NOT EVERYONE IS convinced that the Rapture is the next major event on God’s prophetic timeline. Some—like Bible Answer Man’s Hank Hanegraaff—patently reject the notion of a “taking away” of believers.
Hanegraaff’s dismissal of the pre-Tribulation Rapture comes along with his push back against many of the other end-times scenarios that have been proposed by dispensationalists. He opts for a much simpler version of eschatological events. When I asked if his perspective is that Jesus simply returns in the Second Coming before the creation of a new heaven and a new earth, Hanegraaff made it clear where he stands.
“That’s not my perspective. That’s what the Scripture says, and there’s no warrant whatsoever—where does anyone find biblical warrant for a pre-Tribulational Rapture?” he rhetorically asked. “You have to impose that on the difficult text.”1
Hanegraaff specifically pointed to 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17, which he said is the “seminal text for a pre-Tribulational Rapture,” to break down exactly how and why he believes those Scriptures—which I extensively highlighted in the previous chapters—are being improperly interpreted.2
“If you actually read that passage, you find out that it has nothing to do with a pre-Tribulational rapture,” he said. “There’s nothing in the passage whatsoever that suggests that Jesus Christ comes back, hovers in midair, and then returns to heaven with a raptured church. That’s simply imposed on the biblical text.”3
A closer reading, Hanegraaff said, shows that 1 Thessalonians 4 is actually a “glorious passage on the hope of resurrection,” that should bring great comfort to Christians.4
“It’s a great and glorious passage on the hope of resurrection. What Paul is saying is we do not grieve like the rest of men who have no hope,” he explained. “Why? Because we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and therefore, we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him.”5 Rather than grieving like the rest of humanity, Hanegraaff said that believers can have confidence in resurrection for lost loved ones, as he said that these verses tell us that restoration will one day come for those in the Lord.
Hanegraaff is just one of the many critics who take aim at the pre-Tribulational Rapture theory, as others, like author Dr. Michael Brown, also remain quite skeptical. While Brown came to faith forty-four years ago in a church that embraced the pre-Tribulational paradigm, he told me that he eventually came to reject it.
“It is not a doctrine taught clearly anytime in church history before the 1800s, and no one would deduce it from Scripture without outside help,” he said. “Jesus told us that in this world we would have tribulation [John 16:33], and many passages in the New Testament point to us being here right until the end.”6
In addition to the pre-Tribulation Rapture, there are at least four other ideas about when and how the “taking up” of believers could potentially unfold.
Let’s begin with the post-Tribulation Rapture, which John Piper, a popular pastor and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota, defined as “the view that the rapture and the glorious second coming are part of one simultaneous event.” He continued, “The saints rise to meet the Lord in the air and accompany him back as the rightful king of the earth.”7
Post-Tribulationists—contrary to their pre-Tribulationist counterparts—believe that Christians alive when the end times ramp up will not be spared from the Tribulation period and will, instead, go through it right along with nonbelievers.
Piper made a case for his belief in a post-Tribulation Rapture in a brief position paper on his website DesiringGod.org, where he dove into the scriptures that are most prevalently linked to Rapture theology.
He started by looking at the language of 1 Thessalonians 4:17, particularly the word apantesin, which is the Greek word for “meeting,” noting that this same word is also used in Matthew 25:6 and Acts 28:15.
“In both places it refers to a meeting in which people go out to meet a dignitary and then accompany him in to the place from which they came out,” he wrote.8
Piper argues that the form of “meeting” here is one in which believers meet Jesus in the air and then welcome Him to reign on earth, explaining the idea that Paul did not intend to reference a separate event from the Second Coming.
The pastor went on to ponder why Paul wouldn’t have explicitly said in 2 Thessalonians 2 that Christians won’t have to worry about the Tribulation if, indeed, they would be spared from those events. Likewise he pointed to Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21, in which Christ describes the end times, to note that a Rapture separate from the Second Coming is not mentioned. In fact, Piper believes that the chapters essentially make it sound as though believers will be present when the signs that Christ details come to fruition.
And while pre-Tribulationists generally look to Revelation 3:10 as evidence that their theory holds sway, Piper has an interpretation of his own that he believes can actually help to underpin and corroborate a post-Tribulation Rapture.
As highlighted earlier, that verse reads, “Because you have kept My word of patience, I also will keep you from the hour of temptation which shall come upon the entire world, to test those who dwell on the earth.” Piper wrote that the part about Christ keeping people from “the hour of temptation” (translated as “the hour of testing” in the NAS) might not indicate a pre-Tribulation Rapture.
