Six articles written by Dave Macpherson
Dave is a historian, author, and journalist. He is the son of Dr. Norman Spurgeon Macpherson who was a Baptist Minister and theologian. Dave has written a number of articles and books on the origins of the pretrib rapture theory. His books include: The Rapture Plot, The Great Rapture Hoax, and The Incredible Coverup. All of his books can be found on amazon.com.
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1. DECEIVING, AND BEING DECEIVED
"You've probably heard that the pretribulation rapture view was published by a Rev. Morgan Edwards in 1788 and also by a Medieval writer called Pseudo-Ephraem 1000 years earlier.
The Edwards claim (promoted by John Bray and copied by Frank Marotta, Thomas Ice, Tim LaHaye etc.) is based on a 1980 book by Thomas McKibbens and Kenneth Smith, while the claim for Pseudo-Ephraem (promoted by Grant Jeffrey and copied by Thomas Ice, J. R. Church, Jerry Falwell, Tim LaHaye, Chuck Missler, Dave Hunt, Hal Lindsey etc.) rests on a 1985 book by Paul Alexander.Let's focus first on Morgan Edwards (hereafter: M.E.).
Promoters see a pretrib rapture in the following words by M.E.:
"...the dead saints will be raised, and the living changed at Christ's 'appearing in the air' (I Thes. iv, 17); and this will be about three years and a half before the millennium...."If promoters had been sure of their pretrib claim, they never would have had to collusively cover up the following M.E. statements that contradict their claim:
On p. 14 M.E. described the "Turkish or Ottoman empire" (which began around 1300 A.D.) as the "beast that started out of the earth" (Rev. 13's second beast). (Since Bray etc. repeatedly claim that M.E. had only a "futurist" outlook, without which M.E. couldn't have logically expected a pretrib rapture, Bray deliberately skips over the historicism in M.E.'s "Ottoman" remark - historicism being the belief that the tribulation, covering many centuries, began at some point in the distant past.)
On p. 20 M.E. wrote that the "wicked one" (II Thess. 2:8) has "hitherto assumed no higher title than 'the vicar general of Christ on earth'" and described "Antichrist" as "popery" and a "succession of persons." (Promoters emphasize M.E.'s comments about the "last" Pope and ignore M.E.'s view that "popery" had "hitherto" (for many centuries) been playing the role of II Thess. 2:8's "wicked one" while wearing a "mask" (as he put it) - a first beast that historicism could easily see during the second beast's reign!)
Since historicism - and not preterism or futurism - is the only one of these three schools which often thinks "years" when reading "days" in the Bible, it isn't surprising to find such year/day historicism in M.E.
On p. 19, for example, while discussing Rev. 11's two witnesses, M.E. says "there are no more than about 204 years between now and their death: I should therefore expect that their appearance is not far off." (Bray quotes M.E.'s very next sentence, on another matter, but ignores this one! Could a futurist ever apply a couple of centuries - instead of only 1260 days - to those witnesses?)
Something else. The authoritative 1980 book about M.E. that inspired the claim promoted by Bray, Ice, LaHaye etc. never classified M.E.'s view as "pretrib," or even remotely resembling it, and the book's authorship had the same conclusion when later interviewed by both phone and correspondence!
And when Thomas Ice's "Pre-Trib Perspectives" newsletter (Sep./Oct., 1995) ran his own article promoting Edwards as a teacher of "pretribulationism." he couldn't find any of the heavyweight authorities on Edwards, that he listed and quoted, evaluating that 18th century pastor as a pretrib!
In light of the fact that Edwards embraced historicism (which can see some future things yet to be fulfilled) and not pure futurism (which sees no past tribulational fulfillment), it's easy to believe that Edwards, like some other historicists of that period, saw a three-and-a-half-year period at the end of a 1260-year tribulation - the same percentage a futurist would have if he were to see a period of three and a half days at the end of a 1260-day tribulation; such a percentage would of course be a posttrib view!
At least I don't have to juggle or cover up historical data to come to such a conclusion!
But now it's time to analyze Pseudo-Ephraem (hereafter: P-E), the name attached by scholars to manuscripts that were possibly, but not probably, written by the well-known Ephraim the Syrian who lived from 306-373 A.D.
And what's the discovery in P-E's early Medieval sermon on the end of the world that's led pretrib promoters to see pretrib in it? It's basically these words:
"For all the saints and elect of God are gathered, prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord lest they see the confusion that is to overwhelm the world because of our sins." A pretrib rapture is seen by promoters in the phrase "taken to the Lord."It needs to be emphasized that pretrib in P-E has been palmed off on unsuspecting Christians by promoters seeing rapture aspects in P-E's sermon where none exist and by covering up such aspects where they do exist in his 10-section sermon!
In Section 2, P-E says that the only event that's "imminent" is "the advent of the wicked one" (that is, Antichrist). Nevertheless, Grant Jeffrey in his 1995 book, FINAL WARNING, had the audacity to claim that P-E "began with the Rapture using the word 'imminent'" and added in the next sentence that "Ephraem used the word 'imminent' to describe the Rapture."
(If he and other P-E promoters can look at a coming of Antichrist and see a coming of "Christ," is it any wonder that in his endtime view folks will look at Antichrist and see "Christ"?)
Ephraim the Syrian, reportedly P-E's inspiration, said the same thing (SERMO ASCETICUS, I): "Nothing remains then, except that the coming of our enemy, Antichrist, appear...." (Nobody's ever found even a trace of pretrib in this earlier work!)
In the before-the-tribulation sections, P-E mentions neither a descent of Christ, nor a shout, nor an angelic voice, nor a trumpet of God, nor a resurrection, nor the dead in Christ, nor a rapture, nor meeting Christ.
So where does P-E place the rapture? The answer is found in his last section (10) where he writes that after "the sign of the Son of Man" when "the Lord shall appear with great power," the "angelic trumpet precedes him, which shall sound and declare: Arise, O sleeping ones, arise, meet Christ, because the hour of judgment has come!" (Like Morgan Edwards and Manuel Lacunza, Pseudo-Ephraem has the nasty, non-pretrib habit of blending the rapture with the final advent!)
In the July/Sep., 1995 BIBLIOTHECA SACRA, Dallas Seminary's journal, Thomas Ice and his co-author Timothy Demy pulled off one of the worst revisionisms of P-E ever: when summarizing Section 10 they carefully deleted what P-E included between "trumpet" and "judgment" (deleted the distinctive I Thess. 4 aspects in that posttrib setting), giving unsuspecting readers this utterly misleading condensation: "A trumpet will sound, calling forth the dead to judgment."
But P-E says much more, as can be seen; he places the resurrection of those who sleep in Jesus and the rapture of those who meet Jesus (details found only in I Thess. 4) at the Matt. 24 coming!
A moment ago I said that Edwards and Lacunza had the same rapture/advent blending. Here's evidence. Edwards in his 1788 work (pp. 21-22) speaks of "the son of man in the clouds, coming to raise the dead saints and change the living....The signs of his coming, in the heavens, will be 'the trump of God [I Thess. 4:16], vapour and smoke, which will darken the sun and moon [Acts 2:19,20]....'"
