The Early Church And The Rapture

Q. We are studying Revelation in the home study at my house, and I know I am going to butt heads with the leader over the Rapture. He is convinced of a “mid trib” Rapture, because he doesn’t believe we would be taken out of the world to escape persecution, which is all he sees in the first half, not the wrath of God.

He has also cited that tired fact that no church father ever taught or believed in a rapture. I know there is not a huge amount that wrote about it, but I do know there are some. Would you site those who did, please?

A. Of the major rapture positions, the mid- trib view is the most difficult to defend. It’s very name is misleading because the mid trib position actually places the rapture in the middle of Daniel’s 70th week, just before the Great Tribulation begins. So it’s technically a pre-trib rapture. Since the great Tribulation begins in Rev.13, mid-tribbers have the church going through the seals and 6 of the 7 trumpet judgments, leaving earth at about the time of the 7th Trumpet in Rev. 11. By then 1/2 of the world’s population will have died and a group of tribulation martyrs too big to number will have arrived in Heaven. That’s a bit more intense than “mere” persecution.

A number of early teachers taught the pre-trib view, most notably Paul. If you read it carefully, you’ll find that the 2nd Letter to the Thessalonians doesn’t make sense unless Paul had taught them the pre-Trib position. Whether people like it or not, the book of Revelation clearly states that God’s wrath begins in Rev. 6 with the Seal Judgments and Paul taught that the church would be removed from the time, place, or any relation to His wrath.(1 Thes. 1:10) Here are some a links to articles on the Pre-Trib Rapture in the early church.

http://www.grantjeffrey.com/article/why_some_reject.htm

http://www.rapturealert.com/pretribnewidea.html

Related Posts:

• Rapture Before Wrath
  
• Pre-Trib Or Pre-Wrath?
  
• A Question About Pre-Trib
  
• Another Pre-Wrath Question
  
• More On The “Last Trump”
• http://gracethrufaith.com/ask-a-bible-teacher/a-question-about-pre-trib/

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