You may wonder why I am again writing in defense of the pretribulation Rapture, the belief that Jesus will come for His church before the start of the seven-year tribulation. I am doing so because we live in a time when many inside and outside the church ridicule our hope in Jesus’ imminent appearing. How do we answer those who mock the hope we hold so dear?
Additionally, because of the day in which we live, those of us who eagerly wait for our “blessed hope” need reassurance of our excited expectation. It requires a dedicated walk of faith to keep looking up while living in a world riddled with fear, deception, and wickedness that continues to grow exponentially.
Despite my solid convictions on this matter, I sometimes find myself reviewing passages that speak to a pretribulation rapture as a way of restoring my soul as I watch the coming Marxist New World Order rapidly take shape. I suspect that you, like me, need reassurance of the solid biblical foundation that undergirds our sure hope in Jesus’ imminent appearing.
In this two-part series, I will answer twelve questions that together confirm our belief that the New Testament indeed teaches a pretribulation Rapture.
1. IS PREMILLENNIALISM BIBLICAL?
In any quest to establish the biblical soundness of the pretribulation Rapture, one absolutely must start with this question: is premillennialism biblical?
If one denies the reality of a seven-year tribulation as do the amillennialists, then it makes no difference where one places the Rapture since there is no future wrath of the Lord for us to avoid. What’s the point of one saying he or she believes in a posttribulation Rapture if they reject a the biblical teaching of the literal seven-year tribulation? It seems meaningless to me.
Furthermore, those who tell us there is no real and tangible future time of tribulation as well as no distinct thousand-year reign of Jesus interpret biblical prophecy through the use of allegory. The arguments that support a pretribulation Rapture find their basis in what the writer of Scripture intended to communicate at the time he wrote; they find their basis in the words of the Bible.
Those who deny the tenets of premillennialism base their beliefs on allegorical interpretations rather than the plain sense of the passage.
So yes, we will begin with the assumption that Scripture prophesies a future time of wrath during a seven-year period of time after which Jesus returns to earth, destroys the kingdom of the antichrist, and reigns over the nations of the earth for one thousand years seated on the throne of David in Jerusalem.
For further reading on why premillennialism is biblical, I present my case for this in Israel’s Future Restoration Vindicates God’s Holiness and in 7 Reasons Why Premillennialism is a Biblical Necessity. If you reject premillennialism, you are welcome to keep reading with the understanding that all the points that follow assume a literal seven-year tribulation and thousand-year reign of Jesus.
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