7. Evaluating Some Pre-Trib Arguments

7

Evaluating Some Pre-Trib Arguments

Here are some of the basic pre-Tribulational arguments and our responses.

1. We Will Not Go through God’s Wrath

During these times, God was not wrathful toward His servants and He often protected them from the judgments while they were present (for example, as Michael has noted, the Israelites in Goshen during the plagues on Egypt). But since they were not taken out in any of these cases, why must we assume that they would be taken out during the Tribulation? Indeed, whereas the book of Revelation never explicitly mentions Jesus returning before the Tribulation, it does depict God protecting at least some of His servants from His own judgments (see Revelation 7:3; 9:4). God’s wrath often falls during the present age; though it is not directed against us, we are still here (see Romans 1:18; cf. 1 Thessalonians 2:16).

Yet the Tribulation is not what Paul means by being saved from God’s wrath anyway. When Paul refers to God’s future wrath in other passages, he gives no indication that he thinks of a Tribulation; rather, he refers to destruction at Christ’s return. All believers made right with God through Christ’s blood are saved from God’s wrath (see Romans 5:9) and thus from eternal destruction (see Romans 2:5; 9:22).

These passages refer to Jesus saving us from damnation at the final judgment, not to Him saving us from a seven-year Tribulation, experienced by a single generation. Indeed, it cheapens the message of Christ’s blood to apply it only to the latter. Paul might get his language of “wrath to come” (see 1 Thessalonians 1:10) from John the Baptist, but when John warns of the coming wrath (see Matthew 3:7; Luke 3:7), he is warning about unquenchable fire (see Matthew 3:10, 12)!

In the immediate context of 1 Thessalonians 5:9, Paul warns about sudden destruction in the Day of the Lord (see 1 Thessalonians 5:1–4). This is the wrath of which he speaks here. The opposite of this wrath is not the last generation being spared from going through the Great Tribulation, but salvation (see 5:8–9). Paul’s concern here is not with the Great Tribulation (which he does not mention in this context), but with deliverance from eternal judgment at the Second Coming, as described for the wicked in 2 Thessalonians 1:5–10.

Since when did Paul’s language of salvation get demoted from addressing eternal judgment to addressing several years of suffering for a single generation of believers? If we count generations as forty years, since Jesus’ first coming there have been fifty generations of Christians (closer to one hundred if we envision instead reproductive generations of half that length). One may compare similar salvation language in 2 Thessalonians 2. In contrast to the future destruction of those who reject God’s truth (see 2 Thessalonians 2:10–12), those who were not saved (see verse 10), we are chosen for salvation because we believed the truth and were set apart for God by the Spirit (see verse 13). This contrast between judgment on the wicked and salvation for the righteous at Christ’s coming appears elsewhere as well (see Hebrews 10:39; cf. 10:36–38).

When Paul wrote about deliverance from wrath in 1 Thessalonians, his Thessalonian audience could not have ignored his context and flipped over to Revelation, which had not been written yet, to infer that he thought of a future Great Tribulation. First Thessalonians is one of the first pieces of the New Testament written, and Revelation one of the last.

But even if we do flip over to Revelation, what do we find? Paul’s word that is translated “wrath” in 1 Thessalonians is the Greek term orgê . Every occurrence of this term in Revelation refers not to the Tribulation, but to the catastrophic judgment at its conclusion (see Revelation 6:16–17; 11:18; 14:10; 16:19; 19:15)! It is true that a different Greek term, thumos (anger), in one cycle of judgments refers to a period of tribulation before the end (see 15:1, 7; 16:1). Yet even this term, which is different from Paul’s, often refers to the final judgment (see 14:10; 16:19; 19:15).

Transferring Paul’s message of salvation to the Great Tribulation risks warping his presentation of the Gospel. In fact, if we wanted to use the same kind of argument from 1 Thessalonians in the other direction, it would be no less simple. The Church is appointed to tribulations (see 1 Thessalonians 3:3; Acts 14:22; John 16:33), and the Tribulation is tribulation; therefore, the Church will go through the Tribulation. Yet pre-Tribulationalists would surely object to this approach. This, a major popular pre-Tribulationalism argument, takes Scripture out of context. The context shows Paul only to be claiming that the Rapture will precede the final Day of Judgment.

