The Galilean wedding is the model for the pre-trib rapture

[rebuilder 454]

I have a friend/pastor who believes that, but he calls himself Mid-Trib. ;)

Obama was revealed a year before he took power.
So revealed is definitely pretrib.
He is not revealed mid trib.

 

[Timtofly]

And of course the rapture is the removal of those who are "in Christ". And without anyone in the world who is "in Christ", this promise has no recipient, and therefore no longer controls what happens here, that is, no more restraint of evil, because the Christians are gone.

This point would be proof of a time period between the Day of the Lord and the removal of the Restrainer, if indeed a believer would accept the Restrainer is the Holy Spirit working through the church.

Personally I think the Holy Spirit works in every human conceived from the time of conception until death. But like the parable of the seed as representing the Gospel, is not equal in all humans. In fact without a Christian witness, and hearing or reading the Bible which is the Gospel, the work of the Holy Spirit may not be perceived at all, even though at some point that person may be greatly used later in life.

While some see that as The Holy Spirit only given at certain times and only to a select few, then to say the Holy Spirit is removed may not necessarily mean humans are removed as well. But why would the Holy Spirit be removed from a person, that at some point taken away for them not to be sealed any more, and they have to work out their salvation on their own? That does not make sense either.

"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... For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed."

I don't see that the man of sin is the same entity as that Wicked. So we have a time frame that something happens prior to the day of the Lord, and also after the Holy Spirit is taken out of the way. The Holy Spirit is not taken away after the Day of the Lord.

Paul is saying the mystery of iniquity was already at work in his day, but was being restrained. Then the Holy Spirit would be taken away prior to the day of the Lord. And that those on earth would fully understand, that is, experience a time between the Holy Spirit being removed and the start of the day of the Lord. So this in-between period is called the time of tribulation. The working of Satan is revealed before the Day of the Lord, but also after the Holy Spirit is removed, because the church left at that point.

So to say that the second coming is any of those descriptions would be additional to the text as much as a rapture would be. My point would be that Jesus is physically on the earth at the point the Holy Spirit is removed until the time the Day of the Lord starts. The Second Coming is not the Day of the Lord. The Day of the Lord is just a thousand year period that starts sometime after Jesus has already been on the earth.

 

[Randy Kluth]

The AC revealed before the rapture is ok with me.
The AC revealed could be a day before the rapture.
AHEM...That is definately pretrib.

You actually think the postrib rapture doctrine has the AC revealed at the end of his rulership????
Revealed is before his rulership.
So that verse actually points to a pretrib rapture at the revealing of the devil man.

Since most people believe the Tribulation starts at the revealing of Antichrist, your position doesn't sound Pretrib at all! Not to be argumentative, I have reasons for not believing that, though I respect the fact you acknowledge that the passage says Antichrist must be revealed 1st.

I believe Paul is not just saying the Antichrist must be revealed 1st, though he does in fact say that. But he is also pinpointing at what point Christ comes *after* the revealing of Antichrist. It is *at* the destruction of Antichrist. That is, Paul is saying that Christ will only come at the point where he is revealed from heaven to destroy the Antichrist.

Paul is simply restating what Jesus had already stated earlier, that we should not believe any claim to a preliminary coming of a Messianic Kingdom. There will be false Christs to proclaim such--we should not believe them.

What Jesus said, point of fact, is that we are not to believe any claimed coming of Messiah until he is revealed from heaven. And that's why Paul says that the false Messianic movement in his time was false. It cannot be true because Jesus said the true sign of his Coming is his revelation from heaven--just as it was predicted in Dan 7.

The Son of Man will come with the clouds. That is, he is coming from heaven. That is the sign, and that is when he will come, to destroy Antichrist and to set up God's Kingdom.

Any preliminary claims are false Christs. We do in fact have false Messianic claims and false Kingdom claims today. And so, we have a basis for rejecting them in any shape or form.

For example, the "Kingdom Now" movement may include some good people, but the position is imbalanced to the degree they claim Kingdom powers already are here, giving power reserved only for the eschatological Kingdom. And I think they may be doing this to some degree?

