8. Post-Tribulational Passages

8

Post-Tribulational Passages

Jesus Returns for His Followers Only after the Tribulation

T he Bible speaks of our resurrection on one “last day,” the triumph over one “last enemy” (death), our resurrection at one “last trumpet,” one “first resurrection” and the like. The meaning of some of these passages is debatable, but on the surface, at least, such language makes it difficult to find a gap between Jesus’ coming for His followers and Jesus’ coming to judge the world, especially since we lack explicit evidence for such a gap.

For example, the resurrection will be on the “last day” (see John 6:39–44, 54); this phrase at least makes it seem as though we receive our new bodies at the very end of the age. Perhaps it even alludes to Daniel 12, the most explicit Old Testament passage about the future resurrection, which also connects that resurrection to “eternal life” (see verses 1–2). An angel promises Daniel that he will be raised “at the end of the age” (verse 13 NASB ), apparently after a period of tribulation (see verses 6–12). Literally, he will be raised at the “end of the days” (verse 13, many versions), presumably the “days” of tribulation already mentioned in Daniel 12:11–12.

Granted that the text may be speaking in general terms, if our being raised defeats death as the “last enemy” (1 Corinthians 15:26; cf. verses 20–23), how can the Antichrist be a still later enemy than death? Granted that Paul cannot expect the Corinthians to think of the trumpets in Revelation when he speaks of Jesus raising us at the “last trumpet” (1 Corinthians 15:52), he certainly can be alluding to Jesus speaking of gathering His people with a trumpet (later recorded in Matthew 24:31). Yet that gathering explicitly happens at a public appearing after the Tribulation (Matthew 24:29), and Paul’s mention of a “last” trumpet precludes him from associating our resurrection with any earlier ones.

Interpreters divide over the meaning of the “first resurrection” (see Revelation 20:5–6), but those who envision it as a bodily resurrection at the beginning of a future thousand years should not envision believers being resurrected before the first resurrection.

Supporters of a pre-Tribulational Rapture typically dismiss the relevance of such arguments, but an examination of more detailed passages reinforces this point.

1. Matthew 24

Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21 overlap considerably. Because Matthew is one of the fuller and clearer accounts, I focus my comments there, making reference to the other passages only where needed.

In Matthew 24:3, Jesus’ disciples ask two questions: (1) When will the Temple be destroyed? (“These things” in “When will these things happen?” refers back to Jesus’ prediction of the Temple’s destruction in verse 2; cf. Matthew 23:38). (2) What will be the sign of Your coming and of the completion of the age? (Note that the second question grammatically involves a single “sign” that predicts both Jesus’ coming and the end of the age; in 24:30, that “sign” occurs at His public, post-Tribulational appearing.)

Part of Jesus’ answer to this twofold question thus deals with the then-future destruction of the Temple (certainly including at least Matthew 24:15–20), and part of it deals with Jesus’ coming ( parousia ; explicitly including at least Matthew 24:27, 37, 39). Some reasonably coordinate the passage’s two time frames with these two answers: the Temple’s destruction will come within a generation (see verse 34), i.e., by the year 70, whereas no one knows the timing of Jesus’ return (see verse 36).

What would be the “sign” of Jesus’ coming? Jesus dismisses the direct relevance of some sorts of disasters that His contemporaries considered signs of the end (see Matthew 24:6–8), and expressly identifies only one sign: “the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven,” just before Jesus comes on the clouds (see verse 30). In other words, those who want to wait for a sign of the end before repenting will wait until it is too late.

The coming ( parousia ) depicted in Matthew 24 is no secret removal of believers; it will be as visible as lightning, from one end of the sky to the other (see Matthew 24:27). The mention of the corpse and vultures in verse 28 may suggest the final battle (cf. Ezekiel 39:17–20). In Matthew 24:30, the peoples of the world will witness Jesus’ glorious coming. All of this happens “immediately after the tribulation of those days” (verse 29).

