How is it possible that all Israel will be saved and yet people will be going into the millennial reign of Christ without being transformed and having new bodies?

Will all Israel that’s a part of the church be transformed into heavenly bodies?

How will there be people going into the millennium without heavenly bodies?

It doesn’t make sense to me

What makes sense matters, but the first question of paramount concern is what does the text SAY?!

Secondly, what is the evidence for how the biblical writers expected to be understood? Were they correct in how they understood their own prophecies? Or was there a deeper, allegorical meaning that eluded their limited understanding?

Was their interpretation of what Yahweh spoke merely a reflection of a “primitive, nationalistic, time bound” understanding that would someday be replaced by a different interpretation that could not have been understood or recognized by the prophets or their contemporaries? That’s the hermeneutical question in debate.

After establishing the plain person’s plain reading of plain language, we can then begin to look for light as to how certain antinomies (difficulties / paradoxes) can be reconciled WITHOUT violence to the original author’s intention.

The very meaning of the millennium is at stake here. Why should God make such a point of ending the age around the “controversy of Zion”, a conflict that is destined to draw all nations into an insoluble, inescapable dilemma over the Land and people of Israel that sets off the final world conflict? (Isa 34:8; Zech 12:2-3).

It will be a kind of valley of decision designed to test hearts, primarily over the issue of the nature of saving grace and the ‘kind’ of righteousness (not one’s own but the Lord’s alone) that can stand in the judgment.

In other words, why should God be so determined on saving an elect remnant of ethnic Jews (“natural branches”) unless it is to set the wayward nation of an irrevocable divine election forth as the statement and demonstration of His free and sovereign prerogative to change and qualify them for a final and secure inheritance of the Land by predestined grace.

He has set them at the center of the nations, that He might show in them for a thousand years of public demonstration, the power of His ability to choose whom He will, and quicken whom He will (Mt 11:27; Jn 5:21; Ro 9:18) at the “set time” of His choosing (Ps 102:13; 110:3; Isa 30:18; Gal 1:15-16), and thus finally and forever preserve, not only them but each and everyone of their children after them in abiding holiness, never again to depart (Isa 59:20-21; Jer 32:40, et al.).

Why? What’s He out to prove? What’s His point?

The design is to press upon the consciousness of the nations God’s faithfulness to His immutable covenant word that most of the world doesn’t even know exists, as multitudes are even now being preconditioned to despise and dismiss this word by the events that are swiftly hurling us to the time of final reckoning.

That covenant (called synonymously “new” / and “everlasting”) is not fully complete or satisfied (in all its original terms) until there is not a living Jew on the post-tribulation earth that is not born again and preserved in the “everlasting salvation” of the “everlasting righteousness” of Christ throughout the entirety of the millennial interim as an all holy nation, “never again” to depart (Isa 45:17, 25; 59:20-21; 60:21; Jer 31:34; 32:37-41, Dan 9:24, with so many more that could be listed ).

This uniformity of a completely saved and eternally preserved Jewish population at peace in their own, covenanted Land is the goal of the covenant, since only then will the long blinded Jewish nation have their spiritual eyes opened. A coming day when the blind shall see, and those who always before resisted the Spirit opposer shall learn doctrine is promised all throughout Moses and the prophets (compare Deut 29:4 with Deut 4:25-31; 30:1-6; Isa 29:18, 24; Acts 7:51).

Only when, not a mere remnant, but “all” the people are righteous (Isa 60:21; Jer 31:34), with an eternal righteousness not their own (Isa 45:24; 54:17; Jer 23:5-6; Dan 9:24), can they fulfill the covenant conditions and thus keep the Land forever in abiding peace and security.

This will be possible because the tendency to backslide and come back under the curses of the covenant will be forever cured by the everlasting righteousness of the everlasting covenant. No more will the righteous remnant suffer the sins and exile of the larger apostate nation, since all will be preserved in new covenant righteousness forever, “world without end” (Isa 45:17).

It is one thing for God to bring the Jews into the Land, but a radical transformation is required for them to be assured of permanent security in the Land. This is the very thing the everlasting / new covenant guarantees. From this, it is clear to see why the prophets understood that nothing short of a climactic, apocalyptic day of the Lord could ever bring about such a radical and permanent change in the whole of the nation.

More specifically, not all the nation but only the remnant who escaped death in order to arrive at that ultimately transformative day (Ps 102:13; 110:3; Isa 66:8; Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9; 12:10; 13:8-9; Mt 23:39; Acts 3:21; Ro 11:26; Rev 1:7) .

This is why, not only a remnant, but the entirety of the nation must “all” know Him (Jer 31:34; Eze 39:22, 28-29) in order for them to be able to keep the Land forever, as promised in the plain language of the covenant. As I like to say, “in order for the Jews to inherit the Land forever, they must have a righteousness that is forever”.

This righteousness, which is the Lord’s own righteousness alone (Isa 45:24-25; 54:7; Jer 23:5-6), must extend, not only to a remnant, but the whole of the nation and all the children born to them in future generations, lest the tendency to backslide send them back under the curses of the broken covenant.

This “everlasting righteousness”, which is none their own, but the Lord’s alone, is that righteousness that was perfected in the Son and imputed to the believer whose faith is counted for righteousness. This righteousness, once imputed, is invariably made manifest by the gift and fruits of the enlivening Holy Spirit.

Of course, all of this applies now to every true-born believer of this age and the assurance of eternal inheritance in the age to come (both the millennium and the new heavens and earth), but God intended an earthly demonstration of His ability to accomplish this divine, self assigned “mission impossible” here, on this earth with the Jewish people, here, at the scene of the crime, so to speak, in the presence of a helplessly bound enemy (Satan).

It was necessary that this grace be exhibited and put on display by weak, natural jars of clay, supernaturally upheld in holiness by the gift of the Holy Spirit and nothing of human power.

Manifestly, God has set this interim period as the demonstration of His ability, not only “to graft them in again” but to keep them in, forever!. This requires an interim that is a glorious advance on the present age, yet short of the final, ultimate perfection that follows the millennium.

This newly and suddenly saved remnant of penitent survivors (like Paul’s sudden arrest on the Damascus road) will enter the millennium in their natural bodies and be assisted back to their Land by surviving gentiles compare Isa 14:2; 40:22; 60:9; 66:20; Zech 8:23). Manifestly, these survivors from among the nations did not take the mark, but were also not yet born again (not yet “in Christ”) at the time of the last trump, when Jesus was revealed from heaven (Isa 26:12-13 with Mt 24:29-31; 1Cor 15:52).

Many scriptures speak of this sudden salvation of the surviving remnant of penitent Jewish survivors at the Lord’s post-trib return (Ps 102:13; 110:3; Isa 59:17-21; 66:8; Jer 30:6-7; Eze 39:22, 28-29; Zech 3:9; 12:10; Mt 23:39; Acts 3:21; Ro 11:26; with Rev 1:7) with the result that now, an all saved Jewish population will never again backslide and fall back under covenant judgment, but “all”, from the least to the greatest will know the Lord (Isa 59:21; Jer 31:34; 32:40; Eze 37:25; 39:22). THIS is the OT context behind Paul’s statement, “and so all Israel shall be saved”.

This sudden national salvation of a surviving remnant is everywhere shown to take place at the post-tribulational day of the Lord. It’s purpose is the open and public vindication of “My covenant with THEM (natural branches) when I shall (future) take away THEIR (the irrevocably elect and no less beloved enemy’s) sin …”

Several scriptures show very definitely that the time Paul has in view is the post-trib day of the Lord, which the NT obviously equates with Christ’s return. When Jesus arrives in glory, the dead in Christ, together with all those alive in Christ at the time, will be changed in an instant, immediately translated into glorified immortality.

At the same time (“in one day”; Ps 102:13; 110:3; Isa 66:8; Zech 3:9; Eze 39:22; Mt 23:39; Ro 11:26; Rev 1:7) ; a surviving remnant of Jews, having just been brought to the end of their power (Deut 32:36; Dan 12:7), “look upon their pierced Messiah”, and immediately go apart to weep in deepest contrition, as when Joseph revealed himself to his estranged brethren (compare Gen. 45 with Mic 5:3-4; Zech 12:10; Mat 23:39; Rev 1:7). After the great purgation of tribulation judgment, the newly saved Jewish remnant (Eze 20:33-40; Amos 9:9-10) goes into the millennium in natural, albeit Spirit filled bodies (Eze 39:22, 28-29).

Now, with it established that the scripture is very clear that a surviving remnant will make up the newly born nation, entering the post-tribulational kingdom in natural bodies, returning by every natural means of transport back to the Land to build and plant, raise families, and witness to the nations, the question is naturally raised, “what will be the relationship of those who enter the millennial kingdom in their natural bodies and those who have been translated at the rapture?”

When taken together, the cumulative evidence of scripture creates what can be called a “necessary inference”. I believe the puzzle is only solved, with due respect to all that the scripture says, by recognizing what I like to call, a “dimensional divide”.

The mystery of the rapture is not a mystery as to its time. That is no mystery (compare Hos 13:14; Isa 25:7-8; 27:12-13; Mt 24:29-31 with 1Cor 15:5-54 ). The mystery has to do with a ‘dimensional divide’ between those who will be putting on resurrected bodies with capacities that are like the angels and like the Lord in His post-resurrection appearances for the purpose of spiritual rule, (as for example, ruling over 5 or 10 cities), but in a realm of existence, not any less on earth, but not immediately visible to saved and unsaved mortals in the millennium (compare Mt 19:28; 22:30; Lk 19:17:18; 1Cor 13:12).

There is so much more that can help clarify and harmonize, but the greatest problem (other than failure to fully depend on the Spirit for the mercy of illumination) is lack of OT literacy on the popular level, and on the scholarly level, the tendency to embrace of a set of a-priori presuppositions that seeks to harmonize the testaments by a radical method of reinterpretation and spiritualization. It’s a great, historic deficiency in the church due to centuries of neglect of the OT and artificial, unsatisfactory solutions that fail to convincingly harmonize the testaments.

Second point implicit in your question is the relationship of the body to national Israel:

To be clear, Israel can only be saved as it becomes the body of Christ by the transforming, regenerating revelation of Christ. If they are alive to God, they are “in Christ”, and thus part of His body sharing in the unity of the Spirit, equally with all saints, whether Jew or Gentile.

1 Corinthians 6:17
But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.

In the natural order, there is a necessary and crucial distinction between Israel and the church, just as between male and female. But there is no distinction at all in the unity of the one new man, that is all who know the Lord, whether in times past, in this age, or the millennial age to come.

