I thought of trying to add to the different threads, but felt so overwhelmed by the mass of comments, some of them putting forth quite bizarre views, that I decided to start afresh.
Most of the comments I have seen so far are hostile to the idea of the pre-tribulational removal of the church, that is to say, the idea that the first event of the end times is the removal of the true church from the world. Many of the reasons (where given) for this hostility seem to me to be confused.
First, there is the Augustinian idea that the church has replaced Israel or that there is no difference between the church and Israel. That view leads to complete confusion when trying to understand the prophecies. Next there is confusion between tribulation at the hands of men and the wrath of God. There is much confusion about the abomination of desolation and the 70-week prophecy of Daniel.
In my view the pretribulational rapture and premilleniialism is the system that makes the most sense of all the prophecies. There are still problems, but they are less than any other that I have seen.
The first thing to establish is that Israel and the church are separate and not to be confused. Israel is elect as a nation and has an earthly role until the end of the millennium, whereas the church is a union in Christ of elect individuals, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, whose Gentile members are grafted in as wild olive shoots onto the olive tree of God's promise to Abraham.
Israel as a whole never possessed the Holy Spirit; he came only on certain individuals. That alone is enough to show that Israel cannot be the same as the church. Israel's promise is centred on the land. The promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and David are all about the land of Israel, which God unconditionally promised as a permanent possession. That promise was temporarily forfeited as an ultimate discipline under the law of Moses, but that discipline has already partly and will fully come to an end. In the millennium, Israel, meaning the physical descendants of Jacob, will be in possession of the full extent of the promised land, under David their prince and the twelve apostles, with Christ reigning over the whole world from Jerusalem. This is the kingdom that was promised to Israel and which Jesus removed from the generation of his first coming because they rejected him. This is the kingdom that Israel will ultimately receive. It is not the church. Indeed it makes no sense for it to be the church, for that would leave the rest of the world inhabited only by non-believers during the millennium. The church will be reigning with Christ -- just how, he does not say, but it seems that the extent of responsibility will depend on the degree of our faithfulness in this life.
The church, on the other hand, though it started off Jewish and has Jewish members, is primarily Gentile. It is a mystery -- that is to say, something that was not revealed in the Old Testament -- and the nature of that mystery is the union in it of Jew and Gentile. The church is also the bride of Christ, whom he is preparing for himself. When that is borne in mind, the Jewish wedding customs of the NT period throw much light on the events of the last days.
As if to drive home the fact that the church is not Israel, Gentile Christians are not allowed to be circumcised, whereas circumcision is the essential mark of being a part of Israel, and the uncircumcised were cut off from the people.
It is therefore important to understand to whom prophecies are addressed and whom they describe. In the OT it is easy. Since the church is not revealed in the OT, no prophecy there can refer to it. The very most one can see is a possible hint here and there. Some prophecies are addressed to specific Gentiles and nations; the rest are addressed to Israel or to individual Jews. In the NT, which covers the creation of the church, it is important to distinguish whether a prophecy is addressed to the church or to Israel. The epistles are almost entirely to the church, of course, but the gospels are a different matter. Jesus said of himself, "I am sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Therefore we should assume that most of his teaching before the crucifixion was primarily to Israel rather than to the church. Naturally much of it does affect the church, but the prophecies about the end time in the gospels are addressed to Israel rather than the church. The Jewish context of Matthew 24 provides the verification for that. ("Pray that your flight does not take place on the Sabbath...")
So when we look at the OT prophecies we must remember that they are not about the church. Daniel's prophecy of the 70 sevens (weeks) is specifically for your [Daniel's] people. To apply any part of those weeks to anyone else is wrong. The church is not the same as Daniel's people. So the 70 sevens relate entirely to Israel. When Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, fulfilling Zechariah 9, he said of it "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace!... you did not know the time of your visitation". (Luke 19:44) They were at fault for not knowing that particular day, because it was the final day of the 69 sevens prophesied by Daniel, starting from the decree given to Nehemiah to restore the city (see Sir Robert Anderson's book, The Coming Prince, for the details of the calculation.) Because they did not recognise it, their last chance of receiving the kingdom in that generation was removed and instead that generation were sentenced to destruction along with the city itself.
