by
Thomas Ice
Some
opponents of pre-tribulationism have insisted that it has human rather than
biblical origins. Some say that if pre-trib is taught in the Bible, then
it
is a view that should also be found throughout the history of the church. In
the past few years more voices from the Church's past testifying either
to
some form of pre-tribulationism, some form of a two-stage advent of Christ, or
to statements containing various pre-trib elements have been discovered.
I
believe that pre-tribulationism is our "blessed hope" spoken of in
the New Testament. Regardless of when a significant group of believers began to
realize
that
the Bible teaches pre-tribulationism, that teaching has been part of God's Word
all along. Many Christians throughout the church's history have believed
many
important elements that compose the pre-trib doctrine without necessarily
understanding it to the extent that others have come to understand it in
the
last 200 years. Nevertheless, hosts of believers down through the centuries
have understood many key pre-trib elements: that Christ could return at
any
moment without signs preceding; that Christians will not go through the time of
wrath known as the tribulation; that there are two stages involved
in
Christ's return. In the last few years, a number of discoveries have been
brought to light and presented to the Christian public. But what guidelines
should
we follow in finding examples of a pre-trib rapture and pre-trib elements from
historical documents?
Pre-trib
rapture critic William Bell has formulated three criteria for establishing the
validity of a historical citation regarding the rapture. If any of
his
three criteria are met, then he acknowledges it is "of crucial importance,
if found, whether by direct statement or clear inference." I believe that
at
least two of Bell's standards have been met by some of the examples I will
supply below. The standards are as follows: 1) "Any mention that Christ's
second
coming was to consist of more than one phase, separated by an interval of
years," and 2) "any mention that Christ was to remove the church from
the
earth before the tribulation period."'
The
early church was clearly pre-millennial in its view of prophecy, with only a
few dissenters. Irenaeus (circa A.D. 202) stated in the strongest possible
terms
that pre-millennialism was traditional orthodoxy (Against Heresies 5.32.1).'
Pre-tribulationism is not clearly represented within the extant writings
of
these early fathers. However, before one draws the conclusion that it is
totally absent, it is possible that a few ancient statements do represent
elements
of
a fuzzy form of pre-tribulationism.
The
early church was often subjected to persecution for its faith, and as a result,
tended to confuse Church Age trials and tribulation with the specialized
tribulation
of the seventieth week of Daniel. At the same time, they often spoke of a
belief in an "any moment" return of the Lord. Expressions of
immanency
abound
in the Apostolic Fathers. Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, The Didache,
The Epistle of Barnabas, and The Shepherd of Hermas all speak of immanency.'
Furthermore,
The Shepherd of Hermas speaks of the pre-tribulational concept of escaping the
tribulation: You have escaped from great tribulation on account
of
your faith, and because you did not doubt in the presence of such a beast. Go,
therefore, and tell the elect of the Lord His mighty deeds, and say to
them
that this beast is a type of the great tribulation that is coming. If then ye
prepare yourselves, and repent with all your heart, and turn to the
Lord,
it will be possible for you to escape it, if your heart be pure and spotless,
and ye spend the rest of the days of your life in serving the Lord
blamelessly.'
Early
church historian, Larry Crutchfield, notes, "This belief in the imminent
return of Christ within the context of ongoing persecution has prompted us
to
broadly label the views of the earliest fathers, 'immanent
intra-tribulationism."" Crutchfield notes concerning Irenaeus (ca.
A.D. 120--ca. A.D. 202):
He
seems to have believed that there would be an interval between the rapture of
the saints and the final venting of the Antichrist's wrath upon earth.
His
reference to the church being "suddenly caught up" and to the
Antichrist's "sudden coming" provide at least some... sense of
immanency (Against Heresies
5.29.1-2).
While the evidence is not conclusive, it suggests at least the possibility that
Irenaeus held to, a remote/imminent, intra-tribulational rapture
of
the church.'
There
appear, scattered throughout the church fathers of the first three centuries,
statements that are not only strongly pre-millennial but which also reflect
a
possible undeveloped belief in pre-tribulationism or a two-stage coming. For
example, Frank Marotta has noted the following statement from the Apocalypse
of
Elijah, an extra-biblical writing (A.D. 150-275):
Now
those upon whose forehead the name of Christ is written and upon whose hand is
the seal, both small and the great, will be taken up upon their [angels']
wings
and lifted up before his wrath.'
