The Post-Tribulation Rapture; A Reply to Grant Jeffrey.

GRANT JEFFREY >>>>
Since Christ does not mention the Church to His disciples in this conversation, the plain interpretation is that Israel is the primary focus of the Prophecy of Matthew 24. Matthew 24 speaks of the Great Tribulation, and beginning at verse 15, Christ states that the Antichrist will set up the "abomination of desolation" (a supernatural statue of the Antichrist) to be worshiped in the Temple.

GAVIN >>>>
I have yet to see a Christian tear Matthew 24 out of their Bible saying “This bad news is written for the Jews only”. If they were truly sincere about this notion of Mat 24 being just for the Jews they would proceed to mail the torn out leaf to the nearest synagogue. The doctrine that delineates a continuing separation of two people of God forever amounts to a dangerous “apartheid of the elect”. Again, this is totally unfounded in scripture. The words of Jesus in the Olivet Discourse in Mat.24 were spoken to His trusted disciples. They are for our ears in the church. If we will hear them.

GRANT JEFFREY >>>>
In verses 40 and 41, Jesus says, "Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left." A vital question for students of the Bible is the identity of these people who "shall be taken." Does this prophecy refer to the Church or does it reveal God's plans for the Tribulation saint who become believers after the Rapture?

GAVIN >>>>
The ones taken are neither the tribulation saints nor the church. In this instance I agree will Professor Walvoord of Dallas Theological Seminary. He is the acclaimed dean of pre-tribulation rapturism. He (and most post-tribbers), believe that the ones taken are the wicked. They are carried off to a place of dead carcasses and vultures. Luke 17 17:34 I tell you, in that night there will be two people in one bed. The one will be taken, and the other will be left. 17:35 There will be two women grinding together. The one will be taken, and the other will be left." 17:36 17:37 They answering, asked him, "Where, Lord?" He said to them, "Where the body is, there will the vultures also be gathered together." -Luke 17:34-37

This is an awful place of death. There is surely no glory to be found there. And no glorified saints either. The ones left are the righteous. This corresponds with Jesus teaching on the wheat and tares. -Mat.13:24-43 The wicked, the tares, are gathered first.-Mat.13:30

GRANT JEFFREY >>>>
This chapter tells us that at the end of the Great Tribulation, God will send His angels and "they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other" (verse 31). These "elect" are the people who become believers during the Great Tribulation of three and one half years. This gathering together is not the Rapture. This gathering of Tribulation believers takes place at the end of the Tribulation, whereas the Rapture of the Church occurs sometime prior to the beginning of the Great Tribulation when Antichrist sets himself up as "God" in the Temple.

GAVIN >>>>
This separation of the tribulation saints from the church and this denial of the tribulation saints as being worthy of belonging to the church is a grievous betrayal. We have no basis in scripture to cut these dear believers off from us in the church just because the pre-tribulation rapture chart makers have seen fit to terminate the Age of Grace and the Church Age before the 70th week begins. These precious tribulation saints have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb”.-Rev.7:14 Do we dare presume to excommunicate them from us? Furthermore they go to a high heavenly destiny. John sees them go on to minister before the throne of God in His heavenly temple.-Rev.7:15 If they came up for church membership in our churches today would we approve their membership? We must be careful how we answer this. Their angels are watching.

GRANT JEFFREY >>>>
Notice that the angels "gather the elect" (verse 31), whereas, at the time of the Rapture, "The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first" (1 Thessalonians 4:16__17). This gathering of the "elect" Tribulation saints will occur at the conclusion of three and one half years, a period of time for which there are the most detailed prophecies found in the Bible.

GAVIN >>>
Christ returns with His angels to judge the wicked and deliver His elect. The 1Thes. 4:15-17 account even mentions the “voice of the archangel”. We do not have proof from the mere omission of mention of angels in a given account of the rapture that they are not involved.

GRANT JEFFREY >>>
The Bible describes many Tribulation events that must occur prior to the "gathering" of the Tribulation saints and thus, it cannot be correctly described as "imminent."