This unity of the Spirit in the God-Man is not a new truth, but an old truth that has come to full light in the revelation of the mystery. (Remember this: something that is newly revealed, or has come to much greater light, does not mean that it did not exist before, just as the revelation of Jesus has brought much clearer light on the triune nature of the Godhead. Yet no one would say that such new revelation created something that did not exist before).

In distinguishable contrast from the one new man of the Spirit, natural Israel and the supernatural preservation of Jewish identity throughout the generations, belongs to a corporate election that does not guarantee the salvation of any individual in the set apart nation. Instead, precisely because of the covenant mandate, belonging to the Jewish race commends the covenant breaker to a “double” discipline, as foretold in scripture and witnessed throughout history.

So when Israel comes to faith on that day, they will be no less the living body of Christ, albeit with a unique and special calling, role, and stewardship to be lived out openly in the presence of the nations throughout the millennium.

Thus, the millennium exists primarily for this open covenant vindication and demonstration of every word and aspect of His everlasting covenant, to be lived out in literal detail before the nations and also the onlooking principalities and powers. This will show show for a thousand years of open, fully visible demonstration that God was indeed able, not only to bring the people He first brought out of Egypt back into the Land, but now, because of an “everlasting righteousness” (namely, the righteousness of the Son), eternally secure to one and all, they will abide, preserved in holiness and peace in the Land, within the originally specified borders of the promise.

We are led then to infer, most necessarily on the basis of 1Cor 15:50-52, that all who come to faith during the millennium, with any who die in the Lord during the millennium, will be raised with their new body at the end of the millennium when the great transition to the new heavens and earth follows the final rebellion.

If that explanation does not fully satisfy every question, it is also to be considered that there is a mystery about time in the realm of the Spirit as it intersects with natural historical time. In any event, lingering questions must not be permitted to impose on the clarity of what the text plainly ‘SAYS’.

May the kind Shepherd, “come alongside”, and cause our hearts to burn within us, as He opens to us the Scriptures.

Reggie

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Paul knew the trumpet of Isa 27:12-13 (also Ps 47:5; Joel 2:1; Zeph 1:16-18) sounds at the same time the nation is being born “at once” / in “one day” in Isa 66:8 (with Ps 102:13; Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9; 12:10; 14:7). That is the same moment the AC is being destroyed in “one day” (Is 9:14; 10:17; 47:9) by the breath of the Messiah’s mouth / voice (Isa 11:4; 30:27-33; 31:8-9; 42:11-14; 66:6-8; Joel 3:16; Zeph 1:7, 14-18; Zech 9:14).

As Paul’s manifest use of the Septuagint’s translation of Isa 11:4 in 2Thes 2:8 makes clear, the AC is destroyed at the instant of the Lord’s return to judge the wicked, raise the dead, and assert His rod iron rule over the nations the “last trump” (1Cor 15:52; Rev 10:7; 11:15). It all lines up with the moment (“twinkling of an eye”) of His return like the lightning flashing across the sky (Mt 24:27, 29-31; Rev 1:7).

Obviously, the NT writers believe their OT, literally! They put the pieces together by the help and leading of the Holy Spirit. They are not advancing ‘new truth’ but unraveling the mystery of what stood written in the OT prophetic scriptures (Acts 26:22-23; Ro 11:25-29; 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11). That’s the glory and compelling proof of the gospel, that it was all foretold!

But the timing of the resurrection and the last trumpet was NOT the mystery! Observe that Paul very plainly identifies that the post-tribulational resurrection of Isa 25:8 & Hos 13:14 is “brought to pass” (“THEN shall be brought to pass”) at the last trumpet (1Cor 15:51-55). So what is the “mystery” that Paul is showing us? I would suggest that it is the phenomenon of the “change” (compare Job 14:14 NKJV) into a new dimension of existence, with new powers and capacities for rule that Jesus says will be “like the angels” (Mt 22:30; Lk 20:36).

It is a dimension that will permit the everyday believer of this age to “know as they are known” (1Cor 13:12) with the capacity to “judge angels” (1Cor 6:3). Recognition of this “dimensional divide” helps to explain how the now glorified saints can, “like the angels”, exert a spiritual rule over that number from the nations who were not raptured, but survived to enter the millennium in their natural bodies.

Paul is giving us a resolution to a paradox (antinomy) that has perplexed many.

If our view of scripture commits us to take the scriptures of the OT in their plainly intended meaning. And if we believe that these can and should be harmonized with NT revelation, then Paul’s mystery of the translation becomes most helpful in making some crucial distinctions. For example, how do we reconcile the many OT scriptures that show Jewish and gentile survivors of the final tribulation entering the post-DOL millennial age in natural bodies, building, evangelizing, having children, etc.

How do we understand the nature of this cohabitation of the glorified redeemed and the un-resurrected, Spirit filled survivors of Israel on the millennial earth? Will the resurrected be visible to one another but not to the unresurrected. It would appear so from a number of scriptures (e.g., Isa 26:10; 60:12; Zech 14:16-19; Rev 20:7-9).

If the plain language and context of many OT scriptures be given due respect and weight, and if a reconciling harmony can be expected to exist without ignoring or neglecting the plain meaning of any text of the inerrant scripture of truth, then Paul’s revelation of this “mystery” leads to what we might call a “necessary inference” that serves to very satisfactorily explain this perplexity.

Not only will the DOL bring the separation between the righteous and the mark taking wicked, the last trump will also bring a ‘dimensional divide’ between those who were already “in Christ” at that time (1Cor 15:23, 52) and the penitent remnant of Israel who are just then receiving the transforming “revelation” (not mere physical sight) of Jesus at the moment of His return in the clouds of heaven (notably analogous to Paul’s sudden arrest on the Damascus road; compare Ps 102:13; 110:3; Isa 66:8; Eze 39:22; Mic 5:3-4; Zech 3:9; 12:10; Mt 23:39; Acts 3:21; Ro 11:26; Rev 1:7).

At this revelatory self disclosure of their long rejected “Joseph” (Mic 5:1-4; Zech 12:10; 13:1 with Mt 23:39; Rev 1:7), the penitent survivors of Israel “go apart to mourn” in deepest contrition (Zech 12:10). With every Jewish survivor now saved and filled with the Spirit, and with the assistance of earnestly seeking gentile survivors (Isa 14:2; 49:22; 60:9; 66:20; Zech 8:23), the broken and beautified, uniformly saved “Jewish” nation, begin their long trek back home across land and sea (notably across the dried up riverbeds of the great historic rivers of Nile and Euphrates; see Isa 11:12, 15-16; 19:4-8; 27:12-13; Zech 10:9-11; Rev 16:12).

My grace granted aim at this year’s conference will be to address the two inextricably related questions: “Why the Jew?” & “Why a Millennium?” What has God invested in a thousand years of open vindication and public demonstration of His everlasting covenant, not only in the sight of the nations, living and past, but of the principalities and powers who continually raise the question ,”has God really said?”, in their long war on the Word.

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(1hr:15min)
 

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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Can you send me a few scriptures that reveal that pre-tribulation rapture is also a deception? One of my friends must have been reading a book other than the Bible lately concerning this issue.

I can make a few suggestions right off hand, and perhaps look about for something brief on the subject to recommend. In the meantime, I’m including a url to our website for a piece I wrote on at least one part of their whole complicated system.

Here is that rather long article: The Rapture Question Decisively Answered by the Timing of the Day of the Lord

To be very brief, I usually do two things. The first is simple and quick. The second is more complicated, requiring more time and interest than you’ll usually have with most.

First, I use the scriptures that seem very clear about a final trumpet that sounds in obvious connection with the Lord’s post-tribulational return (Isa 27:13 with Mt 24:29-31; Rev 10:7; 11:15) in order to ask this question: “How could Paul call ‘last’ a trumpet that allegedly sounds seven years earlier?” This would have been a recipe for utter confusion, since many of Paul’s readers would have known of the Lord’s mention of a trumpet in connection with His return (Mt 24:31), as Jews would naturally associate the time of the resurrection with the ‘last day’ (Jn 11:24).

If time permits, I also point out that it is very significant that Paul connects this ‘last trump’ (1Cor 15:52) with the resurrection of OT believers by quoting Isa 25:8: “Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory.” It is important to note that “that saying” appears in a context that combines the resurrection of the OT righteous with the post -tribulational deliverance of Israel (Isa 25:6-9; 26:16-21; 27:13). Daniel is also very clear that his own resurrection with all the righteous of Israel is AFTER the unequaled tribulation (Dan 12:1-2, 13). Job expects his “change” (Job 14:14; 1Cor 15:51-52) to come when his Redeemer’s feet will stand upon the earth in the “latter day” (Job 19:25-27), and Zechariah puts this at the day of the Lord (Zech 14:1, 5). This makes the THEN of Paul’s “THEN shall be brought to pass the saying …” very significant for the timing of the rapture. WHEN is THEN? Clearly, it is the post-tribulational resurrection of the OT righteous in manifest connection with the ‘great trumpet’ of Israel’s post-tribulational deliverance (Isa 27:13). What God hath joined, let no man put asunder!

Pretribulationists were forced by a post-trib writer (Alexander Reese; “The Approaching Advent of Christ,” 1937) to change their earlier view that the OT saints are resurrected with the church at the rapture before the tribulation. They now acknowledge that the OT saints are resurrected after the tribulation by holding that OT saints belong to a completely separate company from so-called, ‘church saints.’ The saints of the church age are believed to have a “heavenly destiny” in contrast to the ‘earthly’ (millennial) destiny of the OT saints. But what then of such scriptures as Mt 8:12; 19:28; Jn 10:16; Ro 11:17; Eph 2:12, 14, 19; Heb 11:16, 40; Rev 21:12, 14, to mention only a few that speak of the unity of all saints in one body? Not only so, but Jesus puts the resurrection of those who believe on Him at the ‘last day’ (Jn 6:39-40, 44, 54), the same ‘last day’ that those who have rejected the Word are judged (Jn 12:48).

It is therefore plain that Jesus puts the resurrection of regenerate believers at the ‘last day’ in keeping with the common Jewish expectation (Jn 11:24). By no means can the term, ‘last day,’ be strained to include a pre-trib rapture of the church some seven years earlier. The context makes it clear that Jesus is using the term in the same way that his Jewish contemporaries used and understood it (Jn 11:24). That understanding came from scriptures that clearly put the resurrection of the OT faithful (Job, Isaiah, and Daniel) at the post-tribulational day of the Lord, the ‘last day’ of this present evil age.