At this point many pre-Tribulationalists will say: “This is fine. We don’t deny that Jesus returns after the Tribulation, as is depicted here. We simply believe that He also comes before the Tribulation, to take His saints out.” Interestingly, here, as elsewhere, no such before-the-Tribulation coming appears in the text’s chronology. Here, as elsewhere, no one would think of it happening if they had not been taught to assume it.

For when Jesus comes with clouds after tribulation in Matthew 24:30, He also gathers His chosen ones with the sound of a trumpet in verse 31. The only gathering of the righteous in this passage appears after the Tribulation. Ah, many pre-Tribulationalists will argue: “This explicit gathering is the gathering of Israel; the pre-Tribulational gathering of believers happens not to appear in this passage.” Is this, however, the most obvious understanding of “chosen ones” here (cf. Matthew 22:14; 24:22, 24)? Early Christians usually understood this term with respect to themselves (see Romans 8:33; Colossians 3:12; 2 Timothy 2:10; Titus 1:1).

Moreover, it seems that this is the word of the Lord to which Paul refers in his classic Rapture passage. He speaks of believers being gathered to Jesus with the sound of a trumpet when Jesus comes in the clouds (see 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17). In 1 Thessalonians 4:15 he uses the term parousia for this coming just as it is used in Matthew 24. That is, Paul seems to interpret this explicitly post-Tribulational gathering as the “Rapture” of believers.

Some other points in the passage repeat what we noted earlier when answering pre-Tribulational arguments. Paul elsewhere connects our bodily resurrection with the “last trumpet” (1 Corinthians 15:52). Yet if Paul knows that Jesus spoke of an end-time gathering at a trumpet after the Tribulation (as appears in Matthew 24:31), why would he refer to an earlier end-time trumpet gathering as the last one? Paul surely does not expect any antichrists or tribulations after this last trumpet, for the resurrection that it signals coincides with the decommissioning of death, which is the “last enemy” (1 Corinthians 15:26). If our resurrection defeats the last enemy, how can Paul envision any enemies after that one?

Returning for the moment to Matthew 24: Although pre-Tribulationalists often insist that in order for it to be unknown, the time of Jesus’ coming must precede the Tribulation, the unknown time in Matthew 24:36 presumably must refer to the same coming that Jesus has just been describing in verses 30–31. He goes on to compare this coming ( parousia ) with the flood of Noah’s day (see verses 37–39), which produced not an extended period of torment (comparable to the Great Tribulation) but sudden destruction . The wicked were taken by surprise (see verse 38) but then were all “taken away” (see verse 39), as will happen also at Jesus’ “coming” ( parousia ).

Ignoring the context, some find in Matthew 24:40–41 a pre-Tribulational Rapture: Where there are two in the field or at the mill, one will be taken and the other left. Yet in context, those being “taken” are those taken to sudden destruction (see 24:39; cf. Matthew 13:41–42)! The parallel passage in Luke 17:34–35 also follows descriptions of sudden destruction at the Flood and for Sodom. Nevertheless, the disciples request clarification. Jesus has said that one would be taken, so the disciples ask, “Where, Lord?” Jesus replies enigmatically: “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather” (Luke 17:37 ESV ). Far from being a Rapture of the righteous, this is judgment on the wicked.

Jesus’ sudden and unexpected coming will be like a thief in the night (see Matthew 24:43–44). Jesus goes on to connect (note “then” or “therefore” in verse 45) this coming like a thief with the destruction of disobedient servants (see verse 51). Other early Christians also applied Jesus’ “thief in the night” warning to sudden destruction at the end of the age (see 1 Thessalonians 5:2–3; 2 Peter 3:10; Revelation 16:15–16). The parables of Matthew 25 also go on to speak of the Day of Judgment, which separates those destined for eternal punishment from those destined for eternal life (see verses 12, 30 and especially 46).