Lacunza's 1812 work THE COMING OF MESSIAH IN GLORY AND MAJESTY (Vol. I, p. 113) declares: "...you will find St. Paul and the Gospel speaking one and the same thing: He shall send his angels and they shall gather his elect from the four winds; who can be no other than those very ones who are in Christ, who sleep in Jesus." (A few have assumed that there's pretrib in an earlier Catholic, Franciscus Ribera, but in his 16th century Revelation commentary he viewed Rev. 12's "woman" in the tribulation as the Christian Church!)
But let's go back to Pseudo-Ephraem.
Dr. Paul Alexander, the leading authority whose book inspired the P-E claim, is portrayed in Jeffrey's book, FINAL WARNING, as "perhaps the most authoritative scholar on the writings of the early Byzantine Church." But this misleading statement, designed to make readers think that Professor Alexander supports the P-E claim, covers up the fact that this world famous scholar sees not even a smidgen of pretrib in the same Medieval writer!
In fact, Alexander writes that the phrase "taken to the Lord" (which has become a bonanza for pretrib history revisionists) means "participate at least in some measure in beatitude." While Jeffrey and Ice do include this "beatitude" phrase, all P-E promoters carefully avoid revealing that the Catholic doctrine of "beatitude," according to the NEW CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA, has to do with "the highest acts of virtue that can be performed in this life" - works on earth and not being raptured off earth! (Elsewhere in his sermon P-E repeats the importance of doing "penance," because of "our sins," so that church members will be "sustained" during the tribulation!)
In fact (again), Alexander has two summaries (textual and outline), in chronological order, of P-E's endtime events. And guess what. Alexander demonstrates both times that P-E saw only one future coming ("Second Coming of Christ" for the "punishment of the Antichrist") which follows (!) the great tribulation ("tribulatio magna lasting three and a half years") - claim-smashing summaries that self-serving promoters, with malice aforethought, have jointly swept under their "secret rapture" rug!
Since "Dr." Thomas Ice is the most rabid pretrib defender who's long promoted the (false) claims for John Darby and, more recently, Edwards and Pseudo-Ephraem, and at the same time covered up or twisted the (true) claims for Margaret Macdonald and the Irvingites, it's fitting to quote the first sentence of a recent news item:
"WorldNetDaily reported on March 7 that a Texas district court has ordered the Tyndale Theological Seminary to pay fines totalling $170,000 for issuing 34 theological degrees without receiving approval from the state education agency."
This is the Fort Worth seminary that gave the title of "Dr." to Ice - which is at least an improvement over "Dr." C. I. Scofield who, in the 1890's, began deceitfully adding "Dr." to his name instead of waiting for some institution to confer it upon him!
Well, I didn't mean to write a book here; I merely wanted to share some long covered up facts about pretrib dispensationalism. My 300-page book THE RAPTURE PLOT (with footnotes, index, bibliography, appendices, plus great commendations from leaders, and obtainable by calling 800-967-7345) has the sort of info I've just outlined plus much, much more.
If you decide to get a copy of my PLOT book, I won't have to tell you about the rest of the bizarre history of the 171-year-old, British-born pretrib rapture view.
I won't tell you that the same promoters have used the same unscrupulous, "twistorical" methods to try to discredit Margaret Macdonald, the real pretrib originator in early 1830, and cover up the fact that other partial rapturists who followed her and taught the same thing have all been classified as pretribs!
I won't tell you that promoters who claim that John Darby was pretrib as early as 1827 won't admit that he then had only his "heavenly church" theme, that he was still clearly posttrib as late as a Dec., 1830 article (he was waiting "to meet Him in the air in order to His judging of the nations"), that he wasn't clearly pretrib before 1839, that in 1839 Darby's only pretrib basis was Rev. 12's "man child" symbol (which symbol had been Edward Irving's pretrib basis since 1831!), that in his 1991 book (p. 100) R. A. Huebner admitted that his source for his 1827 claim for Darby could just as easily refer to something completely un-rapturesque, and that Ice since 1991 has covered this up and continues to declare, while searing his conscience, that Huebner "documents" his belief that Darby was pretrib in 1827!
I won't tell you that all of Darby's so-called "thoughts" which promoters for generations have claimed led him to pretrib (thoughts like the "Gentile parenthesis," "Church/Israel dichotomy," and the "literal method") were taught by others much earlier and that he subtly plagiarized them! (Dispensationalist scholars must have known that airing even a tiny fraction of this would have been a deathblow to their system!)
I won't tell you that throughout most of the 1800's the leading church historians - whether Irvingite or (Plymouth) Brethren - overwhelmingly credited the Macdonald/Irvingite orbit with pretrib; none credited Darby!
I won't tell you that in 1880, a year after his Christian conversion, C. I. Scofield was in jail in St. Louis for forgery (he'd stolen his mother-in-law's life savings by means of a real estate scam; would most non-Christian crooks do this?), that after he deserted his wife and children she divorced him in 1883 and he remarried three months later and covered everything up, and that as late as 1899 he still owed thousands of dollars he'd stolen 20 years earlier and had been writing phony IOU's to keep from paying back the money!
I won't tell you that after Darby's death in 1882, the editor of his many books, William Kelly, plotted to steal credit for pretrib away from the Macdonald/Irvingite connection and give it posthumously to Darby, that he achieved this between 1889 and 1903 by changing and covering up portions of early Irvingite and Brethren documents, and that 20th century British and American publishers have conspired to continue this historical revisionism in order to enjoy phenomenal sales of pretrib rapture material!
And I won't tell you that during the past century and a half, some of the most influential pretrib rapture books, by British as well as American authors, have been filled with sloppy scholarship and, what's worse, breathtaking amounts of plagiarism and even occultic teachings mixed in with evangelical theology!
Or that my PLOT book and my later book THE THREE R'S reveal, with comparison quotes and in more or less chronological order, embarrassing plagiarism in writings by John Darby, Joseph Seiss, E. W. Bullinger, Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye, Merrill Unger, Jerry Falwell, Ed Dobson, Ed Hindson, Charles Ryrie, David Jeremiah, C. C. Carlson, Paul Tan, Chuck Missler, Jack Van Impe, and the Calvary Chapel Movement for starters!
Finally, let me say that although I've been researching rapture roots more than 30 years now, I've been into computers only a relatively short time. The discovery of the extent to which misinformation about the pretrib origin has been circling the earth at computer speed still boggles my mind!
But authors are only part of the problem. After all, if an author gets royalties of, say, 10 percent, the other 90 percent goes to the publisher - which means that publishers can have much more incentive to keep churning out bestselling books that are filled with historical error and even deliberate deception simply because they receive far more money than the authors!
Which leads me to give you some of my reactions to publishers that are less than pleasant. After I gave proof to a well-known publisher in the Chicago area that one of its authors had plagiarized one of my books, I received a sympathetic letter from the publisher expressing concern; but no changes to my knowledge were made in the dishonest book which was kept in print, and neither my publisher nor I was ever financially reimbursed.
I know a pretrib book publisher in California that was caught publishing a pretrib book that was a huge plagiarism of a book that had come out several years earlier. After being confronted by the other publisher, the offending publisher promised to withdraw the book, which it did for a while. But sometime later the offending book was quietly reissued with the same old plagiarism but with a new book title to avoid detection!