2. Jesus Can Come at Any Moment

Before answering how Jesus’ coming as a thief addresses timing, we should challenge the association that some make between the thief image and a supposedly invisible coming of Jesus. A thief comes unexpectedly, but his arrival itself is hardly secret. Old Testament law allowed a homeowner to kill a thief only if the thief came in the night, precisely because in the night the residents could be presumed home, so a thief who came then was presumably ready to kill them to seize their possessions (see Exodus 22:2–3). Jesus’ coming like a thief means that He comes suddenly and unexpectedly, not that He will not be seen when He comes.

Moreover, New Testament imminence involves keeping ready for an unexpected time, but not necessarily one in which believers are unprepared. The wicked are caught by surprise, but this surprise does not entail that Jesus comes without there being signs of the times (though these signs seem ambiguous enough to keep us ready always, rather than predicting a particular era as necessarily the one). Since believers are always in the light (see 1 Thessalonians 5:4–8), we should always be prepared for our Lord’s coming.

The specifics of a post-Tribulational answer to the unexpected/any-moment argument will vary depending on one’s understanding of the Tribulation and its length (which we will address later in this book). One point, however, is clear: Every passage about Jesus’ coming being unexpected, if it specifies anything in the context about timing, explicitly refers to Jesus’ coming at the end of the age, not to a time at the beginning of the final Tribulation several years before!

Consider this one first:

And the day of the Lord will come like a thief—in which the heavens will disappear with a terrible sound, the elements will be destroyed with consuming heat, and the earth and the works done on it will be laid bare.

2 Peter 3:10

This passage is clear enough that it cannot refer to the beginning of the Tribulation, since no place remains to have a Tribulation. It becomes more complicated for millennial questions, which are not the subject of this book. (One controversy at a time!) Some protest that since 2 Peter does not leave room for the Millennium, but there must be one, then the same could be true for a Rapture before the Tribulation. Yet at the least, a pre-Tribulationalist who offers this protest thereby concedes that this and similar texts by themselves offer no support for a pre-Tribulational Rapture, which ruins their use of the imminence argument from such passages. They also must concede that it is not the obvious meaning of this or similar texts. Again, if the pre-Tribulational Rapture idea is biblical, why is there not even a single obvious text supporting it?

Leaving aside such questions for now, 2 Peter is at least clear that what we are to be looking for as imminent is not a secret Rapture before the Tribulation, but the glorious appearing of Christ.

And again, if we take the passage at face value, if this is the beginning of the Tribulation, on what planet will the Tribulation occur? Peter goes on to repeat that the heavens and elements will be consumed on account of the coming of that day (see 3:12). The promise in verses 9 and 13 of 2 Peter 3 refers to the promise of Jesus’ coming in verse 4. In this passage, consider the following questions:

The expression “the Day of the Lord” comes from the biblical prophets who warned of sudden destruction for the nations that oppose God (see Isaiah 13:6, 9; Obadiah 15; Zephaniah 1:14–18). It will be preceded by the sun turning to darkness and the moon into blood (see Joel 2:31; 3:14–15; Acts 2:20). It will be the time of Armageddon (see Revelation 16:14, 16), the Day of Judgment (see Isaiah 2:12; Zephaniah 1:15; Romans 2:5), a day that Peter identifies with the burning of the heavens and earth (see 2 Peter 3:7; cf. 2:9; Matthew 10:15; 11:22, 24; 12:36; 1 John 4:17).

Yet this is the day that will come like a thief in the night, also in 1 Thessalonians (see 5:2), a day that Paul also identifies with the sudden destruction of the wicked (see verse 3). Believers, by contrast, are expected to be ready for that day (see verses 4–8)! That is why, when the wicked people will experience consuming wrath, we believers instead will experience final salvation in that day (see verse 9).