There have also been false Christian cults that have claimed their movement is bringing in God's eschatological Kingdom. They are false for the reason I specified.

I hope this helps you understand my position more clearly? Paul designated the Antichrist as the one "doomed to destruction" to indicate that Christ will only come when it is time to *destroy* Antichrist. He will destroy him with the breath of his mouth when he comes from heaven to defeat the Antichrist.

2 Thes 2.1 Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him... 3 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction... 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.

Dan 7.8 “While I was thinking about the horns, there before me was another horn, a little one, which came up among them; and three of the first horns were uprooted before it. This horn had eyes like the eyes of a human being and a mouth that spoke boastfully... 13 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. "

Matt 24.26 “So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. 27 For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man."

 

[Randy Kluth]

Obama was revealed a year before he took power.
So revealed is definitely pretrib.
He is not revealed mid trib.

If Jesus comes after the Antichrist is revealed, then it is not Pretrib by anybody's definition.

 

[Randy Kluth]

If you are going to insert and imply that these all refer to the first century, that would be the ultimate pre-trib position, because you have "all events" taking place before the tribulation of the last 1900 years. Remember great tribulation is not measured in any time frame in the Olivet Discourse. Jesus did not seperate and say there is going to be a short time of intense Tribulation just prior to a rapture event. These are conventions that you claim are wrongly inserted into the Olivet Discourse, by dispensationalist with whom you are in disagreement with.

I don't know that you understand what I believe? My position is in no way Pretrib! I was explaining how I view "one taken, one left."

For me, Jesus defined the Great Tribulation as the time span from the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD to his 2nd Coming. It is called a "Jewish Punishment." It was the result of Israel abandoning God and their Messiah.

God had told Israel, via Moses, that if they abandoned Him and His Law they would be cast forth from the land. And indeed, when they rejected their Messiah, God cast them out of their land by the Romans. This was the "Great Distress" Jesus mentioned, aka the "Great Tribulation."

Many have re-defined the "Great Tribulation" to refer only to the 3.5 or 7 years of Antichrist's Reign. The Bible does not define it as such, but okay, I can live with that name. It will be the last part of 2000+ years of Jewish suffering. It will be the final push of Antichristianity which has been alive since Jesus' time.

Jesus never said that He would return at the very end.

Actually, he did. He indicated he would come on the "last day" of the age. See John 6. He said we should reject any claimed Coming if it isn't "from heaven in glory." There would be false earthly movements claiming to be Christ's Kingdom on earth before that time.

That is a misunderstanding that both post and pre positions seem to have contradictions with other Scripture on. Neither position can contradict other Scripture if they want to to be valid interpretations.

The only event that happens at the end, after the end is declared, is the Day of the Lord. The Day of the Lord is the Day of Christ. The Day of the Lord is the millennium, 1000 year reign of Christ. All of Adam's disobedience and the results thereof, will be resolved and removed prior to the Day of the Lord.

The term "Day of the Lord" can mean different things, depending on context. It can refer to judgment, it can refer to restoration, it can refer to a single day or it can refer to an extended era of time. It depends upon context.

When the NT speaks of the "Day of the Lord" in the context of Christ's Coming, it is a single day because the source for all this information comes from Dan 7, which is all about a single day in which the Son of Man comes to initiate his Kingdom.

 

[WPM]

Good luck finding any scripture that explicitly spells out the timing of the rapture. If it did, we wouldn't have so many debates about it. I've laid everything out in a nice outline, complete with plenty of scripture references. If that's not enough, then I don't know what to tell you.



How is it convulated? I'm just comparing the wedding ceremony with scripture. The 1st century Jews would have easily picked up on what Jesus was trying to convey.

Does it take 7 yrs for a Jewish Wedding to be consummated? Of course not. This is another Pretrib invention that has no connection to reality or God's infallible Word. No scripture passage anywhere in the Bible compares a Pretrib rapture coming of the Lord to a 7 year or 7 day supposed Jewish Wedding tradition. When Christ is united with His bride; it will not be for a 7-day or 7-year consummation; it will be for eternity!

If you want to know when the marriage occurs; you must go to the end of the Tribulation; in Revelation chapter 19; when Jesus returns to the earth as King of kings, and Lord of lords. That is when Scripture teaches the Marriage will occur.