In recent years Hal Lindsey has learned what publishers have always known, that there's far more money if you can be your own publisher or at least control the publishing of your own books. If a person looks closely at his 1999 book, VANISHED INTO THIN AIR (published by the same Western Front Ltd. which was, oddly enough, his "neighbor" when his home was in Palos Verdes, California), he discovers that more than 200 pages (out of 396 pages) are virtually carbon copies of corresponding pages in his 1983 book THE RAPTURE - with no "update" or "revised" notice included!
This is robbery on a grand scale for unsuspecting buyers who've been assured that VANISHED is a "new" book! Hal has done the same nervy thing with several of his books, something that's allowed him to live in million-dollar-plus homes and drive cars like Ferraris!
And what about Lindsey's THERE'S A NEW WORLD COMING which Harvest House Publishers has owned and been republishing for years? During the same time Lindsey has been peddling his reportedly "new" APOCALYPSE CODE, much of which is word-for-word the same as the Harvest House book! And there's no notice of "simultaneous publishing" in either book! Think of the feelings of customers who buy Lindsey's version only to find out that it's largely a mirror image of the other publisher's version which they had bought previously! Talk about greed!
And then there's Tim LaHaye. His 1992 book NO FEAR OF THE STORM, published by Multnomah Press Books, has an entire chapter entitled "MacPherson's Vendetta." Relying on miscopied secondhand sources that in turn miscopied still earlier sources, he gives the impression that my decades of rapture roots research is my revenge for the troubles pretrib caused my family in the 1950's including my expulsion from Biola in downtown Los Angeles. (My mother went to be with the Lord not long after I was "raptured away" from L.A.) But LaHaye's "crystal ball" is cracked because I didn't even wonder about the pretrib origin, or start any research on it, until two decades later - long after the chief troublemakers had been off the scene and forgotten!
Since my origin research has never had any reason to hide or twist any historical facts, my practice in my eight book titles has always been to give proper credit and list sources when quoting or discussing others including pretrib critics. In light of LaHaye's chapter about me, maybe he (or Multnomah) can explain why he doesn't list any of my books in his footnotes or even his bibliography!
But his bibliography does list John Bray's 1982 pretrib origin booklet, containing only 34 pages of "origin" text, even though LaHaye has denounced Bray's claim that Lacunza taught pretrib (the same Lacunza that Bray has long since de-emphasized!) and even though Bray's little booklet is packed with miscopying errors, misspelled names, and even two instances of his plagiarism! How fair is it for LaHaye to discuss me at length without listing my books and publishers so that readers can learn what I've actually written?
The same LaHaye book (reprinted in 1998 as RAPTURE UNDER ATTACK) is filled with mountains of copying errors and missing footnotes, and his inclusion of Margaret Macdonald's short 1830 revelation account has 48 missing words - the same 48 words that Thomas Ice somehow left out (which changed the meaning) when he reproduced it three years earlier!
Why is it that Multnomah and other pretrib publishers almost never make any changes whenever errors and dishonesty in their books are pointed out to them? Don't they have time or money for necessary proofreading? Don't they have any self-respect? Don't they fear God?
One happy exception to publishing dishonesty is Thomas Nelson Publishers. After I convinced that company, with a stack of photocopies of marked pages, that David Jeremiah's and C. C. Carlson's ESCAPE THE COMING NIGHT (1990) is a massive plagiarism of Lindsey's THERE'S A NEW WORLD COMING, a top TNP official sent me a letter, part of which revealed that "we at Thomas Nelson are very concerned about this matter. Accordingly, we are destroying all our current inventory of this title and will not reprint the book. Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention." (Anyone wishing a copy of this TNP letter can send a SASE and request it from me: Dave MacPherson, Box 1226, Monticello, Utah 84535.)
But as I've shown, many pretrib publishers are a far cry from Thomas Nelson. Their bottom line consists of three things: money, money, and money! They don't care that pretrib is less than 200 years old and that it didn't take over American evangelicalism much before "Doctor" Scofield's Bible in 1909! They don't care that the late Corrie ten Boom stated in a published article that pretrib leaders are "the false teachers Jesus was warning us to expect in the latter days" and that pretrib caused the deaths of "millions" of Chinese Christians when the Communists took over China! And they don't care that the dishonest pretrib theory they peddle for money in fact makes them accessories to the past, present, and future mass-murder of fellow believers!
Since the same evanjellyfish publishers don't care, I intend from now on to focus as much on their business practices and personal lives as I have on past and present pretrib authors. If anyone can send me documented evidence in this regard, I'll be happy to share it on the internet and in other ways.
But I really must stop. If this article has whetted your curiosity, call 800-967-7345 in South Carolina and get my book THE RAPTURE PLOT, the most detailed and documented book on the pretrib rapture's astonishing and long hidden history. Or you can order it through online bookstores such as armageddonbooks.com.
As a historian I confess that I am no expert on where the different kinds of "wrath" (e.g. Satan's wrath and God's wrath) should be placed on prophecy charts. To me, a really important "wrath" question is whether or not the rapture will happen before the coming of pretrib wrath against those who expose pretrib dishonesty! "
Dave MacPherson
End Notes:
1. The Pseudo Ephraem sermon was written by an unknown person (hence "pseudo"), date and integrity unknown. Not a 'solid' source for serious scholarship! See Tim Warner's expose of the Pseudo Ephraem claim. Also his article on the Morgan Edwards theory.
2. See my article The Origin Of The Pretribulational Rapture Theory for some other 'theories'.
1. Origins
There have been many articles, essays, and books written about the origin of the pretrib rapture teaching. The most prevalent theories among scholars are:
1. that the doctrine began within the Irviningite sect in England in the early 1800's (see article by George Ladd, article by Art Katterjohn)
2. that it originated in the Plymouth Brethren movement from the teachings of John Nelson Darby in the early 1800's.
3. that it originated with a Mr. Tweedy, who passed it on to Darby and the Plymouth Bretren
4. that it originated with aberrant Catholic theologians (Jesuit priests) Ribera and Emmanuel Lucanza, see article by J.P. Eby)
5. that it originated with a Baptist minister named Morgan Edwards in 1788(1).
6. The doctrine started in the early church with a writer called Pseudo-Ephraim. (The author of this work is unknown (hence, 'pseudo'), its conclusions uncertain, and the date written is in question. Of all the 'theories' this is the least credible(2)).
One thing is clear from the available historical documents: Darby, called the 'father of dispensationalism', was responsible for the widespread dissemination of the new and novel pretrib doctrine beginning around 1830 through his ministry in the Plymouth Brethern movement. The doctrine soon spread to America and was widely popularized by the Scofield Reference Bible.
In my mind the final word on the origin of the pretrib teaching cannot be known with 100% certainty based on the documents available. I think that the best explanation is summarized by Timothy P. Weber (Memphis Theological Seminary) who wrote:
“The pretribulation rapture......historians are still trying to determine how or where Darby got it. . . . Possibly, we may have to settle for Darby’s own explanation. He claimed that the doctrine virtually jumped out of the pages of Scripture once he accepted and consistently maintained the distinction between Israel and the church”. (Timothy P. Weber, Living In The Shadow Of The Second Coming: American Premillennialism 1875-1982. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1983, pp. 21-22).