Marotta
adds, "Even the editor of this work (almost certainly a liberal) heads
verses two through six with 'the removal of the righteous' and verses seven
through
fourteen with 'Natural disasters which follow the removal of the
righteous.""
Victorinus
(died A.D. 304), Bishop of Petau, who wrote an early commentary on the book of
Revelation, gives an explanation of Revelation 6:14 which includes
his
belief that "the Church shall be taken away" sometime in the future
when the passage is fulfilled. Again, regarding Revelation 15:1, he says,
"these
shall
be in the last time, when the Church shall have gone out of the midst."
Here he speaks of something that will have happened previously, apparently
looking
back to his statement in Revelation 6:14. This could reflect elements of
pre-tribulationism. It seems even more likely in light of the fact that
Victorinus
was said by the anti-Chiliast Jerome to have been a known pre-millennialist; yet
his commentary was clearly amended in the passage regarding
Revelation
20 to read as if he were Augustinian (i.e., amillennial). An American editor of
Victorinus has concluded:
This
confirms the corruption of the manuscripts. Indeed, if the Victorinus mentioned
by Jerome be the same as our author, the mention of Genseric proves
the
subsequent interpolation of his works .... It is evident that the fragment
which is here preserved .... is full of the corrections of some pious disciple
of
St. Augustine who lived much later.'
After
Augustine (died A.D. 430), there were clear efforts to redact pre-millennialism
out of earlier church writings on the part of some copyists- Victorinus
being
an established example of such attempts-in a sincere but misguided attempt to
bring these writings in line with what they thought should be the orthodoxy
of
the day. There can be no doubt that some during the Middle Ages either
destroyed texts or changed them from their original autographs.
Another
example is seen in the fact that during the Middle Ages, the last five chapters
of Irenaeus' Against Heresies were lost. It just so happens that
those
were the ones that contained the heart of his eschatological thought. Wilber
Wallis explains:
The
pre-millennial scheme seems to have disappeared completely after it was
condemned as heretical at the Council of Ephesus in A.D. 431. This
disappearance
was
probably aided by the suppression of the last five chapters of Irenaeus'
Against Heresies after the rejection of pre-millennialism and the loss of the
Greek
original. The reappearance of the full text of this ancient presentation of
pre-millennialism in 1571 (later reconstructed from the Armenian and Syriac
manuscripts)
may have had something to do with the reemergence of pre-millennialism in the
seventeenth century."'
In
light of such revision and suppression, it is entirely within the realm of
possibility that the early church could have had clearer and more numerous
Pre-tribulational
statements in their writings. Such a supposition is strengthened in light of
the recent rediscovery by North American Evangelicals of
Pseudo-Ephraem
(fourth through seventh century) and his sermon known as On the Last Times, the
Antichrist, and the End of the World or Sermon on the End
of
the World. Latin copies of these texts were compiled and edited by C. P.
Caspari" and have more recently received attention from the late Cal
Berkeley
Professor,
Paul J. Alexander." Pseudo-Ephraem's sermon contains a clear statement
about the church's removal before the tribulation as part of a two-stage
coming."
Why
therefore do we not reject every care of earthly actions and prepare ourselves
for the meeting of the Lord Christ, so that he may draw us from the confusion,
which
overwhelms all the world? ... For all the saints and elect of God are gathered,
prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord
in
order lest they see the confusion that is to overwhelm the world because of our
sins."
Pseudo-Ephraem
demonstrates that a belief in the rapture was understood very early in the
history of the church, assuring us that others had a similar understanding,
since
the sermon had to have had some circulation to have been preserved to our day,
and that some of the previously vague statements could also have been
expressions
of an early and undeveloped pre-tribulationism that was under attack and
censorship. The tribulation for Pseudo-Ephraem was three and a half
years
instead of seven, but in spite of this, it should be viewed as pre-trib because
the sermon viewed the entire tribulation as 42 months, three and a
half
years, and 1,260 days. This is a gathering (rapture) to the Lord that is said
to occur "prior to the tribulation" (Section 2), while the sermon
proceeds
in
a chronological manner so that the final paragraph (Section 10) speaks of the
second coming at the end of the tribulation. "And when the three and a
half
years have been completed,... will come the sign of the Son of Man, and coming
forward the Lord shall appear with great power and majesty .... and
also
even with all the powers of the heavens with the whole chorus of the saints
Further,
in the previous paragraph (Section 9) the sermon reads as follows when
commenting on the two witnesses who "are the servants for the heralding
of
the second coming of Christ." Here we have a clear reference, as demanded
by William Bell's pre-trib rapture criterion, of the promise of removal of
all
believers before the tribulation (the rapture), which is then clearly separated
by an interval of time (three and a half years), followed by the second
coming
at the end of the sermon.