Since pre-tribulationists believe the rapture comes as a thief in the night, without preceding signs, it is believed to be imminent, subject to happen at any moment. However, this view runs into manifest difficulties when it is pointed out that it is NOT the rapture, but the day of the Lord (also called, “the day of God”) that comes as a thief (compare Mt 24:43; 1Thes 5:2, 4; 2Pet 3:10, 12; Rev 16:14-17 with Eze 39:8). Realizing this, they extend they day of the Lord to include the entirety of the seven years. In this way, the any moment rapture can be seen as coming as a thief, simply because it is “presumed” to start the day of the Lord that come as a thief.

Of course, the belief that a pre-tribulational rapture starts the day of the Lord is strictly inference based on the presuppositions of an already held position. There is no scripture that says the rapture starts the day of the Lord, or that the day of the Lord includes the entire 7 years of tribulation. More precisely, the great tribulation is the last 3 1/2 years, since until then, Israel is dwelling in unprecedented false security under the peace lie of the Antichrist (Isa 28:15, 18; Eze 38:8, 11, 14; Dan 8:25; 9:27; 11:23-24; Mt 24:15-16; 1Thes 5:3).

Thus, according to pre-tribulationism, the day of the Lord includes the entire final week of Daniel (Dan 9:27), as a continuous day of wrath and tribulation, but this becomes a huge problem when it is realized that an imminent rapture can hardly start the day of the Lord, since Paul says “that day” (the day of the Lord; 2Thes 2:2) cannot come until the ‘Man of Sin’ is first revealed (2Thes 2:3). You can’t have it both ways! If the day of the Lord is NOT imminent, how can the rapture that allegedly starts it be imminent? Furthermore, it should not be overlooked that Paul’s language concerning our “being gathered together unto Him” at His coming is very similar to the Lord’s description of the “gathering” of His elect at His post-tribulational return (Mt 24:31 with 2Thes 2:1-2). How likely then that Paul is speaking about a coming that happens 7 years earlier?

So, time permitting, the second thing I usually do is to point to the considerable number of scriptures that show that the day of the Lord / ‘day of God’ comes only AFTER the tribulation. For example, Mt 24:29 shows that the Lord returns only AFTER the stellar darkness that comes AFTER the tribulation. Very significantly, Peter, citing Joel’s prophecy (Joel 2:30-31), puts this post-tribulational darkening of the stellar bodies BEFORE the coming of that great and notable day of the Lord (Acts 2:20).

Clearly, the early church saw the day of the Lord as synonymous with the post-tribulational return of Jesus. This is confirmed by a considerable number of NT texts that put no difference between the day of the Lord and the return of Jesus for His own (1Cor 1:8; 5;5; 2Cor 1:14; Phil 1:6,10; 1Thes 5:2, 4; 2Thes 2:2-3; 2Tim 4:8; 2Pet 3:10, 12; Rev 6:17; 16:14). Notice too that in the prophets the day of the Lord is spoken of as ‘at hand’ or ‘near’ only as the armies of the nations are gathering against Jerusalem for the last time (Eze 30:3; Joel 1:15; 2:1; 3:14; Zeph 1:14). Only then is the day of the Lord said to be ‘near.’ That’s not the same as already ‘here,’ as in the pre-trib view.

Even so late as the 6th bowel, “the great day of God Almighty”is presented as yet future (Rev 16:12-14). Clearly, the day of God is the seventh bowel. Significantly, Jesus’ thief-like return is announced as imminent after the 6th bowel has accomplished the summoning of the armies of the earth to Armageddon (Rev 16:12-15).

At this time, His coming is truly imminent, since with the passing of the sixth bowel, the seventh bowel, which is the “the day of God Almighty” is about to be poured out (Rev 16:15-17). Manifestly, His coming brings the great day that accomplishes the final stroke of wrath upon the wicked, even as the Antichrist is destroyed (2Thes 2:8) at the same time His elect are “gathered” (Mt 24:31; 2Thes 2:1-2), the dead raised, and Israel delivered (Dan 12:1-2).

A comparison of  2Pet 3:10, 12 with Rev 16:14-15 will show that the day of the Lord and the day of God are synonymous and happen when Jesus returns as a thief to execute the final stroke of wrath upon the head of the wicked (Jer 29:19-20; 3-:22-24; Mt 24:43, Rev 16:14-17). Furthermore, many scriptures combine to indicate that the deliverance of Israel and the final destruction of Babylon happen ‘at once’ and in ‘one day’ (see Isa 10:17; 29:5; 47:9; 66:8; Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9; 14:7; Rev 18:10, 17-19).

By any reckoning, this can be no protracted period, but a very concentrated point in time (compare  Rev 11:15, 18-19; 16:17-18 with Eze 39:8). It is much to observed that all of these things happen in immediate conjunction with the revelation / appearing / coming of Christ from heaven (Mt 24:27, 29-30: 26:64; Lk 17:30; Ro 2:5-6; 1Cor 1:7; 15:23; 1Thes 2:19; 3:13; 4:15; 5:23; 2Thes 1:7-8; 2Thes 2:1, 8; Col 3:4; 1Tim 6:14; 1Tim 1:10; 2Tim 4:8; Tit 2:13; James 5:7-8; 1Pet 1:7; 4:13; 5;4; 2Pet 3:4, 12; 1Jn 2:28; 3:2; Jude 14; Rev 1:7). According to Acts 28:20, Paul did not differentiate between the hope of Israel and the ‘blessed hope’ of the church, as in dispensational eschatology.

None of the above the texts that speak directly or indirectly of the day of the Lord support the idea that it begins with an any moment rapture. On the contrary, the church is enjoined to soberly and vigilantly watch for the day of the Lord (1Thes 5:6), which will not overtake them as a thief (1Thes 5:4), since to be overtaken by such a well signaled event (Mt 24:15; 2Thes 2:3-4) would be a sure sign of advanced apostasy (1Thes 5:7; 2Thes 2:11-12).

Therefore, if the day of the Lord must be preceded by the prior revelation of the man of sin (2Thes 2:1-3), how can ‘that day’ be supposed to start with a rapture that can happen any moment? And why would a pre-tribulational Paul direct the church to watch for the day of the Lord if it must be preceded by the revelation of the man of sin? (2Thes 2:3-4) It just doesn’t add up. No, it is NOT a pre-tribulation rapture that comes as a thief in the night, but the post-tribulational day of the Lord.

In conclusion, the emotionally charged theory of a pre-tribulation rapture is quite strained and forced. At least twice, its advocates have been required to change their former position on the day of the Lord. I point this out in the paper I mentioned.

Any historian of the position will be obliged to note the changes that were made in the 30’s in response to Alexander Reese’s, “The Approaching Advent of Christ,” and again in the 70’s with Robert Gundry’s, “The Church and the Tribulation.”  Regardless of the sincerity of its advocates, the pre-trib rapture theory is, in my view, an end time deception of the first magnitude that threatens to exact a heavy toll.

Hope something here will be useful, Reggie

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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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In order for Christ to return the Antichrist must be first revealed (2Thes 2:3), but in order for this to happen, the restrainer must first be removed by the agency of Michael (2Thes 2:7 with Rev 12:7-14). After Satan’s expulsion, “his time is short” (Rev 12:12). Space does not permit the presentation of the evidence, but suffice it to say that the great transitional event of Michael’s heavenly victory over Satan will not occur independently of the prayer and travail of the church. With Satan’s eviction, ‘the tribulation, the great one’ begins (this is the literal translation of the Greek double article in Rev 7:14). This is the short but unequaled tribulation that eclipses all other times of tribulation (Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1; Mat 24:21). The instructed believer will know that Satan’s dejection down to earth will NOT be his final end, but the beginning of his most fierce assault on the saints and the covenant itself.

This is to make the point that intelligent prayer for the full coming of the kingdom is also a prayer for the speedy removal of all that stands in the way of the fulfillment of prophecy. It means that our desire for the coming of the kingdom has become greater than our fear of what must come first. How can we then pray with singleness of heart for His return, if we are secretly desirous that His return NOT be in our time, particularly if this should mean that we and our families will not be conveniently removed from earth by way of a secret rapture? This is a sober thought, since even the pious sages and rabbis of the Jews throughout the middle ages would declare their prayer that they would not be alive to see the ‘birth pangs’ of the Messiah, which they rightly saw as immediately preceding the longed for ‘redemption’.

But how can such a prayer be prayed if we have succumbed to the prevailing mentality that says, “all this and heaven too”? How can we pray with such singleness of heart and purpose if our dominant desire is for nothing more than God’s continued blessing on our temporal tranquility? That is why a post-tribulational rapture of the church is so unthinkable to those branches of Christendom that preach an overly ‘realized eschatology’ of guaranteed present prosperity and security. This implies that in order for there to be such prevailing prayer, there must be the truest and deepest longing and even travail that is not content with the ‘presence of the kingdom’ apart from its full compliment in His glorious return, the “blessed hope” of the church. This can only come with a great revolution in our all too modern and all too Western world and life view, as even evangelicalism, for the larger part, is embarrassed by our antiquated “apocalyptic” view. What then will it take to move us to this kind of kingdom reality and urgency, particularly how we pray?

For one thing, we will have to become “glory centered” more than self centered. “No man ever yet hated his own flesh,” says Paul. There is nothing wrong with the natural and healthy desire for personal and corporate peace and safety for ones nation and for ones family. There are clear promises to that effect. But this is not the highest good. Even the world concerns itself with the same (1Thes 5:3). We are called to something beyond. The believer is baptized by the Spirit into union with the desires and goals of another, even Him who is the one being in all the universe who is perfectly right to seek His own glory as the highest good. We must reorient our thinking and our desires to this.

The highest good is the glory of God, regardless the cost to our otherwise good and acceptable temporal interests. That is why only a true experimental taste and apprehension of that transforming vision of His glory will be sufficient to keep us through the mighty tempest that must soon blow with violence upon our whole civilization. It is that vision that braced and kept Him. “Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross …” I am reminded of the old hymn which says, “I am resolved no longer to linger, charmed by this world’s delights, things that are higher, things that are nobler, these have allured my sight.”

Is that joy, truly and without reserve, ‘set before’ us? If it is not, we dare not presume that any other form of knowledge or good works will suffice. Seek the sure and secure certainty of your calling and election, but be careful that your security is not tied to just having your own personal spiritual accounts in order; that is not the vision and love of the kingdom. Rather, be careful that ‘the full assurance of faith’ is tied to an apprehension and love for the kingdom of God, not only as a present inward reality, but in its full expanse, by the open and public vindication of His covenant promise in all the earth. We are to be moved by His vision for the glory of His kingdom and not just how it will go with us in our individual standing at the judgment seat of Christ. Such an orientation tends towards works and self centered theology that puts the emphasis where scripture does not put it, namely, on ourselves. On the contrary, we need to share His jealousy for His open vindication here on this earth, not for our sake, but for the sake and glory of Him who bought us. It must be here at the scene of the crime. This is where the test must be won or lost, here, on this earth, “in the presence of His enemies”, and against all odds. This present earth WILL see and host the fulfillment of all that God promised His elect nation, as the millennial head of the nations. That is what the powers fear.