John Nelson Darby commenting on 2 Thess. 2:1-2 in 1850:
"It is this passage which, twenty years ago, made me understand the rapture of the saints before -- perhaps a considerable time before -- the day of the Lord, that is, before the judgment of the living."(3)
So, according to Darby he held a different view until 1830 when he came to understand the pretrib rapture doctrine. Until further documentation turns up it seems then most likely that John Nelson Darby originated the pretrib teaching and was responsible for https://platacard.mx/es/ its wide distribution in the years that followed.
2. Quotes from early Plymouth Brethren: (contemporary with Darby)
Under The First Appearances of Secret Rapture Teaching on page 45 of B. W. Newton and Dr. S. P. Tregelles – Teachers of the Faith and the Future – 2nd Edition 1969, The Sovereign Grace Advent Testimony, London – George H. Fromow says, "Dr. S. P. Tregelles has recorded for us the origin of this teaching in his book The Hope of Christ's Coming, How is is Taught in Scripture and Why? (page 35 of the fifth edition).
Mr. Fromow goes on to opine, "If the exact terms used by Dr. Tregelles are noted, allowance can be made, that suggestions of a 'secret coming' were put forth a few years earlier, some say at the first Albury conference in 1826; but the precise date does not alter the fact that it was a novel doctrine"."Dr. Tregelles further wrote: 'When the theory of a secret coming of Christ was first brought forward (about the year 1832), it was adopted with eagerness; it suited certain preconceived opinions, and it was accepted by some at that which harmonized contraditory thoughts, whether such thoughts, or any of them, rested on the sure warrant of God; written Word".
There follows the quotation given above by Mr. Kelly.
3. More Quotes regarding the origin of the pretrib rapture theory:
Charles C. Ryrie: a dispensational theologian writes: "The distinction between Israel and the Church leads to the belief that the Church will be taken from the earth before the beginning of the tribulation (which in one major sense concerns Israel)." (Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today, pp. 158-160). (That seems to fit with the theory that Darby originated the teaching based on his dispensational hermeneutic. Ed.)
John Walvoord: thinks the pretrib rapture theory originated from Darby's understanding of ecclesiology: "any careful student of Darby soon discovers that he did not get his eschatological views from men, but rather from his doctrine of the church as the body of Christ, a concept no one claims was revealed supernaturally to Irving or Macdonald. Darby's views undoubtedly were gradually formed, but they were theologically and biblically based rather than derived from Irving's pre-Pentecostal group". (Walvoord, The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation, p. 47.)
F. F. Bruce: well known Plymouth Brethren historian and theologian says: "Where did he [Darby] get it? The reviewer’s answer would be that it was in the air in the 1820s and 1830s among eager students of unfulfilled prophecy". (Book Review of The Unbelievable Pre-Trib Origin in The Evangelical Quarterly, (Vol. XLVII, No. 1).
Alexander Reese: "About 1830 a new school arose within the fold of Premillennialism that sought to overthrow what, since the Apostolic Age, have been considered by all premillennialist as established results, and to institute in their place a series of doctrines that had never been heard of before. The school I refer to is that of ‘The Brethren’ or ‘Plymouth Brethren,’ founded by J. N. Darby.” (Alexander Reese, The Approaching Advent of Christ, page 18)
Harry Ironside(4): In 1908 Ironside claimed Darby had rediscovered the apostolic teaching lost to the church: "Until brought to the fore through the writings and the preaching and teaching of the distinguished ex-clergyman, Mr. J. N. Darby, in the early part of the last century, [the pretribulational rapture] is scarcely to be found in a single book or sermon throughout a period of sixteen hundred years! If any doubt this statement, let them search, as the writer has in measure done, the remarks of the so-called Fathers, both pre- and post-Nicene, the theological treatises of the scholastic divines, Roman Catholic writers of all shades of thought; the literature of the reformation; the sermons and expositions of the Puritans; and the general theological works of the day. He will find “the mystery” conspicuous by its absence". (Harry A. Ironside, The Mysteries of God, New York: Loizeaux Brothers, 1908, pp 50–51).
Robert Cameron: “Now, be it remembered, that prior to that date, no hint of any approach to such belief can be found in any Christian literature from Polycarp down.... Surely, a doctrine that finds no exponent or advocate in the whole history and literature of Christendom, for eighteen hundred years after the founding of the Church - a doctrine that was never taught by a Father or Doctor of the Church in the past - that has no standard Commentator or Professor of the Greek language in any Theological School until the middle of the Nineteenth century, to give it approval, and that is without a friend, even to mention its name amongst the orthodox teachers or the heretical sects of Christendom - such a fatherless and motherless doctrine, when it rises to the front, demanding universal acceptance, ought to undergo careful scrutiny before it is admitted and tabulated as part of ‘the faith once for all delivered unto the saints.” (Robert Cameron, Scriptural Truth About The Lord’s Return, page 72-73).
E. R. Sandeen: "Darby introduced into discussion at Powerscourt (1833) the ideas of a secret rapture of the church and of a parenthesis in prophetic fulfillment between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks of Daniel. These two concepts constituted the basic tenets of the system of theology since referred to as dispensationalism" (E.R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism 1800-1930, University of Chicago Press, 1970)
A. W. Tozer: “Here is a doctrine that was not known or taught until the beginning of this century and it is already causing splits in churches.”
Philip Mauro: "The entire system of ‘dispensational teaching’ is modernistic in the strictest sense; for it first came into existence within the memory of persons now living; and was altogether unknown even in their younger days; It is more recent than Darwinism.”“A system of doctrine that contradicts what has been held and taught by every Christian expositor and every minister of Christ from the very beginning of the Christian era—suddenly made its appearance in the later part of the nineteenth century".”
Edmund Shackleton: All who held the premillennial Coming of Christ were, till about sixty years ago, of one mind on the subject. About that time a new view was promulgated that the Coming of Christ was not one event, but that it was divided into stages, in fact, that Christ comes twice from heaven to earth, but the first time only as far as the air. This first descent, it is said, will be for the purpose of removing the Church from the world, and will occur before the Great Tribulation under Antichrist. This they call "The coming for His saints" or "Secret Rapture." The second part of the Coming is said to take place when Christ appears in glory and destroys the Antichrist. This they call "The coming with His saints."
Apart from the test of the Word, which is the only final one, there are certain reasons why this doctrine should be viewed with suspicion. It appears to be little more than sixty years old; and it seems highly improbable that if scriptural it could have escaped the scrutiny of the many devoted Bible students whose writings have been preserved to us from the past. More especially in the writings of the early Christian fathers would we expect to find some notice of this doctrine, if it had been taught by the Apostles; but those who have their works declare that they betray no knowledge of a theory that the Church would escape the Tribulation under Antichrist, or that there would be any "coming" except that spoken of in Matthew 24, as occurring in manifest glory "after the Tribulation." This is all the more significant, because these writers bestowed much attention upon the subject of the Antichrist and the Great Tribulation. Augustine, referring to Daniel 7, wrote: "But he who reads this passage even half asleep cannot fail to see that the kingdom of Antichrist shall fiercely, though for a short time, assail the Church." (Edmund Shackleton, Will the Church Escape the Great Tribulation? pp. 31, 32, cited by Alexander Reese, The Approaching Advent of Christ, p. 231.)