This is what the prophecy plainly says: after the 69 sevens (483 years), Messiah shall be cut off and the city and sanctuary destroyed. Messiah is not cut off during the 70th seven; the crucifixion and the destruction of Jerusalem 38 years later are linked together and happen between the 69th and the 70th seven. The 70th is yet to come. The prophecies of Revelation tie in here, because the last 7 years detailed in Revelation are plainly the same as the 70th seven of Daniel 9. The two witnesses prophesy 1260 days (42 months or 3.5 years) and the beast subsequently is given power for 42 months. That makes up the 7 years.
Many people object to breaking the 70 sevens in this way, but the prophecy already divides them into three parts. No event is mentioned between the 7 sevens and the 62 sevens, so they can be assumed to be contiguous, but two events 38 years apart happen between the 69th and the 70th, which means that the gap is right there in the prophecy. A similar gap is evident in Isaiah 61, for Jesus quotes it and stops in the middle of it (Is 61:1ff of which he quotes only the first verse in Luke 4 :18-19), indicating that the part of the prophecy about the vengeance of God was not yet to be fulfilled.
Thus it is established that the 70th week is yet to come and that it is relevant to the Jewish people. Therefore the church should not be expected to be present, otherwise God would have two conflicting schemes in operation at one and the same time. The church is the union of Jew and Gentile in Christ, whereas Israel as a nation is separate from the Gentiles and not united with them at all. The solution is that the church is removed at the start of the last days, and the focus of God's activity is then completely upon Israel.
Biblical support
If this is a correct reading of scripture there should be biblical evidence to support it, and in fact there are several lines of evidence.
First, something which was very much absent from the threads I read, the Day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night. The world is taken by surprise when disaster suddenly comes upon them. At one moment they are saying "Peace and safety!" and then they are overwhelmed by terror. This cannot conceivably refer to the Lord's return By the time that happens, there will have been seven years of the wrath of God. Even during the first half of it, around one half of the world's population will have been killed (Rev 6:8 combined with Rev 9:18). The coming as a thief cannot refer to the last day of those 7 years, but must apply to the commencement of the Day of the Lord. That expression clearly does not have to denote just a single day; its scope varies depending on the passage where it appears, and sometimes it includes the entire end times right up to beyond the millennium. Furthermore "that day will not overtake us like a thief".
Similarly, we are to watch and pray that we will escape (εκφυγειν) the wrath to come. Escape means "to flee out of", not "to be preserved through". We have to distinguish between tribulation that comes from men ("In this world you will have tribulation") and the wrath of God, which is his punishment on a rebellious world. God does not judge his own people -- or who could survive? When he sends judgement on the world, he removes his own people to safety first. Thus Noah is taken into the ark, which is a type of Christ, out of the world that is to be deluged by the Flood. When God determines to destroy Sodom, his angels actually manhandle Lot out of the place because they can do nothing until he is in safety. The church is redeemed and no longer subject to condemnation; therefore God cannot subject it to his wrath, nor will the true church be there when his wrath falls on those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Revelation constantly lists "those who dwell on the earth "as the wicked; the church cannot be there.
The third point is that the church is not seen at all during the judgements of Revelation 4 to 18. It is seen in chapters 1-3, but the word 'church' does not appear after that until chapter 22. This is therefore support for the idea that the church is taken out of the world before any of the judgements of chapters 5-18 take place. Further support is given by the existence of the redeemed in heaven during the judgements on the earth and by the fact that the redeemed follow him out of heaven when he comes to earth (Rev 19:14).
Fourth, in John 14 Jesus says, "In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also." Jesus is certainly not currently preparing those rooms on earth; therefore they must be in heaven. Therefore when he comes to take his disciples to them, he is taking them to heaven, not inviting them to follow on back to earth.
