THE RAPTURE AND THE TRIBULATION
By G. H. LANG
There
are two principle views on the Rapture and the Tribulation: one, that the Parousia will commence prior to the Times of the End, and that at its inception all believers of the heavenly calling,
dead and living, will be taken to the presence of the Lord in the air; the
other, that the Parousia will occur at the close of the Great Tribulation,
until when no believers will be
raised or changed. The one view says that no believers will go into the end times, the other that none then living will escape them.
The one involves that the utmost measure of unfaithfulness or carnality in a
believer puts him in no peril of forfeiting the supreme honour of rapture or of
having to endure the dread End Days: the other view involves that no degree of faithfulness or of holiness will
enable a saint to escape those Days. As regards this matter, godliness and unfaithfulness seem immaterial on
either view; which raises a doubt of both views.
1.
Our Lord Jesus Christ has declared
distinctly that escape is possible. In Luke
21 is a record of instruction given by Him to four apostles on the
Then
He mentions the disturbances in nature and the fears of mankind that are
grouped under seal 6 in Rev.6 : 12-17, and adds explicitly that "then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great
glory," and that when these things begin His disciples may know
that their redemption draweth nigh (Luke 21: 27, 28).
In
concluding this outline of the period of the Beast the Lord then uttered this
exhortation and promise: "But take heed to yourselves, lest haply your hearts be overcharged with
surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come on you suddenly as a snare: for so shall
it come upon all them that dwell on the
face of all the earth. But watch ye at every season, making
supplication, that ye may prevail to
escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man."
This
declares distinctly: (1) That escape is possible from all those things of which Christ had been
speaking, that is, from the whole End-times. (2) That day of testing will be universal, and inevitable by
any then on the earth, which involves
the removal from the earth of any who are to escape it. (3) That there is a fearful peril of disciples
becoming worldly of heart and so being, enmeshed in that last period.
(4) That hence it is needful to watch
and to pray ceaselessly, that so
we may prevail over all obstacles and dangers and thus escape that era.
This most important and unequivocal statement by our
Lord sets aside the opinion that all Christians
will escape irrespective of their moral state, and also negatives the notion that no escape is possible.
There is a door of escape; but as with all doors, only those who are awake will see it, and only those who are in earnest will reach it ere the storm bursts.
In every place in the New Testament the word "escape"
has its natural force, to flee out of a place of trouble and be quite clear
thereof.* It never means to
endure the trial successfully. In this very discourse of the Lord it is
in contrast with the statement, "He that endureth
to the end (of those things) the same shall be saved" (Matt. 24: 13). One escapes, another endures.
[* It comes only at Luke 21: 36; Acts 16:
27; 19: 16; Rom. 2: 3; 2 Cor. 11: 33; 1 Thess. 5: 3; Heb. 2: 3; 12: 25. In comparison
with
The
attempt to evade the application of this passage to Christians on the plea that
it refers to "Jewish" disciples of Christ is baseless: (a) No
"Jewish" disciples of Christ are known to the Scriptures (Gal. 3: 28; Eph. 2: 14-18). (b) The
God-fearing remnant of
2.
In harmony with this utterance of our Lord is His further statement to the church at Philadelphia (Rev. 3: 10) : "Because
thou didst keep the word of My patience, I also will keep thee from (ek) the hour of trial, that hour which is to come upon the
whole inhabited earth, to try them that dwell upon the earth."
Here also are declared; (a) The universality
of that hour of trial, so that any escape from it must involve removal; (b) the promise of being kept from it; (c) the
intimation that such preservation is the consequence of a certain moral condition: "Because thou didst keep ... I also
will keep." As this is
addressed to the Church, no question of a "Jewish" application
can arise. Nor do known facts of
the Scriptures allow of the supposition that every Christian keeps the word of
Christ's patience (Matt. 24: 12; Rev. 2: 5;
Gal. 6: 12; Col. 4: 14 with 2 Tim. 4: 10 concerning
Demas); so that this promise cannot be
stretched to mean all believers.
In
the Bible Treasury, 1865, p. 380, there is an instructive note by J. N. Darby (see also Cill. Writings, vol. 13, Critical 1, 581)
on the difference between (apo) and (ek). The former regards hostile persons and being delivered from them;
the latter refers to a state and
being kept from getting into it. On Rev. 3:
10 he wrote: "So Rev. 3 the faithful are
kept from getting into this state, preserved from getting into it, or, as we
say, kept out of it. For the words here answer fully to the English 'out
of' or 'from'." That the thought is not being kept from being
injured in soul by the trials is implied in the expression "Keep thee out of that hour"; it is from
the period of time itself that the faithful are to be kept, not merely from its
spiritual perils."
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