Copyright © 2026 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 pre-tribulation belief say that this must be deception
and therefore unbiblical. However, many
other commentators who have studied closely the wording of her prophetic
utterance are of the opinion that she was actually referring to a
post-tribulation rapture.[1]
Prior to this and 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.
Furthermore,
it can also be shown that, although amillennialism[2]
eventually became the official eschatological doctrine of the institutional
Church (mainly through the dominating influence of Origen and Augustine), there
were still many in the Medieval and post-Reformation periods who held to a
belief in the pre-tribulation rapture.[3]
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.
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.
Clement
(AD c35 – 100 AD), bishop of Rome
Clement
was a colleague of the apostle Paul (cf. Phil. 4:3) and the quotation below
from chapter 12 of his Second Epistle confirms his belief in
imminency. As Paul, he believed that the
coming of the Lord could happen at any time, and therefore that believers need
to be ready for it:
‘Let us expect, therefore, hour by hour, the kingdom of God in love and
righteousness, since we know not the day of the appearing of God.’
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 his 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.’ Those
who are raptured will remain in heaven until the end of the age (5.5.1).
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.’ (5.29.1).
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.[4]
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 sermon On the Last Times, the
Antichrist, and the End of the World, 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] For example, see Ice, Thomas D.,
“Why the Doctrine of the Pretribulational Rapture did not Begin with Margaret
Macdonald” (1990). SOR Faculty Publications and Presentations. 102., available
at https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/context/sor_fac_pubs/article/1101/viewcontent/PreTribRaptureMargaretMacdonald.pdf, accessed 22.09.2024.
[2] 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 tribulation. It does not
see the rapture as an earlier, separate event.
So it believes that the bride of Christ will go through the tribulation.
[3] 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 historical 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.
[4] Although it seems
clear from Irenaeus’ words in section 5.29.1 of Against Heresies that he
taught a pre-tribulation rapture, yet post-tribulationists like to claim that
he also suggests in section 5.26.1 that the church will go through the
end-times tribulation. This claim leads
to these two divergent viewpoints on what Irenaeus believed regarding the
rapture, and it invariably confuses those today who read Against Heresies. So the question is: what exactly did Irenaeus
believe in regard to the rapture?
This question is
excellently addressed by Lee Brainard in his article “Irenaeus – Ground Zero
for the Rapture Controversy in the Early Church” available
at https://soothkeep.info/irenaeus-ground-zero-for-the-rapture-controversy-in-the-early-church/ (accessed
22.09.2024). Brainard
brings out the crucial importance of understanding that Irenaeus used the term ‘church’
in two distinct dispensational senses to refer to what we today call the ‘church’
(i.e. the mainly Gentile bride of Christ which will be raptured before the
tribulation begins) and the ‘tribulation saints’ (i.e. those who become
believers during the tribulation and who are mostly Jews). So whereas today we use these two different
terms to distinguish clearly between these two groups, Irenaeus did not. He simply used the same term ‘church’ to
describe both (because they both believe in Jesus), hence giving rise to the
potential for confusion in the minds of modern-day believers when they read Against
Heresies.
Engaging in a
careful and objective study of what Irenaeus taught more widely about the
end-times in Book 5 of Against Heresies, shows us that he believed in a
rapture of the mainly Gentile church of the present age and that this will then
be followed by the tribulation (5.29.1); that he distinguished clearly between
Christianity and Judaism (5.14.3, 5.21.1); that God would re-gather the Jewish
people to the land in the end-times (5.34.1); that the Jews will engage in
sacrifices in the temple (5.25.4); that Antichrist will seat himself in the
temple of God (5.28.2), and will set up the abomination of desolation in the
temple half way through the seven years (5.25.4); that ‘the saints’ who offer
‘pure sacrifices’ (i.e. Jewish believers) will be put to flight by Antichrist (5.24.4),
and therefore that God will have worked to bring them to salvation during the first
half of the tribulation period (5.25.4). This reflects exactly the pretribulation
belief taught in this book and the dispensational position taught in my book Apocalypse
Rising. Irenaeus claimed that he had
obtained these prophetic views from the elder brethren who had personally known
the apostles (5.5.1). So the fact that
Irenaeus knew Polycarp who was himself a disciple of the apostle John, suggests
that this dispensational teaching would also have been upheld by John.
No comments:
Post a Comment