It is the passion for His glory, first in the church, and then in all the earth through a restored Israel that should fill our longings and our prayers. It is a clear vision of that glory and that joy that will cause us to endure the cross of tribulation, even great tribulation. That is the understanding that will permit the kind of prayer needed to move heaven, so that all things that wait in heaven (such as Michael’s final removal of Satan; Rev 12:7-14) and on earth (such as the end of Muslim domination of the temple mount) and all that stands in the way of His kingdom will be removed. The more we consider it, the more we will agree that this is a prayer that is indeed costly, so that only those who’s faith is in “the God who raises the dead” can pray it truly and effectually with singleness of heart.

In answer to Phil’s forward ((Temple Mount – Spiritual Warfare
Perhaps the LORD opened their eyes and they saw a mighty army of God … armed with the sword of His WORD!
Are the principalities and powers reporting spiritual warfare?
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/151130)) which stirred these thoughts, I have this to add: So long as Muslims dominate the temple mount, barring all Jewish access, the Word of God cannot be fulfilled and Jesus cannot come. That is why the principalities and powers literally gloat so long as that usurping shrine sits firmly atop that elect place that Jews are currently forbidden even to approach. The few that do consider that something big has got to give in order for this to change, find it hard to imagine that such change could ever come by any other means short of war, perhaps, God forbid, not only regional but another world war. We are not told specifically one way or another. We are left to inference, but seismic world changes are impending.

Just as Arabs view Jewish ‘occupation’ of the Land an insult to Allah, I see the Muslim shrine in that holy place as a demonic affront to the “holy covenant” (Dan 11:28, 30), since it sits over the place where God elected to put His name ‘forever’. The church, for the far larger part, has no concept of this ‘earthly’ aspect of the war in the heavens, but the principalities know and resist anything that would move this mountain of opposition that stands in the way of the fulfillment of the necessary pre-conditions of Christ’s return. The battle is indeed in the heavenlies, and instructed believers should know that nothing can advance towards the necessary pre-conditions of Jesus’s return while this dead lock persists. Are we willing, in full light of what it will mean for our temporal comforts, to pray with one heart and mind together for the removal of this opposing mountain? Certainly, the opposing mountain that stood before Zerubbabel (Zech 4) was much more than contemporary Babylon. It was Satan’s resistance to the restoration of the “house” (“whose house we are”), the finishing of the vision, and the kingdom of God come on earth (“under the whole heaven”). To this end all creation groans. How much do we, with strong sighs and longings, also groan? “Come quickly Lord Jesus!” is the cry of a church that has counted the cost of that prayer.

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I have just read another article of urgency warning of an imminent war, which I do not doubt, but what concerns me is that attached to this ever present, and now even probable possibility, is the expectation that this will set in motion the world wide persecution of the Jews, and that now is the time to prepare all possible means of transport to get Jews back to the Land.

It is not the sobriety of the warning that concerns me, but the failure to distinguish events that belong to different times and circumstances. I believe such misplacement of the order of events can lead to premature decisions and expectations that further discredit prophecy and distract from the real thing when the real time comes. This concern has moved me to point out some important distinctions that might save some from needless confusion and decisions that are based on false assumptions.

I ask of those that have little enough patience with theological hair splitting to bear with me a little, as I feel I must go into some detail in order to show the order of events that we must keep in mind if we are to avoid the false alarms of prophetic speculation, since by these, many are further disarmed and unprepared for the real thing when it comes.

While it is true that antisemitism can break out anywhere anytime, it is usually possible to “some extent” to see it coming if we are indeed expecting it to increase suddenly and pervasively, particularly as Israel is made to appear the cause of the world’s woes.

We know that the Jews are not the object of the last world wide persecution UNTIL the last 3 1/2 years. Furthermore, we know that Jacob’s trouble comes 3 1/2 years after the covenant has been confirmed that brings the deadly false peace (Isa 28:15, 18; Eze 38:8, 11, 14; 39:26; Dan 9:27; 11:23; 1Thes 5:3). There may indeed be tribulation, but “the tribulation, the great one” of Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1; Mt 24:21 and Rev 7:14 cannot begin before there is a sacrifice and a temple that stands again, at least in some early stage of construction (Dan 11:31; 12:11; Mt 24:15; 2Thes 2:4). This alone is sufficient to make the time clear when it is time to know the time with that degree of definite certainty.

Therefore, even if Russia and China take out America, or any other conceivable combination of events in a world war III type scenario, we know that Israel survives as a nation, and evidently comes into an even greater political and strategic advantage in the region. Why? It is because Israel must make the false peace that provides for the conditions necessary for the abomination that comes in the middle of the week, 3 1/2 years after the great delusion that presumes a lasting peace for Israel can be possible apart from an everlasting righteousness.

Now certainly, the godly remnant that has foreseen the evil has made ready to hide Jews in flight, but once again, that particular flight does not begin until the beginning of the last 3 1/2 years. Now here’s why I point out what is too little considered. The body of Christ that has been hiding and preaching the gospel to persecuted Israel in a mutual experience of persecution and flight will NOT be the direct agents of Jewish return. This is because we will have been gathered to Christ at His return by way of rapture at the “last” trump (compare Mt 24:31; 1Cor 15:52; 1Thes 4:14, 17; 2Thes 2:1; Rev 10:7; 11:15).

The true bride will be the witness that prepares them for repentance and return, but they will not be the physical agents for that return. The world wide return of Israel that comes only after the destruction of Antichrist at the day of the Lord (2Thes 2:1-3, 8) will be by the assistance of gentiles that manifestly were not “in Christ” at the time of the rapture. I’ll return to this.

If plain language is permitted to plainly describe the time and nature of Jewish return, we can see that THIS return is by natural means of transport (Isa 60:9; 66:20), employed by thankful gentiles (Isa 49:22) who have manifestly survived the great tribulation, and count it greatest privilege to bring the sons and daughters of Israel home, as an holy offering to the Lord (compare Isa 49:22; 60:9; 66:20). Context and language, both here and many places, will show that this is AFTER the day of the Lord.

The language in its proper context will further show that these gentile survivors, along with the saved of Israel, enter the millennial earth in natural bodies. This stands in marked contrast with the translation and catching up of the bride into glorified immortality to rule and reign with Christ over the millennial earth.

The day of the Lord salvation of Israel happens in conjunction with the revelation of the returning Jesus (Zech 12:10; Mt 23:39; Acts 3:20; Ro 11:26; Rev 1:7). This is why the penitent survivors of Jacob’s trouble are not changed and taken up by way of rapture. It is because they were not already “in Christ” at the time of the rapture.

The Jews that get saved before the rapture will be changed and caught up with all who are “in Christ” at the point of the rapture. This is clear from 1Cor 15:23, 52 and 1Thes 4:14. However, the penitent survivors of Israel do not go up with the church, but are shown going into the millennium, as newly filled with the Spirit, but in natural bodies. The reason seems clear. Scripture is harmonized when we recognize that at the same instant the bride is being changed and caught up, the penitent remnant of Israel are, at that same moment, able now to “look upon Him whom they pierced” (Zech 12:10; Mt 23:39; Rev 1:7). That, by the way, is the look of faith and revelation, not a mere physical seeing. It will be like Paul’s seeing of Christ on the Damascus road.

“At once,” and “in one day,” the revived nation passes from death to life (Isa 66:8; Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9; 14:7). Clearly, this is the day of the Lord when the Deliverer comes out of Zion to turn away ungodliness from Jacob (Isa 59:19-21; Acts 3:20-21 with Ro 11:26). Many hasten to point out that the day of the Lord is much more than a 24 hour period. That is true; but this point of transition is even more precise than a single day. It comes “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” (1Cor 15:52), not only “in one day”, but “at once” (Isa 66:8).

A careful comparison of scripture with scripture will show that the spiritual regeneration of Israel comes immediately with the revelation of Christ in conjunction with the pouring out of the Spirit. The time is clear. It is the great and notable day of the Lord (compare Joel 2:28-32; 3:14-16, but especially Eze 39:29 with Zech 12:10; Mt 23:39; Acts 3:20; Rev 1:7). To make the time even more definite, note that both Jesus and Peter quote from Joel’s prophecy to show that the darkness that comes AFTER the tribulation (Mt 24:29) comes BEFORE the great and notable day of the Lord (compare Mt 24:29 with Acts 2:20; 2Pet 3:10, 12 with Rev 16:14-17 with Eze 39:8). So clearly, the ‘national’ salvation of Israel is at the end of Jacob’s trouble (Jer 30:7), but this does not mean that many Jews have not been saved all along the way with all that great multitude that comes out of ‘the tribulation, the great one’ (Rev 7:9, 13-14).

If we will “carefully” examine the context of the scriptures describing this last, and clearly post-tribulational return, we will see that it is not the preliminary return in unbelief that we see today (also foretold in prophecy, Eze 38:8; Zeph 2:1-2). We must distinguish, since this latter and final return will be world wide and complete, to the last person (Eze 39:28).

This return is AFTER Jacob’s trouble. It is AFTER the great and notable day of the Lord. It is AFTER the last trumpet (Isa 27:13; Mt 24:31; 1Cor 15:52; Rev 10:7; 11:15). It is the earliest days of the millennium. Christ has returned and the true bride has been translated into glorified immortality by way of rapture and resurrection. In contrast, the Jews are returning from every nation in natural bodies by every natural means of transport (Isa 66:20). They are NOT gathered to meet the Lord in the air. We are careless with the plain language of scripture if we do not make this distinction, since in no other way (of which I’m aware) can the scripture be harmonized. The day of the Lord will mean rapture for the true church (of this present age); it will mean repentance and return for the saved remnant of Israel.

The time is clear; and the manner and the means are just as clear. After the bride has been caught up and gathered (Mt 24:31; 2Thes 2:1) to meet the Lord in the air (1Thes 4:17) , gentiles are depicted escorting a contrite and penitent remnant back to the Land. They do not appear to be resurrected saints, but newly awakened seekers (Zech 8:23) who are implementing every conceivable ‘natural’ mode of transportation (Isa 60:9; 66:20) to get Jews back to the Land. Christ is here; the Antichrist is destroyed, and Jews can return home safely and dwell in truest eternal security, as an all holy nation forever.