GAVIN >>>>>
Imminency is not an issue regarding the timing of the resurrection-rapture. All the Bible says is that “no man knows the day or the hour” of Christ’s return. -Mat.24:36 This does not prove that the rapture could have been imminent throughout the past 2,000 years. This 'no man knows the day or the hour' just means that no man or angel has the very fine detail of timing down to 24 hours. But Jesus rebukes those who do not read the seasons and signs of the times. -Mat.16:1-3

GRANT JEFFREY >>>>
These facts have caused many scholars to believe that this "gathering" is, therefore, a different event than the "Rapture" of the Church. However, when we turn our attention to the coming of Christ for His Church, we find that there are no warnings or signals given to indicate the time of the Rapture. The Rapture can literally occur at any time.

GAVIN >>>>
The rapture cannot occur 'at any time'. It must follow the harvest resurrection of the righteous dead at the 'last day'. A word study of 'last day' will soon set the record straight. In John 6 Jesus tells us that He will return to raise His people up at the "last day". He repeats the message four times in the same chapter. (John 6:39,40,44,& 54) Even Martha testified to Jesus her belief in the resurrection of the righteous dead. Unlike most evangelicals today she got the timing down without any problem. She said, Lord, I know he (Lazarus) will rise again, in the resurrection at the 'last day'.

Now let us go on from there. Our dear Apostle Paul said that the rapture of the living cannot precede this harvest resurrection of the righteous dead.

1 Thessalonians 4
4:14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.
4:15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.
4:16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
4:17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.

The timing of this first resurrection harvest is further given to us in Rev.20

20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
20:5 But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
20:6 Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years. -Rev.20:4-6

As we can see, the first resurrection harvest includes tribulation saints who will have died refusing the 666 mark of the beast. So the resurrection-rapture must be late. In fact it must be post-trib. This is decisive and irrefutable proof of the correctness of the post-tribulation rapture.

GRANT JEFFREY>>>
The third reason postribulationist writers have attacked the pretribulation Rapture doctrine by claiming that it cannot be true because no Church writer or Reformer ever taught this doctrine until approximately 170 years ago until it was introduced by John Darby, a Plymouth Brethren. Their argument that no one ever saw this "truth" throughout eighteen hundred years of Church history has been very effective, causing many Christians to abandon their belief in the pretribulation Rapture. The only problem is that their assertion that no one in the early Church taught the pretribulation Rapture has been found to be incorrect. Obviously the truth about the time of the Rapture can be found only in Scripture. The Protestant Reformation was based essentially on this return to the authority of the Bible. The Latin phrase sola Scriptura, meaning "Scripture alone" became the rallying cry of the Reformers who ignored centuries of tradition and church councils in their insistence that truth could only be discovered in the Word of God. While the resolution of this issue must be based on our interpretation of Scripture, it is important to answer the errors of our opponents, who disparage "the blessed hope" of the Rapture with misinformation about the modern rediscovery of the truth about the pretribulation Rapture.

A Discovery that the Pretribulation Rapture Was Taught in the Early Church During the summer of 1994, after more than a decade of searching, I discovered several fascinating manuscripts that contain clear evidence of the teaching of the pre_tribulation rapture in the early church. Ephraem's Teaching on the Pretribulation Rapture For all the saints and Elect of God are gathered, prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord lest they see the confusion that is to overwhelm the world because of our sins. (On the Last Times, the Antichrist, and the End of the World, by Ephraem the Syrian, A.D. 373) The early Christian writer and poet, Ephraem the Syrian, (A.D. 306 _ 373) was a major theologian of the early Byzantine Eastern Church. He was born near Nisbis, in the Roman province of Syria, near present_day Edessa, Turkey. Ephraem's fascinating teaching on the Antichrist has never been published in English until I wrote FINAL WARNING in 1995. Some scholars suggested that this manuscript was written several centuries later (5th or 6th century) but definitely before the birth of Islam in 622. However William Bousset, one of the greatest scholars on ancient eschatology, concluded in his book The Antichrist Legend that it was written by Ephraem the Syrian before A.D. 373.1 Andrew R. Anderson wrote in his book Alexander's Gate that he accepted the early date as being valid.2

This critically important prophecy manuscript from the fourth century of the Church era reveals a very clear statement about the pretribulational return of Christ to take His elect saints home to heaven to escape the coming Tribulation. For additional details read the article Examining an ancient Pre-tribulation Rapture statement on my web site.

GAVIN >>>>
I would defer this argument to my good friend Tim Warner. He has an extensive section devoted to this very matter on his excellent scripturally faithful post-trib website, The Last Trumpet. He addresses Mr. Jeffrey’s assertion of a pre-trib belief taught in the early church in the link below entitled,

'The early church fathers on the endtime'.