“To ‘be kept for [sic] the hour of testing’ is not necessarily to be taken out of the world during this hour, and thus spared suffering,” he wrote. “Compare Gal. 1:4 and Jesus’ prayer for his disciples in John 17:15 where to ‘keep from’ does not mean physical removal. And notice the inevitability of martyrdom in Rev. 6:9–11. The promise is to be guarded from the hour in the sense of being guarded from the demoralizing forces of that hour.”9
Pre-Tribulation adherents claim, though, that God has a pattern of rescuing those devoted to Him, as Rhodes explained in The 8 Great Debates of Bible Prophecy; on the flip side, the Bible also says that believers will experience challenges and “tribulations” in life.10 That said, Rhodes, like Kinley, rejects a post-Tribulation Rapture and differentiates the forms of Tribulation when it comes to end-times paradigms.
Rhodes said that post-Tribulationists would also point to Revelation 20:4–6 to support their view, holding that believers who die during the Tribulation come back to life just before the Millennium and reign with Jesus. Those verses read:
I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and the authority to judge was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness of Jesus and for the word of God. They had not worshipped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who takes part in the first resurrection. Over these the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with Him a thousand years.
In his extensive work Christian Theology, theologian Millard J. Erickson reviewed all of the available Rapture theories, concluding that the “posttribulational position emerges as the more probable.”11
“The pretribulational position involves several distinctions that seem rather artificial and lacking in biblical support,” he wrote. “The division of the second coming into two stages, the postulation of three resurrections, and the sharp separation of national Israel and the church are difficult to sustain on biblical grounds.”12
Those looking for answers on the Rapture are not merely limited to the pre-Tribulation and post-Tribulation paradigms, as there are other less prevalent ideas about the Rapture that have attracted support among smaller Christian cohorts.
The next viewpoint worth exploring is the mid-Tribulation Rapture, which—much like it sounds—proposes that the Rapture will take place in the middle of the seven-year Tribulation period, rather than at the beginning or end.
It’s one of the “mediating positions”—alternative Rapture theologies that have not generally attracted widespread adherents. Erickson described the mid-Tribulation Rapture as holding “that the church will go through the less severe part (usually the first half, or three and a half years) of the tribulation, but then will be removed from the world.”13
Dr. Steve W. Lemke, professor of philosophy and ethics at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, provided a detailed account of the beliefs encapsulated in the mid-Tribulation worldview and concluded that it is “far from the majority among evangelical scholars.”14
And the theological constructs don’t end there, as there is a pre-wrath theory in which the Rapture happens near the end of the Tribulation period.
Possessing some similarities to the mid-Tribulation Rapture theory, a pre-wrath Rapture would essentially be one in which believers are taken through most of the Tribulation, facing both persecution at the hands of fellow humans as well as whatever horrors Satan has in store. That said, Christians are essentially spared from God’s wrath, hence the name “pre-wrath.” Brown said that he personally believes that Christians will be protected during the Tribulation.
“I do believe that we will be protected from God’s wrath—but we don’t have to be taken out to be protected—but not from the wrath of Satan and the wrath of man,” he said. “It’s also clear from the New Testament that we are looking forward to the Lord’s appearing—a public, visible event—not to a secret Rapture.”15
Rhodes explained that pre-wrath proponents have argued that God’s wrath doesn’t unfold until after the sixth seal in Revelation, as that’s when the word wrath first appears—an idea that is embraced by Marvin Rosenthal.
Keeping that in mind, those who embrace the pre-wrath theory believe that the Rapture unfolds between the sixth and seventh seals in Revelation. Rosenthal would argue that God’s wrath follows and that the term “tribulation” really isn’t accurate to describe the entire seven-year period, according to Rhodes.16
In contrast, the partial Rapture theory sees “a series of raptures” unfolding, according to Erickson.17 Those multiple Raptures will take place throughout the Tribulation period, proponents believe, with the first unfolding before the Tribulation. Others who were unprepared for the initial Rapture will follow throughout the seven-year Tribulation, with a Rapture unfolding at the end of the period as well.18
“Partial rapturists reason that those Christians who are not as committed as others will lose the privilege of participating in the initial rapture prior to the tribulation period,” Rhodes wrote. “This will be the consequence they pay.”19
Let’s circle back now to those who essentially see a conflation between the Rapture and the Second Coming. Dr. Sam Storms, a well-known amillennialist, Christian thinker, and pastor, is among those who fall into this category. Departing from Hitchcock, Hindson, Rosenberg, and others, Storms sees a singular second coming of Christ that incorporates the idea of a Rapture, rather than a separate Rapture event that precedes Christ’s second coming.