Postribber Tony Warren argues in an article on this issue (Jewish Wedding Customs & the Rapture): “If pretribulationists are right, we would expect the wedding and the feast to commence at the beginning of the tribulation, not after the tribulation as Revelation 19 plainly indicates. If Jesus was referring to heaven as the seven years in the “Chuppah” in John 14:1-3, the bride should have “made herself ready” before the pretribulation rapture (around Rev. 4). And the “marriage of the Lamb” should have occurred at the beginning of the tribulation, and not at its extreme end. The pretribulation scenario has Jesus being intimate with the Bride in the “Chuppah” for seven years before Revelation 19 indicates the wedding occurs!”

Dr. Robert Gundry contends. "If a purported pretrib coming to fetch the church to heaven is supposed to reflect the ancient Semitic custom of a groom's fetching the bride to his home, what is Jesus' taking the church with Him back to earth right after the marriage supper, and for a thousand years, supposed to reflect? An ancient Semitic custom of the groom's taking his bride back to her home to live with her there for a long time? The pretrib reasoning gets itself into a pickle by injecting a marriage custom that isn't even mentioned in the biblical text at hand, and then giving that custom argumentative weight of an allegorical sort but not carrying out the allegory consistently. In fact, our ignorance of ancient Semitic marriage customs exceeds our knowledge. And what knowledge we do have shows considerable variation in these customs."

Joachim Jeremias (an authority on ancient Jewish customs) confirms in The Parables of Jesus: "The mistaken idea has arisen because we possess no connected description of a wedding feast from the time of Jesus, but only modern collections of material which attempt to construct a connected mosaic out of the scattered allusions to be found in the rabbinic literature. There is evidence that these collections of material are incomplete. This is not surprising in view of the situation with regard to the sources; the material is unlimited and widely scattered, and the picture is extraordinarily varied; then as now, wedding customs differed in different districts; moreover, after the destruction of the Temple, under the repeated impact of national disasters, they underwent far reaching restrictions; but above all, the occasional reports which we possess are widely distributed in space and time: in space they come from Palestine and Babylonia, while in time they are spread over many centuries."

In his Sketches of Jewish Social Life, Alfred Edersheim wrote that the custom in Jesus' day was to have the wedding on a Wednesday, allowing the first three days of the week for the bride to prepare herself for her groom's coming. “The marriage followed [the betrothal ritual] after a longer or shorter interval, the limits of which, however, were fixed by law. The ceremony itself consisted in leading the bride into the house of the bridegroom, with certain formalities, mostly dating from very ancient times. Marriage with a maiden was commonly celebrated on a Wednesday afternoon, which allowed the first days of the week for preparation, and enabled the husband, if he had a charge to prefer against the previous chastity of his bride, to make immediate complaint before the local Sanhedrim, which sat every Thursday ... This circumstance enables us, with some certainty, to arrange the date of the events which preceded the marriage in Cana. Inferring from the accompanying festivities that it was the marriage of a maiden, and therefore took place on a Wednesday ... On "the third day" after it, that is, on Wednesday, was the marriage in Cana of Galilee.”

 

[WPM]

All the theologians, scripture scholars, bishops, saints and reformers were incapable of interpreting God's word....until....
...John Nelson Darby came along. He broke off from the Plymouth Brethren over theological disputes. Founder of the Exclusive Brethren sect, Darby invented pre-tribulation rapture theology in 1830 that was totally foreign to all of Christianity.

His theory was further popularized in the United States in the early 20th century by the wide circulation of the Scofield Reference Bible. The footnotes were made doctrine by American dispensationists.

...fast forward to 1970...

The biggest-selling work of non-fiction (other than the Bible) since 1970 is dispensationalist Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth (Bantam, 1970), which sold more than 40 million copies and established the blueprint for a number of other popular, self-described “Bible prophecy” experts (including Tim LaHaye, creator and coauthor of the Left Behind series)

LaHaye’s first work of “Bible prophecy” was The Beginning of the End (Tyndale, 1972), essentially a carbon copy of Lindsey’s mega-seller. In the years that followed, Lindsey and LaHaye, along with authors such as Salem Kirban, David Wilkinson, Dave Hunt, Grant Jeffrey, John Walvoord, and others, produced a string of best-selling books warning of the rapidly approaching pretribulation Rapture, the Antichrist, and the tribulation.

