THE HISTORIC HOPE OF THE CHURCH*
The question of the relationship of the Rapture to that of the
Tribulation may be set in proper perspective if we first survey the history
of prophetic interpretation. The hope of the Church throughout the
early centuries was the second coming of Christ, not a pretribulation
rapture. If the Blessed Hope is in fact a pretribulation rapture, then
the Church has never known that hope through most of its history, for
the idea of a pretribulation rapture did not appear in prophetic
interpretation until the nineteenth century.
Pretribulationists are reluctant to admit this. Books which defend this
pattern of prophetic teaching frequently try to show that it is an
ancient teaching extending all the way back to apostolic times. They
usually seek proof in the assertion that the early fathers believed in
the imminence of Christ's return. If the return of Christ was an event
for which men were looking - so the argument runs - then the coming of
Christ was expected to occur at any moment, i.e., before the
Tribulation and before Antichrist appeared. In this chapter, we shall
trace the broad outlines of the history of prophetic interpretation
with reference to the Church and the Tribulation to discover whether a
pretribulation rapture was an element in the hope of the Church.
Let it be at once emphasized that we are not turning to the church
fathers to find authority for either pre- or posttribulationism. The
one authority is the Word of God, and we are not confined in the
strait-jacket of tradition. Our purpose is to place this question in a
proper historical perspective, inasmuch as some teachers claim that
pre-tribulationism is an ancient and honorable doctrine and one which
is necessary for Christian faith. While tradition does not provide
authority, it would nevertheless be difficult to suppose that God had
left His people in ignorance of an essential truth for nineteen
centuries.
The early church lived in expectation of Christ's return. "Ye perceive
how in a little time the fruit of a tree comes to maturity. Of a truth,
soon and suddenly shall His will be accomplished, as the Scripture also
bears witness, saying, 'Speedily will He come and will not tarry,' and
'The Lord shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Holy One, for
whom ye look' " (I Clement 23). To deduce from this
attitude of expectancy a belief in a pretribulation rapture and an
any-moment coming of Christ, as has often been done, is not sound. The
expectation of the coming of Christ included the events which would
attend and precede His coming. The early fathers who emphasized an
attitude of expectancy believed that this entire complex of events -
Antichrist, tribulation, return of Christ - would soon occur. This is
not the same as an any-moment coming of Christ.
The Didache
This is proven by the teaching of one of the earliest pieces of
Christian literature after the New Testament, the socalled Didache, a
piece of Christian instruction dating from the first quarter of the
second century. The last chapter is devoted to exhortations in view of
the woes expected at the end of the world. The author urges an attitude
of watching in view of the uncertainty of the time of the end. "Watch
over your life; let your lamps be not quenched and your loins be not
ungirded, but be ready, for you know not the hour in which your Lord
cometh" (16.1). This language, however, cannot be taken
to mean an "any-moment rapture," for the author proceeds to sketch the
consummation of the age in which he warns the Church against the peril
of falling away from the faith when Antichrist appears. There "shall
appear the deceiver of the world as a Son of God, and shall do signs
and wonders and the earth shall be given over into his hands and he
shall commit iniquities which have never been since the world began.
Then shall the creation of mankind come to the fiery trial and many
shall be offended and be lost, but they who endure in their faith shall
be saved by the curse itself. And then shall appear the signs of the
truth. First the sign spread out in Heaven, then the sign of the
trumpet, and thirdly the resurrection of the dead: but not of all the
dead, but as it was said, The Lord shall come and all his saints with
him. Then shall the world see the Lord coming on the clouds of Heaven."
The Didachist looks forward to the appearance of Antichrist who will
rule the world and inflict men with severe persecution. The many who
are to be offended and be lost are professing Christians who do not
stand true; for only those who endure in their faith shall be saved.
(The meaning of the phrase "by the curse itself" is unknown.) After the
Tribulation will appear signs of the end, the final sign being the
resurrection of the righteous. Then at last the Lord will come,
bringing with Him the saints who have died. The purpose of the
Didachist in writing this exhortation was to prepare the Church for the
Great Tribulation and the sufferings to be inflicted by the Antichrist,
and to urge steadfastness; "for the whole time of your faith shall not
profit you except ye be found perfect at the last time."
