This is a topic that I have spent countless hours considering and researching over the last several years. I grew up believing that there is coming a removal from the earth of those who love God prior to the advent of the Anti-Christ and the Beast System. This was not necessarily preached in the church that I grew up in, it was just understood from those whom I looked up to around me in the church. I took for granted that they were correct, and as a child, I did not have the mental acuity to research it myself.
I carried this view well into my adult years, still without studying it much myself. I don't really know what finally prompted me to read into it for myself; it may have been that a local pastor lead a series of sermons on Revelation. I didn't listen to his teaching, but he was the pastor of a large local church, so a lot of people were talking about this series of sermons. I guess that got me curious.
There are many followers of Christ that believe that Jesus will come and remove His faithful followers before things get bad, and that this is the "blessed hope" that is talked about in Titus 2:13. But 1 Peter 1:3-5 seems to give a different meaning of what that 'hope' is referring to; "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." The hope is "to obtain an inheritance that is imperishable". This is the hope of our salvation from hell, "through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead", not the hope of our salvation from tribulation. And this salvation will be revealed "in the last time" because it will only come about in the time of judgment that comes after Jesus conquers the earth. I won't belabour this point much here, but it is a significant key to understanding eschatology, or the study of end times Scripture.
If the pre-tribulation rapture of the church was true, it seems that it would be a major event for the church, since it would be the final chapter of the church on earth and would signify that all that we have hoped for is true. The only things that I would label as more significant would be creation, Jesus' death and resurrection, and the coming of the Holy Spirit. These three things are all specifically mentioned in Scripture, both in specific accounts and also referred to by others in other parts of the Bible. What I don't see is the specific mention of a specifically pre-tribulation rapture. There are verses that talk about the followers of Christ being brought to His side in relation to His second coming, but there is no specific mention of this occurring before things get bad. I had an epiphany of sorts in December of 2024 while I was spending a bit of time thinking about this. The epiphany was as follows: "There is no secret, hidden coming of our Lord Jesus. He will come once more, as a conquering King, and every knee will bow, either in honour or in terror."
We see over and over again that God does not remove His people from the difficulties that they face, but He carries them through the difficulties. I have heard the argument made that Noah was "raptured"/lifted up above the flood waters. No, he wasn't. Noah spent decades building and supplying the ark, and then he rode out the flood in the safety provided by the ark under God's hand. Noah was told to prepare to go through a tough time, which he did, and God's hand covered him and the people and animals that were with him as they went through their trial. If he had been lifted up above the flood, then he would have had no hand in it; it would have been entirely by the hand of God.
We also see, over and over again, how the people of God struggle in their difficulties. God has never promised us an easy life, He only promises us that He will be with us in the difficulties. But I don't want to focus on poking holes in the pre-trib rapture theory; I would rather lay out another option.
I want to point out that though we are never promised that we will not suffer through difficulties, we have been promised that we will not suffer wrath, but it takes a little bit of studying to understand what that means. We see in 1 Thessalonians 5:9 that, "God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ". Wrath is not the same as tribulation. The Greek word for tribulation is thlipsis, G2347, which is defined as affliction, distress, persecution; this word is not the word used here. The word used here is orgέ, G3709, wrath, anger, indignation; also meaning punishment and vengeance. Our salvation saves us from the wrath of God, the anger of God, the indignation of God. And how do we know this? 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10 tells us that we serve a living and true God, "and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come." But we don't really begin to understand how this affects the subject of the rapture until we start to look in Revelation, because it is here that the nature of the wrath of God is told to us.
Revelation 14:19-20 is where we find that "the angel swung his sickle to the earth and gathered the clusters from the vine of the earth, and threw them into the great wine press of the wrath of God. 20 And the wine press was trodden outside the city, and blood came out from the wine press, up to the horses’ bridles, for a distance of two hundred miles." This is where the saying 'the grapes of wrath' comes from. Just as the juice of the crushed grapes represents the blood of Jesus in the communion cup, which Jesus tells us in Mark 14:23-24, "And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. 24 And He said to them, “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many", we are told that these grapes that are thrown into the wine press of God's wrath produce blood, not grape juice. The wine press is a picture of the pressure that God will apply as punishment on those who have denied Jesus as their Saviour.
In the very next verse we again see the wrath of God mentioned. Revelation 15:1 says, "Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels who had seven plagues, which are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished." This is the introduction of the seven bowls of judgment, in which we read that the wrath of God is finished. The word used here for finished is teleo, G5055, which is used to indicate that something is accomplished, made to an end or filled up. So we see that the wrath of God is made to an end in the pouring out of these seven bowls, which are the completeness of His wrath. We see this explained again in 15:7 where we read what John saw, "Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God, who lives forever and ever." Again, the seven bowls are full, and they are full of the wrath of God. And yet again in Revelation 16:1 the bowls are said to contain the wrath of God; "Then I heard a loud voice from the temple, saying to the seven angels, “Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.” So when we read about the seven bowls of judgment, we know that these bowls and the judgments therein are the actual and complete wrath of God upon those who are living on the earth at that time, and these are made up of those who have rejected Jesus.
