In vs. 10 Jesus states that He will keep them from the hour of temptation which will come upon the whole world, to try them that dwell upon the Earth. My question is what is the hour of temptation?

Revelation 3:10
Because you have kept the word of my patience, I also will keep you from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.

Seen best in light of:

Luke 21:34-35
And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.

And perhaps also:

Joel 3:14
Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision:
for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.

What is this hour, and what does it mean to be ‘kept from’ it?

The term hour in the NT is often used of an appointed time or a time that is in some way decisive (Mt 26:45; Jn 2:4; 4:23; 5:25; 12:23; 16:21; 17:1). In at least one instance in Rev 17:12, an hour is shown to cover the whole time that the ten kings give their strength and power to the beast. This would appear to include the entire 3 1/2 years of the unequaled tribulation. Elsewhere in the Revelation, the term carries a much more narrow usage, as in the case of great Babylon’s destruction. There, the hour describes the time of the 7th bowl of wrath, the very end of the end (Rev 16:17-18; 18:10, 17, 19). But in only one great and unequaled tribulation will the whole of the earth be so ultimately and finally tested.

In what sense is one to be ‘kept from’ the hour of testing? Some argue that here is promised, not only deliverance from what the hour threatens but physical removal from its very presence. Advocates of this view point out that the Greek words that are translated ‘kept from’ can as well be translated “kept out of”. However, we see the same words in John 17:15, and there the promise is not exemption from the presence of danger but protection from falling under the power of Satan.

I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.

How can we determine whether to be ‘kept from’ or ‘kept out of’ the hour is promise of physical immunity from the time of the final, great test, or divine preservation within it?

Before coming to the specifics of that question, it is well we remember that this promise was addressed particularly to the deeply tested church of Philadelphia. Even though the ultimate, age ending great tribulation would not come until a later time, the promise of divine preservation in the midst of great trial was no less serviceable and applicable to believers under severe testing all throughout the whole time of the church’s struggle on earth. So however “kept from the hour” is understood, its meaning and application cannot be limited only to the time of the last persecution under the last beast.

It is clear that escape and protection is promised to tribulation believers, not from persecution and suffering, of course, (Dan 7:21, 25; 11:33-35; 12:10; Rev 6:11; 13:7; 14:13; 20:4), but from demonic deception, and the plagues of divine wrath that will be inflicted ONLY on those who take the mark.

We see this in the pre-tribulational sealing of the 144,000 (Rev 7:3), and in the flight of the woman (Israel) to seek refuge in the wilderness (Rev 12:6, 14). Not only are believers protected from the evil one (Jn 17:15), but even unbelievers, particularly the elect remnant of Israel, are seen to survive to the day of national repentance at the Lord’s return (Ps 102:13; Isa 59:20-21; 66:8; Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9; 12:10; Mt 23:39; Mt 24:22; Ro 11:26-27; Rev 1:7). Not only this, but the scripture makes equally clear that there will be gentile survivors who apparently were not saved in time for the rapture. These will join themselves to the penitent survivors of Israel and joyously assist in their return to the Land (see Zech 8:23; Isa 14:1-2; 49:22; 60:9; 66:20).

Such manifest survival, even by many who are not saved till the end, fully exposes the fallacy of the argument that in order for the church to escape wrath, she must be removed from the earth. There could hardly be a greater misuse and misapplication of the promise of 1Thes 5:9.

For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

Interestingly, the words of the glorified Jesus in Rev 3:10 (red in some Bibles) are very nearly the same words He spoke on earth in Lk 21:34-35. This is remarkable proof that John is carefully writing the very words of Jesus that appear only here and in Luke’s account of the Olivet discourse. For me, such manifestly parallel usage is decisive for the interpretation of Rev 3:10.

When we closely examine the context of Luke’s account of Jesus’ parallel warning, we see that what is to be escaped by the wakeful, praying believer is not the time that these events will be happening, but the things (perils and pressures) that would threaten to subvert his or hers ability to “stand before the Son of man” (Lk 21:36). As the context makes indisputably clear, this time of ‘standing before the Son of man’ cannot refer to a presumed rapture before the tribulation but to Jesus’ post-tribulational return in power and glory (Lk 21:27 with Lk 21:36).

That ‘day’ comes suddenly, but not without warning. It will not come “unaware“, like a thief, upon wakeful and observant believers (Lk 21:34 with 1Thes 5:2-4) They will recognize the signs (Mt 24:3, 15; Lk 21:10-11, 20-21, 25-26; 1Thes 5:3; 2Thes 2:4). 

Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near (Lk 21:28). So you also, when you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near (Lk 21:31).

Jesus anticipates that the matter will be quite the opposite with some claiming the Christian faith.  

But if that servant says in his heart, “My Lord delays His coming”; and begins to beat the male and female servants, and eat and drink and be drunk, the lord that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him, and at an hour when it is not aware, and will cut him asunder and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers (Lk 12:45-46). 

Note how nearly the language here compares with Luke’s account of the Olivet prophecy, 

“But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man” (Lk 21:34-36), 

and also with Paul’s description of the day of the Lord in 1Thes 5:2-4.

For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief.

In all of these references, we observe that the great scandal will be that many professing Christian faith will be caught unaware and unprepared, not for an imminent, un-signaled rapture of the church, but for the post-tribulational return of Christ.

Paul equates such ignorance with a state of spiritual darkness. Such darkness is fully expected of the world but not of believers. This is the scandal of the end times, and we see why.

It speaks of an unconscionable rejection of the truth, leaving one vulnerable to the great delusion that Paul says that God Himself will be obliged to send on all  who have not received the love of the truth. This will be particularly the case when it is seen just how much light professing Christendom will have rejected in the face of some of the most compelling evidence of fulfilled prophecy ever seen on earth since the time of Jesus. 

The scandal will not be that professing Christians were caught unprepared for a Lk any moment rapture. The far greater indictment will be that many who count themselves Christians will not be alerted by some of the most outstanding and clearly defined signs as laid down by the prophets, Jesus, and Paul.

This means that all of the fully foretold signs and otherwise recognizable evidence that the great tribulation is here, and the Lord’s return near, will have passed without awakening these professors of the Christian religion out of their spiritual stupor. 

This is not because there has been no signs. On the contrary, the scripture reads clear. These are professing Christians that will remain unmoved by the signs, even in their manifest presence. This is the great anomaly and scandal. It is the ultimate indictment on apostate Christendom. 

It is telling that as late as the 6th bowl, just before the final 7th bowl is poured out to bring the “great day of God Almighty” (Rev 16:16-17), Jesus interjects to announce that His coming, now so truly imminent, will yet take many as a thief, even Christians with stained garments (Rev 16:15).

This tells us that despite all the magnificent, fully foretold sign events of the tribulation, Jesus’ return will not only overtake the world as a thief, but many who claim Jesus as their Lord. Context will not permit us the luxury of applying this to an earlier, secret, un-signaled return. It is manifestly Jesus’ post-tribulational return that is shown to take the hypocrites unaware, as a thief, and this despite all the highly detailed prophecies clearly marking the time and describing the meaning of these events. There is good reason why and how this will be so, but that discussion would take us too far from our topic to enter upon here. 

Many ask how can such thoroughly foretold events take the world, and particularly Christians unaware, as a thief? For this very cause, some have argued for the necessity of an earlier, un-signaled return that is to be distinguished from the well signaled return after the tribulation (Mt 24:15-31; 2Thes 2:3-4; Rev 6-19), hence the ‘inference’ of two distinct comings. But aren’t we seeing this now? Behold the confusion that reigns in the study of prophecy! How many optional interpretations of the end can there be?! One can only think of Daniel’s prophecy. “Many shall be purified, made white, and refined, but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand” (Dan 12:10).

Those who “escape all these things” in order to be prepared to “stand before the Son of man” are the same wakeful believers who recognize the signs that are ‘beginning to come to pass.”

And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draws near (Lk 21:28). 

That certain definite, alerting signs can be seen does not comport with pretribulationism’s doctrine of an unsignaled, any moment rapture. Yet the very believers who are commanded to pray to “escape all these things” are being told that they will see “these things begin to come to pass”. In keeping with Jesus’ warning elsewhere in the other synoptic accounts of the Olivet prophecy, with Paul’s warning warning in 1Thes 5:2-4; 2Thes 2:3-4, Peter’s warning (2Pet 3:10), and Jesus’ warning in Rev 16:15, the only ones who will be caught “unawares” are those who abide in darkness and fail to vigilantly watch for “all these things” that will signal the Lord’s now truly ‘imminent’ return. 

So what are the “all these things” that is being escaped in Lk 21:36? Is it the foreboding portents of terror?   

“And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken” (Lk 21:25-26).

If that were so, we would not see the following encouragement. 

“Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near” Lk 21:28). 

Rather, where the believer is concerned, it is the urgency to not fall prey to the great and unparalleled deception against which Jesus and Paul so gravely and repeatedly warn (Mt 24:4, 11, 24; 2Thes 2:3, 11). This is why I included Joel 3:14 as a possible reference to this “hour”. This is why there is such a great premium that must be placed on the interpretation of what these events mean that will be so decisive for the escape and salvation of many during the time of the great test (Dan 11:33). Therefore, the safe keeping that is promised cannot be immunity from persecution, but escape from the unequaled deception that will expose one to the wrath that will be poured out, not on believers, of course, but only upon the fatally deceived followers of the beast (Rev 11:18: 16:2, 10).

It is another discussion, too involved to enter upon here, but it can be shown exactly when Paul expected to be raised and translated at the resurrection on the last day. When this is proven beyond reasonable dispute, it becomes clear that however we understand “the hour” or the nature of what it means to be “kept from” it, one thing we know. It cannot mean an early exit, physical removal, or exemption from tribulation to which all saints are appointed (see Acts 14:22).

I tend to think the hour of Rev 3:10 includes more than the last hour of Babylon’s destruction, which is identified with the Lord’s thief-like return at the great day of God (2Pet 3:10-12; Rev 16:14-17; 18:10, 17, 19 with Eze 39:8). I believe it should be equated with the great tribulation of the final 3 1/2 years, and not just a final period of wrath at the very end, as some have argued. 

So in what sense are we kept from that hour? I think the promise is that the faithful will be kept from ‘the power of the hour’, which is to say, saved from the deception and the pressures to defect that will be extreme. The overcoming saints of Revelation are kept, not only from wrath but from the peril of loss of witness and the shame of a spotted garment (Rev 2:10, 22-23; 3:3, 16; 16:15).

One final point: never before the 19th century was the promise of being “kept from the hour” interpreted to mean physical exemption from the great test, and total removal from the earth, as this would be to contradict, not only many clear texts, but the whole pattern of God’s work in the past by setting forth in every season of crisis a witness of overcoming faith under fire. How then, by any reckoning, are tribulation saints, who are no less the dear children of God, to be denied the promise of being ‘kept from the hour’?

It is ridiculous to argue that only those believers living before the tribulation are “not appointed to wrath” (1Thes 5:9), as if to suggest that the saints living during the tribulation are any the less partakers of this promise. Whether living before or during the tribulation, never are the children of God the subject of divine wrath. This alone is sufficient to prove that one does not have to be absent from the hour of the test in order to escape its dangers and evils.    

Followup Question
Would you be able to direct me to the scripture(s) where Paul expects to be raised and resurrected at the end of the 3 1/2 years?

Yes, the object first must be to establish when the OT saints expected to be raised, show those passages in their native contexts, and then show that Paul expected his own resurrection with “all who belong to Christ” (1Cor 15:23) to be at the same time that the OT righteous are raised. A careful comparison of scripture will show decisively that the time of the resurrection never changed from OT to NT.

It is easy to prove from Job, Isaiah, and Daniel when the OT saints would be raised. Let’s start there and then move to Paul’s direct exclamation that ties his hope of translation to the same time, namely, the end of the final tribulation at the day of the Lord.

Let’s start with Job.

Notice that Job’s inspired expectation agrees with Paul’s affirmation that we all must be “changed” (1Cor 15:51-52).

Job 14:14
If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.

Then in Job 19, we have that grand and glorious assurance that Job will see that great, curse reversing, atoning “Redeemer” with human feet standing on the earth in the latter day.

Job 19:25-27
For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.

Zechariah tells us exactly when this will be.

Zechariah 14:4-5
And His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and …. And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; … and the LORD my God shall come,
and all the saints with thee.

Then there is Isaiah’s assurance of the time of his personal resurrection with all the righteous of Israel. Note especially Isa 25:7-8, which Paul will very significantly quote as referencing the time of the church’s resurrection in 1Cor 15:54.

Isaiah 25:7-8
And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it.

Seen in its larger context, there is no scholar or interpreter of which I’m aware that does not recognize that this passage has in view the resurrection of the righteous of Israel at the post-tribulational day of the Lord. Now turn the page and see in the next chapter where Isaiah places his own resurrection AFTER the final travail that is elsewhere shown to be the tribulation / travail of Jacob’s trouble (see Isa 13:8; Isa 66:8; Mic 5:3; Jer 30:6-7; Dan 12:1).

Isaiah 26:17-19
Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O LORD. We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen. Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.

Interestingly, in the next chapter, we see the very trumpet that all agree is the trumpet that Jesus has in view in Mt 24:31.

Isaiah 27:13
And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the LORD in the holy mount at Jerusalem.

Could this be the same trumpet that Paul calls “last” in 1Cor 15:52? The evidence will leave no question that it is.

Now look at Daniel’s assurance that he would stand in his lot at the end of days (Dan 12:13) and receive his inheritance at that time with all the righteous who are to be raised AFTER the great, unequaled trouble.

Daniel 12:1-2
And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince who stands for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

So the time when the OT saints will be raised is put beyond reasonable dispute. After the devastating critique by Alexander Reese in his “The Approaching Advent of Christ” published in the 1940’s, modern pre-trib scholars now unanimously accept that the OT saints remain in “the dust of the earth” for an additional seven years while the bride is taken up to heaven for the marriage feast of the Lamb. What’s wrong with this picture?