In his next letter to the Thessalonians, Paul insists that this same Day of the Lord will not come until the apostasy and man of lawlessness come first (see 2 Thessalonians 2:2–3). Paul regards this day as the day of God’s judgment, the Day of the Lord Jesus (see 1 Corinthians 1:8; 5:5; 2 Corinthians 1:14). (Contrary to some interpreters, Paul identifies the day of Jesus with the Day of the Lord; Jesus is, after all, Lord, and Paul is affirming Jesus’ deity in these passages.)

In the gospels, Jesus Himself emphasizes the unexpectedness of His return, warning that He will come as a thief (see Matthew 24:43) and that no one knows the time of His return (see Matthew 24:36). Yet the context of these passages never identifies any coming before the Tribulation; these passages speak only of His coming afterward. Thus His coming will be visible, like lightning from one end of the sky to the other (see Matthew 24:27); it happens after the Tribulation, and after the stars will fall from the sky (see verse 29). That is when the Son of man will appear on the clouds to gather His chosen from throughout the world (see Matthew 24:30–31; cf. Mark 13:26–27). It will be a time of sudden destruction (see Matthew 24:39). Despite considerable detail about the end, nowhere in the context is there any suggestion of a coming or gathering before the Tribulation.

In Revelation, Jesus promises to come like a thief (see Revelation 16:15). Granted that this is a parenthetical statement, it is interesting where it appears: not before a record of the Tribulation, but before Armageddon (see verse 16). Revelation swiftly narrates the catastrophic end of the age afterward, as mountains and islands are removed and the nations’ cities collapse (see verses 17–21).

What about concerns that once the Tribulation begins one could simply count down seven years until the end? The period is more accurately depicted as three and a half years, but in any case the days are shortened (see Matthew 24:22). Moreover, there have been multiple tribulations (e.g., Acts 14:22; Hebrews 10:33), antichrist figures (1 John 2:18), and even abominations of desolation in history (e.g., Jeremiah 7:10–15, 30; Ezekiel 5:11–14; Daniel 9:2; 11:31). Our Lord said that no one knows the day nor the hour, including Himself at that time; certainly the devil does not know, so he must always have an antichrist in waiting, whether Nero, Hitler, Stalin or others. “You’ve heard that an antichrist is coming,” John observed, “but even now there are many antichrists” (1 John 2:18). The spirit of antichrist has been in the world for a long time.

In any case, the only coming whose hour is said to be unknown is the only return of the Lord that the Bible mentions: His coming at the end, after all tribulation. So the Bible is explicit that we cannot count down to the time of the end. Perhaps it would have been easier to calculate had it been marked by a Rapture seven years earlier, but the Bible does not provide such a marker.

3. Noah and Lot (Matthew 24:37–39; Luke 17:26–30)

4. Taken Away (Matthew 24:40–41; Luke 17:34–35)

What about the context in Luke? When Jesus speaks of one being taken and another being left, the disciples ask, “Where, Lord?” That is, Where will they be taken? Jesus’ answer is that they will be taken, not to where His chosen are gathered, but to where the vultures gather around corpses (see Luke 17:37). (Luke’s Greek term for “body” here is neutral, but the parallel passage in Matthew 24:28 explicitly understands the body as a corpse.) This was a familiar depiction of the fate of the wicked nations gathered against God (see Ezekiel 39:4, 17–20). It is also elaborated upon in Revelation (see Revelation 19:17, 21). I certainly hope this is not the Rapture!

5. Pray That You May Escape (Luke 21:36)

Nevertheless, it is possible that Jesus speaks simply of strength to endure until He comes and preserves His people from global judgment. If so, however, when does He remove them? Before Jerusalem’s suffering, or before the coming of His Kingdom that destroys the kingdoms of the earth?

