Copyright © 2023 Michael A. Brown
Some commentators who do not believe
in the pre-tribulation rapture claim wrongly that this teaching originated in
the year 1830, through a fifteen-year-old Scottish girl called Margaret
McDonald. She claimed that God revealed
the end-times to her in a prophetic vision.
So those who oppose this teaching say that it is therefore deception and
unbiblical (although her prophetic utterance actually seems to refer to a
post-tribulation rapture).
Prior to this, around the year 1827, J.N.
Darby of the Brethren denomination in UK came to understand from the Scriptures
the truth of the pre-tribulation rapture, and thereafter he began to propagate
this teaching. This belief was widely
popularised through the Scofield Reference Bible (first published in 1909), and
since then it has become a widely held viewpoint in the Body of Christ.
However, some simple research into the
writings of the Early Fathers reveals that belief in the pre-tribulation
rapture was common in the early Church period.
This teaching and belief is therefore as old as Christianity
itself. As we have seen, both
the Lord Jesus and the apostle Paul taught it.
Furthermore, it can also be shown that, although amillennialism[1]
eventually became the official eschatological doctrine of the institutional
Church (mainly through the dominating influence of Origen and Augustine), there
were still many who held to a belief in the pre-tribulation rapture in the
Medieval and post-Reformation periods.[2]
I have outlined below some of the evidence
that can be found in early post-apostolic writings and those of the early
Church Fathers in support of the pre-tribulation rapture. This shows that this belief and teaching were
common in the post-apostolic period of the early Church.
The Didache
This tract outlining basic Christian
teaching is otherwise known as The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, and
it dates from the first century AD. Its
fourth and final section contains the following teaching about the end-times:
‘For in the last
days false prophets and corrupters shall be multiplied, and the sheep shall be
turned into wolves, and love shall be turned into hate; for when lawlessness
increaseth, they shall hate and persecute and betray one another. And then shall appear the world-deceiver as
Son of God, and shall do signs and wonders, and the earth shall be delivered
into his hands, and he shall do iniquitous things which have never yet come to
pass since the beginning. Then shall the
creation of men come into the fire of trial, and many shall be made to stumble
and shall perish; but they that endure in their faith shall be saved from under
the curse itself. And then shall appear
the signs of the truth; first the sign of an outspreading of heaven; then the
sign of the sound of the trumpet; and the third, the resurrection of the dead;
yet not of all, but as it is said: The Lord shall come and all his saints with
him. Then shall the world see the Lord
coming upon the clouds of heaven.’
Note carefully that the word ‘but’ in the
phrase ‘but they that endure...’, explains that those who endure in their faith
and who will be saved from the curse, are saved from what has just been
described, i.e. the tribulation. So
the rapture takes place before the tribulation. The next phrases regarding the three signs of
the truth refer to the heavens being opened, the trumpet sounding and the dead
in Christ rising, i.e. the resurrection/rapture event. This is then followed later by the Second
Advent, with the Lord coming on the clouds of heaven with his saints.
So the chronological order in which events
are presented here is: firstly the rapture, then the rise of Antichrist and the
tribulation, and finally the Second Advent.
The Shepherd of Hermas
This very popular apocryphal work dates
from the first half of the second century AD.
In chapter 1 of the fourth vision, the writer says, “I saw another
vision, brethren – a representation of the tribulation that is to come.”
Then in chapter 2, he says, “Lo! A virgin
meets me, adorned as if she were proceeding from the bridal chamber, clothed
entirely in white…”, and “I knew from my former visions that this was the
Church…”, and then, “You have escaped from great tribulation on account of your
faith, and because you did not doubt in the presence of such a beast. Go, therefore, and tell the elect of the Lord
His mighty deeds, and say to them that this beast is a type of the great
tribulation that is coming. If then ye
prepare yourselves, and repent with all your heart, and turn to the Lord, it
will be possible for you to escape it, if your heart be pure and spotless, and
ye spend the rest of the days of your life in serving the Lord blamelessly.”
This emphasis on keeping a pure and
spotless heart reminds us of 2 Peter 3:14 where the same language is used and
speaks about the rapture. So
pure-hearted believers will escape the tribulation by being raptured.
Irenaeus (120 – 202 AD), bishop of Lyons
Irenaeus’ well-known writing Against
Heresies contains some teaching about the end-times in Book 5.