While the author of the Didache emphasized the spirit of expectancy and
watchfulness in view of the uncertainty of the time of the coming of
Christ, he expects the Church to suffer at the hands of Antichrist
during the Great Tribulation, and he expects the coming of Christ to
occur only at the end of this time of woe.
Barnabas
A second piece of Christian literature which is really anonymous bears
the title "The Epistle of Barnabas." It stems from about the same
period as the Didache. The author of this little tract is looking not
only for the second coming of Christ but also for the last time of
trouble. He warns believers to seek out earnestly those things which
are able to save them, and to flee from all the works of lawlessness
and to hate the era of this present time that they might be loved in
that which is to come. They are to shun fellowship with sinners and
wicked men, for "the final stumblingblock is at hand of which it was
written, as Enoch says, 'For to this end the Lord has cut short the
times and the days, that his beloved should make haste and come to his
inheritance' " (4.3). This means that the Antichrist is
at hand, but the Lord will cut short the time of the Tribulation that
His Beloved - the Lord Jesus - might make haste and return to His
people. According to this, Barnabas expected the Church to go through
the Tribulation and Christ to return only at its termination. This is
again asserted in 15.5: "When his Son comes, he will
destroy the time of the wicked one and will judge the godless, and will
change the sun and moon and the stars, and then he will truly rest on
the seventh day." The second coming of Christ will destroy the wicked
one, the Antichrist; and if so, the appearance of Antichrist is
expected to precede the Lord's return.
That Barnabas could not have looked for1 an any-moment return of Christ
is proven by his expectation that the end would not come until the
Roman empire should fall. "Ten kingdoms shall reign upon the earth and
there shall rise up after them a little king, who shall subdue three of
the kings under one" (4.4). Antichrist would arise after
the Roman empire had broken'down into ten kingdoms. This obviously
could not occur at once, for in the first century Rome's might and
stability was at its apex.
The Shepherd of Hermas
An expression appears in the Shepherd of Hermas (cir. 150 A.D.) which
has been claimed by pretribulationists to teach a pretribulation
rapture. The words are, "If then you are prepared beforehand, and
repent with all your hearts toward the Lord, you will be able to escape
it, if your heart be made pure and blameless, and you serve the Lord
blamelessly for the rest of the days of your life. Go then and tell the
Lord's elect ones of His great deeds, and tell them that this beast is
the type of the great persecution which is to come" (Vision 4,2,5).
When this phrase is lifted out of its context, it might be understood
to teach some such idea as that of a rapture from tribulation. However,
when one reads the entire passage, he finds that the exact opposite is
taught, for the author is referring to preservation in and through
tribulation.
Hermas was walking down the road and met a fearful monster like a
leviathan with fiery locusts going out of its mouth, about a hundred
feet in size, with four colors on its head: black, blood red, gold, and
white. Hermas began to pray to the Lord to rescue him from the beast,
but instead he was reminded of his faith in the Lord and the great
things he had been taught. Then boldly he faced the beast head-on, and
after the beast rushed at him as though it would destroy a city, it
came near and stretched itself out on the ground and put forth nothing
except its tongue, and did not move at all until Hermas passed it by.
The beast was a symbol of the Great Tribulation to come. The escape
promised was not deliverance from the presence of tribulation, but
preservation in the presence of tribulation. This is proven by the
interpretation of the four colors. Black means the world, fiery red
means the destruction of the world, gold represents the Church purified
by fire, and white means the world to come. Here we have a teaching
common in the early church that tribulation effects purity. "The golden
part is you, who have fled from this world, for even as gold is 'tried
in the fire' and becomes valuable, so also you who live among them
[that is, the fire and blood of tribulation] are being tried. Those
then who remain and pass through the flames shall be purified by them."
"Therefore do not cease to speak to the ears of the saints. You have
also the type of the great persecution to come, but if you will [warn
them] it shall be nothing." Hermas is admonished to prepare the Church
for the Tribulation, to warn that it is God's purpose to purify the
Church by the fiery trial of persecution. If the Church is prepared, it
need not fear the sufferings to come; they will be as nothing to those
whose faith is fixed in the Lord.
Justin Martyr
One of the earliest fathers (cir. 150) who was an avowed
premillennialist was Justin Martyr. He makes only passing reference to
Antichrist, but this reference proves that Justin expected the Church
to go through the Tribulation and to be persecuted by Antichrist.
