His crucifixion.  That would leave three and a half years of the seventieth week left to fulfill.  This is generally where those who don’t like a second coming context will jump thirty-five or so years into the future and see fulfillment in Titus’s armies in A.D. 70.  Gentry admits the “people” who destroy city and sanctuary do “appear to be enemy armies” (560), so he has to read two peoples into the context: the Jews who “destroyed” the city metaphorically circa A.D. 30, and the Romans who adopted a more literal method in A.D. 70! 

Trying to Get the Rapture Right (Pt.9)

Part Eight

Israel means Israel

I am a pretribulationist.  I think my main reasons for being so are theological, in particular the covenantal issues concerning the nation of Israel are a central concern to me.  But I am not pretribulational because I adopt a form of theological hermeneutics (now so fashionable in some quarters).  I have already made it clear that rapture scenarios cannot (in my opinion) rise above a “best explanation” conclusion.  That is equivalent to a C3 in my Rules of Affinity.  It will just not do to conflate Israel’s restoration promises with the future of the Church.  The Body of Christ needs no restoration.

Often in the prophetic literature we come across predictions of final restoration and comfort for Israel, presaged by a time of great upheaval.  Many times the texts involved include the phrase “In that day.”  A sampling would include: Isa. 10:20-23; Isa. 24:17-23; Isa. 35:1-10; Isa. 40:1-5; Isa. 61:1-3; Jer. 30:3-11; Ezek. 34:11-31; Ezek. 36:1-38;Dan. 12:1-3; Zech. 13:8-9; Zech. 14:1-9.

Frequently these passages come nestled within covenantal contexts, indicating the purposive current of God’s greater plan for the nation is still at work.  The point is that there is a lot of expectation built up for Israel to run into a distinctive time of affliction.  This time of woe precedes the coming again of Jesus Christ, as is shown in Matthew 24 and Mark 13.

I have already commented on the Israeli focus in tribulation texts in the Book of Revelation.  If we isolate those passages which speak about a three and a half year period (corresponding too closely to Daniel 7:25 not to be intentional), we find this pattern:

Revelation 11:1-3 – the overrunning of the temple (Matt. 24:15-20; cf. 2 Thess. 2:4), in “the holy city” and the ministry of the two prophets.

Revelation 12:1-6, 13-14 – I have given reasons for identifying the woman as Israel (Pt. 6).  Incidentally, I view pretribulationist attempts to make the “man-child” of 12:5 the raptured Church as highly unlikely.

The scene is decidedly Jewish and nationalistic.  The Church is conspicuous by its absence.  So if we tie these time references to the last part of the Seventieth Week we should not expect to find the Church there, thus avoiding an Israel/Church mixture which interferes with covenantal expectations.  And if the link between these texts and “the time of Jacob’s Trouble” in Jeremiah 30:6 is sound, one again would expect Jacob (Israel) to be the subject, not the Church.

Even a post-tribulationist like Robert Gundry sees this:

The seventy weeks have to do with the Jews.  We cannot spiritualize the phrase “your people”
(v.24) into a spiritual Israel inclusive of the Gentiles without doing violence to the plain sense of the passage.  For example, the destruction of Jerusalem, spoken of prominently in the prophecy, deals with Israel the nation.  And yet, since in the seventy weeks the goals listed in verse twenty-four were to be accomplished, the seventy weeks cannot have enturely elapsed, for the finishing of Israel’s transgression, the purging of her iniquity, and the bringing in of her everlasting righteousness have not reached completion.  Paul writes of these as still in the future for Israel (Rom. 11:25-27). – Robert H. Gundry, The Church and the Tribulation, 189

One People?

The (non PD) pretribulational position is the only one which does not confuse Israel with the Church.  Hence, it is the only position which confronts the covenantal promises to national Israel squarely as direct (C1) propositions, conceding no appreciable “propositional distance” between the covenant promises and the inferences which can be based upon them.  Posttribulationists do not have much regard for Israel/Church distinctions, since they admit a good deal of their brand of typological interpretation and supercessionist thinking to make sure the problem doesn’t arise.  Midtribulationists and PreWrathers speak of a separation of Israel from the Church, as do Progressive Dispensationalists, but they eventually collapse everything down to the concept of “the one people of God”.  This just ends up looking like a case of beating around the bush to arrive at much the same place as the posttribulationist.