Once
pre-millennialism began to be revived in the early seventeenth century within
various Reformed traditions, there was a corresponding increase of statements
that
some believe reflect pre-tribulational views, in spite of the fact that
historicism was the near-unanimous approach to prophecy. As many Reformed
scholars
adopted
pre-millennialism, some began to see the rapture as a distinct event from the
return of Christ to the earth.
It
has been claimed that some separated the rapture from the second coming as
early as Joseph Mede in his seminal work Clavis Apocalyptica (1627), who is
considered
the father of English pre-millennialism. Scholar Paul Boyer says that Increase
Mather proved "that the saints would 'be caught up into the Air'
beforehand,
thereby escaping the final conflagration-an early formulation of the Rapture
doctrine more fully elaborated in the nineteenth century."" Whatever
these
men were saying, it is clear that the application of a more literal hermeneutic
was leading to a distinction between the rapture and the second coming
as
separate events. Suffering under the disadvantage of a historicist prophetic
framework, they appear to be struggling with how to coordinate these different
events
into a prophetic scheme. About 200 years ago, a clearer understanding of a
pre-trib rapture came about by casting off historicism and adopting futurism.
When
that occurred, blended with a revived pre-millennialism, a belief and
understanding of pre-tribulationism exploded across Christian circles.
However,
even before the 1800s, others began to speak of the rapture. Paul Benware
provides the following summary: Peter Jurieu in his book Approaching
Deliverance
of the Church (1687) taught that Christ would come in the air to rapture the
saints and return to heaven before the battle of Armageddon. Philip
Doddridge's
commentary on the New Testament (1738) and John Gill's commentary on the New
Testament (1748) both use the term rapture and speak of it as
immanent.
It is clear that these men believed that this coming will precede Christ's
descent to the earth and the time of judgment. The purpose was to
preserve
believers from the time of judgment. James Macknight (1763) and Thomas Scott
(1792) taught that the righteous will be carried to heaven, where
they
will be secure until the time of judgment is over."
Frank
Marotta believes that Thomas Collier in 1674 makes reference to a two- stage
coming, but rejects the view, thus revealing his awareness that such
a
view was in circulation hundreds of years ago. Marotta writes of Collier:
Because he raised the question of the saints being raised at Christ's
"first
appearing
in the clouds of heaven," instead of later on "at the entrance of the
thousand years," it is apparent that Collier certainly considered the idea
of
a pre-tribulation rapture."
It
would not be long after Collier's day that pre-tribulationism would become much
more well known.
Morgan
Edwards, an important early American Baptist scholar, clearly taught some form
of pre-tribulationism. Edwards founded the first Baptist college in
the
Colonies, Rhode Island College, which we know today as Brown University of the
Ivy League. It was during his student days at Bristol Baptist Seminary
in
England (1742-44), that Edwards wrote an essay for eschatology class on his
views of Bible prophecy. This essay was later published in Philadelphia
(1788)
under the following title: Two Academic Exercises on Subjects Bearing the
following Titles; Millennium, Last-Novelties." Upon reading the 56-page
work,
it is evident that Edwards published it with only minor changes from his
student days, thus, we can date Edwards' pre-tribulationism as originating
in
the early 1740s. The pre-tribulationism of Morgan Edwards can be seen in the
following statement from his book: The distance between the first and second
resurrection
will be somewhat more than a thousand years.
I
say, somewhat more because the dead saints will be raised, and the living
changed at Christ's "appearing in the air" (1 Thessalonians 4:17);
and this
will
be about three years and a half before the millennium, as we shall see
hereafter: but will he and they abide in the air all that time? No: they will
ascend
to paradise, or to some one of those many "mansions in the father's
house" (John 14:2), and so disappear during the foresaid period of time.