4. Implications!
Sometimes overlooked are the implications of the pretrib rapture recent origins. In my book Outline Studies On The Rapture Question (1973) I wrote "Search the pages of Church history and literature, and you will not find one mention of the Lord coming before the Tribulation until after 1800. No one has ever cited any literature, writings, or quotes to the contrary! The implications of this truth are serious. If the Pre-Tribulation doctrine were true, it would mean that it was hidden from the church for 19 centuries. Not one of the brilliant theologians or Bible teachers before the 1800's were able to find a Pretrib rapture and coming of the Lord on the pages of Holy Scripture---an incredulous improbability to say the least!".(5)
(1). Some scholars like John L. Bray promote the theory that the pretrib teaching originated with a Baptist minister named Morgan Edwards in 1788. A close analysis of his writing Millennium, Last-Novelities clearly does not outline end-time events as found in the teachings of Darby, Scofield, Walvoord, etc. See the analysis by Tim Warner in his article on Morgan Edwards.
(2) For more information on the pre-Darby pretrib theories see my friend Dave MacPherson's article Deceiving And Being Deceived.
(3) Cited by Wm Kelly in The Rapture of the Saints: Who Suggested It, Or Rather On What Scripture? The Bible Treasury, New Series, vol. 4, p. 314-318.
(4) Harry Ironside (1876-1951) was an ardent pretrib dispensationalist, prolific writer, and former pastor of Moody Memorial Church.
(5) This was written in 1973 before the various claims of a pre-Darby pretrib rapture were widely known. But even if Morgan Edwards or one of the Jesuit priests taught the pretrib rapture theory before the 1800's it would mean that the doctrine was hidden from the Church for more than 1600+ years!
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3. PRETRIB RAPTURE DIEHARDS!
Since the 1970's stunning new data has been surfacing about the pretribulation rapture's long-covered-up beginnings in the 1800's. In recent years several persons associated with Dallas Theological Seminary (which had long been pretribized) have reportedly gone to Britain to check on my research sources and then write books opposing my claims. In 1990 an Ohio pastor told me that Dr. _____ _____, the most qualified DTS prof, traveled there and came back and wrote nothing! The pastor added that he and some others had a good laugh. But change was coming. In 1993 Chuck Swindoll, who became DTS president after John Walvoord, stated: "I'm not sure we're going to make dispensationalism [the chief attraction of which is a pretrib rapture] a part of our marquee as we talk about our school." When asked if the word "dispensationalism" would disappear, he answered: "It may and perhaps it should" ("Christianity Today," Oct. 25, 1993)! But a few diehards (with the stubbornness of Iraqi insurgents and New Orleans looters) keep on milking their cash cow while continuing to cover up and twist the following historical facts about their latter-day, cult-like belief:
1825: British preacher Edward Irving revealed that he had been teaching some of dispensationalism's key aspects as early as late 1825. (John Darby-exalter R. A. Huebner has never even claimed to find any original prophetic idea in Darby before late 1826!)
1827-1830: Darby was still posttrib during these years. His 1827 paper had him waiting for only the posttrib "restitution of all things." After discussing in 1828 the "unity" of the church, he looked for only the Rev. 19 coming in 1829 and 1830.
1830: During the spring a young woman in Scotland, Margaret Macdonald, declared that she had discovered in the Bible what had never been seen by others: a rapture of "church" members described as a "pre-Antichrist" (or pretrib) event. Her words: "one taken and the other left" before "THE WICKED [Antichrist] be revealed." She was a partial rapturist seeing only part of the "church" raptured and the rest of the "church" left on earth. When she wrote that the "trial of the Church is from Antichrist," she meant the part of the church not included in her pretrib rapture. Leading partial rapturists including Pember and Govett have always applied the word "church" to the ones "left behind." Robert Norton, Irvingite historian and on-scene witness of Margaret's utterances, wrote that Margaret was the "first" to privately teach pretrib.
A September article in "The Morning Watch" (Irvingite journal) saw the "Philadelphia" church raptured before a "period of great tribulation" and the "Laodicea" church left on earth. Huebner's "Precious Truths" claimed that Philadelphia was seen raptured before only the "seventh vial" and not before "the great tribulation" even though the article writer added twice on following pages that this "period" was indeed "the great tribulation"! In the previous (June) issue the same writer had seen Philadelphia on earth until the final posttrib advent. In between these two issues, TMW writers had visited Margaret who explained her new "revelation" which was soon reflected on TMW pages without giving her credit!
In December a published article by Darby was still defending the posttrib view!
1833: British lawyer Robert Baxter, an ex-Irvingite, wrote that the pretrib "delusion first appeared in Scotland" before it began to be taught in London the following year.
1834: A Darby letter referred to the new pretrib rapture view, stated that "the thoughts are new," and advocated the subtle introduction of it by writing "it would not be well to have it so clear"! Darby also called it the "new wine." Others who knew that pretrib was then a new view included other Plymouth Brethren, Irvingites, Margaret, and later 19th century historians such as Margaret Oliphant who referred to "a new revelation" in 1830 in western Scotland where Margaret Macdonald lived.
1837: Years after Darby supposedly had derived a distinction (or separation) between the "church" and "Israel," his 1837 article saw the church "going in with Him to the marriage, to wit, with Jerusalem and the Jews"!
1839: The first year Darby was clearly pretrib. His pretrib basis then (and during the next three decades) was Rev. 12:5's "man child" that is "caught up." But this "new" Darby teaching was actually a plagiarism of Edward Irving who had been using this verse for the same (pretrib) purpose since 1831!
1843: In a letter written from Switzerland, Darby referred to "the dissemination of truth and blessing...thus spreading on the right hand and on the left, without knowing whence it came or how it sprung up all of a sudden...." Here he gloated that others didn't know "whence" pretrib came or that he had advocated the subtle sneaking of the new pretrib view into existing groups (see "1834" above)!
1853: Darby's book "The Irrationalism of Infidelity" recalled his visit to Margaret Macdonald and her brothers in mid-1830. He remembered 23 minor details but carefully omitted the most important one: Margaret's teaching of a coming of Christ that would exempt believers from the great tribulation "judgments"----a detail that all others who visited her and then wrote accounts could easily remember! (It's obvious that Todd Strandberg's mother didn't soap his mouth enough because even though he knows better after the airing of "Open Letter to Todd Strandberg" on the internet, his falsehood-packed "Margaret MacDonald Who?" article on his "Rapture Ready" site continues to pollute minds by stating that I "have never been able to prove that Darby had ever heard of MacDonald or her vision"!)
1855: An article by eminent Brethren scholar S. P. Tregelles tied "Judaisers" to pretrib. But in an 1864 book he tied "Irving's Church" to pretrib. Both Huebner and Walvoord claimed that Tregelles contradicted himself, and Huebner charged Tregelles with "untruth and slander." But even William Kelly, Darby's editor, saw no contradiction and wrote, concerning "Judaising," that "nowhere is this so patent as in Irvingism"!
1861: Robert Norton, medical doctor and Irvingite, wrote that the "true origin" of pretrib had been "hidden and misrepresented." (This was about the time that Kelly was working towards the goal of elevating Darby and giving the false impression that Darby should be credited with the pretrib view.) Several pages later, in the same book, Norton revealed Margaret as the true originator of pretrib.
1863: In his "Five Letters" leading Brethren scholar Tregelles wrote that some Brethren had been unscrupulously issuing tracts by the thousands in which they changed the "words and doctrines" of "the Reformers and others" to give the impression that those ancient writers had actually been teaching the novel doctrines that some Darbyist Brethren were then circulating in the 1800's!
