[Update on the Debate]
In this article, pretribulational teacher David R. Reagan facilely describes the prewrath rapture, which was not all together accurate. He responds to the Prewrath rapture by attempting to refute the Prewrath rapture interpretation that the seals are not God’s wrath. Further, he does not recognize the Biblical distinction between the Antichrist’s Great Tribulation and the Day of the Lord’s wrath.
David Reagan, like so many other pretribulational teachers, accepts the common flaws of his system without being seriously challenged. Accordingly, I challenge Dr. Reagan to a public moderated debate with copious amounts of cross-examination. He has made claims against the Prewrath view that are demonstrably false. I am challenging him to defend those claims in public, in a debate. I am willing to defend the Prewrath position under cross-examination by Reagan. Is he willing to do the same with his own convictions?
Given that pretribulationism is losing numerous adherents every year to the prewrath side, I would think that pretrib teachers would jump at the chance to debate a prewrather in public and show for everyone, once and for all, why prewrath is wrong. Oddly, this does not happen. Why am I doing this? It is not like David Reagan has anything to lose since it is pretribbers coming over to the Prewrath side. The reason is that I am confident that when Pretribulationism and Prewrath have the opportunity to be set side by side, most people will see the truthfulness in the Prewrath position, not pretribulationism. Why do you think that in the past 20 years, pretribbers are so averse to have their position examined publicly by a prewrather?
I believe that this debate would be beneficial for God’s people since two theological positions are held accountable; i.e., assumptions and false claims cannot go unchallenged as they often do in print.
“The first to state his case seems right, until his opponent begins to cross-examine him.” Proverbs 18:17
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The Teaching of the Early Church On the Second Coming of Christ
Guest Article by Gary Vaterlaus
Many claims have been made by pretribulationists that the early Church believed that Christ would come before the events of the 70th Week of Daniel begin–that is, before the period of tribulation. Dwight D. Pentecost in his book Things to Come uses selected quotes from some of the early church fathers to try to show that they believed in the imminent return of Christ (see pp. 168-169).
More recently, Grant R. Jeffrey in his book Apocalypse: The Coming Judgement of the Nations devotes the entire Appendix to references to early church writings, some which he claims show that they held to an “any moment,” imminent coming of the Lord.
I believe that we should let the Church fathers speak for themselves. Below are lengthy quotes from 12 documents of the early Church fathers from the first four centuries showing that they believed that the Church would be present on the earth during the Great Tribulation of Antichrist. From my review of the early Church writings I would agree with Robert Gundry’s assessment that “…the early Church did not hold to the doctrine of imminence. The very passages cited for imminence (by the pretribulationists) reveal a belief that the Church will pass through the tribulation.” (Robert Gundry, The Church and the Tribulation, p. 179). In fact, in this same book Gundry shows convincingly that the pretribulation theory of the rapture was not known nor widely held until the mid-nineteenth century (see pp. 185-188).
Our sole rule for faith and practice must be Scripture. The teachings of the early Church do not “prove” that pretribulationism is incorrect, only Scripture can do that (and it does). However, as Robert Gundry sates, “…the antiquity of a view weighs in its favor, especially when that antiquity reaches back to the apostolic age. For those who received their doctrine first-hand from the apostles and from those who heard them stood in a better position to judge what was apostolic doctrine than we who are many centuries removed” (The Church and the Tribulation, p. 172).
The prewrath rapture position has its roots in historical premillennialism–the belief that the Church will be persecuted by the Antichrist, delivered at Christ’s coming, and then God’s wrath will be poured out on the wicked who remain, followed by the establishment of Christ’s earthly kingdom. As you can see from the quotes below, this is precisely what the early Church fathers wrote. I quote many of them at length so that the claim of ignoring context cannot be made. I have emphasized the relevant portions.
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Pseudo-Ephraem and the Didache
Click here to download this excellent article explaining what these two Church historical documents say about the timing of the Second Coming.
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What Did the Early Church Fathers Teach on the Timing of the Second Coming?
This presentation on what the early church taught was given last October in O’Fallon Missouri at an eschatology forum. There are three speakers who had twenty minutes each to give their case: Steve Gregg (Preterist), Charles Cooper (Prewrath), Thomas Ice (Pretribulational).
I have included Steve Gregg’s presentation because I want you to hear what a preterist case sounds like. It goes something like this:
“Ok, I grudgingly admit that preterism was never taught in the first three hundred years by a Church Father. But who knows!…maybe one day someone may stumble upon in the sands of Egypt an early Church document with preterist teachings, so therefore we can never be too sure what the early Church taught on this subject.”
What Gregg also does is he invokes sparse preterist writings from the Church Fathers from AD 300-700 to cast doubt on what the early Church taught, as if they have the same weight as futurist writings from the first and second generations of the Church!
In the second presentation, Cooper demonstrates that the early Church clearly taught that the Church would encounter the Antichrist’s Great Tribulation. Cooper even cites in support the authoritative church historian Larry V. Crutchfield, who, himself is a pretribulationalist!
In the third presentation, Ice focuses on the premillennial issue. Prewrath is premillennial as well so we can agree with Ice’s points on that issue.