But the idea of more than one people of God looks to be clear cut if all the direct statements of Scripture’s eschatological prophecies are allowed to stand unchallenged.  It is on these exegetically derived premises that the theological issues ought to be determined.  We must, at every juncture, ask, “what does it say?”  Context must speak with decisiveness.  The modern ploy of pushing out the context so that it envelops the whole Bible is palpably ridiculous to anyone familiar with and scrupulous about word meanings.  Context cannot mean non-context.  That is not how progressive revelation works.

In Part One I mentioned how Ben Witherington had explained the rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4 as the entourage going out to meet the returning Christ in line with the custom of the day.  But there is a problem.  The Church is not an entourage, it is the Bride.  One wonders why such a brilliant scholar doesn’t make the distinction.  At least a part of the answer is because he cannot conceive of more than one people of God.  I have elsewhere argued that not only does God like variety but the ‘three-in-oneness’ of “The Triadic People of God” pattern which emerges from tracing the flow of the Biblical Covenants seems completely consonant with scriptural revelation.

Trying to Get the Rapture Right (Pt.7)

Part Six

So far I have tried to establish these important factors in determining the timing of the rapture of the Church.  I fully realize that each of these points could be studied in more depth, but for my purposes I think the coverage is satisfactory.  The factors are these:

1. The time of the rapture is exegetically indeterminable

2. Hence, if it is to be known it must be deduced

3. As such the timing of this event can only be arrived at by way of inference to the best explanation (i.e. the best rapture scenarios will be C3)

4. The 70th Week of Daniel is seven years long and commences with “the prince who is to come” making a covenant with Israel.  This period is divided in half by the breaking of the covenant.  The 70th Week has Israel in mind, not the Church.

5. The white horse rider who appears at the beginning of what I take to be the seven year period is the Antichrist.  In light of the Day of the Lord in 2 Thessalonians 2 not coming until “the apostasy” and the revealing of the man of lawlessness/sin (2:3), the rapture seems to take place at the start of the seventieth week (although 2 Thess. 2:4 could be interpreted in a mid-trib fashion).

6. The concept of the Day of the Lord and its attendant images (e.g. “birth pangs”) are not technical terms which can be restricted to one event.  However, the Battle of Armageddon is strongly connected with it.

7. In the Book of Revelation the Day of the Lord is associated with the Second Advent of Christ in wrath.

The Future Tribulation

I have asserted that the future Tribulation is seven years long mainly on the strength of equating it with the Seventieth Week.  I have also assumed that the first seal in Revelation 6 signals the start of the Seventieth Week.  Although it is evident that what is often called the “Great Tribulation” begins when the Antichrist “takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God,” (2 Thess. 2:4) – that is, the last three and a half years – yet the advent of the “Four Horsemen” of Revelation 6 shows that the whole Seventieth Week may be rightly called “the Tribulation” (cf. Matt.24:8).  It is a time distinct from now (after “the times of the Gentiles” – Rom. 11:25), when God turns again to deal with Israel.

There is scarcely any reason for a seven year final determination on Israel if only three and a half of those years are adverse. Certainly the troubles depicted in Revelation 6:3-8; troubles reminiscent of those visited upon Israel by the Lord in Jeremiah 14 (when God instructs the prophet not to pray for them – Jer. 14:11), constitute tribulation.

The Day of the Lord and the Tribulation 

2 Thessalonians 2:1-3 is a crucial text for the Prewrath position, and it surely should be admitted that one cannot cavalierly state that the “protos” in  “for that Day will not come unless there be a falling away first …” inevitably signals a pretrib rapture.  It does not.  I have been at pains in this series to show that the best educated guess at the timing of the rapture will be a deduction from various premises.  Hence, although I am a pretribulationist, my reasons for being one come about through the way I arrange the different pieces of biblical data into a coherent picture.