Speaking of Christ's second advent, he says: "He shall come from heaven
with glory, when the man of apostasy, who speaks strange things against
the Most High, shall venture to do unlawful deeds on the earth against
us Christians, who, having learned the true worship of God from the
law, and the word which went forth from Jerusalem by means of the
apostles of Jesus, have fled for safety to the God of Jacob and the God
of Israel." Justin has no fear of this coming Tribulation, for he says,
"Now it is evident that no one can terrify or subdue us who have
believed in Jesus over all the world. For it is plain that, though
beheaded, and crucified, and thrown to wild beasts, and chains, and
fire, and all other kinds of torture, we do not give up our confession;
but the more such things happen, the more do others and in larger
numbers become faithful, and worshippers of God through the name of
Jesus" (Dialogue with Trypho, 110). Justin, who himself
became a martyr, feels that the sufferings to be inflicted by the "man
of apostasy," the Antichrist, will be little worse than what Christians
were already gladly and fearlessly suffering for Christ.
Irenaeus
The first of the church fathers who devotes an extensive discussion to
the coming of Antichrist and the Great Tribulation is Irenaeus, Bishop
of Lyons in the late second.century A. D. Irenaeus was a thoroughgoing
premillenarian, the first, in fact, to give us a premillennial system
of interpretation; but he did not believe in an any-moment coming of
Christ and a rapture of the Church before the Tribulation and coming of
Antichrist. On the contrary, he looked forward to a series of
significant historical events within the Roman empire before Antichrist
could arise and Christ return. "In a still clearer light has John, in
the Apocalypse, indicated to the Lord's disciples what shall happen in
the last times, and concerning the ten kings who shall then arise,
among whom the empire which now rules [the earth] shall be partitioned.
He teaches us what the ten horns shall be which were seen by Daniel,
telling us that thus it had been said to him [see Rev. 17:12]. It is
manifest, therefore, that of these [potentates], he who is to come
shall slay three, and subject the remainder to his power, and that he
shall be himself the eighth among them. And they shall lay Babylon
waste, and burn her with fire, and shall give their kingdom to the
beast, and put the church to flight. After that they shall be destroyed
by the coming of our Lord" (Against Heresies, 5,26,1).
Three important points are to be noted in Irenaeus' expectation of the
future. First, he does not believe that the end is immediately
at hand. A little further on he warns the Church against teachers who
are propagating false views about the identity of the Antichrist. Like
Barnabas, he urges them rather to await the division of the kingdom
into ten parts which must occur before Antichrist can arise. Rather
than expecting an immediate end, men are to await the fulfillment of
these prophesies.
Second, Antichrist, when he appears, will put the Church to
flight. Speaking of this tribulation which will befall the Church at
the hands of Antichrist, Irenaeus says, "And for this cause tribulation
is necessary for those who are saved, that having been after a manner
broken up, and rendered fine, and sprinkled over by the patience of the
Word of God, and set on fire [for purification], they may be fitted for
the royal banquet" (27,4). Again, as in Hermas, God is
expected to use the Great Tribulation to accomplish the purification of
the Church.
Third, the second coming of Christ will take place at the end
of the Tribulation to destroy the Antichrist and to deliver His Church.
"But when this Antichrist shall have devastated all things in this
world, he will reign for three years and six months, and sit in the
temple at Jerusalem; and then the Lord will come from heaven in the
clouds, in the glory of the Father, sending this man [Antichrist] and
those who follow him into the lake of fire; but bringing in for the
righteous [the Church] the times of the kingdom" (30,4).
At this time the resurrection of the saints and the rapture of the
living saints will take place. "For all those, and other words, were
unquestionably spoken in reference to the resurrection of the just,
which takes place after the coming of the Antichrist, and the
destruction of all nations under his rule; in (the times of) which
(resurrection) the righteous shall reign on the earth, waxing stronger
by the sight of the Lord: and through Him they shall become accustomed
to partake in the glory of God the Father, and shall enjoy in the
kingdom intercourse and communion with the holy angels, and union with
spiritual beings; and (with respect to) those whom the Lord shall find
in the flesh, awaiting Him from heaven, and who have suffered
tribulation, as well as escaped the hands of the Wicked one" (35,1).