1864: Brethren scholar Tregelles charged fellow Brethren with changing even the words in ancient hymns: "Sometimes from a hymn being altered, writers appear to set forth a secret rapture of which they had never heard, or against which they have protested." I should add that in an 1865 letter Darby asked his editor to preserve the newer (pretrib) hymns and "correct the others," that is, the older (posttrib) ones!
1860's: From the 1860's to the 1880's William Kelly, editor of Darby's works, was busy putting together some volumes known as "The Collected Writings of J. N. Darby." Opposition to Darbyism had been increasing and Kelly was determined to fight it and continue to exalt Darby. His goal was to present a Darby that was prophetically "mature" long before he actually matured. He achieved this dishonesty with misleading words in brackets inside sentences in Darby's early works, and with footnotes that he "borrowed" from Darby's much later works when he was obviously more developed! Darby even gave this deviousness his blessing. In an 1865 letter to Kelly he wrote: "I should think that some of the Notes would require some revising....Even the sermons contain things I should not accept...." Kelly even flaunted his shameful manipulation in a footnote to Darby's 1830 article; the note said that "it was not worth while either suppressing or changing it."
Interestingly, since the Irvingites were clear (and clearly first) when it came to public pretrib teaching, they didn't need later "fixers" to dishonestly correct their original statements!
1872: In an article in "The Princeton Review," Thomas Croskery of Ireland listed beliefs of the Plymouth Brethren including these: "That the moral law is of no use at all to believers" and "that believers have nothing to do in the way of keeping themselves from sin for God must look to them if He will...." He said that "Mr. Darby" pursues his opponents"with a virulence that has no parallel in the history of religious controversy."
1877: A medical doctor, James Carson, wrote that "the Darbyites have managed to cloak their opinions by using language in a Jesuitical sense...." He added: "Unless a person makes himself properly acquainted with the opinions" of Darbyites and argues "with the utmost precision on every point...it is impossible to manage such wily and slippery customers."
1879: A later work by Thomas Croskery declared that "Brethrenite doctrine...clearly tends to immorality." He then quoted Darby's editor, William Kelly, who stated: "I am no longer, as a Christian man, having to do with the responsibility that attaches to mortal man, but am passed now into a new state, even while I am in the world." Rev. Frederick Whitfield spoke of "the flagrant immoralities among the Plymouth Brethren" while James Grant commented: "Darbyism is the most selfish religious system with which I am acquainted."
1880: William Reid's work on Brethrenism revealed that "no other sect was, perhaps, ever so fruitful of divisions" and referred to "the novel doctrines propounded by some of its leaders." He quoted Lord Congleton, a leading Brethren member, who asked: "Have you tried these Brethren----the Darbyites?....They are false in what they say of their brethren, they are false in doctrine, and they are false in their walk."
And Henry Craik, a colleague of George Muller, was also quoted: "The truth is, Brethrenism as such, is broken to pieces. By pretending to be wiser, holier, more spiritual, more enlightened, than all other Christians; by rash and unprofitable intrusions into things not revealed; by making mysticism and eccentricity the test of spiritual life and depth; by preferring a dreamy and imaginative theology to the solid food of the Word of God...." (Leading Brethren scholar Harold Rowdon's 1967 book "The Origins of the Brethren," p. 253, quoted earlier Brethren member Lord Congleton who was "disgusted with...the falseness" of Darby's narratives. Rowdon also quoted a historian of the Brethren, W. B. Neatby, who wrote that "the time-honoured method of single combat" was as good a method as any "to elicit the truth" from Darby!)
1880's: In 1880, a year after his Christian conversion, C. I. Scofield was in the St. Louis jail for forgery because he'd stolen his mother-in-law's life savings in a real estate scam. In 1883 his first wife divorced him (for desertion) and he remarried three months later. Although he had no formal theological training, he began putting a non-conferred "D.D." after his name in the 1890's. In 1899, when he preached D. L. Moody's funeral sermon, he still owed thousands of dollars that he had stolen from acquaintances 20 years earlier. (In 1921 he advised his daughter, who then had financial problems, to pray to an ancient Catholic saint; at the same time his Scofield Bible, p. 1346, was predicting a future reign of "apostate Christendom, headed up under the Papacy"!)
1889: Aware that for 60 years the leading historians----whether Brethren or Irvingite----had been crediting someone in Irving's circle (and not Darby's circle!) with the pretrib rapture, Darby's editor William Kelly embarked on a sinister plan to discredit the Irvingites (and their female inspiration) and belatedly (and falsely) give credit for pretrib to Darby. He achieved this in 1889-1890 in a series of articles in his own British journal while analyzing the Irvingites in a supposedly fair and honest manner. Let's see a few of the many examples of his clever dishonesty:
When quoting early Irvingites like Baxter and Norton, Kelly would consistently skip over their clear pretrib teaching but quote just before and after it! And he was a change artist. When Irvingites would write about their pretrib "rapture," Kelly loved to water it down into only their belief in the "Second Coming"! If the Irvingites expressed their belief in an imminent pretrib catching up, Kelly revised it into their "constantly to be expected Lord"! When Irving's followers hoped to escape, by rapture, the coming "tribulation," their "tribulation" was changed by Kelly into only "corrupt or apostate evils"! My 300-page book "The Rapture Plot" has 16 pages (!) of glaring specimens of short quotes exhibiting Kelly's shameful revisions of Irvingite doctrine!
1918: A prophetic book by E. P. Cachemaille discussed the pretrib origin, tied it to the 1830's, then added: "There has since been much scheming to give the doctrine a reputable origin, scheming by those who did not know the original facts, not being contemporaries of Dr. Tregelles."
1942: Noted prophecy teacher H. A. Ironside, who had a Brethren background, dared to assert, minus evidence, that what early Brethren taught re the rapture was "so contrary" to what the Irvingites had been teaching, adding that no links had existed between the two groups!
1960: After mentioning that the claim that Darby originated pretrib "is certainly open to question," evangelical scholar Clarence Bass wrote: "More probably, however, its origin can be traced through the Irvingite movement." But he failed to elaborate, evidently aware that he would be opening a can of you-know-what!
1973: Darby worshiper R. A. Huebner wrote that "The Irvingites (1828-1834) never held the pretribulation rapture or any 'any-moment' views." He was aware that many couldn't know how close he had repeatedly come to clear pretrib teaching by Irvingites and then had covered up everything while using the same devious tactics his inspiration William Kelly had used a century earlier while analyzing the same Irvingites!
My "Plot" book has a 31-page chapter of many quotes from the earliest Irvingites showing that they repeatedly and clearly taught pretrib as well as imminence. For example, in 1832 the Irvingite journal said that "some" will be "left in the great tribulation...after the translation of the saints." We've already seen clear pretribism in the Sep., 1830 issue of the Irvingite journal. It's bad enough that Huebner (who never attended seminary, college, or even Bible school) has mind-poisoned his tiny circle of Darby-idolizers, but disastrous that pretrib leaders like Walvoord, Ryrie, LaHaye, and Ice were apparently "too busy" to check Huebner's sources and later on too proud to admit they'd been taken in by him!
