Blaising Misunderstands the Birth Pangs Illustration (#3)

Charles Cooper

In the new book, Three Views on The Rapture: Pretribulation, Prewrath, or Posttribulation, Craig Blaising, who defends the pretrib view, insists:

Most interesting is Jesus’ description of these early phenomena (Matt. 24:5-8; Mark  13:6-8) as “the beginning of birth pains”…While the metaphor of labor is used in various biblical texts to describe divine judgment, the onset of labor is particularly used in Isaiah 13 to describe the coming of the day of the Lord. Features from the Isaiah 13 prophecy of the day of the Lord reappear at the end of the narrative just before Jesus speaks of the sign of the Son of Man. Quoting from Isaiah 13:10, Jesus says, “The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky” (Matt. 24:29). Between these references to Isaiah 13:8 and 13:10 unfolds the eschatological narrative with its Danielic structure. (pp. 45-46)

Before we point out the errors in Dr. Blaising’s proposal, let’s make sure we understand exactly what he is saying. Blaising is continuing to make his case that Matthew 24 “is a deliberate intertextual weaving of the day of the Lord imagery into Daniel’s time of the end structure.” (p. 47) This then allows Blaising to draw the conclusion that the day of the lord and Daniel’s final week are identical.