This brings us to our second observation about this passage; context rules out a pre-Tribulational Rapture. Judeans who survived the traumatic fall of Jerusalem were taken prisoner and enslaved among the nations (see Luke 21:24); this happened in the year 70. Gentiles would continue to trample Jerusalem until the end of the times of the Gentiles (see verse 24). At a time of dramatic signs in the sun, moon and stars (see verses 25–26; compare Mark 13:24; Acts 2:20), the terrified nations will witness the Son of man coming in a cloud (see Luke 21:27). “When these events start occurring,” Jesus warns, “your redemption is drawing near” (verse 28); in the same way, when the signs are evident, “the kingdom of God is near” (verse 31). Jesus did not come back soon after Jerusalem’s fall, but He will come. Yet the only coming specified in this context is His coming visible to the nations.

Some argue, “Ah, but these verses address the redemption of Jerusalem, whereas verse 36 addresses the Church.” Those who argue in this way are deliberately reading their own theory into the text. Why should the “you” in Luke 21:36, the final verse of Jesus’ teaching here, suddenly mean something different from the “you” in verses 28, 30–31 or 34? If one does not read one’s view into the text, the context suggests just the opposite. Jesus warns His followers to be vigilant not only in verse 36 but already in verse 34. There He warns us not to be distracted by life’s issues and so let that time come on us unexpectedly (see verse 34), “for it will rush suddenly on everyone who lives on the face of the whole world” (verses 34–35). In context, this may refer to Jesus’ Kingdom (see verse 31).

Alternatively, it may refer to the fall of Jerusalem and escaping and standing firm (see Luke 21:34–36); the best way to translate verse 19 may well be, “By your endurance you will preserve your lives.” This interpretation would fit Luke’s focus on the events that would occur within a generation of Jesus speaking of them (see verse 32). History does tell us that the Jewish believers of that time, following Jesus’ teaching and encouraged by Christian prophets, did escape Jerusalem. But they did so on foot, not by a Rapture. That is, whether one applies this passage to the end (see verses 27–28) or to the fall of Jerusalem (see verses 20–24), it does not speak of a Rapture before the Tribulation.

Nothing in the context here suggests a Rapture before the future Tribulation; one can find it here only by reading one’s prior assumptions into the passage. Those prior assumptions might possibly seem justifiable if other passages clearly supported them, but as we shall continue to see, other passages likewise can be interpreted that way only if assumptions are read into them. Although many texts depict Jesus returning after the Tribulation, there is not a single text that explicitly depicts His coming beforehand.

6. Kept from the Hour of Testing (Revelation 3:10)

Because you have kept [observed, obeyed] the message about my endurance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing which is about to come on the face of the whole inhabited world, to test those who live on the face of the earth.

The normal pre-Tribulational assumption is that Jesus will keep believers, like those in the church of Philadelphia, from going through the Great Tribulation.

Nevertheless, this argument quickly runs into problems. What is the hour of testing? And in what way are they kept from it? Elsewhere in Revelation (perhaps 17:12), the “hour” might refer to a brief period near the end, but more often seems to refer to the very end (see Revelation 11:13; 14:7, 15; 18:10, 17, 19); that is the case in this context in verse 3. Here, being kept from that hour might simply mean being spared the final judgment. The one other reference to believers being tested could, by contrast, refer to suffering for Christ in this age (see Revelation 2:10).

Thus we must examine the phrase “keep from.” Does “keep from” mean “prevent one from being present during”? That interpretation is not impossible, but can it not equally mean “protect from while present”? The phrase is not a common one elsewhere in biblical Greek or other Jewish sources; it appears here because it plays on the image in the same verse of “keeping” God’s message. “Keeping” a message is how this Greek verb translated “keep” functions in its other occurrences in Revelation (see Revelation 1:3; 2:26; 3:3, 8; 12:17; 14:12; 16:15; 22:7, 9).

There is, however, one other New Testament use of the Greek phrase translated here as “keep from,” and that one other passage uses it to mean “protect from.” This, too, is John recording words of Jesus: “I am not praying that you take them out of the world, but rather that you keep them from the evil one” (John 17:15). So the wording definitely does not have to mean “take out of.”