Side note: According to the defenders of the pre-trib rapture, born again saints of the tribulation are not to be reckoned as “church saints” but “tribulation saints”, since in their view the body of Christ is believed to include only those living between Pentecost and the rapture. Saints living before Pentecost or after the rapture are not considered part of the body of Christ. Even though born of the Spirit, they are believed to belong to a different “people of God”, with a different destiny and uniquely distinct inheritance. This view was unheard of in church history until introduced in the mid 1800’s by J. N. Darby of the Plymouth Brethren movement. It was exponentially popularized by the publication of the famously well received Scofield reference Bible, first published in 1909.

So with the time of the resurrection of OT believers infallibly established, the question at hand becomes whether the body of Christ is to be raised at the same time or some earlier time? If so, what is the biblical basis for this inference?

Much more can be said concerning the NT view of the OT day of the Lord that also fixes the time of the resurrection of the NT believer no less than the OT saints, but before coming to the most decisive evidence of Paul’s own blessed hope, it is important to observe Jesus’ reference to this common Jewish hope of resurrection at the “last day” (Jn 11:24).

Jesus promised that all who the Father gives and draws to Him will be raised at the “last day” (Jn 6:39-40, 44). In Jn 11:24, we see from Martha’s reply that this was the common expectation of the Jews. Pre-tribulationists will point out that Jesus’ promise was before the church came newly into existence at Pentecost. On this presumption it is argued that only those dying before Pentecost will be raised at the last day.

While recognizing that the mystery of the many membered mystical body of Christ was not yet revealed (though new revelation does not necessarily mean new existence), it is most unnatural to suppose that the promise that those coming to Jesus would be raised at the last day only applied until Pentecost, and that believers dying after Pentecost, but before Paul’s revelation of the mystery of the rapture, were wrong to expect resurrection at the last day. It will surely be admitted that for one not already committed to the pre-trib position, this appears quite forced.

We are very familiar with Paul’s mention of the timing of the rapture / translation of living believers in connection with what he calls, “the last trump” (1Cor 15:52). However, pre-tribulationists are instant to caution us against associating Paul’s last trump with the 7th trumpet of Rev 10:7; 11:15, since John had not yet written the Revelation. Well, fair enough. Still, it is much to be observed that the last trumpet in the sequence of trumpets in the Revelation ‘just happens’ to have something very significantly in common with Paul’s last trump, namely, attendance by the Lord’s return to gather His saints.

Moreover, it was well known that Jesus spoke of a trumpet in connection with His return “immediately after the tribulation of those days” in Mt 24:39-31. There we see that the elect are “gathered together” and Paul will use this very language to describe “OUR gathering together” in 2Thes 2:1. So the old argument that Mt 24 is strictly “Jewish ground” that has nothing to do with the “church” will not hold up.

So would Paul have left his Corinthians without further qualification and distinction when such a natural ‘mis-association’ would have been so inevitable? But there is something even more decisive on the timing of the rapture that is seldom, if ever noticed.

All will agree that if we can rightly establish the time Paul’s last trump, we have established the time of the rapture. How then can we prove that Paul’s last trump is the same trumpet that Jesus says will attend His return after the tribulation? Paul tells us very plainly by his use of OT prophecy. Notice carefully.

1 Corinthians 15:51-54
Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

Now the decisive question is this? When is then? What time is in view? The problem for the pre-trib view comes in when was ask where the saying is written? When we locate the saying that Paul is referencing in Isa 25:8, an examination of the context leaves no question that the time in view is the post-tribulational day of the Lord. Only by separating what God has clearly joined can the time of the last trump of 1Cor 15:52 be exegetically disjoined or logically separated from the time that this ‘saying’ will be fulfilled. “For then (at the last trump) shall the saying be brought to pass that is written …”

If we begin by assuming that the last trump is before the tribulation, we are faced by a serious conflict, because the saying recorded in Isa 25:8 very clearly has its fulfillment after the tribulation. Recognizing this, the pre-tribulationists must argue for a double fulfillment, one before the tribulation and another that is after.

Herein lies the conflict that demands honest resolution. Are we really to believe that Isa 25:8 is fulfilled for Paul and the church seven years earlier than it is for the righteous of Israel, for Job (Job 19:25; Zech 14:4), for Isaiah (Isa 26:19), or Daniel? (Dan 12:2). 

Not only this, but Isa 25:8 very significantly belongs to a literary section of Isaiah that has been very well distinguished and called by scholars, “Isaiah’s little apocalypse”. Isa 24 begins a highly developed description of the cataclysmic day of the Lord and continues on this theme through to Isa 27 that ends, again, very significantly, with the jubilee trumpet of Isa 27:12-13. This trumpet announces the end of tribulation and penitent Israel’s regathering to the Land.

Pre-trib scholars and teachers recognize that this is indeed the trumpet to which Jesus refers in Mt 24:31. Yet, they insist we should distinguish between this obviously later trumpet and Paul’s supposedly earlier “last” trump. But are we to suppose that Paul would not have anticipated such an easy and natural confusion? Would he not, in practical anticipation, have said more to qualify and clarify this very natural, really inevitable association?

How natural to interpret Paul as having the same time in view that anyone reading Isa 25:8 would assume. And how much more this would be expected in view of what Jesus says of His post-tribulational return being accompanied by the well known trumpet of Isa 27:13, as well as His clear promise of the resurrection of His elect at the last day? (Jn 6:39-40, 44).

I think even a devoted pre-tribber would find it hard to imagine that Paul would not have taken greater pains to distinguish the otherwise indistinguishable. Better to see that Paul fixes his own blessed hope with all the redeemed at the post-tribulational day of the Lord, which the Jews, but most importantly Jesus, identifies as taking place at “the last day.”

Thus, it is NOT the time of the resurrection that constitutes the mystery. That was well known. Rather, is the nature of the translation and catching up for re-location, re-union, and spiritual rule that adds crucial insight to what was already well established and well known.

This is only a sample of so much more that could be said. Obviously many books have been written. But in view of such evidence, (“the plain person’s plain reading of plain language”), it is hard to imagine anything but the most determined emotionalism that would insist on clinging to such a precarious and potentially disarming position.

With due respect for the earnest hearts and well meaning quest for harmony of scripture by godly, sincere believers, I have come to believe that the doctrine of an any moment return to rapture the church seven years before the Lord’s return to rule is a dangerously disarming Trojan horse that has come into the evangelical camp for such a time as this.

Hope that helps.

Yours in the Beloved, Reggie

The post Questions on Revelation 3:10 appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

I realize I’ve said as much many times before, but feel this needs more urgently to be stressed now than ever. By its nature, my calling and part in the Body has exposed me, far more than I could wish, to the inner workings of many strong and compelling lies that powerfully oppose and threaten the church’s readiness to escape the unparalleled deception that Jesus said would both precede and accompany the unequaled tribulation.

Even now, throughout the far greater part of professing Christendom, the tribulation without parallel or equal is believed to be past. The tribulation has come and gone with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. A fast-growing (two related words like this become one hyphenated adjective) community called ‘preterist’ believes that Jesus’ promised return “immediately after the tribulation of those days” has also come and gone, some stoutly affirming that the resurrection is also past. This, since Dan 12:1-2 so unequivocally connects the resurrection to the unequaled tribulation.

A less popular but still thriving view, particularly among Adventist groups, is the so-called ‘historicist’ view of Revelation. This view sees the ‘great tribulation’, not as a brief period of time at the the end, but as stretching out to include either all or most of the inter-advent period. Many historic premillennialists (an accepted prefix – no need for a hyphen) view the half week (the 3 1/2 years of Daniel and Revelation) (delete comma – parentheses function as commas) as beginning with the ascension, basing their view on Rev. 12’s imagery of the catching up of the man-child, followed immediately in vision by the great tribulation.

Many, perhaps most, (add comma) evangelical lovers of Israel who see a future Antichrist invasion of Israel (delete comma between long subject and the verb) do not expect to be directly impacted by the last great deception. This is because they expect to be raptured to heaven where they will be celebrating the marriage supper while the Jewish people are experiencing their greatest hour of anguish without the church’s witness. This means that those living on this side of the rapture will not be so critically and decisively benefited by taking close heed to Jesus’ directive to read and understand Daniel in order to escape the deception that would imperil the very elect.

But if the church is exempt from the great tribulation, who then are the persecuted saints described in Daniel and Revelation? We are told these do not belong to the body of Christ, nor do they become part of the body of Christ when they are saved. Rather, it is supposed that the persecuted believers of the tribulation belong to another people of God altogether, with a different hope and destiny that is distinct from the hope and destiny of the church.

On this view, Jesus’ directive to carefully search out the meaning of Daniel’s prophecy will only be of vital relevance to those ‘left behind’ to face the dangers of those days. However, if this view is in error, it threatens to rob God’s people of vital preparation and protection from a deception so great as to threaten the very elect. Regardless then of one’s view, any fair-minded student of scripture should at least appreciate the reasonable cause for concern, at least taking stock of what is ultimately at stake in one’s perspective on the time and meaning of the tribulation and the question of the church’s relation to it.

Of all the competing views, the one that most insults and slights the sacred trust of the canon, and the Reformed doctrine of the perspicuity of scripture, is the lazy indifference that comfortably proclaims that it is impossible to know much that is definite or certain when it comes to eschatology. But it is Jesus Himself that prescribes with utmost clarity and simplicity what I like to call, “the plain man’s plain path through the millennial maze.”

Even before understanding the ‘what’ or the ‘when’ of the great tribulation, before discovering its approximate duration and then, most importantly, its meaning and purpose – even before knowing what the abomination of desolation might be – there is one simple directive that Jesus gives towards escaping the great deception that would threaten, “if possible”, the very elect. In Mt 24:15, Jesus is basically shouting, “pay attention to Daniel!” But much more particularly, He directs His sheep to one specific event that Daniel describes in considerable detail. In sum, He commands us to go to Daniel, find this particular event, “the abomination of desolation”, and to be careful that we understand what we read.

The reasons for this simple obedience will prove most crucial, not only towards escaping the great deception, but to a glorious unfolding of the whole sweep of God’s costly investment in scripture and history by which His Name is most fully glorified in all the earth. A knowledge of the relation of final things to the seedbed of covenant and promise is crucial for the church’s greater vision of God.
Jesus well knew this signal event to be the key to understanding the unsealed vision, which those with understanding (the maskilim of Dan 11:32-33, 35, 12:3, 9-10) would be proclaiming to Israel and the nations during the last persecution. According to Rev 7:9, 13-14, the testimony of tribulation saints will result in the evangelization of a vast number that will be saved out of ‘the tribulation, the great one’ (Rev 7:9, 13-14). The use of the double definite article in the Greek text is strong evidence that this is not tribulation in general, the common experience of all Christians in this age (Jn 16:33; Acts 14:22), but much more specifically, the great tribulation in particular.

Moreover, when one traces the oft-recurring theme of a final, unequaled tribulation and its centrality in the plan of God, beginning with Moses’ first mention in Deut 4:29-30, so much opens up concerning the nature and goals of God’s covenantal structure of history, and the conflict that rages over the authority of the Word, not only as to the moral and spiritual claims of the covenant, but particularly that greatest of all offenses, most calculated to test and reveal the heart, namely, God’s sovereign prerogative to choose as He will choose. This deep-seated protest and presumption of entitlement traces all the way back to Satan’s original envy (Ps 2; 48:2; Isa 14; note esp, verse 13; Eze 28). It is the basis of all antisemitism. It is why the Antichrist will be encamped on Mount Zion when the Lord returns (Dan 11:45).

I believe that at least part of the problem lies in what we bring to the scripture. When many read the Lord’s plain directive in Mt 24:15, they do not read it with virginal simplicity. “I will go to Daniel and read of this event and pray to understand”. Too often, there are already preconceived notions that have predetermined what one will find, and even much more, by what one must NOT find.

When we obey this all-too-neglected directive (“let the reader understand”) with an honest and open heart, uninfluenced by preconceived notions, we are only part way there. It is here we learn that revelation, skill, and insight came to Daniel when he “set his heart to understand” (Dan 10:12), just as the prophets before and after him would “inquire and search diligently” (1Pet 1:11). We are called into the fellowship of mysteries that require searching out with intense, holy desire, not for pragmatic self-interest, not even only for the purpose of avoiding deception. We are to have the attitude of “come and see” regarding the place of His dwelling, the beauty of His courts, and the secrets He has reserved for His friends. Our passion must be His glory, His wondrous handiwork, His costly investment, His manifold wisdom — and His greater glory in the fellowship of a ‘hidden wisdom’ ordained to our glory.

It is therefore most interesting how the mysteries of God can be so well hidden in such plain sight. It is not that they are intellectually obscure. On the contrary, there are basic protections built right in by the way that scripture interprets scripture. We will take for our best example what we find when we very simply obey Jesus by going to Daniel to look for the abomination of desolation. Jesus well knew that by so doing, we would discover, not only the meaning of this particular event, but very importantly, add comma what precedes and what follows.

By setting this initially strange, but ultimately strategic prophetic signpost at the end of Israel’s long history of covenant and promise, so much more of the overarching plan of God comes into much clearer light. It is no wonder then, comma that Daniel is situated at the center of the seven millennia of God’s prophetic schema of history, the “middle of the week”, so to speak. Interestingly, when Daniel asks, “How long till the end of these wonders?”, we understand the primary application will be the final 3.5 years, but another viable, perhaps dual, comma application would be that from Daniel’s place in history, there would be 3 1/2 millennia till “all these things would be finished”. On that view, which I think compelling, this would include the thousand-year reign of Christ and His saints.

Jesus well knew that this simple obedience would be the key that opens up, not only the order of the signal events of the end, but delete comma as noted, Daniel’s prophecy establishes the eschatological framework for the whole sweep of redemptive history from Genesis to Revelation. So, what do we find concerning this event that will prove such a protection against deception and a key to opening up and setting in right order the greater framework of prophecy? I submit it is by a simple refusal to separate what God has joined.

I cannot here begin to confirm by example, but in all my study, every system of prophetic interpretation (no comma) of which I’m aware (no comma) very obviously goes off at one of three places. Each of these is an example of separating what God has joined, but only by great violence to the text. I can only show a couple of examples.