We can see why the gentiles undertake this labor of love and reverence for the everlasting covenant. With the sounding of the seventh trumpet, the mystery of God has been finished (Rev 10:7), and the deeply humbled nations of the gentiles (those comparatively “few” that are left; Isa 24:6), now begin to understand the meaning behind Israel’s long and tragic experience in history (Eze 39:23, 27). This explains why these gentile survivors see their part in assisting the Jews back to the Land as an offering to the Lord (Zech 2:11; 8:23; Isa 49:22; 60:9; 66:20), but this is NOT us bringing them back; we have been taken up.

It is this clearly revealed activity of gentiles who have manifestly survived the tribulation that leads me to conclude, on the basis of 1Cor 15:23, 52 and 1Thes 4:14, that not all the unsaved of the earth take the mark of the beast, else they would not have survived Christ’s return. This seems clear, because many scriptures show that there will be some from among the nations that survive the judgments of the tribulation. These will enter the millennium in natural bodies (e.g., Isa 61:9; 65:20-23; 66:19-20; Eze 39:2, 9-16; Dan 7:12; Zech 14:16-18 et al). From this, it appears that that not everyone who is unsaved during the tribulation take the mark.

It is important that we distinguish how and by whom Jews return from all lands after the tribulation. It is clear that they do not return by way of rapture, but as newly born again, Spirit filled believers, assisted by surviving gentiles whose hearts have been lately turned towards God and His elect people, as the dust of Armageddon begins to settle.

I realize that such fine points of distinction can be difficult and even frustrating, but if we do not make these important distinctions we will be prone to engage in premature or misdirected activities. Even though the expectation of certain events may be correct, our actions and decisions must be based on an accurate reading of scripture, as to their proper time and order.

Many will, of course, simply exclaim that the Spirit has led them in a certain way. Well, that is well and good for them, but what about the rest of us? Our only truly “mutual” safety is the scripture, rightly interpreted, for which we need the greatest help of the Spirit, but this is what He has promised (Jn 16:13; 1Jn 2:27). So this is not for the “experts,” but it is for the diligent (“It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honor of kings is to search out a matter;” Prov 25:2).

All is to say, while I see it is our responsibility to anticipate and prepare for the flight of the Jews, it is NOT our job to get them back to the Land. It is, however, our responsibility to do all in our power to help them survive until the day of national salvation, which I am convinced is not accidentally the time of our translation. With the birthing of Israel, the church’s travail is complete and our unique task for this dispensation is finished in their return. The salvation of Israel does not come in a vacuum. It is the result of a combination of the church’s prophetic witness (Dan 11:33) amid an unequaled tribulation of fearful “signs” in earth and in heaven (Mt 24:3, 30; Lk 21:11; Acts 2:19) empty Jacob of his power (Deut 32:36 with Dan 12:7).

Indeed, we may say that now is the time to prepare spiritually and practically for a soon time when none can buy or sell, and when we know that not only Jews, but all true believers will be hated and hunted, but how is now the time to hide Jews? How can now be the time to prepare ships for their return? I can see where ships may indeed play a role in their flight and preservation during the tribulation, but the ships that bring them home are those put into use by the gentile survivors of the tribulation (Isa 60:9). The only reason I can imagine that we should work towards returning Jews to the Land before the time of Jacob’s trouble is if we ‘assume’ that that the greater potential for Jewish survival will be in the Land, but that is not what the evidence suggests.

I would just point out that when the great post-tribulational trumpet of Isa 27:13 sounds, it finds Jews who are near to perishing in Egypt and Assyria. Could it be that Jews have fled to these nations, because the prospect for Jewish survival is greater in these presently hostile nations than in the Land itself? This, and the clear evidence of scripture that Jewish survival will depend upon flight into the neighboring wilderness (Isa 16:1-5; 26:20; 42:11; Mt 24:16; Rev 12:6, 14) and into the “wilderness of the nations” (Eze 20:35) leads me to conclude that the time before an unequaled tribulation that begins and has its first concentration “in the Land” is NOT the time to encourage Jews back to the Land, at least not without fearlessly telling them what they’re in for.

I do not doubt the crisis or the urgency to anticipate the ever present probability of war, not only in Israel, but one that could very easily spread throughout the world. I expect just such a thing to bring about the conditions that will make the false peace possible. I do NOT, however, expect that this preliminary violence will particularly target Jews in the nations. There must be a false peace after the storm, which will be the delusive calm before the ultimate storm.

We can certainly expect that a war that begins with a strike on Iran will certainly bring an attempted retaliation on the nation. It is also possible, even likely, that terrorists cells will target Jewish population centers throughout the world, but this is not the time of the final flight of Jews, and it is not, in my view, the time to be trying to get Jews back to the Land.

Some of my closest and dearest brothers oppose me on this, but I will bear the reproach for splitting theological hairs if it can prevent well meaning believers from further embarrassing the prophetic scriptures by premature actions due to neglect of plain language in its context.

In the Beloved, Reggie

Q & A

Question: “If I read you correctly, do I understand that you believe there will be a period of time between the rapture of the saints and the second coming of Christ at the end of the tribulation?”

I’m glad you asked, brother. I should have been clearer. The answer is no; I see the two events as simultaneous. Both are triggered by nothing less than the Lord’s glorious coming in clouds “immediately AFTER the tribulation,” as He descends to the Mount of Olives (Zech 14:4; Job 19:25). At the very moment of His visible appearing (Mt 24:27; 1Cor 15:52; Rev 1:7), those who have remained alive will be caught up to meet the myriads of departed saints who are coming with him (compare Isa 13:3; Joel 3:11; Zech 14:5; 1Thes 3:13; 4:14). This becomes clear when we see that the day of the Lord is also the time of the rapture.

Question: “If so, how long?”

No time at all. The rapture happens at the last trumpet in manifest connection with the day of the Lord (Mt 24:29, 31 with 1Cor 15:52; 1Thes 5:2, 4; 2Thes 2:1-3). The day of the Lord, or the “day of God” Almighty, is everywhere shown to come AFTER the tribulation.(Compare Mt 24:29, 43; with Acts 2:20; 2Thes 2:3, 8; 2Pet 3:10. 12 with Rev 16:14-16). Note the relationship between these passages show that the ‘thief like’ day of the Lord is clearly AFTER the stellar darkness (Acts 2:20) that comes AFTER the tribulation (Mt 24:29). If we compare 2 Pet 3:10, 12 with Rev 16:14-16, we see that the day of the Lord, also called, ‘day of God’ and ‘day of God Almighty’ does not come as a thief until sometime AFTER the sixth bowel in Rev 16:14-15. This shows clearly that the thief like return of Christ is at the very end of the tribulation and not sooner.

Therefore, it is a fallacy to try to separate the Lord’s return from the day of the Lord, and the time of the day of the Lord is very clearly AFTER the tribulation. (Mt 24:29 with Acts 2:20; Rev 16:14-15). Although the day of the Lord comes as a thief, this does not mean that it takes the godly by surprise (1Thes 5:4). Contrary to popular opinion, Christ’s does not come without sign or warning, as in pre-tribulationism. Even if misinterpreted as to their proper meaning, the principal sign will be clear and outward for all to see (Mt 24:15). The only reason the signs will be ignored or misinterpreted is because of an unparalleled deception that scripture warns will prevail in those days (Mt 24:24). For this, Jesus prescribes only one safe antidote (Mt 13:23).

Question: “If I read you correctly, if unsaved Gentiles who survive until the end of the tribulation are going to be the ones who bring the Jews back to Zion, then this would imply a period of days, if not weeks or months. Would it not?”

Yes, it takes time to traverse sea and land on the long trek back home from the lands of their dispersion, but this is what a host of Old Testament passages depict. Again, the question will come to whether such passages are properly to be interpreted literally according to the original author’s intention, or some other way? From this we see that the saved remnant of Israel (such that survive the tribulation to go into the millennial age in natural bodies) were not members of the body (not yet “in Christ”) at the time of the rapture. Evidently, the penitent remnant are enabled to “look upon Him whom they pierced” (Zech 12:10) at the precise moment that He is coming in the clouds (Rev 1:7) to destroy Antichrist and to gather His elect at the last trump (Mt 24:31; 1Cor 15:52; 2Thes 2:1-3, 8; Rev 10:7: 11:15-18). At that same moment, the surviving remnant of Israel are being born (spiritually reborn) “at once” and in “one day” (Isa 66:8; Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9; 14:7). That is the day of the Lord. It is when ungodliness is turned away from Jacob (compare Isa 59:19-21 with Ro 11:25-29). It is the day the Spirit is poured out on the penitent remnant (Joel 2:28-32; Eze 39:27-29 with Zech 12:10; Rev 1:7). Because the Jewish remnant were not saved before the rapture, they were not changed into glorified immortality at the last trump, with “all” who were already in Christ (1Cor 15:23; 52; 1Thes 4:14, 17). If we let the day of the Lord be what scripture describes as “one day” after the tribulation, then we can see that the beleaguered remnant of Israel is being given the gift of repentance on the same day that the church is being caught up. That is why their experience is markedly different from that of those who were already in Christ at the time of the rapture. That is why their return to the Land in natural bodies and with the assistance of gentiles who have survived the tribulation is quite to be distinguished from the post-resurrection experience of the church.

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Hello Reggie:

As for the destruction of those who take the mark of the beast. What is your scriptural basis that they will be physically killed upon the return of Jesus?

I will come to your more specific question, but first I would like to ask what many ask. “If all who are not saved take the mark, and if all who are in Christ are raptured at His return, who then is left to enter the millennium in natural bodies? This question is raised by the considerable volume of OT scriptures that show newly saved Jews and a sizable host of newly awakened gentiles from the nations taking part in many natural activities and functions that are clearly incompatible with a resurrected state of glorified immortality.

This has been a great puzzle for many who are aware enough of the many scriptures that bear upon this question. The problem has been part of the reason many have chosen to adopt a spiritualizing hermeneutic (principles of interpretation) in their approach to prophecy.

Certainly, there are some passages that seem to speak of the total destruction of “all” the lost at Christ’s return. One such example would be 2Thes 1:8-9. This passage would appear to include every person who is not born again at the time of the rapture. But what then of many other scriptures that seem to imply that some who are not raptured at Christ’s return (both Jew and gentile) are depicted as entering into the millennial age in natural bodies?. Did not all the unsaved take the mark of the beast? And were not all true believers caught up in the rapture?

