Ok, here goes, hope I don’t get too long and drawn out here:
The line of thought for pretribs goes something like this (I know, because I was once pretrib myself). Jesus said nothing about any other coming except the one after the tribulation in Matt. 24 (vss 29-31). You therefore have to go to Paul, in passages like 1 Thess. 4 and 1 Cor. 15, according to the pretrib line of thought, and have Paul reveal to us what Jesus did not.
Paul is supposed to reveal the mystery of an additional coming, where Jesus leaves heaven, comes down to the atmosphere of earth, catches away the saints, turns around and goes back to heaven… then comes again with those selfsame saints seven years later. This time all the way to the earth.
It would be nice if we actually had Paul describing all this for us. Especially this additional coming before the tribulation that Jesus said nothing about in Matt. 24. Which, since Jesus had only a post-trib coming, and Paul’s is in addition to Jesus’ (even if he does not come all the way down to the earth, it is still additional to the one in Matt. 24), this would be nothing else but “two stage.”
But, if Paul is supposed to reveal this tremendous new mystery to us, he did an awful poor job of it. What he described in the Thessalonian and 1 Cor. Passages, can just as easily be seen as the SAME coming Jesus described in Matt. 24, Howbeit with much more detail. Post-tribs see that additional detail AS the “behold I shew you a mystery” of 1 Cor. 15:51.
No additional coming is revealed in that passage, one has to read it into the text (thus an inference), for the text says no such thing. Both the Thessalonian passage and the 1 Cor. 15 one, describe WHAT will happen at Christ’s Parousia, not WHEN it will happen. We should already know “when” from Matt. 24, i.e., after the tribulation.
Matthew 24:44 Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.
Mark 13:32 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
Matthew 24:36 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. 37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
No one knows the day or the hour? We are already told what "day" will be mid trib when the anti Christ sets himself up in the temple and we know the exact day Christ will return to earth to defeat the armies of the anti Christ.
Daniel told us that the anti Christ will sign a covenant or peace treaty which is supposed to have a duration of seven years but half way through will break that covenant.
Daniel 9:27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
So 3 1/2 (1260 days) years after that treaty is singed the anti Christ sets himself up in the temple as God. Then we know it's exactly 1290 days to Christ's return.
Daniel 12:11 From the time that the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination that causes desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days.
Christ warned of it.
Matthew 24:15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)
No one knows the day or the hour? That can't refer to mid trib or post trib could it. We know the exact day of each of those events.
Rather then make this any longer I'll simply not address the passages that address the rapture. You need to explain how Jesus is not lying with the statement "no on knows the day or the hour" if you believe either mid trib or post trib.