Many pretribulationist theologians have attempted to place a temporal gap of time between the rapture and God’s wrath. For example, John Walvoord has tried to argue that God’s wrath does not immediately begin after the rapture; to be sure, he recognizes that in some sense the Day of the Lord begins immediately after the rapture, but he posits a delay of the wrath, which he says will begin to occur at a later time.
We have argued here over the years that the Day of the Lord’s wrath begins immediately after the rapture, not delayed down the road. Even though Walvoord has not provided any actual biblical texts to prove his point in his article, he concentrates on reading into the metaphor “day” in the expression, “the Day of the Lord.”
He writes:
In this symbolism [of the word “day”], the following points can be noted: (1) the day of the Lord indicates that the preceding day has ended as a time period, and a new time period has begun; (2) an ordinary day is usually a period of time which, at its beginning, is without major events—that is, people normally sleep from midnight until daybreak; (3) with the coming of the daylight, or after the time period is somewhat advanced, major events begin as the program for the day unfolds—as in a sense the day “comes to life” with daylight rather than at midnight; (4) as the morning hours of the day unfold, the major activities of the day take place, climaxing in the events of the evening hours; (5) as a twenty-four-hour day ends at midnight, so a new day follows with a new series of events. (Posttribulationism Today: Part IX: The Rapture and the Day of the Lord in 1 Thessalonians 5. Bibliotheca Sacra – Jan-March 1977, page 5)
Then he goes on to import this understanding into his doctrine of the Day of the Lord:
If the symbolism of a twenty-four-hour day is followed, the various facts revealed in Scriptures relating to the day of the Lord begin to take on meaning and relationship. (page 6)
Notice how his premise leads him later to his strained conclusion:
When we take the total picture of this passage into consideration, the reason for Paul’s introducing it become clearer. Although the events of the day of the Lord do not begin immediately after the rapture, the time period as such—-following the symbolism of a day beginning at midnight—-could easily be understood to begin with the rapture itself. (page 12)
That Paul, let alone the Old Testament prophets, understood the theology of the Day of the Lord according to the different divisions of the day (e.g. daybreak, morning, midnight, afternoon, etc), is nothing less than nonsensical. To latch onto a metaphor and read implausible notions that will determine your doctrine of the Day of the Lord is indicative of a Tradition controlling the interpretation.
Incidentally, the origin of the term “day” in the expression the “Day of the Lord” likely emerged from the ancient notion that a sovereign could be victorious in a single day. Douglas Stuart, Hosea-Jonah, Word Biblical Commentary (Waco, TX: Word, 1987, 352.) It eventually morphed into the connotation of an epoch as we see in the Old Testament prophets and finally in the New Testament revelation.