This links into the Jewish wedding pattern. In NT times, the (binding) betrothal would be arranged and the bridegroom would start to prepare accommodation for himself and his bride at his father's house. When his father approved and gave the word, he would come back unannounced to collect his bride, who therefore had to keep herself ready, and take her to the accommodation he had built, where they would remain in seclusion for 7 days. After that, the wedding feast would be held. In Revelation, the wedding feast is held when Jesus returns to earth, therefore the period of seclusion must already have happened; thus the rapture corresponds to the bridegroom's taking his bride and the seven years of God's wrath on the earth represent the period of seclusion. Here is a detailed account of the wedding customs. Furthermore, the bride is not a guest at her own wedding! The guests must be people other than the bride. If the bride is the church, the guests are redeemed Israel and the righteous Gentiles who have survived Christ's return. Since they are not the church, they cannot have come to Christ as part of the church, which reinforces the bible's teaching that the church is a separate entity. Furthermore, Jesus tells his disciples, "I will come again and receive you to myself". That is, he will come in person for his bride, whereas at his second coming to earth, the angels gather up the elect. (Matthew 24:31)
Next, consider who are the inhabitants of the millennial kingdom. They are people who have children, and furthermore children who are born in sin (Is 65:20). But "in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage", so those children are not the offspring of anyone in the church, who were resurrected from the dead or given resurrection bodies before Christ came back to inaugurate his kingdom. Therefore, at the start of the millennium there must be people who are not part of the church but are nevertheless not destroyed with the wicked at Christ's return. Matthew 25 relates the judgement of the sheep and the goats, and we see there three groups of people: the sheep, the goats and "my brethren". Jesus' brethren refers to the Jewish nation, but even if it is taken to mean the church, it necessarily means that the sheep are not his brethren.
Jesus says of the church, "The gates of hell will not prevail against it." However Daniel and Revelation say that the antichrist (the beast) overcomes the saints. Therefore those saints cannot be the church.
Revelation 19 describes the return of Jesus to earth. There is absolutely no mention here of the catching up of believers in the air. Instead, the saints, described as the armies of heaven, are already following behind him. If the rapture event were really to take place at the end of the Great Tribulation, we should expect to see some mention of it in Revelation.
The primary timing indicator for the rapture is obscured by a poor translation originating from the KJV in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition".
The phrase "a falling away" is Greek η aποστaσιa. This is related to the verb aφιστημι, whose root meaning is "stand away". It is used with the preposition aπο (from) to mean "depart from". Jerome translated this phrase into Latin as "discessio" (departure) and the Geneva Bible translated it "departing". "Falling away" is novel in the KJV, not too surprisingly seeing that the translators did not understand the doctrine of the rapture and were continung in the Catholic doctrine they had inherited. Furthermore, the phrase has the definite article; it is "the departure", not just any departure. The context of 2 Thessalonians shows that that church had written to Paul after receiving a letter supposedly from him saying that the Day of the Lord had already come. Naturally this must mean the time of trouble preceding Christ's return, or they would not have been worried; they were already undergoing persecution, as can be seen from chapter 1. It is clear that Paul had told them that the church was going to be removed before the time of trouble; how was it then, they must have asked him, that that time had arrived and they had not been removed from it?
Paul answers to reassure them. This is not yet the Day of the Lord, because 2 events must occur before that can begin. The first is the departing (of the church from the world) and after that the revealing of the man of sin. He is giving two clear and identifiable events. The translation "falling away" or "rebellion", on the other hand, is useless as a sign. The church has been substantially fallen away for most of its existence, with the rot already setting in at the end of the apostolic period (3 John 9, for example). How could anyone tell what degree of further apostasy was meant here? The identity of the man of sin will be clear, since he will be revealed by making a strong covenant with the majority of Israel (Daniel 9:27); the first sign must also be clear. It must also be cause for reassurance: the believers will not be subject to God's wrath like the heathen.
The Olivet Discourse
During the passion week, Jesus was questioned by his followers about the end times and the destruction of Jerusalem. If they had read Daniel 9, they would no doubt have expected the destruction of the city immediately to precede the final 7 years. In Matthew 24 (echoing Mark 13) and Luke 21 Jesus addresses these questions.
The first thing to notice about these passages is that they are addressed to Jews. Jesus talks about Jerusalem and the temple, and the people who are to act on the prophecies are to pray that their flight does not take place on the Sabbath. This cannot be addressed to the church, who are never required to keep the Sabbath (Saturday, by the way) at all.
The second thing to notice is that in Matthew and Luke, Jesus answers different parts of the disciples' questions. He has just prophesied the complete destruction of the temple and they ask him in Matthew, "Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?” But in Luke the question is more limited in scope, "Teacher, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?”. Although in both passages Jesus gives information about his second coming, in Luke he answers the question about the destruction of the temple and warns believers to flee "when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies". Eusebius records how the believers took advantage of the temporary lifting of the siege to flee Jerusalem to Pella and thereby escaped the destruction of Jerusalem.
