Chapter 6: Final Thoughts
We owe a great debt to pretribulational thinking. Pretribulationists have always been at the forefront in insisting that the Bible clearly distinguishes the rapture from the second coming, and that it teaches a “pre-wrath” rapture. They have also solidly maintained a belief in the imminency of the rapture, a point of view consistent with the New Testament and the beliefs of the early church, but which has been abandoned by proponents of all the contingent views. On the really important issues, the pretribulational view is right—that the rapture is imminent and pre-wrath. Its greatest shortcoming has been that it goes beyond the bounds of Scripture and sound theological reasoning in its assumption that the entire tribulation is divine wrath.
Where does this leave us? We need to keep sight of the core truths that the rapture is going to occur before God’s wrath is manifested in the day of the LORD, and that from all indications the expectation of the New Testament and the early church was that the rapture could occur at any time without warning or signs. We might not know precisely when the day of the LORD begins, or when the wrath of God will be poured out; however, the indication from 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 is that the day of the LORD will begin sometime after the manifestation of the Antichrist in the temple (thus according to Daniel 9:27 and Matthew 24:4-28 placing it in the second half of the of the seven-year period). There is no evidence from Scripture or proper theological deduction that definitively places the wrath of God in the first half of the tribulation; hence, the necessity of a pretribulational rapture is impossible to sustain. The most that can be known about the relationship of the rapture to the tribulation is that the rapture could occur anytime prior to the outpouring of God’s wrath. To say more is simply to go beyond what can be supported from Scripture.
There is certainly nothing wrong with the hope of a pretribulational rapture—which is not the same as pretribulation-ism—the belief that the rapture must occur pretribulationally. All who believe in imminency are looking for the rapture to occur at any moment. To those who have the stewardship of teaching others, we should remind ourselves that the accuracy of our doctrine may soon be tested, and we ought to believe and teach only what is solidly supported from the Word of God. We must not teach as doctrine, assumptions that might manifest that we have been less than careful in handling God’s truth. If we say only what Scripture supports and the rapture occurs before the tribulation begins, we will all be very happy, but if we go beyond what Scripture says and we are proven in time to be wrong, we will lose our credibility and sow the seeds of confusion, doubt, mistrust, and unpreparedness, at a time when the Church most needs leadership and a clear voice.
Chapter Six, taken from: The Imminent Pre-wrath Rapture of the Church
Copyright 2004, 2006 by Sam A. Smith
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