In this first detailed outline of prophetic events after the New
Testament, Irenaeus looks for the overthrow of Rome and the division of
the Empire among ten kings. Then Antichrist will appear and will kill
three of the ten and rule over the other seven. Antichrist will direct
his wrath particularly against the Church and put her to flight, but
God will use the Tribulation to purify the Church. After three and a
half years, Christ will return in glory to punish Antichrist, raise the
dead saints, and bring the living saints, both those who have suffered
persecution by Antichrist and those who have escaped his anger, into
the millennial kingdom.
Tertullian
Along with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, another avowed premillennialist
was Tertullian of North Africa of the late second and third centuries.
"But we do confess that a kingdom is promised to us upon the earth,
although before heaven, only in another state of existence; inasmuch as
it will be after the resurrection for a thousand years in the divinely
built city of Jerusalem" (Adv. Marcion 3,25). In one
passage, Tertullian writes as though he believed in an any-moment
coming of Christ. "But what a spectacle is that fast approaching advent
of our Lord, now owned by all, now highly exalted, now a triumphant
one!" (The Shows, 30).
However, Tertullian cannot be designated a pretribulation rapturist. He
did not look for a restoration of the Jews to their land and a time of
tribulation which would primarily concern the restored Israel. "As for
the restoration of Judea, however, which even the Jews themselves,
induced by the names of the places and countries, hope for just as it
is described, it would be tedious to state at length how the figurative
interpretation is spiritually applicable to Christ and His church, and
to the character and fruits thereof" (Adv. Marcion, 3,25).
Furthermore, Tertullian believed that the end could not come at any
moment but would be heralded by signs of warning. In his tractate "On
the Resurrection of the Flesh" (22), Tertullian speaks of
directing his prayers "toward the end of this world, to the passing
away thereof at the great day of the Lord - of His wrath and vengeance
- the last day, which is hidden (from all), and known to none but the
Father, although announced before hand by signs and wonders, and the
dissolution of the elements, and the conflict of nations." After
describing some of the heavenly signs which would announce the coming
of the end, Tertullian quotes the Biblical exhortation, " 'Watch ye,
therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape
all those things, and to stand before the Son of man'; that is, no
doubt, at the resurrection, after all these things have been previously
transacted." The object of Tertullian's hope and prayers is not a
secret any-moment coming of the Lord to rapture the Church; it is the
hope of standing before the Son of man after a series of cosmic signs
have appeared and "all of these things have taken place." He places
this event at the day of the Lord and the resurrection of the dead at
the end of a series of preceding signs and events.
Lactantius
Lactantius was a Latin father of the late third and early fourth
centuries who devoted considerable attention in his "Divine Institutes"
to the coming of Antichrist and the consummation of the age. There is
one quotation which, if taken out of context, might suggest the
expectation of an any-moment rapture. "It is permitted us to know
respecting the signs, which are spoken by the prophets, for they
foretold signs by which the consummation of the times is to be expected
by us from day to day, and to be feared" (7,25). However,
it is not the coming of Christ which was daily expected but the
appearance of a series of signs which would precede the end. Lactantius
believed that human history was to run a six thousand year course and
to be followed by a millennium. Of the six thousand years, there
remained in his day some two hundred years before the end would come (25).
During this period, profound rearrangements of the political situation
must take place. The Roman empire must be taken away from the earth and
the government returned to Asia, for the East must again bear rule and
the West be reduced to servitude (7,15). Rome was doomed
to perish and from the ruins would arise ten kings who would divide the
world among them. Only then would appear the Antichrist to reign over
the whole world. Before these final events, a severe deterioration must
occur in human society, and Lactantius devotes considerable space to
the description of these evil times. So terrible will they be that
nine-tenths of the human race will be destroyed. The Church, along with
the world, is destined to suffer the evils of the end-times. "Of the
worshippers of God also, two parts will perish; and the third part,
which shall have been proved, will remain" (7,16).
Finally, Antichrist will appear and will terribly afflict the righteous
and will rule the earth forty-two months. The righteous will flee from
the ravages of Antichrist but will be pursued and surrounded. Then they
will call upon God and God will hear them and send a Great King to
rescue them and to destroy the wicked with the fire and sword (7,17).