In Matthew, however, Jesus instead gives information about the Last Days, saying, "when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains." The nature of the abomination of desolation is quite clear because it is prophesied twice in Daniel by that name, first at 11:31 and again, in the context of the last days, at 12:11, which also corresponds to 9:27. It is prophesied twice and it is fulfilled twice, first by Antiochus Ephiphanes, when he set up a statue of Zeus in the Holy Place in the temple, and it will be again in the last days. The fulfilment of the first prophesy shows what the nature of the second fulfilment will be. It is what is described in 2 Thessalonians 2:4, where it is said of the man of sin that "he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God."
Objections
This does require a temple to have been rebuilt in Jerusalem, but that is no more unlikely than was the restoration of Israel in the first place. Bishop Ryle understood back in the 19th century that Israel must be restored, though the whole area was still under the Turkish empire and there seemed to be no prospect at all of its ever happening. Currently, the Temple Institute in Jerusalem have created the vessels needed for the temple and are training priests and Levites for the service of the temple. Only political circumstances stop the Jews from rebuilding it, and those can change very rapidly. Most likely, the overwhelming destruction of an invading army, prophesied in Ezekiel 38 and 39, will clear the way for it.
There are those who claim that the doctrine of the rapture allows unfaithful believers to laze about and then be removed undeservedly. First, if someone is converted and his behaviour does not change, there is very good reason to doubt that he is really converted at all. Second, none of us deserves anything from God at all. We certainly will not earn our way into heaven by being on earth during the wrath of God!
The imminence of an unheralded rapture should be a spur to evangelism rather than an incitement to indolence; once it has happened, we will have no further opportunity to give the gospel to our family and friends.
Some argue that when Jesus speaks of those who are taken and those who are left (Matt 24:40-41, Luke 17:34-35), those taken are taken away for destruction. That interpretation is based on the parables of the tares and of the dragnet. But it is impermissible to press the details of parables and ignore the actual language. The word for "taken" (πaρaλaμbaνω) has the connotation of being chosen, while that for "left" (aφιημι) has the connotation of discarding something.
There are those who consider pretribulationism a new doctrine. Premillennialism is the historic belief of the church (when it was called chiliasm - chilias is the Greek for 1,000, meaning the millennium). All of the doctrine is based on the scripture. We should not be surprised that God should open new understanding of his word, for Daniel was told that "the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end." (Dan 12:9). Now that the end is likely very close, understanding of those words is needed as it was not needed before. Likewise, Satan's anger is now roused against a doctrine that gives hope to the church and encourages it to vigorous evangelism that will likely hasten his end, so he has raised up great opposition to it.
Some object to the idea of a new temple because we are a temple of the Holy Spirit. Of course, if the church is removed, the Holy Spirit will no longer be indwelling anyone on earth. He will again, as in Israel, come upon individuals whom he calls, such as the two witnesses and the 144,000. In any case, a spiritual application should not be allowed to obscure a prophecy of physical events. There will be a new temple in the millennial kingdom, this time one approved by God. The existence of the spiritual reality does not preclude the existence of a physical reality which serves as a picture of the spiritual one.
Summary and Conclusion
The summary view of the pretribulational and premillennial interpretation of scripture is that Israel is the focus of God's promise. However, as prophesied, Israel rejected the Messiah and the promised kingdom was taken away from that generation; in the meantime God revealed the church as an unprecedented union of Jew and Gentile that should last "until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in". At that time, the church, which is the bride of Christ, will be removed from the world to be with her bridegroom in heaven, and the focus of events on earth will switch back to Israel, still in unbelief but apparently having constructed or being about to construct a new temple. The man of sin (also called the antichrist or the prince that shall come) is revealed by his making an agreement with Israel and he begins to build up his political power. God's judgement begin to fall on the world. Half way through the 7 year agreement, the man of sin breaks it and sets himself up as a god in the temple and begins a persecution of the Jews with the aim of wiping them out. The reason is that their leaders must ask Jesus to come back as Messiah (Luke 13:35) and their annihilation would prevent from ever happening. The Lord protects a remnant of his people, but two thirds are killed. This is the time of Jacob's trouble and the great tribulation. The effect of it is finally to bring the remnant of Israel to repent and the Lord returns to subdue all his enemies and to redeem Israel not only from their enemies but also from sin, by giving them the new heart of flesh promised by Jeremiah 31:31. The millennium follows, with Israel chief of the nations on earth and Christ reigning over the whole world from Jerusalem. The righteous are resurrected but the wicked dead are still reserved in Hades/Sheol and will be resurrected for the final judgement after the final rebellion.