However, Ice makes a false claim by asserting that the early Church Fathers believed in imminency. They certainly did not believe in imminency in the pretribulational sense that the Church would be raptured before the Antichrist’s Great Tribulation. And some believed that the Church would be raptured soon because they thought that they were in the midst of the Great Tribulation! So Ice’s statements are misleading and incorrect.
The only early citation that Ice attempts to produce is a statement from The Shepherd of Hermas, in which he reads his pretribulational system into this ancient document. He (selectively) cites a statement from Vision 4 that says that if someone has enough faith they can escape a great tribulation. What Ice does is anachronistically reads “escape” as a rapture. But there is nothing in the text that suggests a rapture. In fact, the “escape” in that context indicates a physical escape leaving the person on earth (see Vision 4:2). Nor does Hermas place the Return of Christ before the Great Tribulation. Further, Hermas actually makes statements of enduring the Great Tribulation:
“Blessed are those of you who patiently endure the coming great tribulation and who will not deny their life.” (Vision 2:2)
“Therefore those who endure and pass through the flames will be purified by them…The white part is the age to come, in which God’s elect will live because those chosen by God for eternal life will be spotless and pure…You have also the foreshadowing of the great tribulation that is coming” (Vision 4:3)
It should also be mentioned that like so many of the other early Church Fathers’ exposition of Scripture, this document instead is not didactic intending to interpret what the Bible teaches on the Second Coming — it is part of a vision. The fact that this is the only citation that Ice can produce within the first four hundred years of Church History is very telling.
Ice also invokes a later Church document called Pseudo-Ephraem and purports that there are pretrib statements. This has been thoroughly refuted in this Parousia Newsletter.
In summary, the term “Prewrath” is new, but its essential teaching goes back to the early Church writers, contra preterism, pretribulationism, and amillennialism.
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Malachi explicitly states that Elijah will be sent before the Day of the Lord: “Look, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the LORD arrives” (Mal 4:5). How should we understand this in light of the eschatological Day of the Lord? Does not Jesus identify this prophecy as fulfilled already in the coming of John the Baptist, thereby rendering any expectation of a future literal coming of Elijah as unnecessary?: “For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John appeared. And if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah, who is to come” (Matt 11:13-14; cf. 17:10-13). We should look at all that Jesus says about this, and keep some other points in mind:
1. There are two phases to the kingdom work of Christ. Jesus inaugurated the kingdom at his first Coming redeeming a people for himself. And he will consummate the kingdom at his Second Coming. Jesus taught this two-phase truth throughout his ministry explicitly, e.g. Matt 24-25. And implicitly, e.g. His synagogue reading of Luke 4:16-21. In this Luke passage, he reads from Isaiah 61:1-2a proclaiming salvation in fulfillment of his first Coming, but stops short of reading Isaiah 61:2bff indicating that the ultimate judgment and blessings of God are yet to be fulfilled.
2. Given that Jesus envisioned his kingdom-ministry in two phases, it makes sense then when he says that Elijah has already come in that John the Baptist functioned as a precursor or a type for Elijah; but he also envisioned a future, literal fulfillment of Elijah when he appears in the future: “He answered, “Elijah does indeed come first and will restore all things. And I tell you that Elijah has already come.” (Matt 17:11-12). It should be mentioned that Jesus said this after John the Baptist had died.
3. That John the Baptist does not fulfill the coming of Elijah in a literal sense, but in a typological sense, is confirmed by Gabriel: “And he will go as forerunner before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for him.” (Luke 1:17).
4. In John, we are told that when the Jewish leaders asked John the Baptist if he was the Elijah to come, John answered in the exclamatory negative: “So they asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not!” “Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No!”” (John 1:21). The only natural way to understand that Elijah has already come, but has not already come, is to view this in Jesus’ two-phase Comings: John the Baptist came in the “spirit and power” of Elijah at Christ’s first Coming; but the literal fulfillment of Elijah will unfold in proximity to Christ’s second Coming, as a sign to the Day of the Lord (Mal 4:5).
5. A strong case can be made that one of the Two Witnesses in Revelation will be Elijah. The powers granted on these witnesses is said to be: “These two have the power to close up the sky so that it does not rain during the time they are prophesying” (Rev 11:6a). This is exactly the power that Elijah possessed (1 Kgs 17:1; Jas 5:17).
6. It should be pointed out that Elijah is one of the few Old Testament figures who did not experience death: “As they were walking along and talking, suddenly a fiery chariot pulled by fiery horses appeared. They went between Elijah and Elisha, and Elijah went up to heaven in a windstorm.” (2 Kgs 2:11).
7. In the same context that Jesus tells some of his disciples that Elijah is coming and will restore all things is the very same context of the theophanic Transfiguration in which these disciples witness a preview of Elijah being associated with Christ’s Coming in future glory (Matt 16:27-17:13).
So it is maintained that based on this Biblical evidence, there should be a real, future expectation of Elijah before the Day of the Lord. This point is important because on the very same day as the rapture takes place, the Day of the Lord’s wrath begins to unfold (Luke 17:22-35; 2 Peter 3:12; 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10) Therefore, if Elijah is said to be a precursor-sign to appear before the Day of the Lord, the logical inference is that he will appear before the rapture. Thereby, the prophecy of Elijah establishes Christ’s Coming as expectant, not imminent. This point is often missed in pretribulational literature.