This coming of Christ will be preceded by a special sign: "There shall
suddenly fall from heaven a sword, that the righteous may know that the
leader of the sacred warfare is about to descend" (19).
After this, the dead will rise and the world be renewed for the
millennial kingdom.
Such an expectation is far removed from that of an any-moment coming of
Christ and a deliverance of the Church from the tribulations of the
end-times.
Hippolytus
One of the first Christians to give us a treatise on the Antichrist is
Hippolytus, a Bishop of Rome during the first decades of the third
century A. D. Hippolytus applies the fourth beast of Daniel to the
Roman empire then ruling the world, and interprets the ten toes of the
image in Daniel 2 of ten kings who would arise out of the Roman empire.
This is also symbolized by the ten horns of the fourth beast. The horn
which will root up three horns is Antichrist. He is to destroy the
kings of Egypt, Libya and Ethiopia, after which he will rule the world
and persecute the saints. Hippolytus tentatively suggests that the mark
of the Beast, 666, may mean Latinus, but he is uncertain.
"Wherefore we ought neither to give it out as if this were certainly
his name, nor again ignore the fact that he may not be otherwise
designated. But having the mystery of God in our heart, we ought in
fear to keep faithfully what has been told us by the blessed prophets,
in order that when these things come to pass, we may be prepared for
them, and not be deceived" (50).
Hippolytus interprets Revelation 12 of "the tribulation of the
persecution which is to fall upon the Church from the adversary" (60).
There the "saints" afe identified as the Christian Church. The time and
times and half a time refer "to the one thousand two hundred and three
score days (the half of the week) during which the tyrant is to reign
and persecute the Church, which flees from city to city, and seeks
concealment in the wilderness among the mountains" (61).
After the Abomination of Desolation and all of the attendant events,
"what remains but the coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ from
heaven, for whom we have looked and hoped? who shall bring the
conflagration and just judgment upon all who have refused to believe on
Him. For the Lord says, 'And when these things begin to come to pass,
then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth
nigh.' 'And there shall not a hair of your head perish.' 'For as the
lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so
shall also the coming of the Son of man be' " (64). After
the return of Christ will take place the resurrection and the kingdom
of the saints as announced in Revelation 20, and I Thessalonians 4.
In this survey of the early centuries we have found that the Church
interpreted the book of Revelation along futurist lines; i.e., they
understood the book to predict the eschatological events which would
attend the end of the world. The Antichrist was understood to be an
evil ruler of the end-times who would persecute the Church, afflicting
her with great tribulation. Every church father who deals with the
subject expects the Church to suffer at the hands of Antichrist. God
would purify the Church through suffering, and Christ would save her by
His return at the end of the Tribulation when He would destroy
Antichrist, deliver His Church, and bring the world to an end and
inaugurate His millennial kingdom. The prevailing view is a
posttribulation premillennialism. We can find no trace of
pretribulationism in the early church; and no modern pretribulationist
has successfully proved that this particular doctrine was held by any
of the church fathers or students of the Word before the nineteenth
century.
The Middle Ages
After the first centuries, the expectation of an Antichrist as an evil
world ruler to appear just before the return of Christ gradually
disappeared. Revelation came to be interpreted along spiritual lines,
and after the time of Augustine,
his "amillennial" view that the thousand years began with Christ's
earthly life and would continue to the end of the church age became the
predominant interpretation.
During the Middle Ages, the "historical" interpretation of Revelation
arose in which the book was thought to give in symbolic form an outline
of the history of the Church. Antichrist was frequently interpreted to
mean the Saracens, and the false prophet to mean Mohammed. Pope
Innocent III made effective use of the Revelation to stir up support
for his crusade.
The "Protestant" Interpretation
The Reformers took over this type of historical interpretation of
prophetic truth and found in the Antichrist a prophecy of the Papacy. Luther at first felt that Revelation was
defective in everything which could be called apostolic or prophetic
and was offended by the visions and symbols of the book; but he came to
feel that the prophecy was an outline of the whole course of church
history and that the Papacy was predicted both in chapters 11 and 12
and in the second beast of chapter 13. The number 666 represented the
period of papal domination.