Nowhere does Matthew 24 speak of any coming except Jesus’ coming after the Tribulation. Some pre-Tribulationalists concede this, contending that Matthew 24 is only for Israel. But if Jesus’ coming like a thief and in the clouds is only for Israel, why should anyone insist that these same images elsewhere must depict a distinct pre-Tribulational coming for the Church?

2. First Thessalonians 4–5

First Thessalonians 4:15–17 is the classic Rapture passage, the one passage that speaks of us being caught up in the air to meet the Lord. Yet it also belongs to a context that refers to the “day of the Lord” and “sudden destruction” for God’s enemies, which should come only at the end of the Tribulation. Worse yet for pre-Tribulationalism, Paul’s wording alludes to Jesus’ own teaching about His return after the Tribulation!

Pre-Tribulationalists sometimes contrast Jesus coming for His saints at the Rapture and Him coming with His saints at the end of the Tribulation. This argument insists that He cannot come with them and for them at the same time. Thus 1 Thessalonians 3:13 speaks of His coming ( parousia ) “with all His consecrated ones” (saints; evoking the public Day of Judgment in Zechariah 14:5). But so does this letter’s clear Rapture passage, one verse before the verses often cited. In 1 Thessalonians 4:14, God will bring with Jesus those who have already died; only after these dead are resurrected, Paul explains, will those who are alive be caught up to meet Him in the air (see verses 15–17). This event, like the one in 1 Thessalonians 3:13, Paul calls the parousia (see 1 Thessalonians 4:15). Why then should we see them as different events? And in 1 Thessalonians 3:13, Paul prays for believers to remain blameless in God’s sight until this coming with the saints; why would he need to pray for that if he expected the believers to be in heaven for seven years before that coming?

At best, one could try to read pre-Tribulationalism into Paul’s writings by saying, “Well, he believed in pre-Tribulationalism, therefore he just takes for granted that his audience knew to interpret him that way.” But if that were the case, why does he clarify so many other end-time details but never clarify this one? He never says that the Church will be raptured before the Tribulation, and in fact always speaks of the “Rapture”/resurrection of believers and Jesus’ Second Coming interchangeably.

Moreover, arguing that maybe Paul believed something that he does not state simply concedes that one lacks any evidence that he believed it. One can argue almost anything by making loose inferences (“If A, then B”), but what does the Bible actually say? It is clear that Jesus will come once more at the end of the age—and it is clear about only one such coming––no stages are mentioned. (One could argue that we have a revelation that Paul lacked. But then one should admit that one has a postbiblical teaching, and one still must explain the explicit passages that pre-Tribulationalism seems to contradict.)

Jesus’ Public Coming

Paul speaks of Christ’s coming ( parousia ) in 1 Thessalonians 4:15–17. He expounds on the subject “by the word of the Lord,” which could mean Paul’s own prophecy, but given its overlap with Jesus’ teaching Paul probably refers instead to Jesus’ own teaching. This passage refers to believers being caught up in the air to meet the Lord and is thus the passage on which the specific concept of the Rapture (the catching up) is based.

Paul declares in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 that the dead in Christ will be raised when the Lord descends from heaven. Pre-Tribulationalists will normally say that Christ descends here only to meet believers and then returns to heaven; in contrast to Christ’s coming after the Tribulation, they say, He does not descend all the way to earth. Interestingly, however, every other New Testament use of this expression “descend from heaven” that we can test from context refers to a descent all the way to the earth (see Matthew 28:2; Luke 9:54; John 1:32, 51; 3:13; 6:33, 38, 41, 50–51, 58; Acts 11:5; Revelation 10:1–2; 13:13; 16:21; 20:9, 21:2). Waiting for Jesus to come “from heaven” (see Philippians 3:20; 1 Thessalonians 1:10) means not simply His coming in heaven, but His coming from heaven. (Ancient readers contrasted “heaven” and “earth”; today we realize that earth is a lot smaller than heaven—i.e., everything that is not earth. But since all people except occasional astronauts live on earth, we still get the basic idea. )

If the extent of Jesus’ descent might be debated, the sound effects are much harder to dispute. Paul does not depict a secret call to believers that the world cannot hear. He speaks of a shout and God’s trumpet. When shouts were conjoined with trumpets in ancient sources, the shouts were typically battle cries. Moreover, trumpets and shouts are the antithesis of secret signals; this is certainly no secret coming or secret Rapture; nor does any other passage depict His coming as secretive instead of public.