“Some people would say the next big thing is the so-called Rapture of the church, when Christ returns and withdraws all of people from the earth and leaves behind those who are in unbelief,” Storms told me. “And people will talk about what they call the ‘Tribulation’ and the ‘Antichrist’ and the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem.”20
Like Hanegraaff, the theologian doesn’t believe that there’s any one specific political, moral, or social event that must come next before the Second Coming, as Storms contends that Jesus’s return is the next big event for believers to be looking out for.
Before that happens, though, Storms does believe that the Bible tells us that there will be intense persecution against Christians.
“I do believe that the New Testament indicates that as we come ever closer to the return of Christ that there will be intensified persecution of the people of God,” he said. He didn’t purport to know what that would look like, pondering whether it would include laws that force Christians to violate moral convictions, whether tax exemptions would be revoked, or whether more serious penalties would follow.21
“I do believe that we have a good bit of evidence that there will be a global persecution of the body of Christ,” Storms said, describing it as an effort to both silence and eliminate the collective voice of believers.22
While he believes that it will appear as though Christianity has lost its voice and witness, Storms is hoping for a “tremendous awakening” and revival of faith that could come in conjunction with Jesus’s second coming.23
He reiterated, though, that, aside from persecution, he does “not see anything in particular that must happen first, that must precede the coming of Christ.”24
Unlike some who flatly reject the presence of the Rapture in the Bible, Storms finds an intriguing middle ground, essentially formulating a paradigm in which the “catching up” of Christians directly relates to Christ’s return.
Storms told me that he rejects a pre-Tribulation Rapture, but that he believes that 1 Thessalonians 4 and 1 Corinthians 15 “both indicate that, when Christ returns, He will . . . catch up to Himself all Christians who are living.”25
He then proceeded to explain where he departs from the pre-Tribulationist.
“The way I understand 1 Thessalonians 4 . . . is that it’s not so that we can then retreat into heaven with Christ while events carry on as they were,” Storms said. Instead, he believes that Christians will be “raised and glorified” during the Rapture and will then continue on with Jesus to the earth, complete with their resurrected bodies.26
“I think what Paul is saying [in 1 Thessalonians 4] is, ‘Yes, Christians will be raptured . . . but then, as Christ continues His descent to the earth in order to destroy His enemies, the church of Jesus Christ—along with all of the saints who have died before us—together with the angelic hosts will constitute His . . . parade [and final battle against Satan],” Storms explained. “I think [the Rapture] is the first phase of a singular Second Coming.”27
Postmillennial theologian Douglas Wilson openly rejects the sort of “secret” Rapture that pre-Tribulationists hold to, but he believes anyone who embraces the notion of a Second Coming must also consider the language that is found in 1 Thessalonians 4:17.
“In Thessalonians it says, ‘Then we who are alive will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air,’” Wilson said. “In that sense, every Christian who believes in the Second Coming believes in the Rapture.”28
He continued, offering a brief recap of what he believes will happen surrounding the Rapture: “The Lord comes; we’re caught up, meet Him in the air, and then return with Him here. So, I don’t think we’re snatched away. I believe that we rise up and greet and meet the Lord and return with Him here.”29
And that’s where Storms, Wilson, and others truly depart from dispensationalists and those who hold to a pre-Tribulation worldview, flatly rejecting a so-called “left-behind scenario” in which there is chaos following a Rapture that leaves the world wondering where millions have disappeared to.
“I think the Rapture is synonymous with the general resurrection of the dead,” Wilson said. “I would deny a Rapture in the sense that dispensationalists hold to it, but I don’t deny the resurrection of the dead.”30
Again, the debate will never truly be settled—at least not before the eschatological truths embedded in the Scriptures are fulfilled—but exploring the various worldviews is most certainly important.
The existence of an array of ideas surrounding the pre-, post-, and mid-Trib and pre-wrath perspectives is the result of complex themes and biblical ambiguity. One can only do his or her best to distill, understand, and properly frame the evidence, coming up with competing theories that continue to divide many faith experts.
Next, we’ll explore the Tribulation period, which is deeply related to and dependent on the concept of a Rapture.