The big question for the prewrath advocate is whether the “Day of the Lord” in 2 Thessalonians and Revelation begins only after the coming of Christ at the “prewrath rapture.”  This seems to require a static meaning for the Day of the Lord.  But we have already shown that in many cases this is precisely what the Bible does not teach.  The idea of the Day of the Lord, while cohesive, is not static.  Dumbrell rightly says,

the concept of the Day of the Lord, as considered by the prophets, is not singular in meaning; the connotation can be determined only by examining each context in which the phrase appears. – William J. Dumbrell, The Search for Order: Biblical Eschatology in Focus, 109.

Much the same holds true for the New Testament writers.  So the thing to be determined is whether the usage of the phrase within an End Times context can be given this restricted nuance.

Trying to Get the Rapture Right (Pt.6)

Part Five This series explores the various avenues which have to be gone down in order to get the doctrine of the Rapture of the Church right.  I am deliberately avoiding the more conventional comparative approach. This may annoy some and intrigue others.  I hope the former group is smaller than the latter!  

The Day of the Lord, Cosmic Upheavals, and the Return of Christ

The concept of the Day of the Lord describes different yet related things.  If I pick it up where I left off last time, with 2 Peter 3:10, the Day of the Lord is matched specifically with the dissolution of the present created order.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.

My understanding of this verse is that it takes a telescopic view of the whole intervention of the Divine presence to throw off the reign of sinful men and replace it with the rule of the Son of Man.  This overthrow and reign (specifically with a rod of iron – Rev. 2:27; 12:5; 19:15), terminates when earth and heaven flee away (Rev. 20:11), and then the reign is continued under perfectly harmonious conditions where “there is no more curse” (Rev. 22:3).  If the kingdom-age – the “regeneration” which Jesus speaks of in Matt. 19:28. Cf. Lk. 22:29-30 – intervenes between the end of “this age” and the New Heavens and Earth, then Peter’s designation of the Day of the Lord does not refer only to the Second Coming, and certainly not to an outpouring of wrath just prior to the Second Coming.  In 2 Peter it more definitely refers to the Advent, rule, and final destruction of the planet at the very end of the millennial kingdom-age.  What this means (if I may recap what I have pointed out before) is that while “the Day of the Lord” may speak of whole or part of the Tribulation in some contexts, it does not settle the dispute about where we put the rapture (I will address whether one should equate the “Day of the Lord” with the Tribulation below).  This lack of finality is because the phrase “Day of the Lord” is somewhat flexible, and its association with the taking out of the church is placed within and partakes of that flexibility. Saying this does not mean that the doctrine of the rapture becomes nebulous.  It is a real future event for Christ’s Church.  But it does mean that the timing of the rapture is arrived at only through deductions from inductively concluded premises.  Let me illustrate. Pretribulationists are prone to identify “the Blessed Hope” spoken of by Paul in Titus 2:13 as the taking out of the Church, and I think they are right to do so.  But I don’t think they are right automatically.  That is, they are not entitled on exegetical grounds to simply deduce that “the Blessed Hope” equals the rapture because the rapture is pretribulational.  I do not think the exegetical case for any rapture position is decisive, and am trying to show why.  Thus, exegesis of the several rapture texts will substantiate that there is a rapture, and that the Body of Christ is its subject, but only valid inferences will determine the timing of the rapture. Here’s a longer illustration.  Going back to the Olivet Discourse we read:

For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.  But immediately after the tribulation of those days the Sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.  And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.  And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other. – Matthew 24:27-31

The cosmic phenomena which Jesus mentions occur “immediately after the tribulation of those days”, and are connected to the Second Coming in verses 27 and 30.  The “gathering”, which some (not this writer) believe to be the rapture of 1 Thessalonians 4, happens around that time.  No doubt the saints are moved to safety right before Armageddon; whether by rapture to glory (which is somewhat speculative), or in another way it is not necessary to decide right now. Furthermore, this “gathering” looks similar to the one in Matthew 13:47-50, or that in Revelation 14:14-20; both of which seem to happen at (or in close proximity to) the Second Advent, not at any distance prior to it.  With this set of passages the locus is at the very end of the Seventieth Week.  One might wish to insert a longer period of time between the upheavals and the Advent (say, six months up to three and a half years), but these verses are not encouraging in that regard. Another group of “Day of the Lord” scriptures support this interpretation of equating the very end of the Tribulation with the Second Advent as Day of the Lord: Joel 2:31 speaks of the signs mentioned in Matthew 24:29f., and puts them “before the great and terrible day of the LORD”.  If the Day of the Lord is the Return of Jesus in this text then perhaps there is an interval of some extent between the two events?  But Joel 3:14-16 indicates that this “before” is “in the Valley of Decision” where “the day of the LORD is near”.  That passage reads,

Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision!  For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.  The sun and moon grow dark  And the stars lose their brightness.  The LORD roars from Zion  And utters His voice from Jerusalem,  And the heavens and the earth tremble.  But the LORD is a refuge for His people  And a stronghold to the sons of Israel. – Joel 3:14-16

This text places the cosmic disturbances at the time of the great battle (Armageddon).  The “day of the LORD” is said to be “near”, which indicates that in this passage it backs up to the Second Coming proper. The celestial troubles happen at Armageddon and not before. What I’m saying is, if the “day of the LORD” in Joel 3:14f, is the same as the “great and terrible day of the LORD” in Joel 2:31, then the adverbs “before” and “near” refer to things immediately prior to the Lord’s Second Coming and not to a longer protracted period of wrath extending over months or years.  The “wrath” here (though not everywhere) would be the Second Coming!  This is how it is in Revelation 19:15, (which matches Revelation 14:14-20, see above), and Isaiah 63:1-6, which is a Second Advent passage.  This would mean that the “immediately after the tribulation” reference in Matthew 24:29 comes promptly before or even at Armageddon. As well, if one takes the opening of the sixth seal in Revelation 6:12-17 as referring to the Second Coming (and its match in Isa. 2:10-21 points to that conclusion), the report may easily be taken as speaking of the events directly in front of and including the Advent, just as the passages above have indicated.  The example shows that these texts argue for “the Day of the Lord” and the cosmic signs occurring together in and around the great battle in “the Valley of Decision” and its ending at the Second Coming. This rather elongated example shows that while there may be some fodder for post-tribulationism, there is little in this for the other positions to bite into as far as the rapture is concerned.  Pretribbers are not threatened with the connections I’ve made, even if many of them like to interpret the gathering up of Matthew 24:31 in a different way than I have, and some will object to putting the sixth seal at the end of the Seventieth Week.  Though Prewrathers have wrought valiantly on these passages to prise a wider time-period for the rapture right before the “wrath” of God, which is poured out for at least several months after the Lord’s return, I do not think they are successful at proving their point.  As I have tried to demonstrate, the heavenly chaos happens at Armageddon, and that battle is soon settled by the Second Coming of the King of kings.  Pretribulationism and Posttribulationism can handle this, but Posttribulationists, and to a lesser extent Prewrathers, confuse Israel and the Church, the latter having both groups going through the Tribulation concurrently.  We’ve already seen this in Part Four but there is more to say.

Trying to Get the Rapture Right (Pt.5)

Part Four

In this piece I want to go behind the subject of the rapture so as to approach it from another angle. Please bear with me.

The Book of Revelation has been the subject of varied interpretations.  Since the Greek word apocalypsis means “a disclosure” or “unveiling” the different interpretative approaches to the Book is quite ironic if not a little embarrassing.  The opening verses of Revelation inform us that it concerns “things which must shortly take place” (1:1; 1:19).  Because John write of “things which must take place after this” (4:1) it is hardly surprising to read him describing his book as a “prophecy” (1:3).

Now although scholars like to cite etymology to try to prove that prophecy is more “forth-telling” than “foretelling”, the Bible itself does not assist them much.  For instance, when Jehoshaphat wanted to hear from a prophet of the LORD it wasn’t because he wished to hear a declamation on the present reign of his ally Ahab.  Rather he wanted to know about the future (see 1 Kings 22).  John’s Revelation is about the future.  But it is about a particular time in future history.  That time may be determined by the contents of the Book.