When we are “caught up” in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, it is to “meet” the Lord in the air. What does it mean to “meet” the descending Lord? The term used here for “meeting” was sometimes conjoined with parousia (coming). When an important personage was coming to a city (in a parousia ), a delegation from the city would go out to “meet” him and then escort him on his way into the city. That is, the term used here for “meeting” most often means meeting someone on his or her way and then accompanying that person the rest of the way. That is also its sense in its other New Testament uses (see Matthew 25:6; Acts 28:15). Jesus does not meet us on our way up to heaven; rather, we meet Him on His way down to rule the earth.

That idea is consistent with the rest of Scripture as well. Scripture says that Jesus remains in heaven until the time of restoration, and until His enemies are all subjected, including the last enemy, death (Acts 3:21; 1 Corinthians 15:25–26; Hebrews 1:13). That is the time in which He will return to rapture us—and to rule the world.

Again, 1 Thessalonians already spoke of Jesus’ coming in 1 Thessalonians 3:13, when He comes “with His saints” or “with His holy ones.” That language clearly echoes Zechariah 14:5, which belongs to a context in which the Lord stands on the Mount of Olives and judges the nations gathered against His people (see Zechariah 14:1–5). The same passage is echoed in Acts 1, predicting Jesus’ return just as He departed, presumably both in clouds and at the Mount of Olives (see Acts 1:9–12), probably at the coming of His Kingdom (see verses 6–7). First Thessalonians 3:13 refers to Jesus coming in His Kingdom; why would the Thessalonian believers assume that Paul uses the term differently in 4:15 in his same letter to them?

Echoing Jesus

Some pre-Tribulationalists want to distinguish this coming from Christ’s coming after the Tribulation because this one is “in the clouds” (see 1 Thessalonians 4:17) whereas His post-Tribulational one will include Him touching down to the earth. But clouds do appear at Jesus’ post-Tribulational coming to the earth (see Matthew 24:30; Revelation 1:7)—which is, as we keep reiterating, the only future coming explicit in the New Testament. As for Jesus touching down on earth, does a writer have to mention every feature of an event every time the writer mentions it? Making that a requirement would be an argument from silence.

The following context in 1 Thessalonians warns that we do not know the times or seasons (see 1 Thessalonians 5:1), a warning that Jesus originally offered concerning the timing of Israel’s restoration (see Acts 1:7). It speaks of sudden destruction for the unprepared wicked (see 1 Thessalonians 5:3).

Paul is still apparently interpreting Jesus’ teaching: Too many parallels exist to dismiss these as coincidence, in both 1 and 2 Thessalonians. These parallels are crucial in showing that, contrary to what skeptics say, Jesus’ teachings were preserved very early: They influenced some of the earliest New Testament writings within twenty years of Jesus’ public ministry. Yet they also reveal that Paul applied Jesus’ teachings about His post-Tribulational coming to the gathering of believers.