The abomination of desolation is mentioned four times in Daniel (Dan 8:11; 9:27: 11:31; 12:11). In all four places it is accompanied by the removal of the regular, daily sacrifice. In Dan 12:11, the sacrifice is taken away 1290 days from the time that Daniel and all the righteous are raised from the dead (Dan 12:1-2). In Dan 9:27, the sacrifice is caused to stop at the midpoint of Daniel’s final week. This is 3 1/2 years from the end.

We must remember that Daniel was looking for the end of exile and the coming of the kingdom promised in the prophets before him. He is desperately seeking to understand when this tragic history would give way to kingdom glory. He is asking, “How long to the end of these wonders?” (Dan 12:7).

In Dan 9:24-27, Daniel had learned of the 70 weeks (for the readers unfamiliar with the shorthand) that Israel would be required to wait for the “coming in of the everlasting righteousness”, which would be the righteousness of the promised kingdom of David. This is the righteousness of the New Covenant that Jeremiah anticipates to come at the end of the period that he calls, “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jer 30:6-7).

This is the tribulation without equal, which the earlier prophets so commonly associate with the day of the Lord that ends a brief time of unparalleled national affliction and travail. Daniel will put the unequaled time of trouble at the end of the 70th 7, more particularly the second half of the last seven. In keeping with Jeremiah and the earlier prophets, Daniel puts the great transition between this age of covenant wrath and the coming age of kingdom peace and righteousness. He manifestly did not see the age between. This belonged to the mystery that would not be fully revealed and understood until the Spirit would be poured out at Pentecost (Rom 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11-12)

But here’s what is too seldom observed or considered. In order for Jesus’ prophecy of the end to be fulfilled according to Daniel’s reference to the abomination of desolation, there MUST be a sacrifice that is stopped approximately 3 1/2 years before the final persecutor is destroyed and the dead are raised (Dan 12:1-2, 7, 11).
Likewise, in Dan 9:27 the half week begins when the sacrifice is stopped. Is the “end” that ends the half week of Dan 9:27 the same “end” that brings the deliverance of Daniel’s people and the resurrection of the righteous in Dan 12:1-2, 7, 11, 13? That is a question to be decided, but you can see how God has wisely given us pieces to a puzzle, but not without also providing us a plain path through it.

What and where is this sacrifice? Neither Jesus nor Paul specifically mentions the sacrifice, but both speak of a great violation and desecration that takes place in the temple in Jerusalem (Mt 24:15-16; 2Thes 2:4), as John will associate the temple to the final treading down of Jerusalem in Rev 11:1-2, again describing the half week of Daniel’s prophecy. There is no need to specify the sacrifice since Daniel has supplied this at every mention of the abomination. And it is clear that a temple service in the ‘holy place’ in Jerusalem is not going to exist without a sacrifice, which, of course, cannot continue beyond the point that the Antichrist imposes himself.

Stubbornness enters in when such things as presuppositions and preferences, even fears induced by taunts and the gross caricatures of a convenient ‘guilt by association’, are permitted to bias an objective handling of the evidence. All of this works to hinder us from making the otherwise obvious connections. The Lord sets a wise and perfect trap, particularly in the Word itself, for the pride of self-reliance and the momentum of uncrucified presumption. The interpretation of scripture is itself a test of the heart.
It is the power of our presumption that short circuits our objectivity, breaking the otherwise obvious connections. For example, where in 52 A.D. (add comma), when Paul is writing his second epistle, would the ‘temple of God’ be understood to be standing? It is preposterous to imagine that apart from any qualification to the contrary, Paul would have expected the Thessalonians to have any other kind of edifice in mind but the one in Jerusalem, particularly since he is so plainly ‘re’-establishing the same order of events revealed in Daniel, rehearsed during his earlier visit, and referenced by Jesus. This is even further confirmed by noting Paul’s use of language taken over from the Lord’s Olivet prophecy (compare, “our gathering together unto Him” 2Thes 2:1) where Paul is quite obviously citing Jesus’ well-known reference to the “gathering together of His elect” (Mt 24:31).

Particularly in view of all that both testaments affirm of the climactic day of the Lord, it becomes quite impossible, even exegetically dishonest, to try to separate the resurrection of the righteous from the tribulation of the half week in Daniel and Revelation. This is why those who believe the tribulation passed with 70 A.D., but believe the resurrection is yet future, are called ‘partial preterist’. In contrast, those who believe delete comma not only that the tribulation is past but that the resurrection is also past, call themselves “consistent preterist”, for good reason.
But before all the confusion and debate, it is plain for all to see what Daniel would have understood from his own prophecy. Go and learn what Daniel had inherited from the prophets that went before him, (add comma) who prophesied of these same events and goals of covenant and promise. For Daniel, the end of the 70 7’s could only mean one thing: add colon the end of gentile domination over captive Israel and the long expected (rightly expected) “post-tribulational” kingdom of God on earth. To suppose otherwise exposes a interested (unobjective?) bias, apparently formed by presumptive prior conclusions. It is not enough to say that this was merely the immature hope of OT believers, since the basic order is clearly re-affirmed in the NT (Mt 24; Mk 13; Lk 21: Acts 3:18-21; Ro 11:25-29; 2Thes 2; Rev 6-20).

This has gotten too long for any but the most patient and determined, but you see my point. The neglect to follow through on the Lord’s prescribed means of ‘understanding’ is not, of course, a blanket panacea against every possible form of deception, but it is going to be necessary. It is necessary now, not only for preparation against the ultimate deception, but for the much fuller picture of the overall context of the gospel, what I like to call, “the glory of the story”.

It will be required of the church….or will it?. This raises the crucial question of the relation of the rapture to the resurrection of the OT saints, another example of separating what God has joined. This squabble of comparatively recent origins significantly appears just in time to stand between a complacent Laodicean church and readiness to be those ‘maskilim’ who have the key of interpretation that can instruct many and turn many to righteousness (Dan 11:32-33; 12:3).

That this task should be delegated to a company that has only recently come to faith (no need for elders?) defies the biblical conception and definition of the body of Christ. It especially defies Paul’s definition of the church (defined as the corporate assembly of regenerate saints), as “the pillar and ground of truth”.

Once the context has been restored, we can begin to ask the very important question of the church’s role, and of what God has invested in granting the last sufferers a very certain and definite knowledge of the time. This will be a merciful provision intended to get the church to the place it needs to be for the ultimate witness. Thankfully, prophecy assures us that “those having understanding” (the body?, of course the body!) will be ready.

Anyway, you get the idea. It’s a burden I have. I fear we get too taken up with all the details, as there are indeed crucial details, but not to the neglect of the more critical, life-saving basics, the plum line of holy simplicity that will bring us to an otherwise impossible unity, as we become more and more constrained, searched, pruned, and emptied by the ever clearer light of fulfillment that does not depend on getting it all right.

The great falling away is greatly facilitated by the church’s dereliction precisely here. For all the wrong reasons, though ordained as judgment, the church will not awaken to the truth of these things until the end is very near. But because judgment “must” begin at the house of God, and in no small part because of the testimony of the Spirit of prophecy, the sleeping Bride will awaken, and when she does, hallelujah, what a glory! It will be the sweetest bitter, as the Jew will see his Messiah shining through weak jars of clay, a sight they’ll not forget for a thousand years.

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It is hard to overstate how far this runs against the a biblical theology of the Holy Spirit and the doctrine of regeneration, as it pertains to both testaments, but this is nonetheless a key component of the system. But many, even in their own camp, are often not aware of this, and have not thought through why this view is an essential pillar of pre-tribulational dispensationalism.

But if tribulation saints are not indwelt by the Spirit, what of the truth of the believer’s adoption and union with Christ, as common partakers of the divine nature? How does one sustain union with the divine nature if this is not internal? How is one who is born of the Spirit not also indwelt by the Spirit? What happens to the New Covenant promise of a new spirit and new heart? What of the new creation that the believer becomes through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit?

Is not the Spirit that came at Pentecost the same that was promised all throughout the prophets? And will this promise not have a yet further fulfillment when the penitent survivors of Israel will receive the Spirit in the yet coming Day of the Lord? Are we to believe that the blessing of Pentecost and the New Covenant will be different, or something inferior for tribulation saints and the Jews who come into the blessings of the New Covenant at Jesus’ return? And what of the saved of the nations throughout the millennium? Will they NOT be indwelt by the Holy Spirit and therefore NOT qualify as members of Christ’s body?

John F. Walvoord and other pre-trib defenders speak of a “reversal of Pentecost”. Does this not imply a ‘retraction’ of the blessing of Pentecost? How would that notion suit Pentecostals? Yet many of them embrace the pre-trib rapture of the bride whom they distinguish form the saints of the tribulation. But how can there be a reversal of Pentecost without the equally impossible notion of a reversal of the New Covenant? Since the gift of the Spirit’s indwelling belongs to the blessing of the New Covenant secured in the Redeemer’s blood, how can this be reversed in the case of believers who come to faith during the tribulation and beyond?

Since the Spirit was (in some sense) “not yet given” until Christ was glorified (Jn 7:39), it is no more possible for a reversal of Pentecost than the reversal of the basis on which He would now be given. Now that Jesus has been glorified, the Spirit has also been ‘forever given’ in the full light of the revelation of that once and for all event. The relation of these two realities, the glorification of Jesus and the gift of the Spirit, are inseparable, not only throughout this age, but no less the millennial age to come. Yet dispensationalists would have us believe that tribulation saints will not be indwelt. Why not? Simply because this would make them members of the body of Christ based on such scriptures as 1Cor 6:17; 12:13; Eph 2:17; 4:4, etc.

In its original context, the eschatological promise of the Spirit was to the penitent survivors of Israel at the post-tribulational Day of the Lord (Isa 32:15; 59:21; Eze 11:19; 36:26-27; 37:14; 39:29; Joel 2:29-32; Zech 12:10-13:1). With the glorification of Jesus, the “promise of the Father” has come as first fruits in unexpected advance of “that day”, but this does nothing to cancel or change its original application and fulfillment in the still future DOL. Now that the New Covenant has been sealed in the Savior’s blood, how can it be thought that those who receive the promise in that coming day will receive something inferior to what the church received at Pentecost in first-fruits fulfillment of that very promise?

What is it then about God’s beloved saints enduring the persecution of the Antichrist that deprives them of the advantage of the Spirit’s indwelling? Shall post-tribulational Israel receive something inferior in the day of their national repentance than the fledgling community of Jesus confessors received at Pentecost on the very basis of that very promise? This is a question pre-tribulationists ought to reconsider, since they hold with us that the penitent Jewish survivors of Jacob’s trouble will indeed receive the promise of the Spirit at that time.

To rephrase the question: will those who receive the promise of the Spirit in its original, post-tribulational context, receive something less (“with” but not “in”) than the body of Christ received at Pentecost? Yet if the receive the Pentecostal blessing of the Spirit’s indwelling that the church of this age receives, how will they not be members of Christ’s body, particularly now that Jesus has been glorified? Why would tribulation saints not also be baptized by the one Spirit into the one body now that Jesus has been glorified?

I don’t think most pre-tribulationists have thought this through, or really seriously faced the implications of their unique view of the church that depends entirely on some very erroneous notions of the Spirit’s indwelling, as limited only to a presumed mystery church age. Now that Jesus has been once and for all glorified, there is no returning to an inferior, pre-Pentecost relationship of only ‘with’ but not ‘in’. Why would there be? Such an inference would not exist were it not for its essential expedience to support a view of the church that did not exit before Darby. The reason is clear.

Dispensationalism’s defense of the doctrine of imminence depends entirely on their defense of an ecclesiology that keeps the church out of the tribulation and no less out of the millennium. This is because of their view that the church is a mystery organism, belonging strictly to this present mystery dispensation, unforeseen and unforetold in the prophets. All the saved before Pentecost and those saved after the pre-tribulation rapture cannot belong to the ‘mystery body of Christ’. They belong instead to God’s program for Israel and the nations. So those who believe on Jesus after the rapture cannot, on this view, be reckoned as belonging to the body of Christ.

Dispensationalism depends on a view of the Pauline mystery that must be regarded as completely separate and distinct from the “mystery of the gospel and of Christ” (Eph 6:19), which is admittedly foretold in the OT scriptures. It is not only God’s eternal purpose to incorporate gentiles into equal standing in one body that was hid in other ages (Eph 3:6), but the mystery of the gospel itself (Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11-12), and this mystery was certainly fully foretold in the “scriptures of the prophets”. So already the idea that a mystery can have nothing to do with what was foretold in prophecy breaks down. To support, then, the idea of the church as a mystery organism, separate and distinct from all other saints in the OT, the tribulation, or the millennium, dispensationalism must conceive of the church, not only as a new revelation, but an entirely new entity, separate and distinct from all who will be saved in the tribulation and beyond.

It is one thing to “distinguish” between the church as the regenerate people of God and “Israel after the flesh”, elect and predestined, but not yet in Christ, but to posit a separation between the regenerate saints of the present time from all who are no less born again in the tribulation and beyond, is opposed to the Bible’s own definition of the nature of regeneration, and what constitutes believers as the body of Christ by reason of living union through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Dispensationalism’s unique understanding of the Pauline mystery is foundational to the system introduced by Darby. Certainly the church was not, and could not be revealed as the body of Christ until the gospel was revealed, but does this mean that the church, in its essential nature, as joined to God by the Spirit, had no prior existence? (1Cor 6:17). Here is a principle too little considered: For something to be newly revealed, or come more fully to light, does not necessarily mean it has had no prior existence.

This is a very neglected consideration. We see this with the gospel, with Christ, and particularly His two comings, which were certainly foretold, but not understood until the gospel was publicly revealed with the Spirit’s descent at Pentecost (compare Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11=12). This was entirely new to the understanding, but not new to what could be shown to have been fully foretold in the writings of the prophets. Yet Paul calls this fully foretold gospel a mystery that was kept secret in other ages (Acts 26:22-23; Rom 16:25-26; Eph 6:19).

For the dispensational view of the mystery to stand, it must be distanced from anything foretold in the OT, and nothing of OT prophecy can intermingle with this ‘mystery age’ that the church is assumed to occupy, as extending only from Pentecost to the rapture. The tribulation belongs to another dispensation entirely.