The Coming of Antichrist

Without going into detail about it, Revelation 4 and 5 set the scene for the major events depicted in the rest of the Book.  At the close of the fourth chapter the doxology fixes attention on creation: what I like to call “the Creation Project”, summed up in the idea that God’s purpose (teleology) drives an eschatology.  The fifth chapter of Revelation refers to the seven-sealed scroll which only the Lamb could open.  These seals reveal, among other things, the Four Horsemen, the first of which might be interpreted positively, except for what follows in his wake; which is the removal of peace, famine, and death.  Further, the souls under the altar of the fifth seal are of righteous people killed “for the word of God and the testimony which they held” (6:9).  Clearly chapter six records evil occurrences in the world, but when?  I venture to say that the easiest answer is during the coming Tribulation, which I have associated with Daniel’s seven year 70th week.  Now if “the prince who is to come” of Daniel 9:26 is, as is likely, the one who confirms a covenant at the beginning of the 70th Week and breaks it half way through (Dan. 9:27), then it is no extravagant surmise to identify the “prince” as the Antichrist.  (I am aware that many amillennialists want to say this is Christ, for what appear to be the most absurd reasons).  Anyway, this “prince/antichrist” is, I believe, the white-horse rider of Revelation 6:2.  This rider (who many amils also absurdly identify with Christ), looks like the white horse Rider of Revelation 19:11ff, who is Christ, but, for the reasons given above, is surely Antichrist.  Thus, Antichrist steps on to the scene at the beginning of the seventieth week and makes a covenant with Israel, Daniel’s people.  Israel then is once again at the forefront of God’s actions (cf. also Rev. 7:1-8; 11:1-2, 8: 12:1-5, etc.).

If we introduce 2 Thessalonians 2 into the scene we see that Paul tells the Church that our gathering to Christ will not occur “until the rebellion (apostasia) comes, and the man of lawlessness is revealed” (2 Thess. 2:1, 3).  Paul is clearing up a misconception about the arrival of “the Day of the Lord.”  That “day” is connected to the start of the apostasy and the revealing of the man of sin or Antichrist.  Thus it would seem that the Day of the Lord as the Apostle here uses the term is coterminous with the appearance of Antichrist, the white horse rider of Revelation 6, which is, it seems, and as noted above, at the beginning of Daniel’s 70th Week.

If this is in fact the case, then certain entailments follow.  The first is that it would seem to do away with attempts to restrict the term “Day of the Lord” (he hemera tou kuriou) to either a mid, pre-wrath or post-tribulational scenario.  The second is that our gathering (episounagogay) with Christ (2:1) is linked with the onset of the rebellion or apostasy, (although I see nothing in the argument which makes the apostasy the rapture itself – a la E. Schuyler English), in which case the rapture will happen in or around the beginning of the Tribulation.  It’s not a knock-down argument, but it certainly gives the nod to a pre-trib understanding of “Day of the Lord” in this particular passage.

The Problem of “Day of the Lord”

Obviously this is a massive subject, and I am permitting myself the luxury of dealing with it in a somewhat piecemeal fashion, but just a brief look at some assorted passages will help us get a basic understanding of the term.  It will mean I have to meander a little through certain scriptures.  I’ll begin with Paul.

The Apostle Paul only uses the words three times.  We have noted 2 Thessalonians 2 above.  In 1 Corinthians 5:5, when speaking about the handing over of a man to Satan “for the destruction of the flesh” he gives as his reason “that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”  In passing we should mention that the addition of the name “Jesus” after the phrase is well attested, but I don’t think it changes anything.  The time reference is not indexed so one cannot say for sure precisely when this will be.  So like so many rapture supporting verses it can be used by all schools.

The next passage is in 1 Thessalonians 5:2.  I’ll provide the context:

Now concerning the times and the seasons brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you.  For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.  While people are saying, “there is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they shall not escape.  But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief… For God has not destined us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. – 1 Thessalonians 5:1-4, 9

This passage follows on from the rapture section at the end of chapter 4.  In that section the Apostle writes as if the snatching out was a new teaching for the Thessalonians (4:13).  Here though the church is said to be well aware of the teaching concerning the Day of the Lord.  Okay, but that still does not place the rapture at any specified point in the eschaton.  Perhaps then it would be well to examine the two figures which Paul uses, one of which is drawn from the Old Testament.