One message of LaHaye’s that comes across clearly in books such as Are We Living in the End Times?, Rapture Under Attack, and Revelation Unveiled is that the Catholic Church is apostate, Catholicism is “Babylonian mysticism” and an “idolatrous religion,” and Catholics worship Mary, knowing little about the real Jesus Christ. It’s difficult to overstate the dislike — even hatred — LaHaye has for the Catholic Church or to exaggerate the ridiculous character of his attacks. He condemns the use of candles in Catholic churches, insists there’s hardly any difference between Hinduism and Catholicism, and emphatically declares that the Catholic Church killed at least 40 million people during the “dark ages.”

When I asked LaHaye, via e-mail, why he never refers to Catholic sources or official documents in his writings, he replied:

Because I think that for centuries the Catholic Church has presented church history in a manner protective of “Mother church.” . . . I have seen more concern on the part of your church for Hindus, Buddhists, and other pagan religions than they do [sic] for those who love Jesus Christ as He is presented in the Bible and are committed to making Him known to the lost so they will not be Left Behind.

In other words, the Catholic Church is simply wrong and doesn’t deserve a fair hearing. LaHaye has not only revealed himself to be an anti-Catholic polemicist but a theologian with a seriously skewed view of God’s salvific work. In a newspaper interview, LaHaye said, “We’ve [himself and Jenkins] created a series of books about the greatest cosmic event that will happen in the history of the world.” What is that “greatest cosmic event”? The Incarnation? The Cross? The Resurrection? No, the Rapture — a modern, man-made belief based on a distorted Christology and an anemic ecclesiology.

The Rapture

Discover Catholic teachings on the Rapture. Pre, Mid, or Post? Find clarity on the 'end times'. Here's what the Church teaches about the apocalypse."

www.catholic.com

It's ironic; all this talk about "end time persecution" and/or "great tribulation" while guys like Lahaye inflict it on Catholics.

Why do you keep copying and pasting this opinion on this forum without biblical support? This is mere private interpretation, and faulty opinion at that. Where is your Scripture that teaches a rapture of the church, followed by a 7 years trib followed by a 3rd coming?

 

[The Light]

You are not the first one to push the Jewish wedding as a model for a false pre-trib rapture. So I don't need to read everything you wrote about it. On a much more simple note, Lord Jesus gave us the time of His coming and gathering of His Church in the Matthew 24:29-31 and Mark 13:24-27 Scripture, which is AFTER... the tribulation.

There is no mention of the mostly Gentile Church being raptured in Matthew 24:29-31 and Mark 13:24-27. The Church is already in heaven in Revelation 5 and the 24 elders have crowns which proves that Jesus has come.

And Apostle Paul taught the same order in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 is the rapture of the Church before the tribulation. If you are looking for the rapture that occurs immediately after the tribulation that would be in 1 Corinthians 15.

And that's the problem with the deceived on men's false pre-trib rapture theory; they heed men more than the actual Word of God.

The Lord will return for His Church in an hour that you think not.

The false teaching that many unbelieving men taught was that God was not going to restore Israel as a nation and that the Church has replaced Israel. Of course, these have been proven to be false teachings.

 

[marks]

The false teaching that many unbelieving men taught was that God was not going to restore Israel as a nation and that the Church has replaced Israel. Of course, these have been proven to be false teachings.

The heart of the matter. Those who did not believe God's promise ended up in the weeds.

Much love!

 

[WPM]

There is no mention of the mostly Gentile Church being raptured in Matthew 24:29-31 and Mark 13:24-27. The Church is already in heaven in Revelation 5 and the 24 elders have crowns which proves that Jesus has come.


1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 is the rapture of the Church before the tribulation. If you are looking for the rapture that occurs immediately after the tribulation that would be in 1 Corinthians 15.


The Lord will return for His Church in an hour that you think not.