Why do dispensationalists find it necessary to assume this? It is because there can be no compromise of imminence. If the abiding possibility of the rapture is not to be put off beyond any intervening events foretold in OT prophecy, then for imminence to stand as an abiding, ever present possibility, no foretold event can exist in OT prophecy that must be fulfilled before the 70th week begins. All outstanding and un-fulfilled OT prophecy can only be seen on the other side of the rapture, fully contained in Daniel’ 70th week. Otherwise, if it can be shown that there are prophecies in the OT that could only be fulfilled in the long age between the advents, then, of course, imminence becomes impossible.

But a careful study and comparison of parallels of Paul’s use of the term, mystery, or secret will not permit this kind of complete dissociation from the mystery contained in the OT scriptures. Yes, there are discrete and distinct mysteries, not all of which were specifically foretold in the prophets, but these could only come to light by the revelation of the gospel (Ro 16:25-26).

Certainly the mystery of Christ and the church could not be understood as it is now, but since the revelation of the mystery of the gospel, the means by which God would accomplish His eternal purpose to bring all things together into one could now be made be made known (Eph 1:9; 3:5-6), not only to the church but to the principalities and powers (Eph 3:10). The mystery revealed to Paul was that through the instrumentality of the gospel (“by the gospel”), as a secret now revealed, God would fulfill His original promise to bless all nations through Abraham’s Seed, only this would accomplish something far more grand than anything that could have been conceived before. Not only would the nations be blessed, they would become fellow equals in the inheritance of the saints in the one, regenerate people of God, revealed now as the body of Christ, God’s one new man (regenerate man).

This is NOT something that is temporary, as in dispensationalism, but continues to be the revelation of everyone who believes on Christ until the final perfection of new heavens and earth. Granted, this discrete mystery revealed to Paul was not specifically spelled out anywhere in the writings of the prophets, but it is bound to the larger revelation of the gospel that is its basis. Therefore, in Paul’s mind, the mystery of the church is a piece with the mystery of the gospel.

Notably, one aspect that shows the relationship of the mystery to OT prophecy is its wonderful capacity for verifying the truth claims of the gospel by solving the puzzle of prophecy (1Pet 1:11-12). The agreement of the revealed mystery with all that stood written in the prophets was regarded as the gospel’s greatest evidence of proof (Acts 26:22-23). Yet, this evidence, so compelling in retrospect, was purposely hidden, not only from the pride of man, but necessarily from the righteous too, until the time appointed.

This is so that the mystery would remain hidden, even from the rulers of the darkness of this age, so that they would not know the ‘hidden wisdom’ until it was too late (1Cor 2:7-8; Rom 16:25-26). It was a divinely set trap (Isa 8:14-17 with 1Cor 2:7-8). So Paul’s view of mystery is not disconnected from Jesus’ teaching on the “mystery of the kingdom”, as the new form the kingdom would take throughout an unexpected, inter-advent period.

This idea of a mystery, closed up and sealed among the Lord’s disciples, has its background in the OT’s view of the sealed vision (Isa 8:14-17; 29:11; Dan 9:24; 12:4, 9; Hab 2:2-3). It is this that make the Messiah to be a stone of stumbling in His appointed time, but that’s another whole study in its own right, but very relevant to how we would see Paul’s use of the concept of the revelation of concealed secrets in contrast to dispensationalism’s interest to divide between two, regenerate peoples of God in order to keep the church out of the tribulation.

But suppose the concession is made, (as some non-dispensationalist also believe), that the church (as now defined) did not exist in any form before Pentecost. What then? Surely this is no proof that the church does not appear on earth again after the rapture, and that believers who come to faith during the tribulation and beyond are any the less to be reckoned as members of Christ’s body. This would be to suggest that a once and for all revelation could somehow recede back to something inferior, according to the dispensationalists’s reading of Jn 7:39 with Jn 14:17.

So in order preserve the doctrine of imminence, the church must be raptured before any of the signs of the 70th week can begin, obviously. Therefore, to make the church of this present, “mystery age”, exempt from the tribulation, something must explain the presence of saints in the tribulation, as seen so clearly all throughout the book of Revelation. Here is where dispensationalists turn to texts on the Holy Spirit to support the concept that only believers of this age can belong to the body of Christ, because only believers of this age have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

To uphold the system, they must define the church out of the tribulation, ‘at all costs’. Identify tribulation believers as members of Christ’s body and all is lost, case closed. That would put the church in the tribulation. That’s the logic. Thus the invention of a new, and unprecedented doctrine of the church that denies to the faithful of the tribulation identity as members of Christ’s body. We may find traces of the doctrine of imminence in church history, most often on the presumption that the Antichrist is present, but never this. This is new, original with Darby.

Like tribulation saints, millennial believers are also believed to sustain a pre-Pentecostal relationship to the Spirit, “with” but not “in”. Fantastical, I know, but this is some of the ugly underbelly that is taught in the seminaries in the interest defending the indefensible. Unhappily, much of this never reaches the people in the pew. They get just enough to be inoculated from a fair hearing of an alternative, mediating view, and never learn what academic pre-tribulationists know very well to be necessary to sustain the system. As for example, what would the average pre-tribulationist think if they knew what the academics at the seminary know, that for the system to work, Job, Isaiah, Daniel, and all the saints of the OT must remain in the dust of the earth for another seven years after the rapture, while the church is in heaven celebrating the marriage of the Lamb?

By defining the church out of the tribulation period, not only is the church protected from wrath (as though tribulation saints and Jews fed and preserved in the wilderness will NOT be protected from divine wrath, not to mention the surviving gentiles who facilitate Jewish return after the tribulation is over), but by removing the church from earth before the onset of Daniel’s 70th week, the doctrine of imminence is safeguarded, because all of the signs that definitely signal the Lord’s return belong to the 70th week, safely on the other side of the rapture. So nothing needs to happen that might signal Jesus’ return to rapture the church, since the signs belong to the 70th week.

The problem with this is view of imminence is the necessary reconstitution of Israel as a viable nation populated by Jews, with Jerusalem at its center (see Dan 12:1; Eze 38:8; Zech 12:2-3 et al). This is a comparatively recent development that did not exist for centuries!

Think about it: For nearly 17 centuries, the Jews were almost everywhere else but in their own Land. The Land was to lie waste and desolate, not for one, but for “many generations” (Isa 61:4). Not only this, but the temple that the last aggressor will “tread down, burn, and lay waste” is very significantly one that has been only recently recovered to Jewish possession (“possessed it but a little while”; Isa 63:18; 64:10-11). The context is clearly the final desolation of Jerusalem and the Jews’ final deliverance at the DOL. No other assault, whether Babylon, Greece, or Rome has burned a temple that the Jews had possessed only a “little while”.

Either this language is merely a metaphorical of a ‘seemingly’ short time, or it is literal, and necessarily future. The point is this: No other period has answered to the “many generations” of desolation as referred to in Isa 61:4. The Babylonian captivity was a single generation, 70 years. Only the long Diaspora that followed the Roman destruction can answer to these details. So how could Jesus return at any moment since Paul allegedly introduced the mystery of the pre-trib rapture sometime before his first letter to the Corinthians? And what was the “blessed hope” of believers living between Pentecost and Paul’s supposed new revelation? May I suggest it must have been the hope that Jesus gave to every believer drawn by the Spirit, namely, resurrection at the “last day” (Jn 6:39, 44; 11:24).

How possible then was an imminent return when there was no Jewish nation in existence to strike an agreement with the Antichrist? It is one thing to teach an any moment coming when the temple was still standing, and Daniel’s 70th week might begin without obstacle. It might seem possible again to teach an imminent return before the tribulation after the modern repatriation of the Land, but HOW can pre-tribulationists consider a pre-tribulational return a viable possibility for the 17 centuries during which the Jewish people were everywhere but in the Land? Where would be the “many generations” of desolation, not to mention many other details of the foretold Jewish experience all throughout the long Diaspora that began with the Roman expulsion?

But I digress; back to the issue of the Spirit. So we see Dispensationalism’s ‘interest’ to find anything that might seem to support their distinction between the saints of this, so-called “church age” (a term so completely assumed you would almost think it exists in scripture). They believe they find justification to distinguish so-called “church saints” from so-called, “tribulation saints” by their understanding of Holy Spirit’s relation to the body of Christ as unique to believers of this mystery church age.

They argue, and who will not agree?, that the Spirit was in some sense “not yet given”, because Jesus was “not yet glorified” (Jn 7:39). They further point out that Jesus speaks of the Spirit who is now “with” the disciples but “will be” (future tense) “in” them (Jn 14:17). Dispensationalists make much of this to argue that before Pentecost the Spirit was only “with” OT believers. He was not “in” them. When it is pointed out that many of the OT saints were indwelt by the Spirit of Christ, with Peter affirming the same in the NT (1Pet 1:11), the response is, “yes, but the Spirt did not indwell them PERMANENTLY”. Well, they were either born again or they weren’t, and how else do the dead live and sustain a living relationship with the living God? (Mt 22:32). We can see from Jesus’ remarks to Nicodemus that He did not regard the new birth as something new or future, but a present necessity to discern the things of the Spirit, as Paul would also so clearly affirm (1Cor 2:14). In the OT, the children of the flesh persecuted the children of the Spirit, even as now (Gal 4:29), and so on we could multiply examples.

But perhaps the most exegetically unsupportable ‘reach’, illustrating how one unproven inference demands another, is when pre-tribulationists advance the notion that not only “assumes” that the Holy Spirit is the un-identified personal restrainer of 2Thes 2:7, but that it is the church that must be removed before the man of sin can be revealed. It is one thing to say the Holy Spirit is the one who is holding back the revelation of the man of sin (itself a mere inference); it is quite something else to say it is particularly His indwelling of the church that requires that the church be removed. How is this arrived at?

Pre-tribulationists do NOT want to say that the Holy Spirit is removed entirely from the earth. They know that no one could be born again after the rapture except by the Spirit, of course. Therefore they reason that it is particularly the Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence in the believers (of this age) that is removed. Thus, the church is removed. And, as we have shown, since the church as the body of Christ is defined by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, they reason that those who come to faith during the tribulation cannot be the body of Christ. Well, there it is. This is what they teach, and must teach in order to keep the church out of the tribulation, in order to maintain the any moment return to terminate the mystery body’s limited tenure on this earth.

It is a shameful grabbing at straws, and like all wood, hay, and straw, it will go up in smoke not many days hence, but at what cost? The prophetic people of God must not only identify error, they must ask why it has come, particularly just now? What does it threaten? What will it cost in the day when it will be required?

Before ending this, I can anticipate that many will want to ask in what sense was the Spirit “not yet given” in Jn 7:39? I may not know the right or complete answer, but I’m sure enough of a few things it cannot mean. It cannot mean that no one was ever indwelt by the Spirit before Pentecost. That would be a contradiction of a host of scriptures bearing upon the nature of vital regeneration and flatly contradict 1Pet 1:11 that says that the Spirit of Christ was “in” the prophets. When this is pointed out, it is ‘desperately’ argued that He ONLY in-dwelt the prophets, or worse, that He did not PERMANENTLY indwell them.

While the Spirit certainly came in a much fuller, ‘corporate’ measure, with signs following, there were signs before Pentecost. So in what way did He come that was wholly new? I can only suggest, but one thing that was truly new and without precedent. It is the Spirit’s descent upon the whole of the church. All that were being daily added to the church received the ‘coming upon’, ‘falling upon’ of the Spirit’s power and anointing. This fulfilled Moses’ desire that the prophetic anointing would come upon all the people (Num 11:29).

The special empowerment of the Spirit was no longer selective, as in the OT, but came upon all, not only in gifts and signs, but perhaps the best answer is that now, the Spirit would come as the Spirit of revelation, opening to clear view the mystery that many prophets and righteous, even angels desired to look into (Mt 13:17; 1Pet 1:12). The full glory of the revealed mystery could only break on the disciples’s understanding AFTER Jesus was glorified, and now the gospel could be proclaimed to the whole world. This is just the point of Pentecost. This is at least one sense in which the Spirit came in power that is not too much considered in studies and discussions of what changed at Pentecost.

I suspect that the phenomenon of revelation and the deep piercing of the heart, all in conjunction with the appointed time, is what sets Pentecost apart, as it set in motion the church’s mission to the nations. That’s perhaps part of the explanation of what unique, new sense the Spirit had not yet been given.

As for Jn 14:17, I suggest that far too much has been concluded beyond its simple intent. It is typically taken to mean that the Spirit who is “with” the disciples would come at some future time to be “in” them. I don’t think that’s the point, though, of course, it could be so argued, provided this was the only text to use this language, and provided that such a conclusion didn’t conflict with other clear texts bearing upon the question. But I invite us us to look at another text in John’s second epistle where the same language is used.

“For the truth’s sake, which dwells ‘in’ us, and shall be ‘with’; us forever” (2Jn 2). Observe that here we have an inversion of the same expression, “with”, and “shall be in”. Who would want to suggest that the truth, which now dwells “in us” will change His relation to an inferior position of only “dwelling WITH us” sometime in the future? I submit that this is simply what is called a ‘synonymous parallelism’, intended only to stress the abiding nature of the Spirit’s, or in this case, the truth’s relation to the believer, and not a change of position or relationship.

In my view, the disciples would hear this comfort from Jesus, not as a change of location, but an assurance that the One currently with them, would come to them in the person of ‘another Comforter’ and remain ‘in’ them forever, not that they were currently un-born again, or un-indwelt by the Spirit. Jesus had pronounced them all “clean”, except Judas (Jn 13:10), and this could never be said apart from the regenerating work of the Spirit that implies the indwelling of the divine nature, which Peter will make the equivalent of being ‘born again by the Word’, something that we may be sure distinguished the living from the dead, not only in the NT but no less in the OT (1Pet 1:23). Being born of the Word of God, as being partaker of the divine nature by the Spirit’s indwelling, is certainly NOT limited to NT believers, as a number of scriptures, and many necessary inferences can be produced to show. .