This scheme of interpretation covers all the major prophetic passages without the glaring omissions of other schemes. There are still difficulties, but fewer than with any other.
Most of the comments I have seen so far are hostile to the idea of the pre-tribulational removal of the church, that is to say, the idea that the first event of the end times is the removal of the true church from the world. Many of the reasons (where given) for this hostility seem to me to be confused.
First, there is the Augustinian idea that the church has replaced Israel or that there is no difference between the church and Israel. That view leads to complete confusion when trying to understand the prophecies. Next there is confusion between tribulation at the hands of men and the wrath of God. There is much confusion about the abomination of desolation and the 70-week prophecy of Daniel.
In my view the pretribulational rapture and premilleniialism is the system that makes the most sense of all the prophecies. There are still problems, but they are less than any other that I have seen.
The first thing to establish is that Israel and the church are separate and not to be confused. Israel is elect as a nation and has an earthly role until the end of the millennium, whereas the church is a union in Christ of elect individuals, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, whose Gentile members are grafted in as wild olive shoots onto the olive tree of God's promise to Abraham.
Israel as a whole never possessed the Holy Spirit; he came only on certain individuals. That alone is enough to show that Israel cannot be the same as the church. Israel's promise is centred on the land. The promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and David are all about the land of Israel, which God unconditionally promised as a permanent possession. That promise was temporarily forfeited as an ultimate discipline under the law of Moses, but that discipline has already partly and will fully come to an end. In the millennium, Israel, meaning the physical descendants of Jacob, will be in possession of the full extent of the promised land, under David their prince and the twelve apostles, with Christ reigning over the whole world from Jerusalem. This is the kingdom that was promised to Israel and which Jesus removed from the generation of his first coming because they rejected him. This is the kingdom that Israel will ultimately receive. It is not the church. Indeed it makes no sense for it to be the church, for that would leave the rest of the world inhabited only by non-believers during the millennium. The church will be reigning with Christ -- just how, he does not say, but it seems that the extent of responsibility will depend on the degree of our faithfulness in this life.
The church, on the other hand, though it started off Jewish and has Jewish members, is primarily Gentile. It is a mystery -- that is to say, something that was not revealed in the Old Testament -- and the nature of that mystery is the union in it of Jew and Gentile. The church is also the bride of Christ, whom he is preparing for himself. When that is borne in mind, the Jewish wedding customs of the NT period throw much light on the events of the last days.
As if to drive home the fact that the church is not Israel, Gentile Christians are not allowed to be circumcised, whereas circumcision is the essential mark of being a part of Israel, and the uncircumcised were cut off from the people.
It is therefore important to understand to whom prophecies are addressed and whom they describe. In the OT it is easy. Since the church is not revealed in the OT, no prophecy there can refer to it. The very most one can see is a possible hint here and there. Some prophecies are addressed to specific Gentiles and nations; the rest are addressed to Israel or to individual Jews. In the NT, which covers the creation of the church, it is important to distinguish whether a prophecy is addressed to the church or to Israel. The epistles are almost entirely to the church, of course, but the gospels are a different matter. Jesus said of himself, "I am sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Therefore we should assume that most of his teaching before the crucifixion was primarily to Israel rather than to the church. Naturally much of it does affect the church, but the prophecies about the end time in the gospels are addressed to Israel rather than the church. The Jewish context of Matthew 24 provides the verification for that. ("Pray that your flight does not take place on the Sabbath...")
So when we look at the OT prophecies we must remember that they are not about the church. Daniel's prophecy of the 70 sevens (weeks) is specifically for your [Daniel's] people. To apply any part of those weeks to anyone else is wrong. The church is not the same as Daniel's people. So the 70 sevens relate entirely to Israel. When Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, fulfilling Zechariah 9, he said of it "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace!... you did not know the time of your visitation". (Luke 19:44) They were at fault for not knowing that particular day, because it was the final day of the 69 sevens prophesied by Daniel, starting from the decree given to Nehemiah to restore the city (see Sir Robert Anderson's book, The Coming Prince, for the details of the calculation.) Because they did not recognise it, their last chance of receiving the kingdom in that generation was removed and instead that generation were sentenced to destruction along with the city itself.