From the perspective of a literal reading of the OT, a number of scriptures depict gentile and Jewish survivors of the tribulation in the millennium in un-resurrected, natural bodies. This is a problem, because from such passages as 1 Cor 15:23, 52, 1Thes 4:14-17, and 2Thes 2:1, we see that “all” who belong to Christ, and all who sleep ‘in Jesus’ are promised translation and resurrection at the time of Christ’s return. This leaves the question of what is the fate of those who are left behind? It is clear that many are destroyed in the judgments of the tribulation, but it is also clear that some survive that are neither raptured nor destroyed. Who are these that remain?

We know that a remnant of the Jewish people are not saved until the time of the Lord’s appearing (Zech 12:10; Mt 23:39; Ro 11:26; Rev 1:7). This suggests that at the same time the church is translated, the penitent remnant of Israel, who have been prepared through the judgments of Jacob’s trouble, are just then receiving the first fruits of the Spirit through repentance and faith in Christ.

I believe this is the point of the great divide between those that enter the millennial age in their natural bodies, and those that enter that time in resurrected bodies. Apparently, all who have the ‘earnest’, or ‘first-fruits’ of the the Spirit before this point are instantly changed. Whereas those who are only now seeing Him whom they pierced (not by mere natural sight, of course, but by the revelation of the Spirit) are at that same moment being transformed into new creation believers. These, together with their penitent counterparts from among the gentiles will populate the millennial earth in natural bodies.

The scripture is clear that the saved remnant of Israel is not at once resurrected with the church, but enter the millennial period as Spirit filled saints. While there will always be Jewish salvation before that day, this is not to be confused with the sudden and dramatic salvation that comes only at the day of the Lord, when the nation will be “born in one day” (Isa 66:8; Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9; 14:7). And, as often pointed out, there is no ambiguity in scripture, as to when “that day” comes in the order of last day’s events (compare Mt 24:29 with Acts 2:20; Rev 16:14-16).

There are mysteries here, but we know that many who are not resurrected at the rapture, are NOT at once destroyed by the final judgments that accompany Christ’s return from heaven, but are left to enter the millennial age in natural bodies. A number of scriptures show gentile survivors of the last tribulation assisting Jews in their return to the Land (Isa 49:22; 60:3, 5, 9; 66:20; Zech 8:23). Though “few” (Isa 24:6), there will be some “left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem … ” (Zech 14:16; see also Dan 7:12; Isa 60:5; Eze 39:2 (1/6th left in some translations).

Those that advocate for a pre-tribulational rapture argue that this is one of the greatest proofs of their position. For them, the solution is simple. Supposing that every person that is not “in Christ” is at once destroyed at the Lord’s post-tribulational return, and that only saved persons enter the millennium, they conclude for a pre-trib rapture, since, in their view, this alone can provide time AFTER the rapture for a great number to be saved, and it is this number that enter the millennium in their natural bodies along with the saved of Israel.

On other grounds that cannot be argued here, we believe the pre-tribulational view of the rapture is refuted by clear, and in our view, undeniable evidence to the contrary. So, on those good and sufficient grounds, the answer of a pre-tribulation rapture of the church is no solution at all to the problem.

As stated above, there are too many passages, taken in their clear OT context, that show a surviving remnant, not only of Israel, but also of the nations, that are depicted as freshly awakening to the meaning of the last days events (Eze 39:23; Rev 10:7). This surviving remnant from both Israel and the nations were manifestly NOT destroyed with the Antichrist and his armies; nor were they saved before the time of the rapture (see Isa 66:19-20; Zech 8:23).

Therefore, in view of a careful survey of all the relevant scriptural evidence in its proper setting and context, and in the interest that ‘all’ relevant scripture must harmonize and not contradict, I am constrained to share the view of a comparatively small number that not everyone who is unsaved takes the mark.

We may be puzzled to hear someone suggest that NOT EVERYONE who is not a Christian will take the mark. I agree; that’s a problem, because this is what we would naturally infer from a passage like Rev 13:8. My only answer to that is, the inspired scripture cannot contradict and must be harmonized! There are just too many plain scriptures that show un-raptured survivors of the last tribulation entering the millennium in their natural bodies. In some of those passages, gentiles are depicted as assisting Jews back to the Land.

A careful survey of all that scripture describes of conditions that obtain only AFTER the tribulation and day of the Lord, will confirm that there are many activities and functions that are described of the inhabitants of the millennial earth that are quite incompatible with the final state of glorified perfection. That all the unsaved do not take the mark is further confirmed by the fact that an elect remnant from among the natural branches are not saved until the very end of Jacob’s trouble (Isa 59:21; 66:8; Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1; Mic 5:3; Zech 12:10; Mt 23:39; Ro 11:26).

So the pre-tribulation solution to the problem of tribulation survivors is unnecessary, as it assumes what scripture does not assume, namely, that only those who are saved during the tribulation will survive the return of Christ in order to populate the millennial earth. As we have shown, there are many who are not saved UNTIL the time of the Lord’s post-tribulational return, and the evidence suggests that many enter the millennium, as only beginning to awaken to the full meaning of all that has lately transpired (Eze 39:23; Rev 10:7). Many of these who were not raptured will count it a great privilege to assist in Jewish return, as an offering to the Lord. What a change of mind has come!

So, if not all take the mark, and many that are not raptured are left behind to enter the millennium in their natural bodies, then who are destroyed by Christ personally at His return? My answer is those that have taken the mark, and your question is, “how do we know that all who took the mark are destroyed at Christ’s return?

You have no question concerning the ultimate fate of those that take the mark, but only whether they will all be at once destroyed at Christ’s return. You have no question of their ultimate fate (Rev 14:11). Your question is how do we know that those who have taken the mark will “all”, and to the last person, be destroyed by Christ Himself at the moment of His return?

You seem to be asking, “since not all unbelievers are destroyed at Armageddon and Christ’s return, how do we know that ‘all’ of those who have taken the mark are necessarily destroyed at that time?” You noticed that I assumed this, and you are wondering if I have proof of my assumption.

Well, Isa 11:4 is the background for Paul’s statement about the destruction of the Antichrist by the ‘breath of the Lord’s mouth’ in 2Thes 2:8. The wicked are slain by the Word of the returning King. But here’s the problem: Since all unsaved persons are regarded as ‘children of wrath’, how is it that some seem to survive the Lord’s return, while others do not? It is here that I propose (tentatively), in the interest of the harmonization of ‘all’ scripture, a division between those among the myriads of the lost who take the mark, and those who, for whatever reason, do not appear to take it, as, for example, the beleaguered remnant of Israel.

I reason thus: If the Antichrist is slain in that instant, I believe we can safely infer that all who have irreversibly consummated their union with Satan by a deliberate acceptance of the mark, will be destroyed by the same revelation of the Word from heaven. Note too what the mark represents. It signifies the sign and seal of final hardening. From this, there is no repentance and return. It is final reprobation.

This is not the usual unbelief that all persons have outside of Christ. Therefore, it is hard to think of people entering that millennial age in the knowledge of their hopeless state and with a fixed heart of hatred towards God, just as it is inconceivable that the Antichrist can survive a moment beyond the moment of Christ’s return. There is an ontological polarity between the two natures that cannot abide the presence of the now revealed Word from heaven, i.e., Christ’s personal presence.

I say this, because I believe that the mark represents a degree of consummated union with the Spirit of Satan from which there is no repentance. Those that take it put themselves “past feeling”, and therefore, beyond repentance, which comes only by the sovereign work of the Spirit. Call it an inference, but I don’t believe the consummated ‘mystery of iniquity’ can stand for one moment the brightness of His coming (2Thes 2:8).

However, I see from other scriptures that some who were not already believers at the time of the rapture, do, in fact, survive the radiant power of His glorious return (Mt 24:27; Rev 1:7). This is admittedly a mystery that I do not presume to fully understand, but I believe I can see how it can be. I think it is best explained by distinguishing between those that have taken the mark, and some who have managed to escape it for the entire duration of the tribulation.

What some may reasonably dispute is my contention that not all the unsaved take the mark. I respect this objection, but ask that I be corrected, not only on the basis of one or two verses from the NT, but that time and pains be taken to show how I am to better account for the several passages that depict a multitude that were not changed at the time of the rapture, but were either saved at the time of the rapture, or after the rapture, or were spared immediate damnation at Christ’s return, to enter the millennium, as greatly humbled, but perhaps not yet born again, which is the picture I get.

I cannot advance my view for anything more than it is, an inference based on an effort to take into account all that scripture reveals on the subject, but there it is. I certainly welcome correction that can better explain the problem without resort to a spiritualizing dismissal of any of the relevant scriptures.

Finally, I want to say that I believe the revelation of “the wrath of the Lamb” will be a special terror to those who have lifted themselves up in their self serving hearts to assault the outward tokens of God’s everlasting covenant, what Daniel calls the “holy covenant” (Dan 11:28, 30). I speak particularly of those who harbor a deep and unrelenting hatred of the Jew and any that would identify, or lay their lives down for the Jew (Jacob), particularly in “the day of his calamity” (Eze 35:5; Obad 13).

There is something about the nature of the incarnate Word in glorious revelation when it meets with this fixed posture of unbelief and hatred of God’s election. Those in this full union with the spirit of Satan will not be able to abide the revelation of the Word from heaven, in the same way that the Philistines were immediately slain before the opened Ark of the covenant.

According to Isa 11:4 and 2Thes 2:8, I believe it is this particular kind and degree of wickedness that will not be spared at Christ’s return. All wickedness and sin will at length come up before God for final judgement, but we must remember; with the exception of the beast and the false prophet, who are at once cast into the lake of fire, all the rest of the dead are not raised to face final judgment until after the millennium (compare Dan 7:11; Rev 19:20; 20:5, 10).

This tells me that many of the judgment parables are comprehensive in their scope. It is not the interest of scripture to speak of millennial distinctions when speaking about the finality of judgement. Much that sounds as though it is being judged immediately upon Christ’s pre-millennial return, is not fully carried out until the end of the millennium. Often, the parabolic picture implies final sentence as being carried out immediately upon His return, whereas, progressive revelation shows the final casting into hell does not occur until the end of the millennium. This is because the state of the soul is sealed at death, or at the point of final reprobation, and even this is not finally judged until the second resurrection.

So I see that not only the Antichrist, but all who share a direct and full allegiance to what he represents, to be at once destroyed at Christ’s return in glory. That is to say, all who share consummated union with that spirit, will not be able to survive the revelation of the Word, because they have hardened themselves beyond the possibility of repentance, and have participated in the completion of the mystery of iniquity (2Thes 2:7-8) of the last and final ‘great falling away’ (2Thes 2:3). Hence, those that take the mark are in a distinct spiritual category from the rest of fallen humanity. Even in the tribulation, the receivers of the mark are singled out for many special plagues that are not aimed at the rest of humanity (Rev 16:2, 10).

