Welcome back to All About the Rapture. This is The Rapture and the Second Coming, Part 2. In The Rapture and the Second Coming, Part 1, we looked at Jesus’ description of the Second Coming as found in Matthew 24:30-31 and Mark 13:26-27 and compared it to Paul’s description of the rapture as found in 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17. We noted their similarities, how they each showed a scene of Jesus coming in the clouds, a trumpet being sounded, and God’s people being gathered together. To the post-Tribulationist, the similarities mean that the passages are describing the same event. Since it is clear the Jesus is describing the Second Coming, that means that Paul is also describing the Second Coming, which means that the rapture will happen at the Second Coming.
Today, we will be looking at the pre-Tribulation response to that assessment, because while pre-Tribulationists agree that the passages are very similar, they do not believe that they are describing the same event. They still believe that the rapture and the Second Coming are two separate events, with the rapture happening before the Tribulation Period begins and the Second Coming happening as the tribulation period ends. Let’s get started!
To understand why pre-tribulationists believe as they do, we need to understand the origin of the pre-tribulation belief. The pre-tribulation belief is not based on an actual verse. There is no specific verse in the Bible that says that the rapture and the Second Coming are two separate events, or that the rapture happens before the tribulation period begins. There is no verse that says that Christians will not be on earth during the tribulation period. There is no verse that says that, at the rapture, Christians will be removed from earth and taken back to heaven. There is no verse that says anything like that.
Instead of being based on a verse, the pre-tribulation belief is based on a principle. It is based on the principle that God will not destroy the righteous along with the wicked. The principle shows that when it comes time for God to deal with the wicked and to destroy them, He will not do so as long as the righteous are there among them. Furthermore, the principle shows that before He destroys the wicked, He will remove the righteous from harm’s way.
The principle is shown in the Old Testament story of Noah and the great flood. In Genesis 6, we see that before God judged and destroyed the wicked by sending a great flood, He removed righteous Noah and his family from harm’s way by placing them inside a giant ark. As the rains came down and the waters rose and the wicked were destroyed by the flood, Noah and his family remained safe inside the ark.
Pre-tribulationists look at this story, see the principle, and apply it to the end-times. They know that, in the end-times, God will destroy the wicked. They know that, according to the principle, God will remove the righteous before He destroys the wicked. They believe that the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, and the Tribulation Period, is the time when God deals with the wicked. They believe that it is the time when the wicked, unsaved world will have to go through tremendous hardship and suffering, and that they will ultimately be destroyed, because they did not accept Jesus as their savior. Therefore, pre-tribulationists don’t think that Christians will be around for that. They believe that God will remove us from harm’s way before any of that starts to happen. Specifically, they believe that God will remove us from the earth before any of that starts to happen. And not only that, but that He will take us back to heaven while the tribulation period unfolds on earth.
As a result, when they read Jesus’ description of the second coming in Matthew 24 and Mark 13, which is that He will one day appear in the sky, a trumpet will sound, and his people will be gathered together, and then they read Paul’s writing in 1 Thessalonians that, one day, Jesus will appear in the sky, a trumpet will sound, and the dead in Christ and the living church will rise to meet him in the air, despite their overwhelming similarities, they do not think that these passages are talking about the same event. Based on the principle that God will remove the righteous before He destroys the wicked, they think that Paul must be writing about a separate time, a time when they assume that Jesus is coming not only to gather all Christians together, but to remove them from the earth and take them back to heaven where they will safely remain until the Tribulation Period is over and the wicked are destroyed.
So, that is how pre-Tribulatonists interpret Matthew 24, Mark 13, and 1 Thessalonians 4 and why they do not believe that Jesus and Paul are describing the same event. But they are wrong, because even though they are using a valid principle that God will not destroy the wicked until the righteous are removed, they are misapplying it. They are assuming that the tribulation period is the time when God deals with the wicked and destroys them, and therefore Christians will be removed from the earth before the Tribulation Period begins. But the Tribulation Period is not the time when the wicked are destroyed. While may terrible things happen during the Tribulation Period, and there is much suffering and hardship, it is not the time when God is destroying the wicked. It is not a prolonged, seven year period when God slowly and systematically destroys them. It is simply a time of great tribulation. The tribulation fall upon the world, on the good and bad alike. Of course, there are times when the suffering is focused on the unsaved, but Christians will still be on earth while it is happening. And God is more that capable of focusing suffering on the unsaved while protecting his people.
As for the destruction of the wicked, the wicked are only destroyed when Jesus returns at His Second Coming. And even then, it’s not the entire unsaved population that is destroyed, it is only the anti-Christ and those who have accepted the mark of the beast. Therefore, the principle that God will remove the righteous before He destroys the wicked shows that Jesus will only remove us right before he defeats the anti-Christ and his followers, and everyone agrees that that happens at the very end of the Tribulation Period, at the Second Coming, not before, which makes it a post-Tribulation rapture.
So those are the ideas behind the interpretations of Mark 13, Matthew 24, and 1 Thessalonians 4. That’s all for today. I hope you enjoyed today’s post. See you next time!
Julie J
All About The Rapture 