But again, even if it were granted that the Holy Spirit indwells believers in this age in some unique, unprecedented way, this would not mean that He will do less for tribulation saints, particularly since His indwelling is based on the once and for all glorification of Jesus. Conclusion: Tribulation saints, and all who come to faith throughout the millennium will be no less the body of Christ on earth than those who have the Spirit now.

The post Untenable Tenets of the Dispensational System appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

Someone recently gave me a commentary on Daniel by Arno Gaebelein written in 1909. After reading his comments on the 70th week, and then Daniel 11, it was easy to see that he could be classified as a Dispensational, Pre-trib, Premillennialist. But, I know that he had a heart for the Jewish immigrants that were pouring into to New York at that time, and even ministered the gospel to them. So how would you reconcile his position?

Gaebelein was old school dispensational pre-trib. All I can say is that his view of Israel’s future, as based on a plain man’s plain reading of the ordinary sense of the prophecies (his hermeneutic) stood him well in seeing the centrality of Israel in the events of the end. But like so many since, the baby got mixed in with the bathwater of dispensationalism, with its view of the interim between 69th and 70th weeks as belonging to a completely UNFORETOLD mystery program that dispensationalists equate with the so-called “church age” that assumes the church begins at Pentecost and ends its sojourn on earth at the pre-tribulational rapture.

In order to maintain the present “age of the church” (a colossal misnomer in my view), dispensationalists argue that consistency demands that this age is the time of the mystery (as they see and define the mystery) that ends with the removal of the church from earth to heaven at the pre-tribulation rapture. Thus, the church, as they define the church, occupies the gap that they recognize between the 69 and 70th weeks of Dan 9:24-27. This provides that the ‘blessed hope’ of the church can be an imminent hope, with the ever present ‘potential’ that Jesus ‘could’ come at any moment. This why, in order for Christ’s return to be maintained as an ever imminent possibility, all the foretold signs that might interpose some necessary event between the believer and Christ’s return for His church, must be seen as taking place only on the other side of the rapture. There can be no outstanding event within this so-called age of the church that can stand between the believer and the ever imminent possibility that Christ might appear any moment.

Of course, this postulate raises so many questions, not least of which is how could the events that begin the 7 years have been possible during the many centuries of Jewish absence from the Land? Not only so, but far more than the 70 years of a single generation, Isaiah predicted that the Land would pass into “many generations” of desolation (Isa 61:4), and this fits with no other time in Israel’s history until the age long dispersion that began with the Roman destruction.

The time after the rapture, in its entirety, is held to be the Day of the Lord, thus, a continual day of wrath to which believers (of this age) are not appointed. This is a recent correction (innovation) to preserve the concept of imminence. In agreement with our view, Gaebelein put the DOL at the end of the tribulation, but since later post-tribulationists (such as Alexander Reese) would point out that believers of this age are instructed to look for, or hasten towards the DOL (e.g., 1Thes 5:2-6; 2Pet 3:10-12), it became obvious that a DOL that does not come till the end of the tribulation can hardly be looked for by believers waiting for a pre-tribulation rapture. The answer was to ‘expand’ the DOL to include the entirety of the 70th week, so that the DOL could start immediately with the pre-tribulation rapture.

In this way, believers could now look for the sudden, thief-like coming of the DOL, because it is seen to begin immediately with the Lord’s pre-tribulational return to catch up the church. In this way, the entire 7 years is made the DOL. Since believers are not appointed to wrath (1Thes 5:9), it is supposed that they cannot be thought to enter any part of the 7 years, which dispensational presuppositions make a seven year long ‘day of wrath’. The problem here is the clear evidence of scripture that saints in the tribulation are NOT under divine wrath. Divine wrath is only visited upon the wicked, but tribulation believers are not exempt from the wrath of man. So this argument fails since a believer’s presence in the tribulation does not imply exposure to divine wrath, demanding pre-trib rapture to escape. Are believers of the tribulation any more appointed to wrath than believers of this age? The answer is self evident, as also the contradiction of appealing to 1Thes 5:9 as support for exemption from tribulation.

Since Reese’s arguments, dispensationalists moved the DOL back seven years to begin with the rapture. This seemed to permit them to see the rapture as an imminent event. However, another, more modern post-tribulational writer, Robert Gundry, in his book, “The Church and the Great Tribulation, pointed out that Paul puts the revelation of the man of sin BEFORE the DOL (2Thes 2:2-3). How could the DOL be held as imminent if “THAT DAY shall come UNTIL the man of sin be revealed FIRST? This is, of course, an outstanding sign that precedes the DOL, precluding the notion that the DOL can happen suddenly, as a thief, with no predicted event preceding, as essential to the idea of imminency. This posed a real problem that was discussed intensely among the defenders of the pre-trib position, but the discussion remained mostly in scholarly journals behind seminary doors.

The proposed solution was to once more adjust the time of the DOL to permit another gap of some unknown duration (probably very brief) in order to permit time for the Antichrist to be revealed AFTER the rapture, yet before the start of the DOL. So twice the DOL has been moved in reaction to errors pointed out in the system. This is well documented.

It should also be mentioned that old school dispensationalists such as C.I.Scofield and Arno Gaebelein, understood the OT righteous to go up in the rapture. But after the arguments of Reese in his book, “The Approaching Advent of Christ,” the resurrection of OT believers was moved forward to the end of the week (‘the last day’). This would mean that Job, Isaiah, Daniel, and all the righteous dead of the OT would remain sleeping in the dust of the earth (Dan 12:1-2) for an additional 7 years after the church has been taken away to heaven. In that sense, they too are ‘left behind’.

All’s to say, dispensationalism stands or falls with the following two principal pillars: 1.) The doctrine of imminency (in the sense that Christ may appear for His church any moment since the earliest days of the church, particularly since Paul’s revelation of the secret rapture), and 2.) the doctrine of the church (ecclesiology), which assumes that the body of Christ did not exist until the Spirit came to indwell believers at Pentecost, supposing that He was only ‘with’ believers before this time and not ‘in’ them.

This is why dispensationalists interpret the restrainer of 2Thes 2:7 to be the Holy Spirit who must be removed before the man of sin can be revealed. However, they are instant to point out that this is not, of course, the Spirit’s removal from the earth, but only in the sense of His indwelling of believers of this age. Many leading dispensationalists, such as John F. Walvoord, defend this view by arguing for what he calls, “a reversal of Pentecost.” By this, he means that believers that come to faith after the rapture will be born again, of course, but that they will NOT be uniquely indwelt by the Holy Spirit, which dispensationalists believe is unique only to believers of this mystery age of the church.

To answer the many non-sequiturs of Dispensationalism is not something I can enter into now, but for many reasons that could be put forth, the whole edifice falls under its own weight. Any system that must make so many changes in reaction to admitted errors should be profoundly suspect. Yet, it is the leading view among most evangelicals that hold a favorable view of Israel’s place and purpose in the end times. Part of the reason is that most embracing the pre-trib rapture have been told only part of the story. They are not intimately familiar with its history and the principal pillars on which the system stands or falls. Many would blush if they only knew what their scholarly teachers understand to be essential to its defense.

How, particularly now, after the Spirit promised in Joel has been poured out on all who believe, now that Christ has been once and for all glorified (Jn 7:39), can it be imagined that there will be a retraction of Pentecost, so that those that come to faith in the tribulation or in the millennium to follow, are NOT reckoned as members of His body, are NOT baptized by one Spirit into the one Body? When the penitent survivors of Israel look upon Him whom they pierced and receive the Spirit (Zech 12:10), the very same Spirit promised by Joel that was poured out at Pentecost, will they be any less the body of Christ than the penitents of Pentecost? Will they be any less baptized by the promised Holy Spirit into the one Body that believers are baptized into now?

Dispensationalists say they will not. They hold that all who come to faith after the rapture belong to another people of God, with different promises and a different hope. So you can see that much more is at stake than simply where the rapture is placed. The very nature of what constitutes the body of Christ is put in question.

Not only does faith in a pre-trib rapture disarm the church for what it should be prepared to expect, but it robs God of the glory He has invested in the what He intends for the church’s role as prophetic witness to Israel and the nations, full of power, instructing many, and turning many to righteousness (Dan 11:32-33; 12:3; Rev 7:9, 13-14). But this assignment is NOT delegated to the 144,000 Jewish witnesses, unless they also belong to the “church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth” (1Tim 3:15). Such a notion betrays a woeful ignorance of the nature and calling of the church. It makes the church merely a ‘speed bump’ (a parenthesis) on the way to a glorious millennium that is without the church on earth. How will the pillar and ground of truth be absent from the earth if the persecuted saints of the tribulation are not the body of Christ? It begs the question, what then is the body of Christ? How long shall it endure on the earth?

The whole conception of the nature of the mystery, as “fully foretold”, yet hidden within the prophetic writings (Acts 26:22; Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11), and the nature of the assembly of Messiah, as the revelation of His body, has been profoundly exchanged for something foreign and unheard of till the mid to late 19th century. As a dearest friend once exclaimed, “they’ve changed the story!”

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If we can interpret and establish Rom. 11:15 “……what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?” to be the same time that the “dead in Christ” are raised, then is it settled that there can be no pre-trib rapture, since the resurrection of the “dead in Christ” is, by all accounts, the rapture, which is, of course, contemporaneous with the resurrection?

We can establish that the national resurrection / birth of the beleaguered nation takes place at the moment of Christ’s return (Isa 66:8; Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9; 12:10; Mt 23:39; 24:30; Lk 21:24; Acts 3:21; Ro 11:25-26; Rev 1:7; 11:2 et al.) But even after we prove the intersection between the national resurrection of the nation and personal resurrection of the saints, we have proven nothing against the rapture, at least not to their peculiar kind of thinking. Let me explain why.

They are instant to grant that Israel’s experience of tribulation ends in national resurrection at the return of Christ, which is simultaneous with the resurrection of OT believers and the martyrs of the tribulation who will come to faith AFTER the rapture. According to their view, everyone saved before Pentecost and after the pre-tribulational rapture belong to a distinct people of God, separate, not only from unbelieving Israel, but even from the regenerate saints of Israel who died before Pentecost, with those who come to faith after the rapture, thus dispensationalism’s famous theory of ‘two peoples’ of God. These groups are thought to belong to different economies or dispensations, thus the term, dispensationalism.

According to pre-tribulational dispensationalism, God’s “foretold” prophetic program for Israel is resumed only after the present ‘mystery’ dispensation (parenthesis / intercalation) that ends with the rapture. Recognizing that the books of Daniel and Revelation depict saints in the tribulation, so-called ‘church saints’distinguished from so-called ‘tribulation saints’. The former are removed by secret translation before the tribulation can begin. They acknowledge that the national resurrection of Israel comes with the end of the times of the gentiles and the sudden regeneration of the nation that Ezekiel and Hosea represent as a resurrection and Isaiah will depict as the moment of birth (Isa 66:8; Eze 37; Hos 6:2). Scripture is clear that the national rebirth or resurrection of the nation is contemporaneous with the post-tribulational resurrection of ‘those who sleep in the dust of the earth’ (Isa 26:16-21; Dan 12:1-2; Job 14:14 with 1Cor 15:52 & Job 19:25-27 with Zech 14:4, 7-9). This does not stop their theory because they simply assign the post-tribulational resurrection of OT saints to another dispensation that begins after the church has been removed. That is to say that saints who died before Pentecost do not go up in the rapture but continue to sleep in the dust of the earth for seven more years.

In contrast to God’s prophetically foretold purpose for Israel, it is believed that the church occupies an entirely distinct and completely un-foretold dispensation that was a mystery in other ages, the so-called, ‘church age’. Of course, we believe this is a complete misinterpretation of what Paul means by his use of the term, ‘mystery’. He is not using the term to dissociate the new revelation that has come to light in Christ from what stood written in the prophets. On the contrary, what has come to light in the gospel, though hidden until the appointed time of revelation, was fully foretold. That was the hallmark of its authenticity and verification that makes the world accountable (Acts 26:22; 1Cor 15:3-4 with Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11). That something has been newly revealed or brought to much fuller light, does not necessarily mean that it is newly existent. For example, the mystery of Christ and His pre-existence and co-eternality in the Godhead has come to much greater light since the revelation of the gospel. You see the point. I believe the same could be said of the church. It could not have been conceived as the body of Christ prior to the revelation of the mystery of Christ and the gospel, of course, but this does not mean that the church had no prior existence before Pentecost, as believed by dispensationalists.

Dispensationalists believe the mystery is the church as a new organism that has nothing to do with what was foretold in prophecy. Only after God’s mystery program for the church has been completed with the rapture does the focus turn again to God’s prophetic program for Israel (their words). Then begins the Day of the Lord, which they make to include the entirety of Daniel’s last week (another untenable claim). All who are saved after the rapture belong to another, completely distinct people of God. Not only the redeemed of Israel, but all who come to faith after the rapture, and all from among the nations that will be saved throughout the millennium, are NOT to be reckoned as belonging to the body of Christ, which belongs distinctly to the interim between Pentecost and the pre-tribulational rapture.

Dispensationalists will be the first to tell you that unless the body of Christ is restricted to those who are indwelt by the Spirit between Pentecost and the rapture, the case for a pre-tribulation rapture falls apart. Indeed, if the saints depicted in the tribulation in Daniel and Revelation belong to the body of Christ, then the conclusion cannot be avoided that the church is in the tribulation. Therefore, dispensatinalists would probably have no problem acknowledging that ‘life from the dead’ for national Israel coincides with the resurrection of Daniel and all the saints who died either before Pentecost or after the rapture. They know there is a spiritual resurrection of Israel at Christ’s return to establish the kingdom, they just don’t think this interferes with the inferences that they have built around the presupposition that the church, by definition, cannot be in the tribulation. That is what they do. They define the church out of the tribulation by a definition that was unknown until it was first proposed by John Nelson Darby as a break through insight from his sick bed in 1836.

