Posted on 10/04/2013 2:11:50 PM PDT by jodyel
Present Tribulation vs. Future Tribulation, Dr. Thomas Ice
Over the years I have noticed an argument against pretribulationism which goes something like the following: "The New Testament teaches that we will suffer persecution and tribulation as followers of Christ, therefore, I believe the Church will go through the tribulation." The New Testament does teach that Believers will suffer persecution and tribulation, but it does not follow that because of this the Church will go through the tribulation.
Church Age Tribulation
Jesus clearly teaches that the Church Age, before the rapture and the tribulation, would be a time in which Believers would experience "tribulation" from the world. Jesus said,
"If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, 'A slave is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also" (John 15:18-20).
"These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).
It is said of the Apostles in the early Church:
"So they went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name" (Acts 5:41).
Later it was also said,
"strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, 'Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God'" (Acts 14:22).
Paul tells us,
"For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake" (Phil. 1:29).
Paul wrote in his farewell epistle,
"Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted" (2 Tim. 3:12).
Peter noted the following:
"But to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation" (1 Pet. 4:13).
Therefore, there is a clear biblical basis for expecting Church Age persecution from the world toward believers.
Gerald Stanton declares the following about Church Age tribulation:
And one has but to think of Christians being thrown to the lions in a Roman arena, or Christians being torn on the racks of a Spanish Inquisition, or Christians today being put to death in godless Communistic lands to realize that believers have undergone fiery trials down through the years since the days of the early church. Such persecutions with their untold agony, no matter how severe, are nevertheless not "the great tribulation." If they were, one could hardly read Fox's Book of Martyrs without concluding that there have been two or three "great tribulations" every century from the time of Christ.
Down through the centuries, believers have suffered, bled, and died for their faith in Christ, counting it not loss to seal their testimony with their blood. [1]
I have read from various sources that at least 100,000 believers die each year throughout the world in our own day and age, not to mention the various levels of persecution short of death that goes on as well. These are the Church Age tribulations that the New Testament speaks of in relation to believers throughout the entire dispensation of the Church.
The point is that non-pretribulationists believe that future tribulation during the seven-year tribulation is basically more of the same kind of persecution that has been going on for the last two thousand years. On the other hand, pretribulationists believe that the Bible indicates that tribulation during the future seven-years will be something that has never been seen before, it will be the judgment from God upon a Christ-rejecting world. What has been going on since the founding of the Church about two thousand years ago has been the animosity of Satan, his demons and the hatred of the unbelieving world, not the wrath of God.
The Tribulation
The tribulation, which is spoken of dozens of times with various labels like "day of the Lord," time of "wrath," "the tribulation," etc., is mentioned throughout the Bible. Some of the many references include passages throughout almost all of the prophets, the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24:4, 28; Mark 13:3, 23), and most of the Book of Revelation (4-19). That time is referred to throughout Revelation as the wrath of the Lamb or God. Note the following: "the wrath of the Lamb" (6:16); "for the great day of their wrath has come" (6:17); [God's] "Thy wrath" (11:18); "he will also drink of the wine of the wrath of God" (14:10); "and threw them into the great wine press of the wrath of God" (14:19); "seven plagues, which are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished" (15:1); "seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God" (15:7); "Go and pour out the seven bowls of the wrath of God into the earth" (16:1); "Babylon the great was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of His fierce wrath" (16:19); "He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God" (19:15).
It is quite clear in the biblical text that tribulation is a time of God's wrath, not of mankind or of Satan. Scripture speaks of some episodes of Satan and the world against God's people, but the emphasis is clearly upon the wrath of God throughout. In fact, throughout the tribulation there is first a fourth of the earth's population that is killed (Rev. 6:8), then a third is killed (Rev. 9:18), and finally, by the end, all unbelievers are killed (Matt. 13:40, 43; 25:31, 46; Rev. 19:11, 16). Obviously, these passages speak of a time unlike anything that has ever happened throughout the Church Age. Kept from the Hour
Clearly the New Testament teaches that the Church will be kept from the time of God's wrath. Paul, in one of his earliest epistles makes note of this fact as follows:
"...and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come" (1 Thess. 1:10).
In the same epistle he says,
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 5:9).
Paul assumes the much used Old Testament term "wrath" to mean what it does in the Old Testament, which is the time of God's wrath or the tribulation period when God's wrath will be poured out upon the earth. Thus, these two passages, which speak of a future time different than the current Church Age which they were in, clearly see that wrath occurring during the tribulation. Therefore, the Thessalonian believers and all Church Age believers have a promise from God that we will not experience the wrath of God. A similar point is made from Paul's statement in Romans 5:9.
Revelation 3:10 says,
"Because you have kept the word of My perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell upon the earth."
This promise made to the Church of Philadelphia and thus all believers throughout the Church Age promises that we will be kept out of the time of the tribulation. This passage has very clear pre-trib implications. The "hour" or "time" of testing is what believers will be kept from. Further, the hour of testing is said to be something that will in the future come upon the whole earth. Thus, it is clear that it is not something that has happened during the days of the Church Age, since no one knows of a global testing that came upon the whole earth since the first century. John speaks in this passage of the tribulation period, which is clearly a time in which the Lord will test the earth dwellers (always persistent unbelievers throughout Revelation) and not Church Age believers. The passage makes it clear that the present Church Age is when the Church is being tested and that is the reason given for why we will be exempted from the time period when God will test the earth dwellers during the period we know as the tribulation.