The reference to “birth pangs” or “labor pains” is an analogy for discomfort and distress.  For example, in Psalm 48 it is used to illustrate the reaction of the kings of the earth upon seeing God’s City, verses 1 to 8 possibly predicting the future kingdom.  Then in Isaiah 13:6-13, which is a Day of the Lord passage (13:6, 9), the events surrounding God’s judgment on the world (v.11) resemble closely the climactic events circling around the Second Coming (i.e. cosmic disturbances 13:10, 13).  References in Micah and Jeremiah follow along similar lines.  Sometimes it is hard to extract these end times predictions from more immediate contexts as the prophets often view contemporary troubles from the vantage of the present aeon and its eventual overturn at Christ’s appearing in judgment.  But there is no warrant for making it all figurative; still less for calling upon the shapeless crock which is “apocalyptic” (which within some sectors of evangelicalism is coming to encompass well nigh everything).

Paul’s usage of the metaphor of labor pains to describe the present groaning of the earth in Romans 8:22 shows that it can speak of the creation’s ages-long waiting on its redemption and not about the eschaton itself.  This means that there is nothing in the phrase itself which connotes the Tribulation or Second Advent.  But when linked to other end times cues, like in 1 Thessalonians 5, it does bespeak the great distress that will ensue.

So getting back to our text, the “labor pains” motif does argue for an intensified period of trial at the end of the age, but again, is it the cusp of the Tribulation, or half-way, or what pre-wrathers point to as the tail-end when the bowls of wrath of Revelation 16 are poured out?  It’s hard to say exactly.  And this sort of lack of precision is typical.

Okay, so what does Paul mean by the Day of the Lord in 1 Thessalonians 5?  Well, it is something preceded by the rapture (1 Thess. 4:17), though no interval is given.  It appears to be identical with the “wrath to come” in 1:10 (cf. 5:9), so we will need to examine that term below.  It also comes suddenly, which the figure of the “thief in the night” illustrates distinctly.  However, this “thief” metaphor is not referring to the rapture, but something occurring after it has taken place.  For instance, Revelation 16:15 has the term used to speak of the Second Coming (cf. Rev. 19:11ff.).  The word indicates a nasty surprise, which the Lord’s return in anger will surely be (2 Thess. 1:5-10, about which more has to be said).  Post-tribulationists warm to such passages, but the other positions are not overturned by it, because “thief” is not technical.  This can be seen from Peter.

Trying to Get the Rapture Right (4)

Part Three

So far I have tried to establish a base in biblical texts for my further inquiry into the rapture.  Remember, I write as a non-too-dogmatic pre-tribber whose interest in these posts is to think through the various approaches.

Few Major Rapture Passages

All proponents of the rapture must acknowledge that there are very few direct references to the catching up of the saints.  Without 1 Cor. 15 and Jn. 14, perhaps Matt. 24, but especially 1 Thess. 4, we would not be talking about it.  Of these, only the 1 Thessalonians 4 passage can be deemed a direct statement about the ‘catching up’ or ‘seizing out’ of the saints in the end time.  By a direct statement I mean a text which plainly and unequivocally puts across a doctrine.  Examples of this in other areas include, Gen. 1:1 stating that God created all things, or Rom. 5:1 which says Christians are justified by faith.  These are C1 statements in the Rules of Affinity.  Well nigh all the major doctrines of Scripture can be ascertained and proposed via C1 passages.

What this means is that in addition to these texts supporters of the viewpoints must marshal arguments from other statements of Scripture (hopefully direct statements) about related teachings.  It is the proper inclusion and assimilation of these teachings which creates the differing schools of thought on our subject.

Because this is so, we must show some humility in our assertions.  I have concluded that the rapture and its timing is (and can only be) a C3 doctrine.  That is to say, it has no direct C1 scriptures (other than 1 Thess. 4), or “inevitable” collusion of direct statements (C2) to substantiate it, yet it does enjoy many supportive statements from which one may derive solid inferences (C3).

Some of theses related teachings include the interpretation of Daniel’s Seventy Weeks; the event(s) concerning the “Day of the LORD”; and the correct placement of certain biblical events mentioned in the Olivet Discourse, the Thessalonian correspondence, the Book of Revelation, etc.