When we expand this query to the larger context of the book of Revelation as a whole, the pre-Tribulational interpretation becomes even more problematic. Nowhere in Revelation do we read of believers taken alive from the earth; nowhere do we read of them being raptured before the Tribulation; nowhere do we read of Jesus coming before the Tribulation. Instead, we see some believers protected from judgments (see Revelation 7:3; 9:4) but suffering in the world at the hands of their enemies (see Revelation 12:11; 13:7). These believers, like those in Philadelphia, “keep” God’s message (see Revelation 12:17).

In Revelation 3:10 Jesus addresses a church that has been facing hardship with a little strength, keeping the word of His endurance; He goes on to warn them to continue to hold fast to what they have. Jesus did not preserve the Philadelphian church from eventual extinction; but as long as they persevered, He preserved them, for He is faithful.

7. Come up Here! (Revelation 4:1)

Most observers would not regard this as a very strong argument. Types can be quite elastic, used to argue almost anything unless we use careful controls (such as clear patterns or biblical precedent). Further, why would John become a type of the Church only here? John is told to “Come here” also in Revelation 17:1 and 21:9 so that, as in 4:1, he could be shown something. The voice like a trumpet also spoke to him in Revelation 1:10. No one understands any of these other passages as a type of the Rapture. When John speaks in the first person elsewhere, he refers to himself: in Revelation 1:9–13, 17, and repeatedly in 4:2–4; 5:1–4, 6, 11, 13; 6:1–9, 12; 7:1, 4, 9, 14, and so forth.

Pre-Tribulational interpreters usually insist on interpreting passages more literally. Why would some of them construe Revelation 4:1 as a type of the Rapture and not these other passages? Presumably because if one wants to have the Church taken up before the Tribulation passages, this is the only possible place to find it. In the rest of Revelation, there is no example of the Church being taken up, or of a coming before the Tribulation or the like. (Jesus’ coming is promised in 1:7, but this is a coming that “every eye” will see, including His enemies!)

8. Why No Church on Earth in Revelation?

Those who argue that the term church does not appear by that name on earth during the descriptions of the Tribulation fail to note that it also does not appear by that name in heaven. Certainly it is nowhere described as taken away. Yet the believers are called “saints” (as translated in the KJV , NASB , NRSV , ESV ) or “God’s people” (in the NIV ) thirteen times after the letters to the churches—whether on earth (usually) or in heaven (possibly Revelation 5:8; 8:3–4). These are also God’s servants (see Revelation 11:18), the people to whom Revelation is addressed (see 1:1; 22:6), who will be with Him in the New Jerusalem (see 22:3). The fact is that believers remain on earth, where they are persecuted, and Revelation nowhere offers any suggestion that these believers differ in kind from other believers through history, just as it nowhere offers any indication of previous believers being raptured.

Some pre-Tribulationalists argue that since these believers keep God’s commandments as well as their testimony about Jesus (see Revelation 12:17; 14:12) they must be only Jewish believers, but in John’s other writings all believers keep God’s commandments (see John 14:15, 21; 15:10; 1 John 2:3–4; 3:22, 24; 5:2–3; 2 John 6).

If one simply reads Revelation without deliberately applying a pre-Tribulational lens, it is clear that the Lord’s return is not narrated before chapter 19, and that is when He comes to judge the nations. No taking out of believers appears before this. There are saints in heaven, but it is not clear that they have bodies (see Revelation 6:9). This book is not focusing on the millennial question, but if one reads Revelation premillennially, as all pre-Tribulationalists do, no resurrection of the saints appears before the first resurrection. That first resurrection appears in Revelation 20:4–5, where it contrasts with the second death. Since those resurrected there include those beheaded for not worshiping the Beast (see verse 4), it seems a bit late for a pre-Tribulational Rapture.

9. The Marriage Supper (Revelation 19:9)

This is also what we would expect. Jewish people expected the Messianic banquet (cf. Isaiah 25:6–8) to begin with the consummation of God’s Kingdom (cf. Luke 14:15). Jesus also spoke of eating and drinking with us “in the kingdom” (Mark 14:25; Luke 22:30) and of Gentile believers joining that banquet “in the kingdom” (Matthew 8:11; Luke 13:29). The banquet belongs not to the Tribulation but to the Kingdom, which pre-Tribulationalists normally associate with the Millennium.