This is what the prophecy plainly says: after the 69 sevens (483 years), Messiah shall be cut off and the city and sanctuary destroyed. Messiah is not cut off during the 70th seven; the crucifixion and the destruction of Jerusalem 38 years later are linked together and happen between the 69th and the 70th seven. The 70th is yet to come. The prophecies of Revelation tie in here, because the last 7 years detailed in Revelation are plainly the same as the 70th seven of Daniel 9. The two witnesses prophesy 1260 days (42 months or 3.5 years) and the beast subsequently is given power for 42 months. That makes up the 7 years.
Many people object to breaking the 70 sevens in this way, but the prophecy already divides them into three parts. No event is mentioned between the 7 sevens and the 62 sevens, so they can be assumed to be contiguous, but two events 38 years apart happen between the 69th and the 70th, which means that the gap is right there in the prophecy. A similar gap is evident in Isaiah 61, for Jesus quotes it and stops in the middle of it (Is 61:1ff of which he quotes only the first verse in Luke 4 :18-19), indicating that the part of the prophecy about the vengeance of God was not yet to be fulfilled.
Thus it is established that the 70th week is yet to come and that it is relevant to the Jewish people. Therefore the church should not be expected to be present, otherwise God would have two conflicting schemes in operation at one and the same time. The church is the union of Jew and Gentile in Christ, whereas Israel as a nation is separate from the Gentiles and not united with them at all. The solution is that the church is removed at the start of the last days, and the focus of God's activity is then completely upon Israel.
Biblical support
If this is a correct reading of scripture there should be biblical evidence to support it, and in fact there are several lines of evidence.
First, something which was very much absent from the threads I read, the Day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night. The world is taken by surprise when disaster suddenly comes upon them. At one moment they are saying "Peace and safety!" and then they are overwhelmed by terror. This cannot conceivably refer to the Lord's return By the time that happens, there will have been seven years of the wrath of God. Even during the first half of it, around one half of the world's population will have been killed (Rev 6:8 combined with Rev 9:18). The coming as a thief cannot refer to the last day of those 7 years, but must apply to the commencement of the Day of the Lord. That expression clearly does not have to denote just a single day; its scope varies depending on the passage where it appears, and sometimes it includes the entire end times right up to beyond the millennium. Furthermore "that day will not overtake us like a thief".
Similarly, we are to watch and pray that we will escape (εκφυγειν) the wrath to come. Escape means "to flee out of", not "to be preserved through". We have to distinguish between tribulation that comes from men ("In this world you will have tribulation") and the wrath of God, which is his punishment on a rebellious world. God does not judge his own people -- or who could survive? When he sends judgement on the world, he removes his own people to safety first. Thus Noah is taken into the ark, which is a type of Christ, out of the world that is to be deluged by the Flood. When God determines to destroy Sodom, his angels actually manhandle Lot out of the place because they can do nothing until he is in safety. The church is redeemed and no longer subject to condemnation; therefore God cannot subject it to his wrath, nor will the true church be there when his wrath falls on those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Revelation constantly lists "those who dwell on the earth "as the wicked; the church cannot be there.
The third point is that the church is not seen at all during the judgements of Revelation 4 to 18. It is seen in chapters 1-3, but the word 'church' does not appear after that until chapter 22. This is therefore support for the idea that the church is taken out of the world before any of the judgements of chapters 5-18 take place. Further support is given by the existence of the redeemed in heaven during the judgements on the earth and by the fact that the redeemed follow him out of heaven when he comes to earth (Rev 19:14).
Fourth, in John 14 Jesus says, "In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also." Jesus is certainly not currently preparing those rooms on earth; therefore they must be in heaven. Therefore when he comes to take his disciples to them, he is taking them to heaven, not inviting them to follow on back to earth.
This links into the Jewish wedding pattern. In NT times, the (binding) betrothal would be arranged and the bridegroom would start to prepare accommodation for himself and his bride at his father's house. When his father approved and gave the word, he would come back unannounced to collect his bride, who therefore had to keep herself ready, and take her to the accommodation he had built, where they would remain in seclusion for 7 days. After that, the wedding feast would be held. In Revelation, the wedding feast is held when Jesus returns to earth, therefore the period of seclusion must already have happened; thus the rapture corresponds to the bridegroom's taking his bride and the seven years of God's wrath on the earth represent the period of seclusion. Here is a detailed account of the wedding customs. Furthermore, the bride is not a guest at her own wedding! The guests must be people other than the bride. If the bride is the church, the guests are redeemed Israel and the righteous Gentiles who have survived Christ's return. Since they are not the church, they cannot have come to Christ as part of the church, which reinforces the bible's teaching that the church is a separate entity. Furthermore, Jesus tells his disciples, "I will come again and receive you to myself". That is, he will come in person for his bride, whereas at his second coming to earth, the angels gather up the elect. (Matthew 24:31)
Next, consider who are the inhabitants of the millennial kingdom. They are people who have children, and furthermore children who are born in sin (Is 65:20). But "in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage", so those children are not the offspring of anyone in the church, who were resurrected from the dead or given resurrection bodies before Christ came back to inaugurate his kingdom. Therefore, at the start of the millennium there must be people who are not part of the church but are nevertheless not destroyed with the wicked at Christ's return. Matthew 25 relates the judgement of the sheep and the goats, and we see there three groups of people: the sheep, the goats and "my brethren". Jesus' brethren refers to the Jewish nation, but even if it is taken to mean the church, it necessarily means that the sheep are not his brethren.
