Pre-millennialists believe that there will be a literal 1000yr millennial rein starting from the time of Christ’s return and preceded by a time of tribulation. Within pre-millennial circles there is however considerable debate about the timing of what is typically referred to as “the rapture”. The rapture is the time most clearly spoken about by II Thessalonians 4 and I Corinthians 15:51-53 where believers still alive on the earth will be caught up to the Lord at his return. The three main views on the timing of this are called pre-trib, mid-trib and post-trib. In other words, they denote whether this catching up to be with the Lord occurs before the tribulation, during it or near the end of it at Christ’s second coming to the Earth. Is it all just too confusing, or is one answer clearly correct?
Proponents of pre-tribulation rapture have a complete and well thought out theological argument
behind their position; however the main strength of the theory may lie in the following piece of
logic:
Surely God will not pour out his divine wrath on his own children. This, presented in one wording or another, is the ultimate trump card of most pre-trib advocates. It appears further backed up by
scriptures such as:
For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
(I Thessalonians 5:9)
But is this line of argument as convincing as it first appears? The first and most major hole is that, even according to pre-trib theory, there are a group of saved children of God who do go through the tribulation – those who are saved in it. Thus, pre-tribulation rapture in itself does not solve the problem of how God judges the world without pouring out divine wrath on those who are his own.
To play this issue down pre-trib advocates tend to call those saved in the tribulation “tribulation saints” rather than “Christians”, and usually say that they are more akin to the saints of the Old
Testament in their position before God. This latter point is based on the idea that after the pre-trib rapture the “church age” is over and Israel is back in prophetic view. There are problems here
though. First, it’s quite clear from scripture that Christ comes only when Israel as a nation repents (Zechariah 12:10-11, Hosea 5:15). Thus Israel at a national level is still in unbelief during most of the P a g e 64
tribulation, so while Israel is mentioned a few of times in Revelation it’s questionable whether the church age is immediately over. Second, aligning those saved with the Old Testament saints is in a
sense undoing the New Covenant. It makes no sense to think that anyone saved both after the
establishing of the New Covenant and after Christ’s sacrificial death are somehow in the category of Old Testament saints – it’s a completely artificial idea.
Now, going back to the verse about Christians not being appointed to wrath. The first thing to say
here is that Christians definitely are spared the outpouring of God’s wrath, the only question being whether they are spared it while still on the earth, or whether they are completely removed from
this world before it is poured out. If we take the former view then it’s actually perhaps most natural to end up in the mid-trib camp. The mid-trib rapture teaching correctly points out that the
tribulation has two phases. Much of it is simply major troubles on the Earth such as wars, violence, famines, pestilence, etc. Only the latter part of the tribulation (half or less) is actually the
supernatural outpouring of God’s divine wrath. Thus Christians could be present up until just prior to God’s wrath being poured out. Is there an event part way through the tribulation that suggests this view? Some say the latter parts of Revelation 11 are just that.
In the same hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. In the earthquake seven thousand people were killed, and the rest were afraid and gave glory to the God of heaven. The
second woe is past. Behold, the third woe is coming quickly. Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!" And the twenty-four elders who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying: "We give You thanks, O
Lord God Almighty, The One who is and who was and who is to come, Because You have taken Your
great power and reigned. The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, And the time of the
dead, that they should be judged, And that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints, And those who fear Your name, small and great, And should destroy those who destroy the earth." Then the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant was seen in His temple. And there were lightnings, noises, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail.
(Revelation 11:13-19 )
Convincing? Indeed, yet the idea of applying these verses to a mid-trib rapture is completely flawed.
These verses occur in the middle of the book, but not in the middle of the tribulation. It’s quite clear if you study the book of Revelation thoroughly that these verses belong to the very end of the
tribulation period. A number of events in them line up with events spoken of at the end of the
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tribulation, most notably the verse about it being the time to judge the dead and reward the saints.