I believe the unveiled wrath of God is somehow related to the full unveiling of the unapproachable meekness of God, which, of course, is just one attribute of His infinite holiness. That is why “the wrath of the Lamb” is so unbearable to all that is high and lifted up (Isa 2:17; Zeph 2:3). It is just one part of the picture, but according to many depictions in the prophets, the wrath of ‘that day’ is particularly directed against those who have lifted themselves up against the ‘holy covenant’ (i.e., the chosen and set apart things of God; Isa 24:5).

It is particularly the unveiled meekness of God that will be unbearable to the now unveiled pride of man (represented in the ‘revelation of the man of sin’) in this final act of the gentiles against the covenant (Jews have no less opposed the covenant in their own way). Not only this, but all who presume to stand before God in any other righteousness than the righteousness of Christ are equally lost, whether or not they ever lived in a final tribulation to take the mark in that particular form.

I ask the patience of many who have sent questions. Many are forthcoming, as time permits, not so much in the order they arrive, or their value, but in terms of the time and labor that is required. Some of the best must therefore be last :-). For those who would be willing to remember us in prayer, I am going through more than the usual distress in both health and home. Your prayers are greatly coveted.

Your brother in His goodness, Reggie

The post Who Is ‘Left Behind’ After The Rapture? appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

A comparison of Rev 8:12-13 with Rev 11:13-15 will show that the three woes are also the last three trumpets. The public ascension of the two witnesses takes place at the time of the second woe, which is also the sixth trumpet (Rev 11:12-14). At this point Christ has not yet returned. The announcement of the imminence of the third woe is followed by the sounding of the seventh trumpet, which finishes the mystery of God with Christ’s return to raise the dead and judge the nations (Rev 10:7; 11:14-15, 18).

Although the later revelation of the seven trumpets was not yet written at the time of Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians, it is most unlikely that Paul would have used the term ‘last’ to speak of a trumpet that is earlier than the well known trumpet that the prophets mention in connection with Israel’s deliverance at the day of the Lord (Isa 27:13; Joel 2:1, 15; Zeph 1:14, 16). Clearly, this is the trumpet that Jesus has in mind when speaking of His return after the tribulation to “gather together” His elect (Mt 24:31). [Compare also the Lord’s language, ‘great sound of a trumpet’, with Isaiah’s ‘the great trumpet shall be blown’ (Isa 27:13).]

Pretribulationists believe that the trumpet mentioned by Jesus is a different trumpet than the one mentioned by Paul, different trumpets for different comings. But a trumpet that sounds seven years earlier than the trumpet associated with Christ’s post-tribulational return would hardly be called ‘last’.

If Paul intended the kind of distinction that pretribulationists want us to find between comings and trumpets, it is surprising that he did not more clearly distinguish and qualify his meaning. Consider the following:

Paul was aware that many would know the prophets, if not also the circulating tradition of the Lord’s Olivet Discourse (Mt 24-25). Many would certainly have occasion to be aware of a trumpet that sounds at the end of the tribulation.

Surely a pre-tribulational Paul would have anticipated the ease with which many would naturally associate his mention of a resurrection trumpet with the trumpet that was expected to sound in climactic conjunction with the deliverance of the last day.

A pre-tribulational Paul becomes even more misleading when he says “then shall be brought to pass the saying which is written …” (1Cor 15:52). The ‘saying’ is written in Isa 25:8. Paul declares the time of the ‘last trump’ to be the time that Isa 25:8 is fulfilled.

This becomes very significant for the rapture debate when we examine the surrounding context in Isaiah chapters 24-27 (known as “Isaiah’s little apocalypse”). The entire context is clearly post-tribulational. The resurrection mentioned in Isa 25:8, which includes Isaiah’s personal resurrection (Isa 26:19), stands in indivisible connection with the deliverance of Israel at the post-tribulational day of the Lord (Isa 24:21; 25:9; 26:1; 27:12). “That day” is significantly heralded by the blowing of ‘the great trumpet’ (Isa 27:13).

The connection is clear. If “then” means then, then Paul’s mention of the last trump in connection with the Isaiah passage is further confirmation that he has in mind the same eschatological trumpet that Jesus associates with His return to ‘gather together’ His elect (Mt 24:31). It should not pass notice that Paul applies this very language to the rapture of the church in 2Thes 2:1 (“our gathering together unto Him”). Such similarity of terms make it most unlikely that Paul has a different coming in mind, much less that he would expect others to distinguish between comings that are described in such similar language.

Whether understood literally or metaphorically, it was well known that the resurrection of the penitent nation awaited the post-tribulational deliverance of God (Isa 25:8;Hos 6:1-2; Eze 37:12-13). This would also be the time of the personal resurrection of such OT worthies as Job (Job 19:25-26), Isaiah (Isa 26:19), and Daniel (Dan 12:1-2). This gave rise to the term, “the resurrection at the ‘last day’,” as used by Jesus and His Jewish contemporaries (Jn 6:39-40, 44, 54; 11:24; 12:48).

This is why pre-tribulationists, in order to maintain their view, are forced to conclude that the OT saints continue to “sleep in the dust of the earth” (Dan 12:2) for an additional seven years after the church has been raptured to heaven to participate in the marriage supper of the Lamb.

For such a notion to be seriously entertained, a number of presuppositions have to be brought to the text, some of which have no recorded precedent in the history of Christian doctrine. The view that the saints of the tribulation period are not part of the body of Christ was first introduced by John Nelson Darby around 1832 (“Until brought to the fore through the writings and preaching and teaching of a distinguished ex-clergyman, Mr J. N. Darby, in the early part of the last century, it is scarcely to be found in a single book or sermon through a period of sixteen hundred years”. (Harry Ironside, The Mysteries Of God, 1908).

Until the advent of modern pretribulationism, the day of the Lord was the OT term for the salvation of the ‘last day’. The NT would reveal this to be the time of Christ’s return to raise the dead, destroy the Antichrist, and judge the nations (Jn 6:39-40, 44, 54;11:24; 12:48; 2Thes 2:3, 8; Rev 11:15, 18). However, the modern adaptation of the term to the concept of an any moment rapture has greatly obscured its original context and use.

Both sides of the debate understand that the rapture question is primarily decided by where we see the day of the Lord on the time-line of last day’s events. For reasons we will show, the pretribulational view of the rapture cannot be defended unless the day of the Lord is interpreted to include the entire seven years, which pretribulationists see as continuous tribulation.

[Note: For pretribulationists, the day of the Lord is synonymous with the tribulation. They see the entire seven years as tribulation, and often represent the period as a continuous ‘day’ of wrath. This is incorrect. The first half of the tribulation is false peace, at least for Israel (Isa 28:15, 18, Eze 38:8, 11, 14; 39:26; Dan 8:25; 11:23-24;1Thes 5:3). The ‘great tribulation’ is only the last half of the seven year week (Dan 7:25; 9:27; 12:7, 11; Mt 24:15, 21; Rev 11:2-3; 12:6, 14; 13:5, 7).]

So where does the day of the Lord come in relation to the events of the end? Scripture clearly pin points the time. Very simply and plainly, it comes AFTER the darkness that comes AFTER the tribulation (compare Mt 24:29 with Acts 2:20). If we carefully observe the preposition, AFTER, in Mt 24:29, and the preposition, BEFORE, in Acts 2:20, it becomes clear that the great stellar darkness that comes AFTER the tribulation in Mt 24:29, is shown in Acts 2:20 to come BEFORE the day of the Lord.

While the precise term, ‘day of the Lord’, does not appear in the Lord’s Olivet prophecy, the term, ‘that day’ (Mt 24:36) is certainly used in clear reference to the Lord’s return after the tribulation (see Mt 24:27, 29-30, with Mt 24:36-37, 39). It is important to note that it is the coming of ‘that day’ (i.e., the day “immediately after” the tribulation; Mt 24:29) that Jesus compares to a thief in Mt 24:43.

[Note: Among pretribulationists there is sharp difference of opinion whether or not the thief-like coming mentioned by Jesus in Mt 24:43 should be interpreted to refer to Christ’s post-tribulational return. Prophecy expert, Hal Lindsey, breaks rank with many leading pretribulational scholars when he applies the Lord’s reference to ‘that day and hour’ in Mt 24:36, not to the Lord’s return after the tribulation in Mt 24:29, but to an earlier coming before the tribulation, one that has received no mention in the narrative until this late point. Other notable defenders of the pretribulational view, such as John F. Walvoord, point out that Lindsey’s view is seriously inconsistent with the larger context, as any fair examination will confirm (compare Mt 24:27, 29-30, 36, 37, 39,42-43).]

So Peter and Paul’s common use of the phrase, ‘thief in the night’, clearly has in view the Lord’s thief-like return that is specifically at the end of the tribulation. A day of the Lord that comes after the tribulation certainly makes better sense of why Paul can say that “that day” cannot come until after the Antichrist has come first (2Thes 2:3).

[Of course we know that ‘that day’ does not come on believers as a thief, but only the unwary “children of darkness” (compare Dan 12:10; Lk 21:34; 1Thes 5:4;Rev 3:10; 16:15). The reason is clear. Believers will recognize the well defined events that signal the end (Mt 24:15; Dan 11:23-31). Paul fully expects the Thessalonians to be able to recognize the Antichrist in association with his abominable act in the temple of God at Jerusalem (2Thes 2:3-6).]

Whereas Jesus uses the language of Joel 2:31 to describe the phenomena that attends His return after the tribulation (Mt 24:29), Peter cites the same passage in Joel to describe the phenomena that precedes the day of the Lord (Acts 2:20). Certainly for Peter, ‘that great and notable day of the Lord’ intends the post-tribulational return of Jesus. That is why Peter can identify the thief-like day of the Lord with the “day of God” (2Pet 3:10, 12), which Rev 16:14-15 will show comes at the very end of the tribulation, also like a thief, as it is manifestly the same day.

If we grant that the day of the Lord and the day of God are the same day, then it becomes clear that Rev 16:14-17 locates the day of the Lord / day of God at the seventh bowl. A comparison of Rev 16:17 with Eze 39:8 leaves no question that the great day of God is the OT day of the Lord that brings the renewal of Israel (Eze 39:22-29).