Jesus says of the church, "The gates of hell will not prevail against it." However Daniel and Revelation say that the antichrist (the beast) overcomes the saints. Therefore those saints cannot be the church.
Revelation 19 describes the return of Jesus to earth. There is absolutely no mention here of the catching up of believers in the air. Instead, the saints, described as the armies of heaven, are already following behind him. If the rapture event were really to take place at the end of the Great Tribulation, we should expect to see some mention of it in Revelation.
The primary timing indicator for the rapture is obscured by a poor translation originating from the KJV in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition".
The phrase "a falling away" is Greek η aποστaσιa. This is related to the verb aφιστημι, whose root meaning is "stand away". It is used with the preposition aπο (from) to mean "depart from". Jerome translated this phrase into Latin as "discessio" (departure) and the Geneva Bible translated it "departing". "Falling away" is novel in the KJV, not too surprisingly seeing that the translators did not understand the doctrine of the rapture and were continung in the Catholic doctrine they had inherited. Furthermore, the phrase has the definite article; it is "the departure", not just any departure. The context of 2 Thessalonians shows that that church had written to Paul after receiving a letter supposedly from him saying that the Day of the Lord had already come. Naturally this must mean the time of trouble preceding Christ's return, or they would not have been worried; they were already undergoing persecution, as can be seen from chapter 1. It is clear that Paul had told them that the church was going to be removed before the time of trouble; how was it then, they must have asked him, that that time had arrived and they had not been removed from it?
Paul answers to reassure them. This is not yet the Day of the Lord, because 2 events must occur before that can begin. The first is the departing (of the church from the world) and after that the revealing of the man of sin. He is giving two clear and identifiable events. The translation "falling away" or "rebellion", on the other hand, is useless as a sign. The church has been substantially fallen away for most of its existence, with the rot already setting in at the end of the apostolic period (3 John 9, for example). How could anyone tell what degree of further apostasy was meant here? The identity of the man of sin will be clear, since he will be revealed by making a strong covenant with the majority of Israel (Daniel 9:27); the first sign must also be clear. It must also be cause for reassurance: the believers will not be subject to God's wrath like the heathen.
The Olivet Discourse
During the passion week, Jesus was questioned by his followers about the end times and the destruction of Jerusalem. If they had read Daniel 9, they would no doubt have expected the destruction of the city immediately to precede the final 7 years. In Matthew 24 (echoing Mark 13) and Luke 21 Jesus addresses these questions.
The first thing to notice about these passages is that they are addressed to Jews. Jesus talks about Jerusalem and the temple, and the people who are to act on the prophecies are to pray that their flight does not take place on the Sabbath. This cannot be addressed to the church, who are never required to keep the Sabbath (Saturday, by the way) at all.
The second thing to notice is that in Matthew and Luke, Jesus answers different parts of the disciples' questions. He has just prophesied the complete destruction of the temple and they ask him in Matthew, "Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?” But in Luke the question is more limited in scope, "Teacher, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?”. Although in both passages Jesus gives information about his second coming, in Luke he answers the question about the destruction of the temple and warns believers to flee "when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies". Eusebius records how the believers took advantage of the temporary lifting of the siege to flee Jerusalem to Pella and thereby escaped the destruction of Jerusalem.
In Matthew, however, Jesus instead gives information about the Last Days, saying, "when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains." The nature of the abomination of desolation is quite clear because it is prophesied twice in Daniel by that name, first at 11:31 and again, in the context of the last days, at 12:11, which also corresponds to 9:27. It is prophesied twice and it is fulfilled twice, first by Antiochus Ephiphanes, when he set up a statue of Zeus in the Holy Place in the temple, and it will be again in the last days. The fulfilment of the first prophesy shows what the nature of the second fulfilment will be. It is what is described in 2 Thessalonians 2:4, where it is said of the man of sin that "he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God."