The
design
of this retreat and disappearing will be to judge the risen and changed saints;
for "now the time is come that judgment must begin," and that will
be
"at the house of God" (1 Peter 4:17)... " [p. 7; emphasis added;
the spelling of all Edwards' quotes have been modernized.]
What
has Edwards said? Note the following: He believes that at least 1,003.5 years
will transpire between resurrections. He associates the first resurrection
with
the rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, occurring at least 3.5 years before the
start of the millennium (i.e., at least 3.5 years before the second coming
of
Christ at the start of the millennium). He associates the meeting of believers
with Christ in the air and returning to the Father's house with John
14:2,
as do modern pre-tribulationists. He sees believers disappearing during the
time of the tribulation, which he goes on to describe in the rest of the
section
from which the rapture statement is taken.
He,
like modern pre-tribulationists, links the time in heaven, during the
tribulation, with the "bema" judgment of believers. The only
difference, at least
in
light of the above statements, between current pre-tribulationism and Edwards
is the time interval of 3.5 years instead of 7.
Edwards
says in his introduction that his views are not those normally held in his day
and because he was approaching eschatology with a literal hermeneutic.
Such
an approach is said by modern pre-tribulationists to be the primary determinate
factor leading to pre-tribulationism. Edwards explains: I will do my
possible:
and in the attempt will work by a rule you have often recommended, viz.
"to take the scriptures in a literal sense, except when that leads to
contradiction
or absurdity." Very able men have already handled the subject in a
mystical, or allegorical, or spiritual way.
It
is clear from the above comment that Edwards was taught literal interpretation
by his teachers, but they did not apply it consistently throughout the
whole
Bible. Edwards was determined to apply in practice what he had been taught in
theory, even though it contradicted the common practices of his day
in
the area of the study of Bible prophecy.
Edwards
expands on and repeats his earlier rapture statement later when he says,
Another event previous to the millennium will be the appearing of the son
of
man in the clouds, coming to raise the dead saints and change the living, and
to catch them up to himself, and then withdraw with them, as observed
before
[p. 7]. This event will come to pass when Antichrist be arrived at Jerusalem in
his conquest of the world; and about three years and a half before
his
killing the witnesses and assumption of godhead....
Edwards
clearly separates the rapture and the second coming, as is evident from the
following statements: The last event, and the event that will usher
in
the millennium, will be, the coming of Christ from paradise to earth, with all
the saints he had taken up thither (about three years and a half before)...
[p.
241 millions and millions of saints will have been on earth from the days of
the first Adam, to the coming of the second Adam. All these will Christ
bring
with him. The place where they will alight is the "Mount of Olives, which
is before Jerusalem on the east." Zechariah 14:4.
Of
interest is the fact that Edwards wrote 42 volumes of sermons, about 12 sermons
per volume, that were never published. Other than his historical writings
and
ecclesiastical helps, his essay on Bible prophecy was his only other published
work. It is significant that this essay, from his youth, was published
and
not something else. This indicates that there was some interest in his views on
this subject. Such an interest would have surely risen out of his bringing
it
to the attention of those to whom he ministered. Yet, on the other hand, the
book only went through one printing, showing that it could not have been
a
widely held view. It could also reflect the fact that Baptists were not a large
denomination at this time in America. Nevertheless, Edwards' work on
Bible
prophecy did have some circulation, and it exposed early Americans to many of
the ideas that would come to dominate Evangelicalism a century later.
In
spite of earlier developments of pre-tribulationism, there can be no doubt that
Brethren scholar John Nelson Darby is the fountainhead of the modern formulation.
However,
the last few decades have seen several attempts by anti-pre-tribulationists to
say that Darby clandestinely pilfered at least part of his pre-trib
ideas
from questionable sources. These claims cannot be sustained.
Baptist
evangelist John Bray of Florida contends that Darby got his idea of a
two-staged coming from the Jesuit priest Emmanuel Lacunza, who wrote The Coming
of
Messiah in Glory and Majesty in 1790. Lacunza's book was first published in
Spanish in 1812 and then translated into English and published around the
middle
of 1827. Supposedly, Darby read this book and then thought up
pre-tribulationism. There are a few problems with such speculation. As will be
noted
below,
the idea of a pre-trib rapture first came to Darby in December 1826. Edward
Irving says he wrote the foreword to his English translation of Lacunza
on
Christmas Day, 1826, before it was released in printed form later in 1827.