Pre-tribulationists view the time between Pentecost and the rapture as ‘the dispensation of the church’ (the so-called, ‘the church age’). This is based on the belief that the church did not exist in the OT. They will cite Mt 16:18. “Upon this rock, I will (future tense) build my church.” They will point out that only with the pouring out of the Spirit (after the glorification of Jesus as Messiah; Jn 7:39) did the Spirit begin to baptize believers into the newly revealed body of the one new man. We take great exception to this view, but there are many besides dispensationalists who believe (I think incorrectly) that Pentecost was the ‘birthday’ of the church. But quite apart from that discussion, here is what is especially obnoxious to their system: It is the radically baseless inference that they haste to draw from 2Thes 2:7. The restrainer is held to be the Holy Spirit and His removal permits the Antichrist to be revealed. That is not the only interpretation for the identity of the restrainer, but even if it is allowed (though I do not allow) that the restrainer is the Holy Spirit, it would not necessarily follow that when He is withdrawn from His ministry of restraining evil, every believer who is indwelt by the Spirit is also taken away.

This is an inference based on a presupposition that leads to absurd conclusions. Those who take this view do not blush to call this event “a reversal of Pentecost” (Walvoord and many others). I call it a ‘retraction’ of Pentecost, because that’s what the theory implies. They argue that since the Holy Spirit did not indwell saints before Pentecost (on the contrary, saints were indwelt by the Spirit), He will no longer indwell those who come to faith after the rapture. They will be born again but not indwelt (how is that?). Tribulation believers will sustain a relation to the Spirit that they assume (I think falsely) existed before Pentecost. It is believed (quite incorrectly) that the Holy Spirit did not indwell believers before Pentecost. Until Pentecost, He only resided “with” them. This view is built on what can be shown to be a faulty interpretation of Jn 14:17.

The two pillars of dispensationalism that are indispensable to its defense is first the doctrine of imminence and secondly their definition of the church as restricted only to this age. The second pillar is based on two principle presuppositions that are essential to its support: 1). Their own new view of Paul’s use of the term, mystery as applied to the new revelation by the Spirit, and 2), their view that Holy Spirit’s indwelling is restricted to saints living only between Pentecost and the pre-trib rapture. Touch either one of these pillar points and the whole edifice of modern dispensationalism starts to crumble. But that is only if one knows their own system well enough to know what is absolutely necessary to its support.

Most who embrace the pre-trib theory (with its doctrine of an any moment return and new and novel ecclessiology) might give pause if they only knew what the academic defenders of their position must teach in order to hold the system together, things so obnoxious to the normal believer as the thought that none of the righteous who died before Pentecost can participate in the marriage supper of the Lamb. Why? Because it is believed that no one living before Pentecost can belong to the body of Christ. All the righteous of the older dispensation continue their sleep in the dust of the earth for an additional seven years. This is clear from Dan 12:1-2 and a number of other scriptures that show that the resurrection of the OT faithful takes place only AFTER the tribulation at the time of Israel’s deliverance. Not only so, but Jesus said that those who would believe on Him would be raised, not at an undisclosed, pre-trib rapture, but ‘at the last day’ (Jn 6:39-40, 44, 54; 11:24; 12:48).

Such observations may not dissuade those who have deeply imbibed academic dispensationalism, but few things could be more obnoxious or theologically untenable to the average believer than the imaginative notion that the Spirit who has been once and for all given (as based on the once and for all glorification of Jesus; Jn 7:39), that His indwelling presence should also be taken away at the rapture, so that He will no longer indwell those who become saints after the rapture. Not only does this so-called ‘reversal of Pentecost’ obtain throughout the last seven years of this age. By the same principle, all who come to faith all throughout the millennium cannot be indwelt by the Spirit. He is with them but not in them, because that distinction is what makes the body unique to this dispensation. Believest thou this? Such is the price of consistency.

This is a point where they stand most to be embarrassed. For the sake of those who might give pause, love bids that we endeavor to educate the unwary of what the academic defenders of dispensationalism admit to be necessary to support the doctrine of an imminent, and therefore pretribulational rapture.

Not only was the Spirit given on the basis of Jesus’ once and for all glorification, which can NEVER be reversed, but as you so well asked, “how will the outpouring / baptism of the Spirit that will come to the penitent Jewish survivors ‘in that day’ NOT also baptize them into the body of Christ?” Exactly! How can the Spirit not put one in the body in that day no less than this? How can one be in Christ and not be in His body? And how can the Spirit who will be poured out upon the the penitent Jewish survivors of tribulation produce a lesser result than Pentecost, particularly when Pentecost was the first fruits of that which is to come? How is it that He baptizes believers now into the revealed body of Christ but He will not do the same for those who receive the ultimate promise made to Israel? Absurd! Not only is this poor eschatology; it is disastrous theology! It belies a terribly deficient understanding of the inward working and abiding union of the Spirit as the basis of that union with the divine nature that is salvation. And, though impossible apart from the cross and resurrection of Jesus, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is certainly NOT something that began only after the cross, as witness Jesus’ reprimand of Nicodemus for not recognizing that just as a nation cannot be born apart from the Spirit, neither can a person, and so on we could go in demonstrating by many scriptures and evidences too plain to dispute that the Spirit of Christ indwelt, not only the prophets (1Pet 1:11) but all the children born of the Spirit (Gal 4:29 etc.), but that’s another discussion, albeit a needful one.

The post Dispensationalism and the Reversal of Pentecost appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

I appreciate so much your willingness dear brother, so these are my questions:

1.– Acts 3:21 says “The heaven must receive Lord Jesus until the times of restoration of all things which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from acient times”

On the other hand the Lord Jesus said: “Elijah is coming and will restore all things” (Mathew 17:11)

2.– Revelation 3:10 refers to an “hour of test”

Both questions are very related so that the answer to one will reflect directly on the other. I will begin with the second, because it is decisive to the question of the church’s role in the eschatological restoration, since it is clear that only a church that is present in the tribulation could possibly be an instrument of restoration during that time. But before I come to what I believe Rev 3:10 means, let me say a little about what I’m sure it cannot mean.

Whether the church can be seen in the tribulation will depend entirely on how the church is conceived and defined. Only since the advent of modern dispensationalism has the concept been introduced that the body of Christ exists only between Pentecost and a rapture that removes the church before the start of the last seven years. According to dispensationalism, the new birth does not make one a member of Christ’s body unless it happens between Pentecost and the rapture. Those born again after the presumed pre-tribulational rapture are not considered to be part of the church. They belong to another, distinct ‘people of God’.

In this view, saints persecuted under Antichrist are called, ‘tribulation saints’ in order to distinguish them from so-called, “church saints.” The rapture that is supposed to precede the tribulation is conceived as a ‘reversal of Pentecost’ (their term). Dispensationalists believe that the Holy Spirit did not begin to indwell the saints until Pentecost and that this will end with the pre-tribulation rapture. After the rapture, the Spirit continues to be crucial in the new birth. He fills and empowers (just as He did the OT saints), but He does NOT indwell tribulation saints. They are NOT regarded as members of Christ’s body, the church; nor are any who are saved in the millennium considered to be members of Christ’s body, since they too sustain a pre-Pentecostal relationship to the Holy Spirit, as merely ‘with’ but not ‘in’ the believer. In short, the pre-tribulation rapture amounts to a retraction of Pentecost where the Spirit’s indwelling is concerned, since He is not considered to indwell believers either before Pentecost or after the rapture.

This view is built up according to dispensationalism’s interpretation of such texts as Jn 7:39 (“for the Holy Spirit was not yet given”); Jn 14:17 (“for He dwells with you and will be in you”); see also Acts 11:15 with 1Cor 12:13). Yet, the church is distinguished as the church by its advance reception of the very promise that is yet to come to the penitent remnant of Israel at the day of the Lord (Joel 2:1-2, 28-31; Isa 32:15-18; Eze 39:29; Zech 12:10; Acts 2:16-20). Will post-tribulational Israel be any less baptized, filled, and also indwelt by the Spirit than the church of this age? Are we to suppose that He will merely ‘come upon’ or be ‘with’ millennial Israel, and not also indwell them? How can the special gift of the Spirit that came at Pentecost be reversed when it is impossible to reverse the once and for all basis on which He is given, namely, namely, the glorification of Christ? (see Jn 7:39). Of course, the arguments against such a pitiful pneumatology (doctrine of the Holy Spirit) are too many to be entered upon here, as it would take us too far off our present purpose. I make the point only because, unless the church in its very nature is defined according to dispensational presuppositions (unheard of before the 19th century), then the presence of the saints in the tribulation is decisive proof that the church is present in the tribulation. In the pre-tribulational, dispensational view of Rev 3:10, there is no place for the church to play a role in the Elijah ministry of restoration. The evangelism of the nations is delegated to the 144,000 sealed from the 12 tribes of Israel, or to the two witnesses who come in the spirit and power of Elijah, since, in their view, the church has been physically removed.

There is another view that sees a ‘split rapture’ whereby the mature overcomer is taken and the compromised believers are left behind to endure the tribulation. This interpretation understands the promise of Rev 3:10, not as a promise to the church in general, but only to a special part of the church whom they call the ‘overcomers’. It tends to allow that some who are truly saved are left behind because they were not counted worthy to be among the special company of overcomers. In my view, this is to make a division between true, Spirit born believers that is not justified by scripture. It fails to distinguish between inheritance and reward. A distinction in spiritual attainment and eternal reward must not be confused with the ‘blessed hope’ that every believer has of perfected union with Christ and of reunion with all who ‘sleep in Jesus’ at His return (1Cor 15:23, 52; 1Thes 4:14-17; 2Thes 2:1; 2Tim 4:8; 1Jn 3:2-3). If we say that Rev 3:10 is a reference to an prior physical removal from the hour of testing, then it follows that any work of restoration is left to those who weren’t raptured (the ‘under-comers’?), or more likely the Elijah task would be delegated, in such case, to the two witnesses or the (newly saved?) 144,000. Note too that a study of the three woes in connection with the final three trumpets, together with other decisive evidence, puts beyond question that the ministry of the two witnesses is the second half of the week, as we shall see that this is also relevant to your question concerning the church’s role in the promised restoration.

But note who it is that overcomes in the book of Revelation. It is the same who overcomes in the book of 1John, namely, those who are genuinely born of God. In the Revelation those who overcome are those who choose martyrdom over the pressure to yield to the mark of the beast. In such case, to NOT overcome is to be irreversibly reprobated and damned. He who overcomes is not speaking of a special privileged group that will be exempt from the hour of testing. The overcomer is the saint that perseveres in the hour of ultimate testing by a faith that overcomes precisely because it is born of God (1Jn 5:4). Such perseverance under trial is a sign of true regeneration (1 Jn 5:1).

But who is more of an overcomer than Paul? It is therefore of highest importance where Paul sees his own resurrection and the resurrection or rapture of “all” who belong to Christ at His coming (1Cor 15:23, 52-54; 2Tim 4:8). Paul sees his own “change” at the same place the scripture puts Job’s ‘change’ and resurrection, namely, the day of the Lord (Job 14:13-14; 19:25-27 with Zech 14:1-4). Both Daniel’s and Isaiah’s personal resurrection are likewise placed after the tribulation at the day of the Lord (Isa 25:7-8; 26:16-21). It is the resurrection of the ‘last day’. This is also where Jesus puts the resurrection of all who would believe on Him. Until Alexander Reese challenged the glaring inconsistency, earlier dispensational writers had most inconsistently placed the resurrection of the OT saints at the pre-trib rapture.

Only since dispensationalism’s doctrine of a pre-tribulation rapture and the supposed distinction of ‘church saints’ from all other saints (i.e., OT saints, tribulation saints, and millennial saints), has it ever been imagined that the resurrection of the OT righteous must wait an additional seven years after the church has been taken from earth to heaven. Yet, the constant promise of the NT is that the church’s blessed hope is to be gathered together unto Christ at the day of the Lord (Mt 24:29-31; Ro 2:5, 16; 1Cor 1:8; 5:5; Phil 1:6, 10; 2:16; 2Thes 1:7-8, 10; 2:2,3, 8; 2Tim 1:12, 18; 4:8; Heb 10:25; 2Pet 3:10, 12; Jude 5; Rev 16:14-15). For this very cause, pre-tribulationists have twice changed their position on the location of the day of the Lord. They are forced by their system to do do. The first time was in response to Alexander’s Reese’s, “The Approaching Advent of Christ.” In response to the ferment that his book stirred among scholars, the day of the Lord was moved forward from the end of the tribulation to now include the entire seven years. The last time was in response to Robert H. Gundry’s, “The Church and theTribulation.”

Gundry showed beyond dispute that the pre tribulation doctrine of an imminent (any moment) rapture crumbles if it is held that the rapture begins the day of the Lord. This is obvious, since Paul is very clear that “that day” cannot come until after the man of sin has first been revealed (2Thes 2:3). The response to Gundry’s challenge was to propose yet another space of time between the rapture and the beginning of the day of the Lord. This would give time for the Antichrist to be revealed sometime after, with no clear view of how long after the any moment rapture, but before the beginning of the thief-like coming of the day of the Lord. You see what lengths these expositors must go to save their theory.

Of course, such an artful evasion will simply not work! As I show elsewhere, the day of the Lord comes only AFTER the stellar upheaval and darkness that immediately follows the tribulation but precedes the day of the Lord (Mt 24:29 with Acts 2:20) You may wish to check my article on the website: “The Rapture Question Decisively Answered by the Timing of the Day of the Lord.” The day of the Lord simply cannot be spread out to include the entire seven years, not even the last 3 1/2 years that so nearly anticipates it. The day of the Lord is the climax of the tribulation and the beginning of the millennium. It is the climactic point of transition between this age and the age to come. This can be seen from the following evidence:

When the armies of the earth are gathering to the battlefields of Armageddon near the time of the Antichrist’s destruction (Dan 11:44-45; Rev 16:12-17), the day of the Lord is said to be “near” It is not yet “here”! (Isa 13:6, 10-11; 34:8; Eze 30:3; 39:8 22, 28-29; Joel 3:2, 11-16; Obad 15-17; Zeph 1:7, 14-15; 3:8; Mal 4:5; Rev 16:12-15 with 2Pet 3:10. 12; compare especially Rev 16:17 with Eze 39:8). In order to save the doctrine of imminence (i.e., that Christ may appear any moment), pretribulationists must try to locate the day of the Lord at the start of the seven years. But is is not the rapture that comes as a thief, but the day of the Lord (1Thes 5:3), and “that day” (the DOL) shall NOT come except there come first the falling away and the revelation of the man of sin” (2Thes 2:1-3, 8), so very clearly, the day of the Lord is NOT imminent. It is NOT an event that can begin at any time. It canNOT begin until after the Antichrist is revealed (2Thes 2:3).