Themes	Jesus’ teachings in the gospels or elsewhere	1 Thessalonians	2 Thessalonians
Temple desecrated	Matthew 24:15; Mark 13:14	––	2:4
False prophets	Matthew 24:5, 11, 24; Mark 13:6	––	2:9
False prophets’ signs	Matthew 24:24; Mark 13:22	––	2:9
Future/end-time “distress”	Matthew 24:21, 29; Mark 13:19, 24	3:3	1:4, 6
Birth pangs	Matthew 24:8; Mark 13:8	5:3 (though probably applied differently)	––
Lawlessness	Matthew 24:12	—	2:3, 7–8
Apostasy	Matthew 24:10, 12; Mark 13:12	— (although cf. Paul’s concern in 1 Thessalonians 3:5)	Possibly 2:3 (though this more likely is part of the lawlessness)
Parousia	Matthew 24:3, 27, 37, 39	4:15 (cf. 2:19; 3:13; 5:23)	2:1, 8 (cf. 2:9)
Coming on clouds	Matthew 24:30; cf. 26:64; Mark 13:26; cf. 14:62	4:17	––
Trumpet for gathering	Matthew 24:31	4:16 (see also 1 Corinthians 15:52)	––
Gathering	Matthew 24:31; Mark 13:27	4:15–17	2:1
Unknown time	Matthew 24:36; Mark 13:32	5:1–2	––
Unknown “times and seasons”	Acts 1:7	5:2	––
Unexpected destruction for the wicked	Matthew 24:38–41; Luke 17:26–30, 34–35	5:3	––
Coming like a thief in the night	Matthew 24:43; Luke 12:39	5:2–4 (cf. 2 Peter 3:10)	––
Stay alert (in explicitly future/end-time context)	Matthew 24:42; 25:13; Mark 13:33–37; Luke 12:37–38; 21:36	5:6	––
The ungodly asleep	Mark 13:36	5:7	––

3. Second Thessalonians 1:5–2:13

Here Paul writes of the future reward for believers’ present sufferings and notes that “God acts justly to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to repay relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well” (2 Thessalonians 1:6–7). He then specifies when this event will occur: “when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His powerful angels in flaming fire, meting out punishment to those who don’t obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. And these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from His powerful glory” (2 Thessalonians 1:7–9).

That is, the righteous receive rest from suffering at the same time that the wicked receive the verdict of eternal destruction. And then he specifies the time of rest and judgment once more. The wicked face eternal destruction “when He comes to be glorified, on that day,” among those consecrated to Him (verse 10).

Note that, according to this passage, God repays both the wicked and righteous at the same time. We might suppose that this is merely a picture of the general time of the end, except that the context makes the unity of the time even more explicit.

Antichrist before Rapture

In 2 Thessalonians 2:1, Paul defines his subject: Jesus’ coming and our gathering to Him. A single definite article in Greek connects these phrases, probably suggesting that Jesus’ coming and our gathering are the same event. Jesus’ coming ( parousia ) frames much of the section (verses 1, 8), making it clear that the coming involves not only our gathering (verse 1), but also the destruction of the wicked (verse 8), as suggested already in 1:6–10.

Paul warns the Thessalonian Christians not to be tricked into thinking that this promised “Day of the Lord” has come (2 Thessalonians 2:2). What does Paul mean by the “Day of the Lord”? Context suggests that he refers to Jesus’ coming and our gathering (see verse 1). Paul’s previous letter to the Thessalonians refers to this “Day of the Lord” as coming like a thief in the night (see 1 Thessalonians 5:2). In Paul’s letters, it is the day of reward that believers look to (see 2 Corinthians 1:14). It is the day of Jesus’ public revelation that believers await (see 1 Corinthians 1:7) and until which we trust the Lord to preserve us, to “the end” (see 1 Corinthians 1:7–8).

But in the context of 1 Thessalonians 5:3 and in light of the Old Testament it is also the day when God will destroy the wicked (see Isaiah 13:6, 9; Ezekiel 30:3; Joel 1:15; 2:11, 31; 3:14; Amos 5:18–20; Obadiah 15; Zephaniah 1:17, 14). That is, it is the Day of Judgment (cf. Matthew 10:15; 11:22, 24; 12:36; 2 Peter 2:9; 3:7; 1 John 4:17). Again, we see that the hope for the righteous appears at the same time as judgment for the wicked, not seven years before.

