Is a Pre-tribulation Rapture Credible?

Christian theology has soaked in the idea of a pre-tribulation Rapture for the past 100 years--to the point that examining its credibility has become taboo, if not heretical. We are never told the true origins of this idea from John Nelson Darby in 1830, but are expected instead to believe that it is an inevitable conclusion based on biblical evidence. We assume--for whatever reason--that all great Bible scholars believed this--certainly C. H. Spurgeon, John Wesley, Matthew Henry--to name a few. It is only the postmillennial liberals who don't believe in the Rapture. And there we go believing that if we believe in the Rapture at all, it must be pre-tribulational.

If someone were to tell us that this ubiquitous teaching monopolizing the eschatological landscape is a total renovation of 1800 years of historic premillennialism, one of two things could happen: either we would reject this bit of information as highly questionable, if not downright false, and recoil in defensive alarm, or we would embrace it for what it actually is--a breath of fresh air; a revelation sparking an entire paradigm shift. The latter would especially be true if we are faithful students of the Word who have never found evidence for a pre-tribulation Rapture in our own Bible reading and who have scratched our heads in puzzlement and patient unease when we have been told blatantly otherwise from the pulpit of pastors we otherwise love and respect.

If we follow the second path, we will discover not only that John Nelson Darby almost single-handedly invented the pre-tribulation Rapture but that he invented the entire worldview of dispensationalism that makes it a theological necessity, despite a total lack of evidence in Scripture. Couple that knowledge with the fact that for 1800 years Bible scholars all over Christendom viewed the Rapture and the Second Coming of Christ as a single event, and we know that we have both history and Scripture lending reasonable doubt to the viability of this pre-tribulation Rapture theory, despite its massive and uncanny popularity.

We must be aware, as we begin our investigation into the evidence, that we will be told the pre-tribulation Rapture theory is now under more attack than ever. That will, of course, prove false once we begin our search. In fact, we will wonder in amazement how the reasonable doubt against this theory has remained suppressed as long as it has in present-day culture, given the ferocity of reactions against virtually all of Darby's theories in his own day--by heavyweights such as C. H. Spurgeon, George Müller, and much of the Plymouth Brethren Movement, not to mention countless other Bible scholars. Their voices echo now in the works of John Piper, R. C. Sproul, Matt O'Reilly, and a host of other eminent Bible scholars across denominational lines.

So, attack or no, we are in good company, and once invited into the evidence lab, we cannot be bullied away from asking honest questions. In fact, we will wonder why this information has been so long suppressed, and some of our questions will almost instantly answer themselves: this idea has been immensely lucrative from the onset of its popularization in the Scofield Study Bible, and it has been enormously comforting in a century wearied by war, despite an addiction to a personal standard of living miles above that of our spiritual forebears.

A systematic review of the pre-tribulation Rapture will involve examining the credibility of its origins, the credibility of its biblical evidence, the credibility of its hermeneutics, and the credibility of its rhetorical and logical appeal--all in contrast to the same for historic premillennialism. If we were to take just a peek at the issues demanding investigation behind the curtain, we would immediately notice that one elephant in the tent is the sheer lack of explicit textual evidence that identifies a seven-year gap between Christ's "appearing" and His Coming.

That there is more than one elephant in this circus becomes obvious when we also explore the claim of the Rapture's imminency, now that it has been completely severed from the Second Coming of Christ that is specifically timed--to the point that we are told to lift up our heads at the signs, though we cannot know the day or the hour. That this "not knowing" should flip into a "constant knowing" that the Rapture is imminent isn't even logical in its own camp, let alone among historic premillennialists. The event triggered by nothing is supposed to trigger everything--all while this "nothing" is always "something" and "the next thing" in the headlines. How can the Rapture be connected to nothing and everything at the same time--to nothing in Scripture but to everything in the news?

Even the argument that we are in the last days must presuppose something that preceded those last days--or the last of the last days--such that the Rapture that was always imminent is now more imminent than ever. For a non-dispensationalist, this doesn't make sense. For the dispensationalist, this requires finding evidence for his theory outside of Scripture, first in his theology and then in the news. Then and only then can he attempt to attach his theory to Scripture, even though he intentionally bypasses outright eschatological sermons and parables of Christ as relevant only for the Jews during the Tribulation. Therefore, his argument of imminence meets also an argument for ubiquity in Scripture--he sees the Rapture everywhere precisely because it is neither defined nor confined by any precedent. He floats his evidence as a string of islands off the mainland.

Finally, we must see in our overview of elephants in the gymnastic carnival that a pre-tribulation Rapture violates fundamentals of critical reading. Even without knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, we can see glaring inconsistencies of this theology in a reliable translation of Scripture. And when we delve into original languages and syntax, not to mention context and author's purpose, we find that we are violating the very logic of reading itself to support this view. We must draw conclusions not supportable by explicit evidence--which is license, not inference. We are reading to confirm our own bias. This is neither honest nor sustainable.

So it comes to this: we cannot afford to believe an idea only because we are afraid of being labeled a heretic if we don't believe it. If an idea is true, the evidence will support it--and the odds are very, very good that Bible scholars now worshipping in heaven have found this evidence long ago. We would do well to stand on their shoulders as we contemplate the end of days.