10. Removing the Restrainer (2 Thessalonians 2:6–7)

This pre-Tribulational argument would become more plausible if the passage actually identified the removed restrainer as the Church (or the Spirit in the Church), but it does not. It speaks ambiguously about the restrainer, appealing to the Thessalonian believers’ memory of what Paul explained to them when he was with them (see 2 Thessalonians 2:5). It might not even be safe for Paul to be more explicit in a letter, depending on what he means by the restrainer.

There are in fact a wide range of views (more than thirty) about what could restrain the man of lawlessness from being worshiped on the site of the Temple. If Paul speaks politically, he could speak of Judean strength; the Temple would be desecrated only once Judean resistance was crushed. (After this, Jerusalemites faced a new exile; cf. Luke 21:24; perhaps Revelation 12:6.) If he speaks spiritually, some suggest that he refers to Michael, the guardian angel of Israel who would stand, perhaps meaning “out of the way,” when Israel would face its final tribulation before the raising of the dead (Daniel 12:1). Some think that the restrainer is simply God’s restraining hand.

Since the phrase “taken out of the way” can also be rendered literally, “come forth from the midst,” it might refer to the presence of God leaving the sanctuary, as happened before the Temple’s destruction in an earlier era (see Ezekiel 10:4, 18; 11:23). (This may have already occurred in at least one sense, however, at Jesus’ death; see Mark 15:38.) It might also refer to the community of believers in Jerusalem leaving when they recognize that judgment is at hand, thus coming “out of the midst” of the city (cf. Luke 21:21, which uses the same term for “midst”). Perhaps their prayers had prevented the earlier attempt of an evil emperor to install his image in the Temple (the emperor Gaius Caligula, in the 40s). If Paul refers to believers in Jerusalem, it might be indiscreet to say so in writing, given the Roman penchant for suspecting treason (and circumstances in Thessalonica, cf. Acts 17:7).

Since the restrainer holds back the full revelation of the man of lawlessness (see 2 Thessalonians 2:7), maybe it refers to respect for the Law, the Torah (or perhaps even for customs that respect morality). Perhaps it could refer to the Church in a different sense—the organized Church being driven underground, or Christendom (or morally related religion in general) losing all public influence.

If, by contrast, Paul were speaking of the Church being removed from the earth, one would have to ask how and why these saints restrain the man of lawlessness yet the saints elsewhere depicted during the Tribulation do not do so (see Revelation 13:7, 10; 14:12; 16:6; 17:6; 18:20, 24). If Paul were speaking of the Spirit in the Church, one must ask how the saints in the Tribulation are converted and testify for God without the Spirit, and how there can be prophets (see 11:10, 18; 16:6; 18:20, 24) without the Spirit. After all, the saints testify for Jesus (see 6:9; 11:7; 12:11, 17; 20:4), and the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy (see 19:10). (And if one argues from silence that the Spirit is not explicitly mentioned with these saints during the Tribulation, what is one to make of the lack of explicit association of the Spirit with them in the New Jerusalem? Admittedly, the river of life in Revelation 22:1 probably does imply this.)

In fact, the passage cannot speak of the Church (or the Spirit in the Church) being removed before the Tribulation, because the context of the passage explicitly indicates that we will not be gathered to Jesus before the man of lawlessness appears and is seated in the Temple (see 2 Thessalonians 2:1–4). If the passage refers to the Great Tribulation at all, it is certainly not speaking of believers being exempted from it. We will discuss the relevance of 2 Thessalonians 1–2 more fully in our arguments for a post-Tribulational gathering of believers below.

Conclusion to Pre-Tribulational Arguments

Yet no text by itself indicates a pre-Tribulational Rapture. By contrast, many texts announce Jesus’ return after the Tribulation.

If someone were not taught about a pre-Tribulational Rapture, one would simply read the texts about Jesus’ return as if every aspect of Jesus’ return happened essentially at once: Jesus gathers His followers to Himself and judges the world. No one would assume a seven- (or three-and-a-half-) year gap between these events.