Observe: Even so late as the 6th bowl, Jesus announces that His thief-like coming is still ahead (Rev 16:12-15). This agrees perfectly with 2Pet 3:10, 12, where the day of the Lord that comes ‘as a thief’ is also called the “day of God,” just as the post-tribulational, Armageddon return of Christ is called, “the great day of God Almighty” (Rev 16:14). This is the same post-tribulational coming that Jesus compares to a thief in His Olivet prophecy in Mt 24:43. Here is where scripture puts the thief-like return of Jesus, which is the day of the Lord.

Furthermore, Paul puts his own resurrection at the last trump. Shall we put the rapture and ascent of an overcomer group ahead of where Paul puts his own translation or resurrection? Where exactly does Paul put the ‘last trump’ that translates the church? Paul is very clear where he is putting the trumpet when he says, “THEN shall be brought to pass the saying that is written …” (1Cor 15:54). When is ‘then’? What is ‘the saying’ and where is it written? The answer to these questions is decisive for what Paul has in mind. The saying, “death is swallowed up in victory,” is found in Isa 25:8. Note that the context is undeniably post-tribulational. It belongs to a section in Isaiah that scholars call, “Isaiah’s little apocalypse” (Isa 24-27). As part of the continuing prophetic narrative, Isaiah places his own resurrection at the end of the great tribulation (Isa 26:16-21). We find the same order of events in Daniel where he too is raised after the time of unequaled trouble (see Dan 12:1-2, 13). What is more, the very trumpet that Jesus mentions in connection with His post-tribulational return (Mt 24:29-31) is certainly the same that is mentioned in Isa 27:13 in the same context.

It cannot be doubted that the “gathering together of the elect” in Mt 24:31 in connection with the great trumpet is the same “gathering together” of believers (“our gathering together unto Him”) in 2Thes 2:1. It is all on the same day, the day of the Lord (2Thes 2:1-3). In John’s Revelation, it is significant that there are no further trumpets to be sounded after the 7th, which finishes the mystery of God, raises the dead, and announces the judgment of the nations (Rev 10:7; 11:15-18). How remarkable then, in the face of such massive evidence, to be bound to a theory that expects Paul’s ‘last trump’ to be seven years earlier than this well known trumpet that sounds at the end of the tribulation.

How then, without labored qualification, could Paul have ever expected his first century hearers to NOT confuse a supposed pre-trib resurrection trumpet with this well known resurrection trumpet that Isaiah and Jesus mentions in connection with the Lord’s return and Israel’s post-tribulational deliverance? Therefore, in view of where Paul puts his own resurrection, I am not inclined to imagine an earlier rapture of any kind, as this would leave the final work of restoration to someone other than the church, the pillar and ground of truth. Furthermore, it would rob God of His intention that gentile believers in particular be those who will move the Jew to jealousy.

These are only a few of the reasons why Rev 3:10 cannot mean a pre-tribulation rapture of any part of the church. Pretribulational dispensationalists will object that the church is nowhere to be found after ch 4 of Revelation. This is a very artificial and ungrounded objection because it assumes that terms such as “elect” and “saints” do not imply the presence of the church. Never, in all the history of the church has it ever been conceived or taught that the born again elect saints of God are not also the living members of Christ’s body. This is a new theory that has appeared as a Trojan horse in the evangelical camp for such a time as this. It would be quite surprising if the word church should be used in the Revelation to describe the universal experience of the church in the tribulation. Throughout the NT, the word, ‘church’ is seldom used to describe saints in general. It is used only very occasionally for the corporate, universal body of Christ. Its far more common usage is to describe a local assembly of believers. It would be strange indeed if the word church should be used in the more apocalyptic sections of Revelation where the former apocalypse of Daniel provides the background for its use of the word, ‘saints’.

Who are the saints if not the church? It is only the peculiar ecclessiology (doctrine of the church) of dispensationalism that has ever said differently. Besides, the church is mentioned again in Revelation by a term that even dispensationalists admit refers to the church. “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife has made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb …” (Rev 19:7-9). Except for pretribulational presuppositions, the natural reading of this imagery is placed in the context of Jesus’ white horse return at Armageddon. The saints on earth are immediately united in the air with the myriads of departed redeemed that descend with Jesus at His return (1Thes 3:13; 4:14 with Zech 14:5; Joel 3:11; Isa 13:3 with Ps 149:5-9). The marriage supper of the Lamb coincides perfectly with Isa 25:6-9 where the context is the time of the resurrection, Israel’s deliverance, and the removal of the veil that covers all nations. This coincides perfectly with the finishing of the mystery of God at the 7h trumpet (Isa 25:7 with Rev 10:7; 11:15)

Therefore, unless we are willing to conceive a special resurrection for so-called overcomers that happens before the tribulation, and thus before the last trump where Paul sees his own resurrection with all other believers (1Cor 15:23, 52-54; 2Thes 2;1; 1Tim 4:8), then we may conclude that Rev 3:10 cannot be a promise of physical removal for the church or any part of the church. What then are we to understand of this precious promise of comfort and reassurance? Since the promise is made to one church in particular facing the great persecutions of Rome, it will not do to restrict its meaning and application only to the church of the last generation. However, since the seven churches of Asia are representative of the church of all time, and since the language of Rev 3:10 is so obviously a reference to the well known eschatological trial that is the transition between this age and the age to come, the promise is to all who will be divinely enabled to stand in the evil day. In what sense does the patient endurance of believers commend them to the promise to be kept from (‘ek’) the hour of temptation that is coming as a snare on all who dwell on the earth”? How are we kept? Is it by complete removal so that one is not physically in the hour? Or is the keeping from the peril that the hour holds?

On strictly linguistic grounds, either interpretation is possible. Its nearest parallel is Jn 17:15, “I do not pray that You should take them ‘out of’ the world, but that You should keep them ‘from’ the evil one.” Here, the idea is deliverance “from” the power of evil, not its presence. When Jesus said, “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour” (Jn 12:27), it was not merely an hour within natural chronology, but prospects of the awful ordeal that made His prophetic consciousness to wince and recoil at the terrors the hour would bring. Thus, ‘kept from the hour’ becomes a figure of speech for deliverance and escape from what the hour of ultimate testing threatens.

But there is a phrase in this promise that has a very close parallel to its frequent usage throughout the Revelation. It is “them that dwell on the earth” (Rev 6:10; 11:10; 12:12; 13:8, 12, 14; 14:6; 17:8). In most instances, it becomes almost a technical term for the world of the unregenerate that are exposed to the wrath of the last plagues. Its closest parallel is found in Luke 21:35. Look at it in its larger context: “And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a ‘snare’ shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man” (Luke 21:34-36). Here, I believe, is the key for how we should understand Rev 3:10.

The ‘hour’ of Rev 3:10 is the time that a terrible “snare / temptation” will overtake all earth dwellers who are not counted worthy to escape its deadly deception. It is the time immediately preceding and climaxing with “that day,” the day of the Lord, when men shall stand, or ‘not be able’ to stand before the Son of Man. It is the day that overtakes the unbelieving world as a thief (Mt 24:43-44; 1Thes 5:1-3; Rev 3:3; 16:15). It comes suddenly in a time they (the earth dwellers) are not expecting. Not only will it bring an unequaled test of persecution for believers and sore plagues of wrath upon unbelievers, it will be preceded by a deception (snare) that will be unequaled, so great that had it been possible, even the very elect would have been swept away by the strong delusion. It is this deadly deception that will ensnare the nations. It is from this great apostasy (world rebellion) that Rev 3:10 promises escape and preservation, not through physical absence but through gracious protection.

But there appear to be a broad and a narrow use of the term, ‘hour’ in Revelation. In Rev 17:12, the hour seems to include the entire 3 1/2 years of unequaled tribulation, since this is the time that the ten kings are united with the beast in their war against the whore, but in Rev 18:10, 17, 19, the hour is much more narrowly defined. It is the great day of God Almighty in final judgement on the whore, as this time, the judgment is inflicted directly and much more finally by God Himself. This takes us to the very end of the tribulation, and even here, there is a great moment of testing that will confront the nations. It is the time of the “valley of decision” (Joel 3:14) when the nations are being seduced by evil spirits to move against the Antichrist but meet instead the unexpected return of Jesus at Armageddon (compare Dan 11:44-45 with Rev 16:12-17; 19:19).

So I ask; is the hour of trial the entire tribulation? Or is this hour a more narrow point of time at the end of the tribulation? When the final hour of Babylon’s destruction comes, the risen saints will participate with Jesus in her judgment (see Zech 14:5; Joel 3:11; Isa 13:3 with Ps 149:5-9). In such case, they will be with the Lord at that hour. I believe the hour of testing refers to the entire tribulation from the time of the abomination to the end, but even if, for the sake of argument, it should be insisted that “kept from the hour” should be interpreted to mean physical absence, it still would not necessarily mean removal from the entire 7 years, or even the last 3 1/2 years, but only the “hour” of mystery Babylon’s final destruction at the great day of God Almighty (Rev 16:17-19; 18:10, 17, 19).

It also important to note that many, including both Jews an gentiles, obviously do not require physical removal in order to escape the judgments of the tribulation. Some of these who obviously did not take the mark of the beast are preserved to the end. We know that a remnant of Israel survives the tribulation to receive repentance at the same time the church is being translated into their glorified state. These penitent survivors enter the millennium in mortal bodies. From a number of scriptures, we know that the penitent remnant of Israel will be assisted in their return by surviving gentiles who manifestly were not translated at the rapture.

As an aside, some pretribulationists have interpreted Lk 21;34-36 as a promise of escape by rapture, but many of their more academic leaders and scholars have cautioned against such an interpretation, because the context simply will not bear it. The entire context assumes believers witnessing and experiencing the events of the tribulation in anticipation of the Lord’s return after the tribulation. The same thing can be said of the Lord’s comparison of His coming as a thief in Mark and Matthew. Any close examination of the context will show that the coming in view is the coming after the tribulation. This is admitted even by pre-trib scholars, but the average pre-tribulationist hardly knows what the scholars of their position have been forced to concede in the more academic discussions on these questions, as mentioned above in the example of their changing positions on the day of the Lord.

Now I come to your first question: So far then as it can be firmly established that the church goes through the tribulation, then the church, as the pillar and ground of the truth (1Tim 3:15), will be the corporate prophetic agent through whom the Spirit of God will speak and work. I believe the restoration anticipated in Mt 17:11 and Mal 4:5 is to be somewhat distinguished from the restoration of Acts 3:21, though part of the same process. The restoration of Mal 4:5 takes place in the tribulation and is consummated by the restoration that comes fully only with Jesus’ return.

What is restored? It is all that was lost when the kingdom of David and Solomon passed under the power of the gentiles. It is all that was promised in the everlasting covenant that would come to full in the day-of-the-Lord vindication of the name and Word of God in Israel’s national repentance and return. That’s what a Jew thought of when he would speak of the ‘restoration of the kingdom to Israel’ (Acts 1:6; 3:21). It is what Paul was thinking of when he spoke of “their fullness” in contrast to the “fullness of the gentiles” (Ro 11:12, 15, 25-29. It is what Ezekiel, Obadiah, and Jesus had in mind when they spoke of the day of the Lord as the terminal point to the “time of the goyim” (Eze 30:3; Obad 15; Lk 21:24). It is also the fullness of Christ in the many membered man that God has ordained to fill up in the church before His return (Dan 11:32-33; Ro 11:25; Eph 4:13; Rev 12:10).

I believe Mt 17:11 and Mal 4:5 will be fulfilled in the ministry of the two witnesses, but not only the two witnesses. The two witnesses are real individuals, not a re-incarnations of Moses, Enoch, or Elijah, but they will come in the spirit and power of Elijah. They are local in the actual city of Jerusalem with a special assignment, unique to their calling, but they are not the only ones who receive power at this time. It is no mere coincidence that the two witnesses receive power for their task at precisely the same time that the ‘maskilim’ (those having insight; Dan 11:32-33; 12:3, 10) are empowered for their testimony throughout the last 3 1/2 years. It is very significant to note that immediately after the abomination of desolation is mentioned in Dan 11:31 (remember this is the very event that Jesus says starts the tribulation; Mt 24:15-16, 21), the very next verse speaks of the anointing of power that rest on those having insight (the ‘maskilim’) who “know their God.” Something has happened, and this is confirmed by what we see in Rev 12 where Michael casts down Satan to begin his “short time” of final fury against the woman and the saints (Rev 12:12).

Again, it is not incidental that when the “accuser of the brethren” is cast down, the saints are described as those who “love not their lives unto the death” (Rev 12:10). All of this happens at the mid point of Daniel’s last week. It happens in heaven and on earth. It is the point of great release, not only the mystery of iniquity in the Antichrist, but the fullness of Christ in a people of the Spirit who have been deeply emptied and prepared for the removal of Satan from his access and position in heaven as the accuser of the brethren. I can’t develop here all the implications this has for the church’s ministry of restoration in the tribulation, but our brother, Tom Quinlan has preserved a discussion I give on this at our first annual conference in Ohio. You can find that discussion posted on video on our website under, “The Church’s Tribulation Fullness.”

Also, you may wish to consult an article called, “Daniel as a Type of the Godly Remnant.”

You and the precious band that serve with you there are daily in our prayers. With greatest love and appreciation, Reggie

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Right Click to Download Four Beasts Rise from the Sea – Dan Ch 7 (35mb)

Daniel’s vision of the four beasts is the second vision in the book of Daniel (Chapter 7) and provides additional detail to the first vision in Chapter 2. They all point to a climax that will occur in “the last days.” Reggie Kelly and Phil Norcom lead us through the five visions of Daniel with emphasis on what they mean for Israel and the Church (The Mystery of Israel).