The parallels between Huebner and his two inspirations, Darby and Kelly, are astounding. Like them, he easily applies "demon" to opponents and their beliefs. Like them, he exaggerates and even purposely muddies up Darby's earliest pretrib development and Darby's later reminiscences. And like them, he can deftly dance around pretrib "cobras" in Irvingism (and its female inspiration) without getting bitten! In his 1973 book, Huebner had 95 copying errors when quoting others including pretrib leaders! (For more shocks on the internet, type in "Humbug Huebner.")
1989: Thomas Ice, one of the biggest pretrib diehards, doesn't have favorites when he discusses the pretrib origin; he can use deviousness as well as sloppiness. When he reproduced Margaret's short "revelation" account he somehow left out 48 words! As if his carelessness wasn't bad enough, his reproduction also included four distinctive errors that Hal Lindsey had made in his own reproduction of it in 1983----what Ice chose to do instead of going to the original 19th century sources! (See my internet piece "Thomas Ice - Hired Gun" if you are shockproof.)
1990: A year after his "rapture" of 48 words from Margaret's handwritten "revelation" account, Ice was elevated all the way up to Dallas Seminary's journal which published his article on pretrib history. In it he had some copying errors when quoting John Bray, Huebner, and Walvoord. Even worse, when he quoted the same Margaret Macdonald account, he skipped right over what he knew was her main point (a catching up of church members just before the Antichrist is revealed) even though he quoted shortly before and after it! And when quoting present-day Brethren scholar Harold Rowdon, he used an ellipsis to cover up Rowdon's evidence in his 1967 book that Irvingite development preceded Darby's!
1991: After many objective, no-axe-to-grind scholars had publicly endorsed my research (which emphasized Margaret, the Irvingites, and 1830), R. A. Huebner, aware of the same objective scholarship and determined to negate it, came out with a book in which he claimed to find Darby teaching pretrib in 1827----that is, three years before Margaret etc. But halfway through his book (which had more than 250 copying errors!), he admitted that his 1827 "proof" could refer to something completely different! Nevertheless, diehard Thomas Ice, after admitting to me that he was indeed aware of Huebner's change, continues to declare publicly that Huebner's 1991 book "proves" that Darby was pretrib as early as 1827!
1992: When Tim LaHaye's "No Fear of the Storm" reproduced Margaret's short account, he "left behind" 48 words----the same 48 words that Ice had left out in 1989! In the same book LaHaye made 84 other copying errors when discussing pretrib beginnings! Although he had a whole chapter focusing on my origin research, un-scholar LaHaye didn't list any of my books in footnotes or bibliography which kept readers from being able to find out what I had actually written! And LaHaye based his analysis on inaccurate secondhand sources and also made many copying errors when quoting them.
For many years Tim and Beverly LaHaye's "conservative" organizations have raked in millions of dollars while telling folks to vote for only "moral" political candidates, and while appearing to be very pro-family and anti-gay. What they haven't revealed is that their son Lee LaHaye has long been the Chief Financial Officer of Concerned Women for America and that Lee is openly gay ! Can we be sure that "Left Behind" Tim isn't just as hypocritical with his pro-pretrib stance? (If you're man or woman enough, warm up your computer and type in "Pretrib Hypocrisy," "LaHaye's Temperament," "Tim LaHaye's gay son," "God to Same-Sexers: Hurry Up," and "Thieves' Marketing"----for starters!)
2005: In the August "Pre-Trib Perspectives" Thomas Ice again had the audacity to claim that the late Prof. Paul Alexander saw a "pretribulational translation" in Pseudo-Ephraem's now famous Medieval sermon. But Ice has known since 1995 that Alexander's 1985 book has textual as well as outline summaries of P-E's chronological order of endtime events----both summaries showing only one final coming of Christ that follows the great tribulation and not even a hint of a pretrib coming in either summary! Is it possible that Ice knows more than the professor whose book somehow inspired one of the desperate pretrib diehards? As Eph. 4:14 puts it, Ice knows how to "lie in wait to deceive." And lie and lie! (See my internet paper "Deceiving and Being Deceived" and discover the calculated dishonesty in the Pseudo-Ephraem and Morgan Edwards claims plus other dishonesty including massive plagiarism in some of today's leading pretrib diehards! Type in my name and see all of my internet items. Since Ice and LaHaye are associated with the Pre-Trib Research Center which has its own site, you may feel inspired to write them, ask them some blunt questions, and even send them a copy of this paper.)
It is practically impossible to find any teaching, before the 1800s, of a secret, imminent, any-moment Pre-Tribulation rapture.
This theory started becoming popular in the 1800s. This was also the century that gave birth to many false cults, that saw misguided persons setting dates for Christ's Second Coming, that saw many radical changes in one large branch of Christendom, and liberalism creeping into other religions. This century saw many new inventions, the rise of labor unions and industry, and the more man exalted himself the less he exalted Christ and God's Word, the Bible.
Many well-known Christians have not believed in an imminent, secret rapture for believers, but have believed that the Church will go through the Tribulation. Some well-known Post-Tribulation rapturists are: Henry Frost, of the China Inland Mission; William Erdman and Charles Erdman, the first a consulting editor of the Scofield Reference Bible; George Mueller; Nathaniel West, who has been called the most learned of American students of unfulfilled prophecy; Richard McCartney; Alexander Reese; Benjamin Newton; Miss Edith C. Torrey, daughter of R. A. Torrey; Charles H, Spurgeon, the great English preacher; Hudson Taylor; Dr. Stephen H. Kellogg; Dr. Edward Carnell, Dr. A. J. Gordon; Dr. George Ladd; Dr. Robert McQuilkin; Dr. T. T, Shields; Dr. R. V. Bingham, etc.
Many Christians today are not even aware that there are 3 views of the Second Coming.
The Pre-Tribs, or those who believe we will escape the Tribulation, probably are the biggest group. But most people in this group have been influenced by other men and have not studied this for themselves.
Then there are the Mid-Tribs, who believe the Church will go through part of the Tribulation. Post-Tribs believe we will go through all of the Tribulation and that there is only ONE coming, after the Tribulation. This group is increasing as persons study the Bible for themselves.
The 7th chapter of Revelation tells about the 12 Jewish tribes and the number of persons in each tribe----144,000 persons altogether. Right after this there is, in verse 9, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues. In verse 14 this vast multitude is explained: These are they which came out of great tribulation. This is the only New Testament passage in which the definite article is used, in the original, before Great Tribulation, so there can be no doubt that the one-and-only Great Tribulation is mentioned here.
The wrath of the Tribulation is not God's wrath, as many people believe, but Satan's wrath. Not only will the Church he saved from this wrath, but even Jewish persons will generally escape it. Jeremiah 30:7 says Alas: for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble, but he shall be saved out of it. Nobody believes that Jewish persons will be raptured away before the Tribulation, but that they will be preserved through it. If God can preserve Jewish persons at this time, He can also preserve Christians and take them through times of suffering.
And there is no Scriptural reason to believe that true Christians will suffer any more during the Tribulation than they have had to suffer in every age since Christ's first coming.
To us, this unScriptural, any-moment rapture theory is based only on what certain scholars try to read between the lines of a few obscure passages.