Neither Bray nor other Lacunza theorists have been able to show any historical
evidence
that Darby was influenced by this source. Finally, if Lacunza's view of a
45-day interval between some events relating to the second coming constitutes
a
two-stage coming and thus an element of pre-tribulationism, then why not make
the case that amillennialists such as Jerome (A.D. 342-420) or The Venerable
Bede
(A.D. 673-735) of England were also pre-trib sources, since they held a similar
view on the 45-day interval from Daniel 12:12?
Anti pre-tribulationist
Dave MacPherson has developed and disseminated the false notion that Darby was
involved in a plot in which he secretly got his idea
of
the rapture from the Irvingites and more specifically from the prophecy of a
15-year-old girl named Margaret Macdonald." Dr. John Walvoord has noted
concerning
MacPherson's attempt at historical research:
The
whole controversy as aroused by Dave MacPherson's claims has so little
supporting evidence, despite his careful research, that one wonders how he can
write
his book with a straight face. Pre-tribulationalists should be indebted to Dave
MacPherson for exposing the facts, namely, that there is no proof
that
MacDonald or Irving originated the pre-tribulation rapture teaching."
There
are at least four major reasons why MacPherson's speculations are not true:
First, it is doubtful that Margaret Macdonald's "prophecy" contains
any
elements
related to the pre-trib rapture." Second, no one has ever demonstrated
from actual facts of history that Darby was influenced by Macdonald's
"prophecy"
even
if it had (which it did not) contained pre-trib elements." Third, Darby
clearly held to an early form of the pre-trib rapture by December 1826 or
January
1827,
as will be shown below. These are a full three years before MacPherson's claim
of 1830. Fourth, there is no evidence that Irving or any of the early
Irvingites
ever held to pre-trib views. This has been noted recently by Columba G. Flegg,
who has produced one of the most extensive critical analysis ever
on
Irvingite doctrine. He declares that Irvingites were still primarily
historicist, while Darby and the Brethren had become futurist. Further, Flegg
notes
that
the Brethren teaching on the rapture and the present invisible and spiritual
nature of the church were in sharp contrast to Catholic Apostolic teaching...
There
were thus very significant differences between the two eschatology's, and
attempts to see any direct influence of one upon the other seem unlikely
to
succeed they had a number of common roots, but are much more notable for their
points of disagreement. Several writers [referring specifically to MacPherson]
have
attempted to trace Darby's secret rapture theory to a prophetic statement
associated with Irving, but their arguments do not stand up to serious
criticism
.24
Brethren
writer Roy A. Huebner claims and documents his belief that J.N. Darby first
began to believe in the pre-trib rapture and develop his dispensational
thinking
while convalescing from a riding accident during December 1826 and January
1827. If this is true, then all of the origin-of-the- rapture conspiracy
theories
fall to the ground in a heap of speculative rubble. Darby would have at least a
three-year jump on any who would have supposedly influenced his
thought,
making it impossible for all the "influence" theories to have any
credibility.
Huebner
provides clarification and evidence that Darby was not influenced by Margaret
Macdonald, Lacunza, Edward Irving, or the Irvingites. These are all
said
by the detractors of Darby and the pre-trib rapture to have been bridges which
led to Darby's thought. Instead, he demonstrates that Darby's understanding
of
pre-tribulationism was the product of the development of his personal
interactive thought with the text of Scripture as he, his friends, and
dispensationalists
have
long contended.
Darby's
pre-trib and dispensational thoughts, says Huebner, were developed from the
following factors:
1.
"he saw from Isaiah 32 that there was a different dispensation coming ...
that Israel and the Church were distinct. 1121
2.
"During his convalescence JND learned that he ought daily to expect his
Lord's return. 1121
3.
"In 1827 JND understood 'the ruin of the Church.' 1128
4.
Darby also was beginning to see a gap of time between the 21 rapture and the second
coming by 1827.
5.
Darby, himself, said in 1857 that he first started understanding things
relating to the pre-trib Rapture "thirty years ago." "With that
fixed point of
reference,
January 31, 1827," declares Huebner, we can see that Darby "had already
understood those truths upon which the pre-tribulation rapture hinges.