Video of this messages is also available. See Course below

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Right Click to Download The King’s Dream – Dan Ch 2 (37mb)

The vision of Nebuchadnezzar is the first vision in the book of Daniel (Daniel Chapter 2) and provides a foundation for the four visions that follow. They all point to a climax that will occur in “the last days.” Reggie Kelly and Phil Norcom lead us through the five visions of Daniel with emphasis on what they mean for Israel and the Church (The Mystery of Israel).

Video of this messages is also available. See Course below

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I’ve had some email exchanges with my pastor, and it seems that “the imminent return of Christ” is his main objection. Also for me this scripture seems ‘against’ our view. Although it could just have been a sentence directed to the hearers that they need not concern themselves about the restoration of the kingdom, they had work to do here and now.

“And he said unto them, it is not for you to know the times or the seasons,
which the Father hath put in his own power” (Acts 1:7).

So any thought would be appreciated….

I think our modern debate over the rapture question is making a very illegitimate use of the context and original intention of this passage.

So far from lending support to the doctrine of ‘imminence,’ Acts 1:6-7 is the Lord’s personal correction of that mistaken presumption.

Let’s notice some things:

The disciples that asked this question of Jesus on the eve of the Ascension were either not present when He gave the prophecy from the Mount of Olives, or they had forgotten His words. Only days before, Jesus had taught the disciples that “the end” would be preceded by an unequaled tribulation signaled by the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel (Mt 24:15-16, 21). But first, the gospel must be preached to all nations before the end can come (Mt 24:14).

At the time the disciples asked the question of Acts 1:6, the mystery of Christ’s twofold coming to Israel had not been revealed (Acts 3:18-21; Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11-12). They didn’t know that the risen Jesus was about to ascend to the right hand of God and there remain until His return (Acts 3:21). Even on those occasions when the disciples had heard the Lord speak of ‘going away,’ it was never imagined that this would be by way of death and resurrection and subsequent ascension.

To understand the dilemma, we must remember that the great puzzle for first century Israel was how the messianic redemption could be accomplished BEFORE and apart from Israel’s national deliverance. We know from the Jewish apocalyptic writings of the time that many looked for the redemption to follow the unequaled tribulation, or ‘Zion’s travail’ (compare Isa 66:7-8; Jer 30:6-7; Mic 5:3 with Dan 12:1), but no one knew that before this, Messiah would suffer death and be raised to return a second time. This was a mystery of the first order. It stumbled Israel. It would not come to full light until the Spirit would be poured out at Pentecost (1Pet 1:11-12).

Jesus knew that the puzzle would soon be solved when the power of the Spirit would come at Pentecost, ‘not many days from now’ (Acts 1:5). Then all would be made clear (Acts 3:18-21). But for these particular disciples at this particular time, the time for the universal witness to the gospel had come. That was the task at hand. Later, when Jerusalem’s destruction would be truly imminent, then it would be time to know that His coming is near, even at the door (Mt 24:33).

Later on, when Paul will correct a similar presumption of imminence, great stress will be laid on how the day of the Lord will be preceded and recognized by definite, known signs (Mt 24:14-15; 2Thes 2:3-4). It would therefore be a great error to interpret Jesus’ correction in a way that off sets or contradicts the great importance that He had earlier placed on reading and understanding the prophecy of Daniel (“Let the reader understand;” Mt 24:15). Jesus knew that in its time, this critical knowledge will be life or death for many (Mt 24:16, 21; Rev 12:6, 14; 13:5, 15-17).

So should this passage (Acts 1:7) be used to teach that the Lord is denying the knowableness of the time for anyone at anytime? Even pretribulationists say no. They admit that saints living at that time will surely know that the ‘end’ (i.e., the resurrection and deliverance of Israel) comes approximately 3 ½ years after the abomination (Dan 9:27; 12:11; Rev 11:2). Tribulation believers (those whom they say come to faith after the church has been removed) will surely be able to know the time when the signs appear that mark the beginning of the tribulation.

In their view, it is only believers living before a presumably imminent rapture that have no business to occupy themselves with the question of the times and seasons, since it is assumed they will be taken up before those times begin. This is how pretribulationists apply the Lord’s answer in Acts 1:7 to the question of whether anyone can know the time of the rapture and the start of the day of the Lord (i.e., “the times and the seasons;” 1Thes 5:1-2).

But the imminence of the rapture is not the question here, but the restoration of the kingdom to Israel. It is not the time of the rapture but the time of the kingdom that is not given to them to know at this time, simply because the time (and true imminence) of the kingdom cannot be known with certainty until the signs of its approach will be clearly in view.

Since the gospel must be first preached to all nations, it would have been impossible for the disciples to look for a presumed any moment rapture as a realistic potential in the earliest years before the persecution at Jerusalem (Acts 8:1), before the conversion of Paul, and before the gentile mission. Furthermore, since the final seven years begins when the Antichrist makes a false covenant of peace (Dan 8:25; 9:27; 11:23) with a recently regathered nation (Jer 30:3; Eze 38:8; Zeph 2:1-2; Dan 12:1), how can pretribulationists hold that the rapture was a truly ‘imminent’ possibility during the many centuries of Jewish exile from the Land?

Even on pretribulational assumptions, from 70 A.D. until 1948, the conditions necessary for the last seven years to begin have not been in place! Therefore, the doctrine of imminence is unsustainable for anyone committed to the necessary fulfillment of all prophecy.

As I have shown in an earlier writing (“The Rapture Question Decisively Answered by the Timing of the Day of the Lord”), the question of imminence is best decided by a study of the day of the Lord. A popular assumption that will not stand the test of scripture is that in order for the day of the Lord to come as a thief in the night, it must be secret and un-signaled. However, Paul says the day will NOT overtake believers as a thief, not because the day comes without signs, but because believers will be watching and will recognize the signs that MUST precede ‘that day’ (1Thes 5:4-6; 2Thes 2:3-4; Mt 24:15; Dan 11:21-45).

“That day shall not come except there come a falling away first and that man of sin be revealed …” (2Thes 2:3). “And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke: The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, BEFORE that great and notable day of the Lord come” (Acts 2:19-20). “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet BEFORE the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord” (Mal 4:5).

In order for an event to be imminent in the sense that pretribulationists use the term, it cannot be signaled by any other known event. This is why pretribulationists were obliged to change their position on the day of the Lord, first in the 1940’s and again in the 70’s (see the above mentioned article).

Until recently, traditional pretribulationism thought the rapture started the day of the Lord. Since the day of the Lord comes unexpectedly as a thief, it was thought that it could NOT be preceded by any known event that might alert of its approach. This view became untenable when post-tribulationists of recent years pressed the point that the day of the Lord cannot be imminent until after the Antichrist has first been revealed (2Thes 2:2-3).

In order to obviate the problem, pretribulationists proposed that a gap of some indefinite duration should be discerned between the rapture and the beginning of the day of the Lord in order to provide time for the Antichrist to be revealed. This maneuver, however, is to controvert the whole idea that in order for the day of the Lord to come as a thief, it must be imminent, un-signaled, and without warning. This still popular theory collapses when definite and recognizable signs foretold in prophecy are shown to ‘necessarily’ precede ‘that day.’

Not only does scripture make clear that the Antichrist must be revealed before the Day of the Lord can start (2Thes 2:2-3), but throughout the prophets we see a number of Old Testament passages that describe the day of the Lord to be “near” or “at hand” only at the very end of the tribulation with the final judgment on the nations that have besieged Jerusalem (Isa 13:6-11; 34:8; 63:4; Eze 30:3; 39:8; Joel 1:15; 2:1; 3:14-16; Obad 15; Zeph 1:7, 14; 2:1-2; Zech 14:1).

This order of events is especially clear in Peter’s mention of the darkening of the sun and the reddening of the moon “BEFORE that great and notable Day of the Lord” (Acts 2:20), whereas Jesus, quoting the same OT prophecy (Joel 2:31), puts this climactic sign “‘immediately AFTER the tribulation of those days” (Mt 24:29-30). Therefore, if the darkness that comes BEFORE the day of the Lord is also said to come “immediately AFTER the tribulation,” it must follow that the day of the Lord is NOT the entire seven years, as in pretribulationism, but comes at the end of the great tribulation.

If the day of the Lord is NOT the seven years (the first half of which is false peace and certainly NOT great tribulation), but rather the climax of the tribulation, it becomes most untenable to argue that the day of the Lord comes without warning, or that it starts with a secret rapture, or, in more recent pre-trib theory, begins shortly after the Antichrist is revealed. This is not the language of scripture; it is pure inference based on presupposition.

As we have seen, it is false to assume that the day of the Lord cannot come as a thief if it is placed at the end of the tribulation. Even some pre-tribulational scholars admit that the coming Christ that is compared to a thief in Mt 24:43 is His visible, post-tribulational return. This is clear from the order and language of the context (Mt 24:27-43). This is further proof that preceding signs do not keep the Lord’s return from overtaking the unbelieving world as a thief.

Furthermore, Paul speaks of yet another sign of the day of the Lord that will greatly distinguish between those who will be overtaken as a thief and those who will not be surprised. It is the declaration of “peace and safety” (1Thes 5:3). I believe Paul has in mind the ill-fated peace covenant that the Jews will enter into with the Antichrist (see Isa 28:15, 18, Eze 38:8, 11, 14; 39:26; Dan 8:25; 9:27; 11:23).

To further demonstrate that the thief like day of the Lord comes at the very end of the tribulation, notice the relation of Christ’s coming as a thief in Rev 16:15 with Peter’s reference to the day of the Lord in 2Pet 3:10, 12. It is significant to observe that, according to Rev 16:15, the thief like coming of Christ is not presented as truly ‘imminent’ until after the sixth bowel.

Even so late as after the sixth bowel (Rev 16:12), the thief like return of Jesus is presented as yet future (Rev 16:15). An examination of the context of Rev 16:12-17 will show that the warning of Jesus’ thief like coming is significantly placed between the sixth and seventh bowels, and the context makes clear that the seventh bowl is “Armageddon, the battle of the great day of God Almighty” (Rev 16:14-17). This points to the fact that Jesus’ coming to destroy the Antichrist (2Thes 2:8) is the same coming that is elsewhere compared to the coming of a thief.

Notably, the next event after this insertion of warning concerning Christ’s ‘now truly imminent’ return (as a thief) is the announcement of the seventh bowel, which is also “the great day of God Almighty.” This, and not a supposed earlier rapture, is the coming that in Rev 16:15, 2Pet 2:10, 12, and Mt 24:43 is represented to overtake the ‘earth dwellers’ as a thief. In contrast, Paul makes it clear that this will NOT be the experience of the true believer. “But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief.” (1Thes 5:4).

A careful comparison of the language of Rev 16:17 with Eze 39:8 will prove beyond question that the seventh bowl, also called “the great Day of God Almighty,” is indeed the Day of the Lord foretold by all the prophets of Israel. A further comparison of 2Pet 3:10, 12 with Rev 16:14 puts beyond question that the thief like day of the Lord and the post-tribulational “Day of God” are synonymous. Jesus comes as a thief at the great day of God Almighty to end the battle of Armageddon. This is the great and notable day of the Lord, which comes AFTER the darkness, which comes “immediately AFTER the tribulation of those days” (Mt 24:29; Acts 2:20). What could be plainer?

Hence, the term, day of the Lord, is a biblical synonym for the post-tribulational return of Christ. It is the day of Antichrist’s destruction (2Thes 2:3, 8), the gathering of Christ’s elect (Mt 24:31 with 2Thes 2:1-2), and the restoration of the kingdom to Israel (Mt 23:39; Acts 3:21; Ro 11:25-26; Rev 1:7). It does not include the tribulation; it ends the tribulation. The day of the Lord is not an imminent, un-signaled event and cannot therefore be introduced by an alleged any moment, pre-tribulational rapture. Christ returns at the day of the Lord, and this is the only return of Christ promised in scripture.

It may be asked, how can the day of the Lord come as a thief in the night when it is signaled by such clear and manifest events? That is a good question, but it leaves the question, clear and manifest to whom? It may seem a marvel, but at the time when the world will have occasion to witness perhaps the most prolific and manifest fulfillment of prophecy in history, still, the mediating angel says to Daniel, “Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand” (Dan 12:10).

We simply cannot suppose the Lord’s answer in Acts 1:7 is meant to teach that there is no need for knowledge of the times and events which He and Paul, and later John, so clearly sets out for the church’s protection (Mt 24:15-16, 21; 2Thes 2:4; Rev 12:6, 14; 13:5, 15-17; 14:9), and which so greatly glorifies God in the knowledge of His prophetic plan and revelation of His manifold wisdom.

The mystery revealed at Pentecost made clear that the restoration of the kingdom to Israel (i.e., the day of the Lord) must await the return of Jesus from heaven (Acts 3:21), but first “this gospel of the kingdom must be preached to all nations for witness, and then (only then) shall the end come” (Mt 24:14). The times and seasons of when that will be will only be knowable with certainty when the signs are fully in place. This concerns in particular the closing stages of Daniel’s vision, which the scripture says would not be fully unsealed and understood until the time of the end (Dan 12:4, 6-7, 9). This seems the more likely context and background of the Lord’s intention in His answer to the question of Acts 1:6.

We’ve come a long way to use a text intended to correct the mistaken presumption of imminence to defend the modern doctrine of an imminent pre-tribulational rapture. No, the day of the Lord is not imminent. It does not begin the tribulation; it ends it. It will not overtake believers as a thief, precisely because it will be preceded by the clear and knowable signs of its approach.

Finally, it would have required the greatest stretch of the imagination to teach an imminent, any moment rapture of the church at any time during the many centuries when there was no nation of Israel to even set the stage for the last seven years. The Lord is always “at hand” (Phil 4:5) in the sense that “the Judge is standing at the door” (Ja 5:9), signifying every person’s proximity to the ever present potential of sudden judgment (Lk 12:20, 45-46), but the doctrine of imminence from the standpoint of actual chronology is a disarming false doctrine that threatens to cost the church dearly.

In His precious service, Reggie

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