Now if we come to the book of Revelation with the knowledge that the day of the Lord is also called the day of God (Peter makes this clear in 2Pet 3:10, 12), we are helped to see that both the seventh trumpet and the seventh bowl arrive at the same point, namely, “that great day of God Almighty” (Rev 11:15, 18; 16:12-14).

We understand this, because the sixth bowl is only final preparation for “that great day of God Almighty” (Rev 16:12-14). At this point, Christ has not returned. It is important to note that the announcement of the imminence of the day of God also announces the imminence of Christ’s thief-like return (Rev 16:14-15). The day arrives with the pouring out of the seventh bowl. This is conclusive evidence that Christ’s return at the seventh trumpet is the catalyst for the final outpouring of wrath at the seventh bowl.

This is not splitting hairs, because, as we shall see, the question of where we locate the day of the Lord is decisive for the rapture question. To locate the day of the Lord at the end of the tribulation is fatal to a pre-tribulation view of the rapture. Here’s why.

In 1937 Alexander Reese published, “The Approaching Advent of Christ.” Before this, earlier pretribulationists put the day of the Lord at the end of the tribulation. They also put the resurrection of the OT righteous at the time of the pretribulation rapture until Reese pointed out that the Old Testament righteous do not rise until the end of the tribulation at the last day (Job 19:25-26; Isa 26:19, 20; Dan 12:1-2; Jn 6:39-40, 44,54; 11:24; 12:48).

It is a little known fact that in reaction to the inconsistencies pointed out by Reese’s book, pretribulationists began to teach that the OT righteous would not be raised with the church at the rapture (as formerly believed), but would continue to ‘sleep in the dust of the earth’ until the ‘last day’ at the end of the tribulation (Dan 12:1-2).

At the same time, Reese pointed out that Paul had instructed the church to be on guard for the day of the Lord (1Thes 5:2, 6-8), as also Peter exhorts believers to be always “looking for and hasting to the coming of the day of the God” (2Pet 3:12 ASV). This would hardly make sense if the church has been removed from the earth seven years before a post-tribulational day of the Lord. The force of Reese’s argument induced some of the earlier pretribulationists to rethink their placement of the day of the Lord.

After the publication of Reese’s book, pretribulationists moved the day of the Lord forward to the beginning of the seven years. The day of the Lord would now be seen as starting with the imminent, unsignaled, pretribulation rapture. In this way, both the rapture and the day of the Lord could be seen as coming suddenly, unexpectedly, and without preceding signs, “like a thief in the night” (1Thes 5:2; 2Pet 3:10). It seemed the perfect solution.

In 1973 Robert Gundry wrote, “The Church and the Great Tribulation. In the years following Reese’s landmark rebuttal, pretribulationists taught that the day of the Lord should be understood to begin with the any moment rapture. This would soon change, at least in academic circles.

Gundry pointed out the simple fact that regardless of where the day of the Lord is thought to begin, if we say it starts with the rapture, then the rapture cannot be maintained as an imminent event, simply because Paul says that ‘that day’ shall not come until after the man of sin has first been revealed (2Thes 2:2-3).

This is decisive, because if the rapture is held to be imminent and un-signaled, it cannot start the day of Lord, since the day of the Lord must be preceded by the revelation of the Antichrist. It is not the rapture, but the day of the Lord that comes as a thief (1Thes 5:2; 2Pet 3:10; Rev 16:15) and this cannot mean, as previously believed, that the day of Lord comes as a thief because it is imminent and un-signaled, since it is clearly preceded by the revelation of the Antichrist (2Thes 2:1-3). Gundry’s logic sent shock waves throughout the pretribulational camp, but another strategic adjustment was soon to follow.

I have scholarly articles published in journals where pretribulationists admit the problem posed by Gundry. No longer could the day of the Lord be held to be an imminent event that starts suddenly with the rapture, or immediately after the rapture. Pretribulationists would now admit that the day of the Lord does not come on the world as thief because it is imminent, since it was now admitted that the thief like day of the Lord must be signaled by the prior identification of the Antichrist. The answer for the difficulty posed by Gundry’s argument was to propose an additional gap between the rapture and the day of the Lord in order to provide time for the Antichrist to be revealed sometime ‘after’ the imminent, un-signaled rapture, but ‘before’ the start of the day of the Lord.

By any reckoning, the acknowledgment that the day of the Lord is signaled by the advance revelation of the Antichrist puts to rest the false theory that the use of the term, ‘thief’, requires the concept of imminence (an event that, by definition, may occur any moment without warning). No, it is clear that the Lord and the apostles apply this term to an event that is by no means imminent, as now admitted by pretribulationists.

Where Jesus, Paul, and Peter liken the day of the Lord to the coming of thief (Acts 2:20 with Mt 24:29; 1Thes 5:2; 2Pet 3:10), it is represented as something for which the believer should be ‘looking’ with watchful sobriety (1Thes 5:6; 1Pet 4:7; 2Pet 3:12). But why should believers be directed to look for an event that will have been preceded by the rapture and the prior revelation of the the Antichrist? If a space of time is required to separate the rapture from the day of the Lord in order to give time for the Antichrist to be revealed, believers would hardly be directed to look for an event that will not take place until some undefined amount of time after they have been taken away by rapture.

Yet, traditional pretribulationism had always assumed that the day of the Lord, no less than the rapture that was presumed to start the day, could only come on the world as a thief if it was un-signaled by any preceding events. Why then direct believers to look for a day that they will never be here to see, since they are separated from it, not only by a prior rapture but by a further space of time after the rapture for the Antichrist to be revealed before the day can start? Does this not betray a strained effort to save a theory of suspiciously recent origin?

The Lord’s return is compared to a thief in Mt 24:43. That is the origin of the language, and for most academic pretribulationists, the reference should be interpreted as applying to Christ’s return after the tribulation. Therefore, if Lord applies the term to His post-tribulational return, and Paul puts the day of the Lord sometime after the prior revelation of the Antichrist, then it becomes disingenuous to hijack the term to continue to speak of the rapture as coming as ‘a thief in the night.’ The academic literature may abstain now from this incorrect usage, but it has certainly not been checked at the popular level. However unconscious, such misappropriation of the term creates a misleading illusion that should be checked by those who know the changes that have taken place in pretribulationism’s view of the day of the Lord.

It is a little known, but a well documented fact that pretribulationism was moved to change their position on the day of the Lord, first with Reese’s publication in 1937, and again with Gundry’s in 1973. This is not the place, but a review of that history and the literature of that debate reads as a standing embarrassment to a position that has been teetering on the verge of collapse in academic circles, but the view continues to prevail unabated at the popular level.

It is a story that demonstrates the lengths that some are prepared to go in order to defend the indefensible. Of course, we believe that such a solution (i.e., a gap of some indefinite amount of time between the rapture and the day of the Lord) would have never been invented if it were not for the crisis created by the questions raised by these and other scholars.

In the churches, many lay persons raised the same questions only to be side-lined or worse. Sadly, much of this debate is only known in academic circles, so many never hear of the revisions. In scholarly exchange, much has been done to slow the train of pretribulationism, but for every advance at the academic level, the theory is continually revitalized at the popular level.

Some who share our view of the time of the Christ’s return take a considerably different view of events from that point. Among those differences is the view that the Antichrist is not destroyed until the 1290th day of Dan 12:11. Two things seem especially awkward with this view.

The first is the scripture that says that the man of sin is “consumed by the Spirit of His mouth and the brightness of His coming” (2Thes 2:8; Rev 19:15). That word for “coming” is the same word used in verse 1 for the time when the church is “gathered together” to Christ at His coming (2Thes 2:1).

It would seem quite obvious that Paul has in mind here the same “gathering together” that Jesus speaks of in connection with His post-tribulational return (Mt 24: 31). So the coming of Christ to gather the church in 2Thes 2:1 is the same coming that destroys the Antichrist in 2Thes 2:8, which appears to happen immediately upon His glorious appearing.

The second major problem with this view is that Rev 13:5 makes clear that the time of the beast is limited to 42 months. This is the same length of time he treads Jerusalem down and persecutes the woman Rev 11:2-3; 12:6, 14. This is a problem, because 1290 days amounts to 43 months.
It would also mean that for the better part of a month after Christ has returned in glory, the Antichrist is free to continue to ravage Jerusalem and the Jewish people. This doesn’t seem to fit, not only with the time, but the nature of Christ’s return (Mt 24:27, 30; Rev 1:7; 6:16-17; 1Cor 15:52; 2Thes 2:1, 8).

The 1260 days, and even the additional 3 ½ days that the two witnesses lie unburied in the streets of Jerusalem, take us no further than the second woe (which is also the sixth trumpet), whereas the 1290 days takes us too far beyond the time that the Antichrist is destroyed (Rev 13:5). If the 1290th is neither the return of Christ or a later destruction of the Antichrist, what points are reached by the 1290th or the 1335th day of Dan 12:11-12?

Some have made elaborate arguments based on their study of the appointed feasts of Israel, but we may safely assume that the additional days mark definite points of special blessedness in the earliest days of the millennium. It is certainly possible that one of these terminal points may mark the time that the saved remnant comes back together after going apart for a time of mourning (Zech 12:10-12), or the cleansing and re-dedication of the new temple (?). In any event, they are categorically NOT the day of Christ’s return.

[Note: I take the view that when Jesus said no one knows the precise day and hour, He had particular reference to this mysterious extension of days in Dan 12:11-12.]

It is quite possible that the 1290th day may indeed mark the ‘cleansing of the sanctuary’ (Dan 8:14), or some such transitional point, but again, this should not be taken to mean that the Antichrist is permitted to continue until nearly a full month after Christ has returned. It may be possible that his idol image is removed at that time, but that too is speculative. In any event, the clear and undeniable difference between the 42 months and the 1290 days leaves no question that the Antichrist has already been destroyed by this time.

Furthermore, it might also be questioned whether the future temple will survive the desolations of the tribulation. Isa 64:10-11 seems clear that the future tribulation temple will be burned with fire. Notice that this happens only shortly after the Jews have come back into possession of their ancient holy places (Isa 63:18). Also,Jer 30:18 says that the city of Jerusalem will built again “upon her own heap.” This shows clearly that the time of Jacob’s trouble ends in great devastation for both the the city and the sanctuary (Isa 63:18; Dan 9:26; 11:31).

All is to say, my reading of the ‘fine print’ leads me to situate the seventh (last) trumpet return of Christ somewhere after the 1263 ½, but before the 1290. On the basis of the evidence that limits the reign of Antichrist to 42 months, we can know that the return of Christ comes very soon after the ascension of the two witnesses (Rev 11:14-15, 18), but just as the scripture says, we cannot tell the precise day and hour (Mt 24:36).

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