Copyright © 2024 Michael A. Brown
1. Belief in a post-tribulation rapture conflates
passages which speak about the rapture with those that speak about the Second
Advent (John 14:2-3, 1 Thess. 4:16-17; Matt. 24:30-31, Rev. 19:11f). These are separate events: their timings are
different; their natures are different; their purposes are different; and
different world conditions prevail at the time when each of them occurs (Matt.
24:29-30, 24:36; Rev. 19:11,14-15; 1 Thess. 4:16-17; Rev. 19:17-21, John
14:2-3, 1 Thess. 1:10; Matt. 24:21-22, 24:38-39).
2. Although we do not know when the rapture will
occur, yet we do know exactly when the Second Advent will occur. So, anyone who was alive
on earth in those days and who knew the Scriptures well, would be able to tell
exactly when the Second Advent (and therefore supposedly the rapture) was going
to occur. It occurs immediately after
the seven years of tribulation on earth, and it is preceded by signs in the
sun, moon and stars, as described by Jesus himself in Matthew 24:29-30.
So if we were alive during the seven years of the tribulation, then we
could simply count down the days after the covenant with many is affirmed by
Antichrist (Dan. 9:27). It is this act
which triggers the start of these seven years which then last for 2,555 days.
Alternatively, we could count down the days from when the abomination of
desolation is set up in the temple, since there are then exactly 1,290 days to
the day when Christ returns (Dan. 12:11).
In either case, we would know the very day that Christ will come down to
earth at his Second Advent.
Again, we could simply wait to see the signs in the sun, moon and stars
which happen immediately after the end of the seven years, and then we would
know that that is the time of Christ’s return (Matt. 24:29-30).
However, Jesus said that we cannot know the day or hour of his
coming. He will return at an unknown
time (Matt. 24:36,42-44). This must
therefore be referring to a separate resurrection-rapture event. There is no biblical sign which is associated
with the rapture: it will happen ‘out of the blue,’ and therefore suddenly,
unexpectedly and without any warning.
This is not true of the Second Advent.
So the Second
Advent does not happen suddenly like a thief coming in the night, and this
viewpoint therefore falls clearly into contradiction with the words of Matthew
24:36. It begs the question as to why we
are supposed to watch and wait for an impending event to happen, evidently in
the hope that it will take place, when that expected event can supposedly only
take place at the end of a seven-year period at some future stage of world
history?! This is simply a contradiction
in terms!
3. Belief in a post-tribulation rapture makes the
beloved bride of Christ into an object of God’s wrath during the time of the
tribulation. However, the apostle Paul
says that Jesus will deliver and preserve us from God’s coming wrath (1 Thess.
1:10, 5:9).
Furthermore, in Christ, we can never be the objects of
God’s wrath, for the simple reason that Christ is and always will be our
propitiation. To believe that Christ is
our propitiation, but to then posit that we will also somehow be allowed to
experience the outpouring of God’s end-times wrath, is to introduce an
existential discontinuity into God’s dealings with us in Christ, and therefore
to effectively deny that Christ’s work is both complete and permanent. It is to say that his propitiatory work is sufficient
in the here and now, but somehow it becomes invalid during the tribulation
period (should we remain, that is).
Post-tribulationists fail to address this confusion at the heart of
their eschatology.
4. Similarly,
it is simply a contradiction in terms to say that we are deeply loved by Christ
as his bride, and that he is totally committed to us through covenant, but that
we will also experience what it is to go through the time of God’s wrath. What kind of bridegroom who loves his bride
would ever pour out his wrath upon her?!
Christ is utterly committed to us in deeply loving covenant
relationship, so the very purpose of the rapture is for God to preserve us away
from the outpouring of his end-times wrath on a sinful world (1 Thess. 1:10).
5. If we knew that we were to go through the
tribulation, then, instead of waiting and looking forward with joyful
anticipation and living hope for the return of the Bridegroom for the bride, as
Jesus said we should, we would be waiting with dread, anxiety and fear for the
reign of Antichrist and the horrors it will unleash, because this would happen
first.
Post-tribulationists often say that, because believers are not spared
from the normal every-day tribulations (i.e. distresses, pressures and
troubles) of daily life, and neither are we spared from persecution because of
our faith in Christ, then there is no reason to expect that God will spare us
from the seven-year end-times tribulation period. Therefore, they say, we will go through it.
However, when they say this, they rarely if ever really think through
what it will mean for anyone to go through the end-times tribulation. It will be a time of great worldwide
distress, the like of which has never happened before, nor will it ever
again. It will not be like any period of
trouble or tribulation, or persecution, that has ever happened before in the
history of the world. It will far exceed
anything that has gone before! The world
will be largely depopulated, and the world itself will be largely destroyed and
laid bare. Although God will not put an
end to humanity in that time, yet, relatively speaking, there will not be much
left of the world or its inhabitants at the end of those seven years (Matt.
24:21-22).
There is all the difference in the world between a time of distress,
trouble and pressure, or even persecution, in our daily life as believers, and
the end-times outpouring of the wrath of God.
They simply cannot be compared!
So no, God has promised his bride that he will come for her before that
time begins, to take her away from it, just as he preserved Noah and his family
from the Flood, and as he preserved Lot and his daughters from the destruction
of Sodom (1 Thess. 1:10, Luke 17:26-35).
6. If we were to go through the tribulation, then, in
all probability, we would not survive Antichrist’s reign, because we would
presumably starve if we did not take the mark of the Beast, and we would
certainly be beheaded if we did not worship the image of the Beast. In any case, doing either of these things
would damn us eternally (Rev. 13:15-17, 14:9-12). So after the 3½ years of Antichrist’s
reign, there wouldn’t be many believers left alive to be raptured.
Furthermore, as I said above, the world will be largely depopulated during the time of the tribulation, and Jesus said that if those days had not been shortened then no-one at all would survive that time. So, again, if believers were to go through the tribulation, then there would not be many of us left alive to be raptured at the end of it (Matt. 24:22).
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