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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | Pre-Tribulation Rapture | NT general Archive 1 | gbennett76 | 94719 | ||
Tribulation Trash Part 2 So: is there to be a 'Great Tribulation' lasting seven years (or three and a half years, 1260 days) immediately before Jesus returns? The 'Great Tribulation' – True or False? The Problem for Protestants: The term 'Great Tribulation' is used by Protestants to refer to a period that ends when Christ comes again (it ends when He appears in Jerusalem to put an end to the battle of Armageddon). But here we have a problem. The 'Great Tribulation' is a certain fixed period – e.g. seven years. Since the Great Trib is so much worse than anything that has gone before, and so distinct that we can measure its length precisely, any informed Christian should be able to spot when it begins. Then, since it has a fixed length, the informed Christian would be able to predict the date of its end, and thus predict the date of the Second Coming. Yet Jesus told us (Matthew 24:36) that no-one will know this time. So the 'Great Tribulation' cannot end at the Second Coming, as Protestants teach, because it would allow us to know something even Jesus did not know – the date of the Second Coming. The Solution? A Pre-trib Rapture: BUT WAIT! There is a way round this problem. Evangelical Protestants now teach that we cannot predict the date of the Second Coming, because all faithful Christians will be raptured into heaven BEFORE the 'Great Tribulation.' This is known as the 'Pre-Trib Rapture.' (Actually, this does not solve the problem, because many of the lukewarm Christians who are not raptured will nevertheless know about the prophecies, and they will then be able to predict the Second Coming. But let us look at the scriptures anyway.) Is the Pre-trib Rapture Biblical? What do we know about the rapture? 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 is the key text: "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." So: what can we expect at the rapture? Jesus comes in the clouds There is the sound of a trumpet Jesus descends from heaven Everyone knows about it (if a trumpet sounds and all the faithful Christians rise into the air and disappear, someone is going to notice! – see also Revelation 1:7, "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him." ) The elect are gathered through the air. There is only one other place in the Bible that we read of this event in such detail: in Matthew chapter 24 (and in its parallel passages in Mark and Luke). Matthew 24:30-31 states: "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." Once again we have all the elements: Jesus comes in the clouds There is the sound of a trumpet Jesus descends from heaven Everyone knows about it. The elect are gathered through the air. (Some would argue that "four winds" does not mean the air, but if you look at every other time the word "wind" – "anemosis" – is used in the New Testament, it always refers to wind in the sense of air.) Why go to the trouble of showing that these passages refer to the same event? Because it destroys the whole pre-trib rapture theory. The previous verses in Matthew make it clear that the rapture happens AFTER all the events that Protestants lump together as 'The Great Tribulation.' Matthew 24:29-31 states: "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." |
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2 | Pre-Tribulation Rapture | NT general Archive 1 | gbennett76 | 94720 | ||
Trib Trash Part 3 It is worth quoting the key verses in several Bible translations, to drive home the point: Matthew 24:29 is the Link Between the Tribulation and the Rapture: King James: "Immediately after the tribulation of those days..." New King James: "Immediately after the tribulation of those days..." American Standard: "But immediately after the tribulation of those days..." Living Bible: "Immediately after the persecution of those days..." New International: "Immediately after the distress of those days..." Revised Standard: "Immediately after the tribulation of those days..." Simple English: "Soon after the trouble of those times..." Mark 13:24 Contains the Same Teaching: King James: "But in those days, after that tribulation..." New King James: "But in those days, after that tribulation..." American Standard: "But in those days, after that tribulation..." Living Bible: "After the tribulation ends..." New International: "But in those days, following that distress..." Revised Standard: "But in those days, after that tribulation..." Simple English: "After the trouble of those times..." So, the rapture and Second Coming come AFTER the tribulation. The pre-trib rapture theory is therefore false, or on very shaky ground indeed. The alternatives – the 'mid-trib' and 'post trib' raptures – contradict the "no-one knows the day or the hour" statement. Conclusion: none of the Protestant 'Great Tribulation' theories are biblical. The 'Great Tribulation' scriptures actually refer to the Great Apostasy, when the Christian church was "in the hand of" the little horn for 1260 years.This ended in 1830 |
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