I come from a dispensational, pretribulational, premillennial background; as many evangelicals in North America do. Indeed, I was formally trained in this hermeneutic and theology at the Bible College I attended; which historically is known for it (it is known as mini-DTS). Even in Seminary, the same institution, I was influenced by this hermeneutic, but less. In this post I briefly want to touch on one aspect of this theology, or hermeneutic; in this post I want to sketch just one practical problem with the pretrib rapture view.

If you don’t know by now, pretrib rapture theology entails the idea that Jesus will ‘secretly’ come back for the church; taking the church to abide with Him in heaven while all hell breaks loose on earth during the 7 year Great Tribulation. Typically the chronology goes like this: 1) Jesus raptures the church; 2) the 7 year Great Tribulation (or ‘Jacob’s Trouble) kicks off at that point, or shortly thereafter; 3) Jesus comes again (His second coming) at the end of the Tribulation defeating the armies of the world (at Armageddon); 4) at this time the ‘Messianic Age’ or Millennium ensues where Jesus, the Son of David, rules and reigns with us, the church, over a regenerated earth (although not what we read of in Revelation 21—22) for a 1000 years; 5) at the very end of this period satan will be released from his holding tank to deceive the nations (the people who made it through the Tribulation and began to repopulate the earth during the 1000 years) for a final time; 6) Jesus puts this ruse to death, the Great White Throne Judgment obtains; 7) the New Heavens and Earth are created constituting the eternal state. The problem with this timeline is that the notion of a secret rapture that is distinct from the second coming of Christ is nowhere to be found in Scripture; Thessalonians makes clear that they are the same event.

But here’s the problem: all these North American Christians who still believe in so called ‘Left Behind’ theology or pretribulational rapture theology are going to be, potentially, some of the most confused among us. They won’t be able to identify what in fact is going on when the Antichrist comes on scene, because they are operating under the assumption that by time that happens the church will have already been raptured. I still listen to dispensational, pretribulational teachers—at the popular level, they are all Calvary Chapel pastors and teachers—and they constantly make the claim that we will not be here to see any of these ‘end time’ things unfold. But given the lack of exegetical support for their position (in fact there is absolutely none), they are sorely mistaken on this highly significant point. One thing they have going for them, though, is that they actually take the second coming of Christ as a serious and real event just on the horizon. It seems that many of my academic theology friends are in fact almost totally agnostic and thus aloof when it comes to these things; that’s a real shame. I digress. I think these pretrib teachers need to really attempt to honestly make an exegetical argument (which they never actually do) for the pretrib rapture position, and quit repeating the same tropes that have developed since the inception of the dispensational system; those aren’t exegetical arguments.

I strained for years to make exegetical arguments for the pretrib rapture position. I figured once I learned Koine Greek that I would finally be able to do that. Well I learned NT Greek, and it actually militated against the pretrib position, not for it. I understand the zeal with which some of these teachers make their claims about this position from; but I would challenge them to attempt to think critically about these things. They should try to imagine that the sub-culture they are ensconced within just might be what is forming their zeal, rather than actual biblically attuned exegetical arguments. Indeed, this is not a hard case to make; that is the case contra the pretrib position. The burdenous position is to argue for a coming of Christ that is distinct from His second coming. That is nowhere to be found in the Holy Scripture.