1131
German
author Max S. Weremchuk has produced a major new biography on Darby entitled
John Nelson Darby: A Biography. He agrees with Huebner's conclusions
concerning
the matter. "Having read MacPherson's book..." says Weremchuk,
"I find it impossible to make a just comparison between what Miss
MacDonald 'prophesied'
and
what Darby taught. It appears that the wish was the father of the idea. 1131
When
reading Darby's earliest published essay on biblical prophecy (1829), it is
clear that while it still has elements of historicism, it also reflects
the
fact that for Darby, the rapture was to be the church's focus and hope Even in
this earliest of essays, Darby expounds upon the rapture as the church's
hope."
F.
F. Bruce, who was part of the Brethren movement his entire life, but one who
did not agree with the pre-trib rapture, commented on the validity of
MacPherson's
thesis:
Where
did he [Darby] get it? The reviewer's answer would be that it was in the air in
the 1820s and 1830s among eager students of unfulfilled prophecy ...
direct
dependence by Darby on Margaret Macdonald is unlikely.
John
Walvoord's assessment is likely close to the truth: any careful student of
Darby soon discovers that he did not get his eschatological views from men,
but
rather from his doctrine of the church as the body of Christ, a concept no one
claims was revealed supernaturally to Irving or Macdonald. Darby's views
undoubtedly
were gradually formed, but they were theologically and biblically based rather
than derived from Irving's pre-Pentecostal group.
Detractors
of pre-tribulationism often want to say or imply that our view cannot be found
in the pages of the Bible and must have come from a deviant source.
Of
course, we strongly object to such a notion, and have taken great pains over
the years to show that the New Testament not only teaches pre-tribulationism,
but
holds it forth as our "blessed hope," a central focus of faith. It is
also clear to me that when the church recognizes the four biblical foundations
supporting
pre-tribulationism (consistent literal interpretation, pre-millennialism,
futurism, and a distinction between Israel and the church), that the
biblical
view of pre-tribulationism is recognized.
As
believers in the imminent return of Christ, we need to let this precious truth
and hope impact our daily lives as we anticipate our Lord's return. We,
like
those who have gone before us, need to realize that such a blessed hope should
teach us that we should live chaste lives, giving ourselves to evangelism
and
world missions until the bride hears her groom shout, "come up here!"
Church historian Kurt Aland characterizes the impact that belief in an imminent
coming
of our Lord (a key element of pre-tribulationism) had in the life of the early
church:
Up
until the middle of the second century, and even later, Christians did not live
in and for the present, but they lived in and for the future; and this
was
in such a way that the future flowed into the present, that future and present
became one-a future which obviously stood under the sign of the Lord's
presence.
It was the confident expectation of the first generations that the end of the
world was not only near, but that it had really already come. It
was
the definite conviction not only of Paul, but of all Christians of that time,
that they themselves would experience the return of the Lord."
Aland
then contrasts it with the condition of the church in our own day and at
another time when she is not motivated by the imminent return of Christ:
At
first, people looked at it as only a brief postponement, as the Shepherd of
Hermas clearly expresses. But soon, as the end of the world did not occur,
it
was conceived of as a longer and longer period, until finally-this is today's
situation-nothing but the thought of a postponement exists in people's
consciousness.
Hardly any longer is there the thought of the possibility of an imminent
Parousia.
Today we live with the presumption - I would almost say from the
presumption-that this world is going to continue; it dominates our
consciousness.
Practically,
we no longer speak about a postponement, but only seldom does the idea of the
end of the world and the Lord's return for judgment even occur
to
us; rather, it is pushed aside as annoying and disturbing-in contrast to the
times when faith was alive. It is very characteristic that in ages when
the
church flourishes, the expectation of the end revives-we think of Luther; we
think of Pietism. If we judge our present time by its expectation of the
future,
our judgment can only be a very negative one.
...
Only when the imminent expectation of the Parousia diminishes, only when life
is no longer lived in constant reference to the Last Day and no longer
takes
its direction from the Last Day was an organization of the church as an
institution even possible or necessary. This took place in the second half
of
the second century."
While
Brethren theologian J.N. Darby may have restored the pre-tribulational rapture
doctrine into the life of the church, he did not originate it. Pre-tribulationism
is
found first in the New Testament and at times throughout the history of the
church. Oh that we would recapture for the church in our day this "blessed
hope"
which would help stir her to life with the mighty implications of such a truth.
This cannot be accomplished when there are those who are disturbing
the
faith of some by the misuse of the history of the rapture. Maranatha!