Objections
This does require a temple to have been rebuilt in Jerusalem, but that is no more unlikely than was the restoration of Israel in the first place. Bishop Ryle understood back in the 19th century that Israel must be restored, though the whole area was still under the Turkish empire and there seemed to be no prospect at all of its ever happening. Currently, the Temple Institute in Jerusalem have created the vessels needed for the temple and are training priests and Levites for the service of the temple. Only political circumstances stop the Jews from rebuilding it, and those can change very rapidly. Most likely, the overwhelming destruction of an invading army, prophesied in Ezekiel 38 and 39, will clear the way for it.
There are those who claim that the doctrine of the rapture allows unfaithful believers to laze about and then be removed undeservedly. First, if someone is converted and his behaviour does not change, there is very good reason to doubt that he is really converted at all. Second, none of us deserves anything from God at all. We certainly will not earn our way into heaven by being on earth during the wrath of God!
The imminence of an unheralded rapture should be a spur to evangelism rather than an incitement to indolence; once it has happened, we will have no further opportunity to give the gospel to our family and friends.
Some argue that when Jesus speaks of those who are taken and those who are left (Matt 24:40-41, Luke 17:34-35), those taken are taken away for destruction. That interpretation is based on the parables of the tares and of the dragnet. But it is impermissible to press the details of parables and ignore the actual language. The word for "taken" (πaρaλaμbaνω) has the connotation of being chosen, while that for "left" (aφιημι) has the connotation of discarding something.
There are those who consider pretribulationism a new doctrine. Premillennialism is the historic belief of the church (when it was called chiliasm - chilias is the Greek for 1,000, meaning the millennium). All of the doctrine is based on the scripture. We should not be surprised that God should open new understanding of his word, for Daniel was told that "the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end." (Dan 12:9). Now that the end is likely very close, understanding of those words is needed as it was not needed before. Likewise, Satan's anger is now roused against a doctrine that gives hope to the church and encourages it to vigorous evangelism that will likely hasten his end, so he has raised up great opposition to it.
Some object to the idea of a new temple because we are a temple of the Holy Spirit. Of course, if the church is removed, the Holy Spirit will no longer be indwelling anyone on earth. He will again, as in Israel, come upon individuals whom he calls, such as the two witnesses and the 144,000. In any case, a spiritual application should not be allowed to obscure a prophecy of physical events. There will be a new temple in the millennial kingdom, this time one approved by God. The existence of the spiritual reality does not preclude the existence of a physical reality which serves as a picture of the spiritual one.
Summary and Conclusion
The summary view of the pretribulational and premillennial interpretation of scripture is that Israel is the focus of God's promise. However, as prophesied, Israel rejected the Messiah and the promised kingdom was taken away from that generation; in the meantime God revealed the church as an unprecedented union of Jew and Gentile that should last "until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in". At that time, the church, which is the bride of Christ, will be removed from the world to be with her bridegroom in heaven, and the focus of events on earth will switch back to Israel, still in unbelief but apparently having constructed or being about to construct a new temple. The man of sin (also called the antichrist or the prince that shall come) is revealed by his making an agreement with Israel and he begins to build up his political power. God's judgement begin to fall on the world. Half way through the 7 year agreement, the man of sin breaks it and sets himself up as a god in the temple and begins a persecution of the Jews with the aim of wiping them out. The reason is that their leaders must ask Jesus to come back as Messiah (Luke 13:35) and their annihilation would prevent from ever happening. The Lord protects a remnant of his people, but two thirds are killed. This is the time of Jacob's trouble and the great tribulation. The effect of it is finally to bring the remnant of Israel to repent and the Lord returns to subdue all his enemies and to redeem Israel not only from their enemies but also from sin, by giving them the new heart of flesh promised by Jeremiah 31:31. The millennium follows, with Israel chief of the nations on earth and Christ reigning over the whole world from Jerusalem. The righteous are resurrected but the wicked dead are still reserved in Hades/Sheol and will be resurrected for the final judgement after the final rebellion.
This scheme of interpretation covers all the major prophetic passages without the glaring omissions of other schemes. There are still difficulties, but fewer than with any other.