Conclusion
The Bible distinguishes between trials and tribulations that are destined to occur to Believers during the Church Age from the wrath of God, which will be poured out during the tribulation that is intended for the world. To say that the Church will go through the tribulation because the Bible predicts that Believers will experience tribulation is an erroneous statement in light of the Bible's distinction between present and future tribulation. It is also more likely for an American, who has not experience persecution yet, to think that we must, since America has a different history in relation to Christianity than is common throughout the Church Age.
I have often heard Dr. Ed Hindson make an excellent analogy concerning this issue. He says that having the Church, which is pictured in the New Testament as the Bride of Christ, go through the tribulation is like a man taking a girl to whom he is engaged and beating her to the point of near death and then saying, "Hey babe, let's get married." Such behavior would rightly be thought to be crazy. The New Testament clearly teaches that Christ marries the Bride in heaven (Rev. 19:7-10) before she accompanies Him to earth. She is already in heaven since she was raptured before the tribulation in order to experience the judgment seat of Christ during the tribulation. Therefore she is ready, married and victoriously returning to earth at the second coming with Christ (Rev. 19:11-21). Only the pre-trib scenario makes sense of the details, thus demonstrating that the belief that the Church needs to go through the wrath of the tribulation is a false conclusion. Maranatha!
Endnotes
[1] Gerald B. Stanton, Kept from the Hour: A Systematic Study of the Rapture in Bible Prophecy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1956), pp. 33-34.
“And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.”
Showing that the beginning of the wrath is at the end of the trib, since the victory was “over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name,” and that they had indeed come Through it.
Nothing there says that they had died instead.
And as for the 144,000, Chapter 14:
[4] "These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb."How can the "firstfruits" survive on Earth into the millenium?
You have much here to think out.
And that has to do with the title of this thread which is “Present Tribulation vs. Future Tribulation” how?
You post the verse that has you confused, but that verse says only that which we all know, that the wrath comes after the first resurrection.
You have posted no scripture that places the first resurrection anywhere but where Revelation places it, at the last trump.
>> “It’s ALL the wrath of God. From the first seal in Chapter 6 on” <<
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Nowhere is that written.
Chapter 6 has it after opening the the 6th seal.
>> “It’s ALL the wrath of God. From the first seal in Chapter 6 on. If Christians are here during any part of it they are indeed experiencing the wrath of God.” <<
Everything through the opening of the 5th seal is already history; we or our predecessors have lived through it.
>> “I sure wish you would adhere to 2 Tim. 2:15, editor. It would make the rapture of the Church the Body of Christ before the tribulation begins crystal clear” <<
.
Not even related to this discussion. Is that the correct reference?
Hebrews is a letter to the early Hebrew believers (99% of the church at that time)
Many of them were cohenim, or Prushim.
:)
I do a tap dance with the word? I simply gave the Greek words used in those texts and what they mean. The Greek words ARE the “clear words of”.
>> Showing that the beginning of the wrath is at the end of the trib, since the victory was<<
The first six seals were called the “wrath” of God as I showed from Chapter 6. Then you said those seals “have already happened”. Now you continue to try to show that the wrath of God doesn’t start until “the end of the trib”.
I’m not sure where you get your information from about what scripture says but it doesn’t appear to be from scripture. Whatever line of thinking or organization you are getting you information from is evidently trying to force scripture to say something it isn’t. The views you have expressed are so vastly different from what scripture clearly says this forum will never be the place to address all of them. It’s best we just agree to disagree and leave it at that.
Hebrews announces Jesus Christ's credentials to be their Messiah. It was written to the Hebrews specifically. Not Jews and Gentiles. Which BTW is not how any of us are known during this age. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, but a NEW MAN, now. But it won't always be so. As soon as the blindness is removed from the Jew's eyes, the middle wall of partition is back up, and Jews and Gentiles are separate again.
Reading my mind or something? No, that verse does not have me confused.
>>You have posted no scripture that places the first resurrection anywhere but where Revelation places it, at the last trump.<<
LOL You have already denied that the body of Christ will not be subjected to the wrath of God so I see no need to extend this conversation.
Why do you ask?
Revelation 6:1 And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
That is verse 1 of Chapter 6. Now please show me where any of the seals are opened prior to Chapter 6.
Nothing more to say.
Nothing in 2Tim 2 deals in any way with eschatological issues.
I know that there are probably a dozen cults that pounce on “rightly dividing” to create their own special personal theology, but it was not intended to go there.
The letter was intended to tell Timothy, who was about to take over much of Paul’s responsibility, how to be an honorable vessel, and how to avoid strife among the congregations.
Now as to the church and the trib, Paul told the Thessalonians and the Corinthians that the first resurrection was marked by Yom Teruah, and the first trump. He especially belabored the point to the Thessalonians of the importance of understanding how the feasts (times and seasons) define Yehova’s events, and assured them that “that time” would not overtake them as a thief in the night, because they had that understanding.
Now that the time is nearly at hand, it is especially important that we become as the Thessalonians. We need that special understanding of the precise time table of Yehova that he has given his sheep.
ROTFLMAO!
Perhaps it would be better if you stayed with your picture posts.
>> “The first six seals were called the “wrath” of God as I showed from Chapter 6” <<
.
No, you have not shown any such thing. Rev 6 says the opposite. It places the wrath at the opening of the 6th seal.
The first five seals are past. The wars and starvation of oppressed peoples, and great plagues have characterized the past two millenia. We are now at the beginning of the final millenium. We are almost to the 7th seal, but not quite yet. The machinations of the 6th seal are underway making it of the utmost importance to study and throw off all theologies of men.
2 Tim. 2:15 IS the eschatological issue, editor. Read it carefully. God is showing us how we, as workmen for Him, will be able to stand before Him, unashamed. He tells us the way to do this, is to rightly divide His word of truth. That is the key to understanding the Word of God.
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