And some preachers say that if we believe Jesus can return to earth at any moment, it is conducive to holy living. But since this theory came out over a century ago, the Church has become more apostate than ever before and needs to be purified! In soul-winning it is just as effective to say to a person: Repent, because you can die at any time. Nobody disagrees with that and it is just as convincing to the lost sinner who may know little about the Bible but does know about death and how imminent it is:
So----believers should know all about the 3 Tribulational views, and then study the Bible for themselves.
Many Christian Right members in America believe in an imminent "rapture" (a coming of Christ that reportedly happens SEVEN YEARS BEFORE the famous Second Coming to earth).
The "great tribulation" in the Bible is said to occur during those seven years. Therefore the rapture is viewed as a "pretribulation" event and reportedly gives believers the hope of being taken to heaven, without dying, and thus escaping the traumatic seven-year period on earth.
The "Index" (as in Todd Strandberg's "Rapture Index") lists 45 "precursors" (events on earth reportedly acting as signposts pointing to the rapture, and showing how close the rapture is).
And here's where the mad theology comes in. The Rapture Index "precursors" (including "Antichrist") are on earth even AFTER the point in time for a "pretrib" rapture, are fulfilled DURING the seven-year tribulation period, and actually point to ONLY the (posttribulation) Second Coming to earth and not to any sort of
"pretribulation" coming - a concept that NO church before 1830 ever taught!
Promoters and merchandisers of pretrib rapture theology have claimed in recent years to have found a few individuals before 1830 who supposedly taught a "pretrib" rapture or coming - but none of those promoters has ever found any ORGANIZED CHURCH teaching or even hinting at such a doctrine before that date. If you will go to Google or other search engines and type in "Deceiving and Being Deceived" (one of my earliest internet articles), you will see how groundless the claims are for certain pre-1830 individuals that have been dredged up. Even if a few pre-1830 persons DID seem to teach a pretrib rapture, why would pretrib promoters want to side with them instead of siding with the 99 percent who obviously DID NOT embrace a pretrib rapture view?
If you're interested in this subject, you can visit engines like Google, Yahoo, or MSN and type in "Pretrib Rapture Diehards" (the long-covered-up history of "pretrib" teaching), "Famous Rapture Watchers" (the only "rapture" view held by all churches before 1830), "Thomas Ice (Bloopers)" (the level of scholarship often seen in "pretrib" circles!), "Open Letter to Todd Strandberg," and "Appendix F: Thou Shalt Not Steal" (scandalous plagiarism in writings by Falwell, Dobson, Hindson, LaHaye, Ryrie etc.; such thievery has long characterized pretrib rapturists beginning with Darby (and his contemporaries), Seiss, and Bullinger in the 1800's and continuing with later members of the Christian Rewrite such as Lindsey, Unger, Jeremiah, Carlson, Tan, Missler, and Van Impe!).
If you'd like to go even further in your research, you can obtain my 300-page book "The Rapture Plot" (my greatest collection of documentation on pretrib rapturism's bizarre 19th century development) by calling 800.643.4645.
* Dave MacPherson is a good friend, author and journalist by trade. He has written several books on the origins of the pre-trib rapture theory.
Aware that the new escapism was not explicitly stated in the Bible, they initially based the same view on only types and symbols, a practice that is still popular today.
Interestingly, it took the earliest British developers several decades to decide which symbolism in the book of Revelation was the best basis for their pretrib. Hoping to be raptured away before the greatest amount of tribulation in that book, they finally settled on the 'Philadelphia' feeling accompanied by the 'come hither' sound. Before the same novel view came to America and was popularized by means of marginal notes in the Scofield Reference Bible, it had simmered on the coal stove back burners of two tiny British sects: the Irvingites (followers of London preacher Edward Irving) and the Plymouth Brethren (the best known teacher of which was Darby).
The recently uncovered 19th century plot to quietly change early 'rapture' documents in order to steal credit for pretrib away from the Irvingites and falsely credit Darby with it (monumental and brazen revisionism which somehow had been overlooked by all books before 1995) is the focus of my book 'The Rapture Plot' - but I dare not spoil your reading by revealing the name of the plotter!
Speaking again of Scofield of Bible fame, CIS (his initials) has become a CSI of his recently uncovered misdeeds (lack of theological training, money fraud, abuse of his wife and children, jail term for forgery, unScriptural divorce and remarriage, self-conferred D.D., and money greed!).
For 1800 years everyone had tied together I Thess. 4:17's 'caught up' with the 'day of the Lord,' a day commencing at the great tribulation's end. Even Darby and Scofield saw a posttrib DOL (see CIS's Rev. 19 notes on this 'day').
After posttribs began publicizing the unBiblical 'divorce' of the rapture from the DOL, early 20th century pretribs, unwilling to abandon their 'golden goose,' were seen desperately stretching forward the DOL and tying it with their already-stretched-forward rapture.
To get around the predictable criticism of this double stretch a few pretrib desperados (reportedly echoing SRB consulting editor William Pettingill) began claiming that II Thess. 2:3's 'falling away' was really Bible 'code' for a pretrib rapture! However, since they'd admitted that the 'gathering' (two verses earlier) refers to their rapture, they were actually saying that the rapture (vs. 3) must happen before the rapture (vs. 1) can happen - a 'truth' that only desperate, self-deluded pretribs can embrace!
Much of the pretrib desperation in recent years has focused on their view's short history - that is, frantically trying to either cover it up or muddy it up. After my 1975 book 'The Incredible Cover-up' detailed pretribism's 1830 birth, pretrib leader John Walvoord's 1979 book 'The Rapture Question (Revised)' turned to early church fathers in order to squash the 1830 claim.
Walvoord, however, could find only three sources (Clement; the Didache; and the Constitutions of the Holy Apostles), and he admitted that pretrib wasn't actually taught in them but only the sort of 'any-moment imminence' that can support pretrib! The 'imminence' he supposedly found there rested only on warnings to 'watch' because Christ will return 'speedily' at an 'unknown hour'! But right after the 'watch' quotation, Walvoord chopped off the rest of the passage which was posttrib through and through - and other pretribs including Pentecost and Stanton have slavishly echoed Walvoord and chopped off the same quotation at the same spot!
Is a 'watch' command proof that an event is imminent? II Pet. 3:12 says we should be 'looking for' the 'day of God' which premills admit is at least 1000 years ahead of us. If a pregnant woman can be 'looking for' a birth while expecting labor pains first, then believers can look for Christ while expecting tribulation pains first.
Nowadays the desperados are out-Walvoording Walvoord and finding 'proof' for pretrib rapture teaching in all kinds of pre-1830 writers just because the word 'rapture' (or the concept) was used - as if pretrib has a monopoly on 'rapture' usage!
If you are interested in the long-covered-up (but recently uncovered) facts about the bizarre history of the pretribulation rapture view (which celebrated its 177th birthday not long ago), see my bestselling, 300-page book 'The Rapture Plot' (via Armageddon Books online which has an amazingly great price) which has been publicly endorsed by a galaxy of leading Christian scholars, none of whom has had an axe to grind either for or against a pretrib rapture. (All of my book royalties, BTW, have always gone to a nonprofit group and not to any individual.)
Remember - The endtimes view that features 'Millions Missing' after a pretrib rapture was totally missing from all theology books and all organized churches prior to 1830!
(c) 2007 Dave MacPherson
Note from the author: Want to copy and air this paper? Be my guest.