But I haven't yet told you how we know that these who receive God's wrath are only those who have rejected Jesus. To know that we have to read what happens in Revelation 14, just before we read of the harvest and the treading of the grapes. In verses 9-10 we read that, "If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, 10 he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God". The "also" in this case is referring to what was stated in verse 8, that "all the nations [drank] of the wine of the passion of [Babylon the great's] immorality”, and now they will "also" drink the wine of God's wrath. But there is an important event that happens after this proclamation and before the grapes of the wrath of God are harvested and tread upon, and this event is seldom spoken about by pastors, especially those who cling to the doctrine of the pre-tribulation rapture, because it pokes a gaping hole in their theory.
What we read in Revelation 14:14-16 is this; "Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and sitting on the cloud was one like a son of man, having a golden crown on His head and a sharp sickle in His hand. 15 And another angel came out of the temple, crying out with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, “Put in your sickle and reap, for the hour to reap has come, because the harvest of the earth is ripe.” 16 Then He who sat on the cloud swung His sickle over the earth, and the earth was reaped." This passage requires a slow and careful examination.
We are told that John saw "one like a son of man" sitting on a white cloud. Jesus is the only one who has ever been referred to as "a son of man". We see a couple of confirmations that this is Jesus in that He is wearing a golden crown, and the pronouns which refer to Him are all capitalized. As I mentioned in a previous article, this is how God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are indicated in Scripture, by capitalizing the first letter of their pronouns. And what does Jesus do? When instructed to do so by a messenger angel, having presumably been sent by God the Father, who only knows when Jesus will come for His people, Jesus harvests the earth, "because the harvest of the earth is ripe" (v.15). "Then He who sat on the cloud swung His sickle over the earth, and the earth was reaped." What, or who, would Jesus reap from the surface of the earth, but those who were committed to Him? This is the harvest of the wheat, while the tares are left to be burned (Matthew 13:14-30). This is the harvest that John the Baptist refers to when he says that the One to come has the winnowing fork in His hand to gather the wheat into His barn (Luke 3:16-18). These are people who had survived the tribulation period thus far, under persecution under the hand of the anti-christ. And we see that immediately after this passage is where the grapes of the wrath of God are then harvested. The righteous are removed from the earth immediately prior to the wrath of God being poured out on the earth as we read in the next two chapters. And just prior to the seventh and final bowl of God's wrath getting poured out, we see that the nations are gathered to Armageddon in their final showdown against God, the seventh bowl being the punishment reserved for them at that time.
So we can see that God's promise that those who place their faith in Jesus will be delivered from the earth is fulfilled immediately prior to God's wrath being poured out on the earth, but not prior to the tribulations that the anti-christ brings to the earth with his actions. The implication that remains for those who do not understand this is that they will not be prepared for the difficulties that we who are still here for the tribulation will yet face. 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4 warns us of this, but many read it incorrectly, thinking that it somehow points to the rapture of the church before the coming of the anti-christ. Please, read it carefully; "Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, 2 that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. 3 Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God."
This passage is telling us that the coming of Jesus,
with our gathering to Him, will not come, "unless the apostasy has come first", "and the man of lawlessness is revealed". Before Jesus comes and gathers His people, the anti-christ must first be revealed
and the apostasy must come. Why is there going to be a great apostasy, or turning away from God, prior to Jesus' coming? I believe that there will be a great number of people who are now expecting to be removed before the anti-christ appears due to false theology and a lack of Bible knowledge, but when that doesn't happen, and they begin to see the things that they were sure they would not witness, they will question everything that they had believed, and they will turn away from God because they had not prepared their hearts to stand under the onslaught of persecution that will come upon them. This is a travesty, that many will lose their eternal salvation because doctrinal theology is not correctly presented by our pastors and it is not rooted out of the Scriptures through careful reading and study of God's Word. The salvation only becomes eternal once we are judged as being under the blood of the Lamb; we are not
once saved, always saved. Do you see how these false doctrines work together, hand in hand, cooperating to potentially destroy many who have declared faith in Christ but who are not knowledgeable in the Scriptures? Hosea 4:6 warns us that "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge."
I plead with you to gather knowledge from the Scriptures and not from Bible teachers, and that includes myself. If what someone is saying doesn't jive with what the Bible says, then question it, dive in and either confirm what you have been told or reject it. I would love to one day have to admit to thousands of people that my understanding of this is wrong, because that would mean that we have all been removed before the tribulation. And there is definitely a possibility that I am wrong, but if I am, then at least this understanding of God's Word has lead people to prepare for the worst, so that if everybody else is wrong, then at least they will have the fortitude of faith to stand through the difficulties to come, and to not be part of the great apostasy of Thessalonians. And for those of you that are wondering how to refer to this doctrine, even though I have gleaned this without outside assistance, I imagine that this would align with the position of a pre-wrath rapture.
As always, I would love to hear what you think about what I have written. I will not engage in any back and forth with anyone wishing to argue against this in favour of the pre-trib rapture though. The very simple reason for this is that those who cling to the doctrine of a pre-trib rapture have already proven to me, many times over, that they are unable to see any other potential alternative. It is like the hope of leaving here early is an idol to them which they cannot bear to potentially lose. Those who argue pre-trib are among the most stubborn people that I have ever encountered when arguing their understanding of a doctrine; this is not a compliment. We all need to recognize when there is at least a possibility that another person may have a better understanding of a doctrine than what we have, and also that there is a possibility that we could be wrong in our own understanding. That goes for me as much as anybody else, and that is exactly how I got turned away from the doctrine of a pre-tribulation rapture.
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