But also there are theological considerations which have to be weighed and balanced.  Such things as the differentiation of Israel from the Church, the meaning of the ‘Tribulation’ and ‘Great Tribulation’, and the role of Antichrist, and also the matter of imminence need to be thought through.  All in all I am of the opinion that there are better conceptions of the rapture and worse ones.  The best on will be able to deal adequately with the most biblical data while suffering from the fewest (and least damaging) problem areas.  In other words, the best rapture scenario will be an inference to the best explanation.

Daniel’s Heptads (70 “Weeks”)

The ninth chapter of the Book of Daniel includes the famous prophecy of the seventy sevens.  Here is the passage:

Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place.
So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress.  Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined.  And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate. – Daniel 9:24-27

The run up to these verses is integral to its understanding.  In 9:2 the “seventy” crops up in relation to the Babylonian Captivity.  It is worth noting that Daniel understood this number of years from a straight-forward reading of Jeremiah (e.g. Jer. 25:11).  The next “seventy” relates to the “sevens” or heptads decreed upon Daniel’s people Israel (see his prayer: 9:7, 11, 16-17, 20) and the temple (9:17, cf. 20).  Also worth a mention is the reference to God’s covenant faithfulness in 9:4 (a hendiadys probably speaking of God’s faithful love (hesed) within the unconditional covenants to Israel), on the basis of which Daniel has confidence in prayer.  It is crucial to allow Gabriel’s words to dictate the objective of the heptads.  This is about Israel (the “Your people” of vv.15, 16 & 19) and Daniel’s “holy city” Jerusalem (cf. v.19).  Ergo the proposition “the seventy weeks refer to literal Israel” would bear a direct affinity to these verses and be a C1.   Only by interposing a) a competing and alien symbolical hermeneutic, b) a theologically determined reticence to accept Gabriel at his word because, c) one believes the Church is the “new Israel”.  Such a foreign proposition (as per K. Riddlebarger) would look like this:

“the seventy weeks concerns ethnic Israel for the first sixty-nine (and a half), but the last week (or three and a half days) concerns the Church as “New Israel.”  

That would be an inference based on another inference, neither of which can be grounded in the text, and would constitute a C5 rating.

I think it is fair to say that most post-tribulationalists conflate Israel and the Church.  This is almost inevitable since they have the Church passing through the whole time period.  Those who equate the Tribulation with Daniel’s seventieth week hard hard put not to do this.  Many of them would say that the Church is right now in the Tribulation, which is also in the seventieth week.

Setting the rapture at the end of the Tribulation for such reasons seems intolerant of Gabriel’s message and Daniel’s prayer, and when assumed in support of that position, actually demeans it.  To me, any posttribulational rapture view (or any view for that matter) which cannot keep national Israel as the people upon whom the entire seventy weeks must be fulfilled has disqualified itself.  Whatismore, it would seem that mid-trib and pre-wrath positions both come against a similar problem, even if they maintain the Israel/Church distinction; the problem of which people group (Israel or the Church) is that period of time for?

Let me say it another way.  Assuming we equate the seventieth seven and the Tribulation (which would make the Tribulation seven years long), it would appear that the mid-tribulation and pre-wrath rapture views must explain whether God’s attention is mainly on Israel, who is the central player in Daniel 9, or on the Church, which was not even in existence in Daniel’s time (cf. Jn. 7:39; Rom. 6:1-4; 1 Pet. 1:3).  If it is Israel then the Church would be playing a secondary role in the Tribulation while God deals with Israel, which seems like a problem.  Surely God is not focused on Israel so much in our day because He is dealing with the (mainly Gentile) Church (Rom. 11:25)?  But if the Church must pass through some of Daniel’s seventieth week in a subordinate or an auxiliary role surely we have a theological confusion?  To state “The seventieth week or Tribulation mainly has Israel in view” is a C1 proposition based on the Book of Daniel.  The same chapter knows nothing of the Church.  And if the Church is also to pass through half or three quarters of the seventieth week, based on other passages, then it is almost disorienting to think about both Israel and the Church being the main objects of this awful period. Finally, while supporting texts from Daniel 12:1 and Jeremiah 30:5-7 provide a rationale for Israel’s passage through these turbulent times, I fail to see any comparative rationale for the Church’s involvement.

More next time…