The false teaching that many unbelieving men taught was that God was not going to restore Israel as a nation and that the Church has replaced Israel. Of course, these have been proven to be false teachings.

Where is your Scripture that teaches a rapture of the church, followed by a 7 years trib followed by a 3rd coming?

 

[Michiah-Imla]

Where is your Scripture that teaches a rapture of the church, followed by a 7 years trib followed by a 3rd coming?

There aren’t any…

 

[The Light]

Not that I consider this "Scriptural proof", yet, for me, the One Whom I know, is this His plan for me?

Revelation 9:3-6 KJV
3) And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.
4) And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.
5) And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.
6) And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

I don't see that. Yet only those 144,000 sealed are exempt.

Much love!

FYI, Revelation 14 proves that those 144,000 don't go through the wrath of God. They are sealed because they are believers but are in heaven before the throne before the great tribulation begins. The great tribulation is over at the 6th seal.

 

[Spiritual Israelite]

Where is your Scripture that teaches a rapture of the church, followed by a 7 years trib followed by a 3rd coming?

It doesn't exist, of course. Which is why they have to resort to coming up with convoluted explanations to support the pre-trib theory as we can see here in this thread.

One thing I do is ask pre-tribs if they believe what is described in the following verse will occur when the rapture occurs:

2 Thess 1:10 When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.

They normally will say the verse does not relate to the rapture because they read the previous verses which show Jesus taking vengeance on His enemies at the same time. But, if someone read this verse objectively without doctrinal bias it would be very clear to them that this verse describes what will occur when the rapture occurs. When else will He "come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe" except on the day we are caught up to meet Him in the air? I don't believe that anyone would conclude that what is described in 2 Thess 1:10 would occur on any other day than the day He comes and the rapture occurs if not for doctrinal bias.

Apart from doctrinal bias, I don't believe anyone would conclude that the gathering of the elect that occurs after "the tribulation of those days", described in Matthew 24:29-31 and Mark 13:24-27, is anything but a description of what will happen when the rapture occurs, either.

 

[Wick Stick]

Did the early Church have a mid, post, or pre-wrath doctrine either? No, they didn't have any codified rapture doctrine.

Doesn't that give you pause? Seems like an indicator that the churches are getting something wrong here.

 

[The Light]

For those of you that are looking for verses about the pretribulation............

1 Thessalonians 4
16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

 

[Jude Thaddeus]

Doesn't that give you pause? Seems like an indicator that the churches are getting something wrong here.

Yea, and all of a sudden a Congregationalist minister splinters off to start his own church, and all the churches before 1830 are getting something wrong here.
The Congregational Church has its origins in England during the 16th century. It was established by settlers in present-day New England who were fleeing religious persecution in England1. In the United States, the Congregational tradition mainly traces its origins to Puritan settlers of colonial New England5.
. The Puritans were English Protestant Christians who claimed the Anglican Church had not distanced itself sufficiently from Catholicism and sought to 'purify' it of Catholic practices3.
It may be wise to trace the history of any doctrine to prove where it first came from.

 

[Spiritual Israelite]

For those of you that are looking for verses about the pretribulation............

1 Thessalonians 4
16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Where does this indicate that this event happens before the tribulation?

 

[WPM]

For those of you that are looking for verses about the pretribulation............

1 Thessalonians 4
16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Where is a 7-yr tribulation in that passage?

 

[Jude Thaddeus]

I suggest we settle the matter by selecting football teams:
Pre-Trib Vikings, A-Mill Cardinals, Post-Mill Cowboys.

 

[The Light]

Where does this indicate that this event happens before the tribulation?

I constantly see posts that claim that the Church is raptured after the tribulation. I ask where is the Church mentioned in the verses of Matthew 24 and Mark 13. Never do get an answer..........because it's not there. That's because it's not the mostly Gentile Church being raptured in those verses.

The Lord comes for His Church before the seals are opened. We can tell that by Revelation 3, 4 and 5.

In the verses of Matthew 24 we see that the Lord sends His angels to gather the elect from heaven and earth and it's after the tribulation of those days. When the Lord comes for His Church it will be the Lord Himself coming. He won't be sending His angels.

Matthew 24
29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.