To ensure that the Thessalonians are not tricked into supposing that the Day of the Lord has come, Paul lists two events that must precede it: (1) the apostasy/rebellion; and (2) the revelation of the man of lawlessness (see 2 Thessalonians 2:3–4). Scholars differ as to whether the term apostasia refers to an apostasy of once godly people or a rebellion (matching lawlessness in the context). It could refer to anything from the falling away of many believers (see Matthew 24:10) to the Judean revolt of AD 66 that would climax in Romans worshiping the emperor on the site of the Temple in AD 70. The term means “defiance, breach of faith” and the like, and cannot signify, as a small minority of pre-Tribulationalists have argued, the Church’s Rapture.

The other prerequisite for the Day of the Lord is that the man of lawlessness, the one destined for destruction, claims to be God and enthrones himself in God’s seat in the Temple. Here again there is some debate about the precise event in view. Roughly a decade after Jesus warned about an abomination of desolation in the Temple, Gaius Caligula, claiming to be divine, tried to set up his image in the Jerusalem Temple. Death cut his plans short, however, and Paul writes this letter perhaps less than a decade after Caligula’s death. A few years after Paul’s last surviving letter, however, Judea revolted against Rome and Rome ultimately destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple. Soldiers then offered sacrifice to Caesar as a god on the site of the Temple.

Does Paul refer to an event like this one, now already fulfilled, or to an event yet future, which this one merely portends? Perhaps in imitation of Jesus, this lawless one has his own revelation (see 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 8) and his own coming (see verse 9: parousia ), along with signs and fake wonders (see verse 9). Some emperors did purport to do signs and wonders, and a couple of healings are associated with the very emperor honored at the site of the Temple when it was destroyed in AD 70. But 2 Thessalonians 2:9–11 sounds like a broader, full-scale deception with many signs. Thus, it may focus on a future lawless one, although he simply culminates the lawlessness already at work even in Paul’s day (see verse 7).

Whether the passage applies to a past or (more likely) future antichrist, however, there is certainly no warrant here for envisioning Christians gathering to Christ before the activity of the antichrist depicted in this passage; the gathering coincides with Christ’s coming to destroy the wicked (cf. verse 1). Pre-Tribulationalists normally see a future antichrist here; yet this antichrist shows himself before the Rapture.

An Escape from (Post-) Tribulation?

Pre-Tribulationalists find one opportunity for a pre-Tribulational Rapture in this passage: the restrainer that must first be removed in verses 6–7. Yet as noted in the previous chapter, there is a wide range of views concerning the identity of the restrainer. Could the restrainer be Jewish resistance against this abomination, so long as ability to resist remained? Or could the restrainer be a spiritual power, such as Israel’s guardian angel Michael standing aside to allow this judgment (see Daniel 12:1)?

There are some thirty major academic views about the identity of the restrainer (not including more contemporary guesses or possibilities, such as the United Nations or the power of some influential and at least nominally Christian countries). (“Taken out of the way” in verse 7 may refer to the restrainer, or, if referring to the man of lawlessness, may be translated, “come out of the midst.”)

Paul may be reluctant to be more explicit in a letter to a persecuted church lest his concerns sound seditious; implying something negative about evil rulers could sound like treason and get Christians in Thessalonica in even more trouble. (After all, the trouble there started partly with accusations that Paul preached Jesus as a ruler who was a rival of the emperor, as we read in Acts 17:7.) Thus he simply refers the Thessalonians to information that he shared with them by word of mouth when he was among them (see 2 Thessalonians 2:5).

What then makes some pre-Tribulationalists see the restrainer here specifically as the Church (or the Spirit within the Church)? This interpretation conveniently matches their inferences from other texts, though none of those other texts support their view any more plainly than this one does.