This is picked up on again in Revelation 20. And, just to further affirm that Revelation is not entirely consecutive time-wise, note that the first verses in Revelation 12 (immediately following the passage we just looked at) clearly start from a time even before the birth of Christ. The timelines of
Revelation are another whole topic, however in a general sense they are similar to the book of
Daniel which lays down the big picture, then makes another pass over it in more detail and finally
opens up even more detail about particularly important events near the end. Revelation chapter six
broadly covers events right through to the time just before Christ’s coming, and Revelation 11 also takes the reader right through to this time. The full details of his coming are not however given until chapters 19 & 20. So the book is laid down in layers, much as an artist paints a portrait by first painting the outline then going over it adding detail, and then again with still more detail. Thus
getting back to the mid-trib view, the problem with it is that a clear understanding of the timing of events in Revelation leaves it with no obvious verses to hang on.
So, is there an answer or only endless speculation? At this point it wouldn't hurt to look at what
Christians believed up until around 1830. It seems that in all of the two thousand year history of the church there are only a tiny number of examples of pre-trib rapture being taught before 1830, and
none in the early church (before the Constantinian change and the birth of that Christian-Pagan
hybrid we call Catholicism). For instance, the most recent identifiable teaching on pre-trib rapture prior to 1830 comes from a Catholic Jesuit priest, Emmanuel Lacunza who outlined this theory in his 1812 book, The Coming Of Messiah In Glory And Majesty. Oddly the rebirth of this idea around 1830
may also have had Catholic origins as you’ll see from what follows.
There is an interesting book first published in 1983 entitled "The Great Rapture Hoax1". In it the author, Dave MacPherson, quotes writings expressing the views of well known and respected early
church writers, church fathers, reformers, radicals, revival preachers and some modern teachers too.
This list is virtually a who's who of church writers from the beginning until now. They may
collectively have many differences in viewpoint, but on the matter of the "catching up" into the air of believers left on the earth and the second coming of Jesus they all expressed the same thought;
that these events are one. In addition to this Dave MacPherson presents his research into the roots of the pre-trib idea, arguing that it started with the vision of an 18 year old Catholic girl called Mary Macdonald in Scotland in 1830. Now history is often somewhat debatable, nevertheless it’s worth
reading his account of things. Apparently a secretive sect, the Catholic Apostolic church, picked up on Mary Macdonald’s vision and it became their accepted doctrine. John Darby of the Plymouth
brethren also visited Mary Macdonald during the summer of 1830, and though he commented
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afterwards that she quoted the scriptures out of context he became more and more interested in
pre-trib rapture, ultimately making it his own and forming a complete theology around it, though it’s possible he had come to this conclusion prior to meeting Mary Macdonald; it’s hard to say for sure.
Either way Darby went on to travel all over the western world preaching and promoting this new
doctrine. As his own notes actually record he often did this subtly at first, recognizing that it was a new thought and that most people were not ready to accept it straight away.
But if the rapture actually occurs at the coming of Christ (towards the very end of the tribulation), how do we answer the question posed earlier regarding God pouring out his wrath on his own
children? Well first, let's remind ourselves that because there are people who are saved during the tribulation (thus becoming God’s children), the idea of the rapture occurring prior to the tribulation does not solve this question anyway. Nevertheless answering this question is still important to our understanding. Perhaps the first part of the answer to it is to understand that there may be very few Christians left on Earth at the time of Christ's coming. Daniel and Revelation both teach that the
Antichrist makes "war against the saints" and prevails against them. It seems as though an epic struggle occurs in that the Antichrist makes war against God's people and God makes war against
the kingdom of the Antichrist. You will recall that in Joshua chapter 10 God rained down hailstones on the armies of the five kings as they fled before the pursuing Israelites. Note that there were no Israelite casualties. God can be very accurate and is quite able to pour out judgment on the kingdom of the beast without hurting his own people. This appears to be a pretty good picture in light of the following words of Jesus on what would happen at the end of the world:
“So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth and sever the wicked from among the just”.
(Matthew 13:49)
Notice he says that the angels sever the wicked “from amongst the just”. He does not say that God
takes away the just first then pours out his wrath on the wicked.
For many, questioning pre-tribulation rapture is unthinkable. When people have read the scripture
through a certain lens for many years their framework of thought becomes embedded, and it is
often both difficult and discomforting to rethink things from a different angle. Also, as the majority evangelical belief concerning the timing of the rapture, pre-trib ideas are constantly re-enforced by church culture (almost incessantly in some circles). And it does have its own apparent logic,
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however post-tribulation rapture really is the plainest, most straight forward and natural reading of the bible. Here are a few more notes supporting this perspective: