A Case Against the Pre-Tribulation Rapture; Ten Years Later

It occurred to me recently that it was exactly 10 years ago that I made one of the most profound theological shifts in my life.  Interestingly, it was not when I embraced Calvinism, nor when I came to understand the continuation of certain spiritual gifts.  Those were important, but did not have too much paradigm-shifting effect (at the time).  No, it was my rejection of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture and my subsequent embrace of the Post-Tribulational, Historic Premillennial view, which took place in the fall of 2004.  Along with the recent release of the latest "Left Behind" movie, it seemed like a good idea to write down my reasons why.  I do realize that this concerns a non-primary doctrine.  It is NOT my intention to write libelous things against those who hold to Pre-Tribulationism.  All of my earliest mentors in the faith were Dispensationalists, and many of the great expositors of the 20th century held to it (Chuck Smith, Charles Swindoll, David Jeremiah, John MacArthur, etc.).  I only wish to tell why I no longer believe this.

Like many young Christians in America, I was raised on a steady diet of Dispensational teaching (though I didn't know it was called that).  I was completely oblivious to any other views and honestly thought everyone who was sensible believed in the Pre-Trib Rapture.  All of this was only reinforced when, at the age of 17 - shortly after being truly born again - I began attending a church belonging to Calvary Chapel.  I spent three years at that church and fell in love with their approach to verse-by-verse expository preaching.  I also learned that I had a knack for theology and Bible memorization.  I began to seriously consider that God may be calling me to full-time ministry and that it would be through Calvary Chapel.  I visited Calvary Chapel Bible College in Murrieta, California, and started to imagine what it would be like to give myself to the ministry in that context.  My pastors were very supportive and encouraged me to look into it.

To make a long story short, I ended up at a different college much closer to home.  That would mark the beginning of the end for my time at Calvary Chapel and also the end to my Dispensationalism.  After making this transition theologically, I broke the news to my pastors at Calvary Chapel.  They were very kind about it and honestly spoke with me in love.  However, they told me that that door into the ministry was now closed to me and it would probably be better for me to find another fellowship that shared my views.  In what follows, I want to show, from the Bible, why I no longer believe in the Pre-Tribulation Rapture view.

The first Scripture I want to consider is the primary text on the concept of the Rapture, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17,

13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15 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 not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.

The thing I wish to note here is that this text leaves no room at all for any kind of "secret" rapture.  It does teach that believers will be caught up in the air and meet the Lord, but notice how public and loud it is.  We see Jesus himself descending from Heaven, a shout, the voice of an archangel, and the blast of a trumpet.  Also, this event takes place at "the coming of the Lord", a phrase which everywhere else indicates His triumphant and public return to earth, which takes place after any tribulation period.

This is further confirmed by looking at Matthew 24:29-31,

29 “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. 30 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. 31 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.  (NASB)

Matthew 24 is notoriously difficult and a full exegesis is beyond the scope of this little blog, but I wish the reader to note the similarities between this passage and the previous one in 1 Thessalonians.  In both passages, we find the Lord Jesus appearing in the sky with trumpets sounding and the presence of angels.  Also, both passages accompany the trumpet sounding with the gathering of the saints together.  I think it should be fairly obvious that the two Scriptures are parallel passages.  The clincher though is found at the beginning of verse 29, which explicitly states that this event will take place immediately after the tribulation and inseparable with the glorious second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.  This, I believe is absolutely devastating the the Pre-Tribulational scheme.

Matthew 24:29-35	1 Thessalonians 4:13-17
Immediately after the tribulation of those days
	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.
Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.	For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout,
And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet,	with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God.
and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.	And the dead in Christ will rise first.  Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

Honestly, I could stop there, but there is one more passage I wish to examine.  Specifically, I wish to look at 2 Thessalonians 2:1-8,

Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, 2 that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. 3 Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God. 5 Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? 6 And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed.7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. 8 Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming...

Verse 1 is significant.  Paul, after already comforting the Thessalonian believers in chapter 1 with the hope of the second coming, introduces a related theme.  Evidently, some word had come to the saints in Thessalonica, ostensibly from Paul that the Day of the Lord, had already occurred and that somehow, the Thessalonians had missed out on it.  Paul seeks to correct this mistake by telling them the things which must first take place.  However, notice how Paul links together the glorious appearing of Jesus to take revenge on His enemies with our gathering together to him.  This is undoubtedly a reference to his earlier teaching on it in 1 Thessalonians 4 and what he had just written in 2 Thessalonians 1.  Again, it is apparent that the catching up of believers, or "the Rapture" will take place at the same moment as our Lord's glorious appearing.  It is not separated by a seven-year tribulation period.

Verses 2 and 3 are even more explicit.  Paul clusters the Second Coming and the Rapture together as one event called "The Day of the Lord".  At the risk of being redundant, they are not separate in his thinking.  Secondly, Paul labors to show how this one event cannot take place until certain conditions are met.  Namely, a massive falling away from the faith and the appearance of the "Man of Lawlessness" must come first.  Some Pre-Tribulationists attempt to circumvent this by asserting that the Greek word translated "apostasy" can also mean "departure." In their thinking, this "departure" is the departure from the earth of the saints in the Rapture.  They believe that Paul is giving a sequence of Rapture, Man of Lawlessness, Second Coming.  However, we have already seen that for Paul, the Rapture and Second Coming are one event and take place at the same time.  So it makes no sense at all that the Rapture can't happen until after the Rapture happens.  In reality, Paul's end-times sequence is Apostasy, Man of Lawlessness, Second Coming/Rapture.  We have also noted that this event can only take place after the Tribulation period.

There are, of course other lines of evidence I could follow.  We have to be sure that the Tribulation is an entirely future event like those of the Dispensational persuasion believe.  Personally, I believe that the Tribulation is a present event that began in the first century and continues today.  But space prevents me from exploring that.  I could also cite other New Testament Scriptures that portray Jesus' Second Coming as a unified event.  However, what I have given you is a good place to start I think in demonstrating that the teaching of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture is incorrect, despite the godliness of many of its exponents.