In section 1 of chapter 5 of this book,
Irenaeus uses the translation of Enoch as a type of the rapture: ‘For Enoch,
when he pleased God, was translated in the same body in which he did please
Him, thus pointing out by anticipation the translation of the just.’
Furthermore, in section 1 of chapter 29,
he says that the Church shall be raptured away from the tribulation: ‘And
therefore, when in the end the Church shall be suddenly caught up from this, it
is said, “There shall be tribulation such as has not been since the beginning,
neither shall be.” For this is the last
contest of the righteous, in which, when they overcome, they are crowned with
incorruption.’
The word ‘this,’ referring to what the
Church is caught up from, clearly means the tribulation. So the rapture will happen before the
tribulation.
Irenaeus continues in section 2 of chapter
29, and in sections 1-3 of chapter 30, to talk about the beast and Antichrist,
and then, at the end of section 4 of chapter 30, he concludes with the Second
Advent. So he gives a clear and logical
order to these events: firstly the rapture, followed by Antichrist and the
tribulation, and then the Second Advent.
So the rapture takes place before the tribulation, and it is an event
separate from the Second Advent.
Cyprian (c200 – 258 AD), bishop of Carthage
In his Treatises,
Cyprian writes: ‘We who see that terrible things have begun, and know that
still more terrible things are imminent, may regard it as the greatest
advantage to depart from it as quickly as possible. Do you not give God thanks, do you not
congratulate yourself, that by an early departure you are taken away, and
delivered from the shipwrecks and disasters that are imminent? Let us greet the day which assigns each of us
to his own home, which snatches us hence, and sets us free from the snares of
the world, and restores us to paradise and the kingdom.’
Eusebius (c.260 – 339 AD),
bishop of Caesarea
In his Fragments
in Luke, Eusebius writes: ‘As all perish then except those gathered
with Noah in the ark, so also at his coming, the ungodly in the season of
apostasy… shall perish while according to the pattern of Noah… all the
righteous and godly are to be separated from the ungodly and gathered into the
heavenly ark of God. For in this way
[comes the time] when not even one righteous man will be found anymore among
mankind. And when all the ungodly have
been made atheists by the antichrist, and the whole world is overcome by
apostasy, the wrath of God shall come upon the ungodly.’
Victorinus (died c303 – 304 AD)
Victorinus’ Commentary on the
Apocalypse contains several useful statements which refer to the rapture
and the tribulation. In reference to the
words of Revelation 6:14 ‘The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up…’,
he explains that ‘For the heaven to be rolled away, this is that the Church
shall be taken away.’ So this refers to
the rapture. Furthermore, in reference
to the words of Revelation 15:1 ‘I saw in heaven another great and
marvellous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues – last, because with
them God’s wrath is completed,’ he explains that ‘For the wrath of God
always strikes the obstinate people with seven plagues, that is, perfectly, as
it is said in Leviticus; and these shall be in the last time, when the
Church shall have gone out of the midst.’ (underlining my own for
emphasis).
So Victorinus taught that the rapture
takes place at the time of the sixth seal, and before the pouring out of
the wrath of God. It is also
therefore separate from the Second Advent.
Ephraim the Syrian (c306 – 373
AD)
In his The
End Times, Ephraim writes about the rapture: ‘For all saints and the elect of God are gathered,
prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord lest they
see the confusion that will overwhelm the world because of our sins.’
Furthermore, he writes in Sermon on Repentance
and Judgment, ‘The
signs and wonders, which the Lord said had to happen, the famines, the
earthquakes, the terrors, and the nations in upheaval… the report of these things
does not disturb us, nor the spectacle itself. For the
elect shall be gathered prior to the tribulation, so they shall not see the
confusion and the great tribulation coming upon the unrighteous world.’
[1] Amillennialism is the belief that
Christ will not reign for a thousand years on earth after his Second
Advent. It also believes that the
rapture is part of the Second Advent itself, and therefore that it happens at
the end of the Great Tribulation. It does
not see the rapture as an earlier, separate event. So it believes that the bride of Christ will
go through the Great Tribulation.
[2] It is beyond the scope of this chapter to go into detail on this. It is sufficient simply to show that belief in the pre-tribulation rapture was common in the post-apostolic period. For a sketch overview of the development of thought on the pre-tribulation rapture, the reader can consult Thomas D. Ice’s article “Myths of the Origin of Pretribulationism (Part 1)”, (May 2009), Liberty University, Article Archives. 114. https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/pretrib_arch/114.
No comments:
Post a Comment