The pre-Tribulational interpretation is, in fact, one of the few interpretations that explicitly contradicts this context. The context is clear that our gathering to Jesus (see verse 1) will not precede the revelation of this man of lawlessness (see verses 3–4), so we can hardly be raptured (and so gathered to Jesus) before the man of lawlessness is revealed. One could argue that the Church’s voice or ability to restrain lawlessness is removed, but not that the Church itself is raptured.

Here is the timeline that emerges from 2 Thessalonians 1–2:

Whatever is restraining lawlessness can no longer do so.
Then the man of lawlessness is revealed, with signs and deceptive wonders.
Then Jesus comes, gathering His saints and giving them rest from affliction, while destroying the man of lawlessness and his followers.

This is plainly a post-Tribulational timeline, not a pre-Tribulational one.

4. Revelation

The book of Revelation apparently recounts Jesus’ coming more than once. The two clearest descriptions follow, though only the second offers much detail. First, Jesus comes with clouds, and every eye and all peoples will see Him (see Revelation 1:7). Because everyone will see Him and people will respond with mourning, interpreters, whether pre-Tribulational or not, usually apply this passage to Jesus’ coming after the Tribulation. Second, in chapter 19, Jesus comes with the armies of heaven and a sword to strike the nations (see Revelation 19:11–16). The world’s armies gather to war against Him and end up becoming a giant meal for vultures (see verses 17–21).

Despite its elaboration of tribulation, Christ’s coming and the New Jerusalem, Revelation nowhere has anything close to a clear description of a pre-Tribulational Rapture. As noted earlier, the closest example that some find is John being caught up to heaven with the sound of a trumpet in Revelation 4:1. But as noted before, this is simply John’s vision; he hears the same sound in Revelation 1:10 and is invited to view other scenes in Revelation 17:1 and 21:9, but no one considers those raptures of the Church. The Spirit (Revelation 4:2) carries him away also in Revelation 17:3 and 21:10.

Those who use Revelation 4:1 as a type of the Rapture, so that John in this and exclusively this case represents the Church, do so because it is the only place where they can stick in a Rapture before Revelation begins talking about the Tribulation. Whereas depictions of Christ’s coming after the Tribulation are explicit, Revelation really offers no depiction of any coming beforehand. In this, it remains consistent with the rest of Scripture.

What about the resurrection of believers? If Revelation depicts this experience at all, it does so in Revelation 20:4–5. Premillennialists and amillennialists differ in how they interpret the passage, but since all pre-Tribulationalists are also premillennial, they take the resurrection here as literal and physical. This interpretation, however, challenges their own expectation. The passage promises resurrection for those who were beheaded for their testimony about Jesus, rejecting allegiance to the Beast, so it presumably follows the period of tribulation.

A pre-Tribulationalist might object, “But this post-Tribulational resurrection of believers mentioned in Revelation just happens to be in addition to a pre-Tribulational resurrection of believers that just happens to never be explicitly mentioned.” The problem is that the wording of this passage seems to explicitly exclude any earlier resurrection of believers: This post-Tribulational resurrection of believers is expressly called “the first resurrection” (Revelation 20:5). How that leaves room for another resurrection before it seems difficult to fathom.

But of course, this fits the pattern of pre-Tribulational arguments: Pre-Tribulationalists are stuck with a post-Tribulational first resurrection, last trumpet resurrection, last-enemy/death-defeating resurrection, resurrection at the last day (John 6:39–54; 12:48) and so forth, all of which they must explain away on the basis of a hypothesis of a pre-Tribulational Rapture for which there are no explicit supporting texts. (The Father’s house and Jesus’ coming in John 14:2–3 also do not help the case, since in context they refer to Jesus bringing believers into the Father’s presence by His coming after His resurrection; see John 14:5–6, 18–20, 22–23, 28; 20:22.)

As I (Craig) learned early on while debating Jehovah’s Witnesses, any theological system can appear consistent from the inside. But we have reason to question any system that falls apart when one steps outside it to probe its evidence.

The only imminent hope that Revelation presents comes after the Tribulation.

↑ Back to top