This "historical" type of interpretation with its application of the
Antichrist to papal Rome so dominated Protestant study of prophetic
truth for three centuries that it has frequently been called "the
Protestant" interpretation. Some historical interpreters were
premillennialists. They found the history of the Church symbolized in
the seals, vials, and trumpets, with the second coming of Christ in
chapter 19. After the return of Christ, there would be a millennial
reign before the final consummation. We would emphasize that there have
been many students of the Word who have been thorough-going
premillennialists who shared very little of the outline of prophetic
truth which today is called premillenialism. Such were Joseph Mede,
Isaac Newton, William Whiston, J. A. Bengel and Henry Alford. These
men, and many others, taught the premillennial return of Christ, but
they did not believe in a personal Antichrist who would appear at the
end of the age to persecute the saints during a three and a half year
period of tribulation. Neither did they believe in what we call "the
Great Tribulation." They believed that the Tribulation extended
throughout the history of the Church, and the three and a half years or
twelve hundred and sixty days were frequently interpreted to mean
twelve hundred and sixty years of church history before the end times
could arrive. A new and different interpretation was created by Daniel Whitby (1706) who thought that the
world was to be completely evangelized and the Church to rule the
world. Vitringa (d. 1722) applied
this view to the interpretation of the Revelation producing
postmillenmalism, He followed the historical interpretation for the
first nineteen chapters and interpreted the first part of chapter
twenty as a future era when the Church would reign over the world after
the destruction of anti-Christian Rome. The millennium was thus placed
in the future but before the return of Christ; and the meaning of
"postmillennialism" is that Christ's return would occur only after the
millennial period. One of the most famous exponents of this view was David Brown (1891) , one of the co-editors of
the widely used Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's Commentary on the
Bible.
It is obvious that so long as the Roman church and the Papacy were
identified with the Antichrist, no idea of a pretribulation rapture
could be possible, for in this interpretation the period of tribulation
was not 1260 days but 1260 years. Such a view lent itself to
date-setting. Whiston predicted that the millennium would begin in
1715. When it failed to occur, he deferred the date to 1734. When he
survived both dates, he projected the time to 1766 but did not live to
see his prediction fail a third time. Bengel expected the end to come
on June 18, 1836.
Many of the great Christians of Reformation and post-Reformation times
shared this view of prophetic truth and identified Antichrist with the
Roman Papacy. This is a fact which should be well pondered by modern
students who insist that a pretribulation eschatology is essential to
an orthodox theology. Among adherents of this interpretation were the Waldenses, the Hussites,
Wyclif, Luther,
Calvin, Zwingli,
Melanchton, the Baptist
theologian John Gill, the martyrs
Cranmer, Tyndale,
Latimer and Ridley.
John Wesley,
following Bengel, thought that the papal Antichrist would be overtrrown
in 1836 and would be succeeded not only by a millennium but by two
millenniums, the first on earth and the second in Heaven. Jonathan Edwards held that the fulfillment of
the Revelation in the history of the Church was an unanswerable
argument for the inspiration of the Scriptures. He held that the 1260
years of Revelation began in 606 A. D. and that he was therefore living
in the last days.
Some of these men were premillennialists, but Edwards adopted the
Whitbyan postmillennialism. However, they all shared the historical
view: none of them was a futurist, looking for a short tribulation with
a personal Antichrist just before the return of Christ. Therefore, the
idea of a pretribulation rapture had no place in their interpretation
of prophecy.
THE RISE AND SPREAD OF PRETRIBULATIONISM
IN THE preceding chapter, we traced the broad outlines of the history
of prophetic interpretation and found no trace of pretribulationism.
The first three centuries were characterized by a futurist,
premillennial interpretation but not of the pretribulation type. The
Middle Ages forsook this primitive interpretation for either a
spiritual interpretation or the historical view. The latter was so
widely accepted in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
that it has been called the "Protestant" view.
The Return to Futurism
With the dawn of the nineteenth century, there occurred a movement
which brought about a return to the primitive view and which also gave
rise to pretribulationism.
Whitby's new postmillennial view exercised great influence in Europe in
the eighteenth century and resulted in a minimizing of the importance
of the doctrine of the Lord's return. At the turn of the century, a
strong reaction arose, which reasserted the importance of the personal
comng of. Christ and often emphasized the place of the earthly kingdom
after the Lord's return. Outstanding among the leaders of this
prophetic revival were William Cuninghame,
Joshua W. Brooks, Edward Bickersteth, T.
R. Birks, and E. B. Elliott
- all of whom proclaimed the personal, premillennial coming of Christ
but continued to follow the historical method of applying the
prophecies of Antichrist to the Papacy and interpreting the 1260 days
as years.
Many periodicals appeared which were devoted to the exposition of
prophecy and to heralding the imminent return of Christ. Most of them
experienced only a short life but exercised great influence for a few
years. One of these periodicals was The Investigator (1831-36),
edited by J. W. Brooks, the last volume of which contained a Dictionary
of Writers on the Prophecies in which Broods compiled over 2,100
titles of books on prophetic subjects, together with 500 commentaries
on books of the Bible. Numerous anonymous tracts appeared bearing such
tittles as "The End of All Things is at Hand."
Prophetic conferences began to spring up. A wealthy banker, Henry Drummond, sponsored a series of
prophetic conferences at his villa at Albury Park from 1826-1830.
Drummond's own interpretation was of the historical, pre-millennial
type. To this conference came Edward Irving,
an eloquent preacher who expounded prophetic themes to a London
congregation of over a thousand drawn from the most brilliant circles
of society. Irving later toured Scotland to proclaim the imminence of
Christ's coming and there won the Bonar brothers to a millennial view,
preaching sometimes to out-door crowds of ten to twelve thousand. It is
a tragedy that a young man of such great gifts and promise experienced
so sad an end. In 1830, he wrote a tract in which he asserted that
Jesus possessed a fallen human nature. Shortly after this, tongues
broke out in his congregation. Heresy proceedings were initiated and he
was deposed in 1833 and died, broken-hearted, the next year.
Just before Irving attended the Albury meeting, he had come upon a copy
of the work on the Coming of the Messiah by the Spanish Jesuit,
Lacunza (Ben-Ezra). Lacunza had
rediscovered the truth of the second advent of Christ to establish His
millennial kingdom which had been lost in Catholicism. Even though he
was a Catholic, he applied the prophecy of the second beast in
Revelation thirteen to a corrupted Roman priesthood. In 1827, this book
and the millennial question became the main objects of study at the
Albury conference. Lady Powerscourt
attended these meetings and became so interested that she established
similar meetings at Powerscourt House. It was in these Powerscourt
meetings that some of the characteristic doctrines of "Darbyism" can be
discovered for the first time.
Out of this revival of interest in prophetic truth came two new
interpretations: futurism and "Darbyism." The futuristic interpretation
was essentially a return to the method of prophetic truth found in the
early fathers, essential to which is the teaching that the Antichrist
will be a satanically inspired world-ruler at the end of the age who
would inflict severe persecution upon the Church during the Great
Tribulation. At the end of the Tribulation, Christ would return to
deliver the Church, punish Antichrist, raise the righteous dead, and
establish His millennial kingdom. Darbyism modified this outline of
truth by teaching a coming of Christ to rapture the Church before the
Tribulation and before His coming in glory to establish the millennial
kingdom.
The rediscovery of futurism is associated with the names of S. R. Maitland, James
Todd, and William Burgh.
Before we turn to these men, we should note that a futurist
interpretation of prophecy had earlier been recovered within the Roman
Catholic Church. It will probably come as a shock to many modern
futurists to be told that the first scholar in relatively modern times
who returned to the patristic futuristic interpretation was a
SpanishSpanish Jesuit named Ribera.
In 1590 Ribera published a commentary on the Revelation as a
counter-inteerpretation to the prevailing view among Protestants which
identified the Papacy with the Antichrist. Ribera applied all of
Revelation but the earliest chapters to the end time rather than to the
history of the Church. Antichrist would be a single evil person who
would be received by the Jews and would rebuild Jerusalem, abolish
Christianity, deny Christ, persecute the Church and rule the world for
three and a half years. On one subject, Ribera was not a futurist: he
followed the Augustinian interpretation of the millenmum in making the
entire period between the cross and Antichrist. He differed from
Augustine in making the "first resurrection" to refer to the heavenly
life of the martyrs when they would reign in heaven with Christ
throughout the millennium, i.e., the church age. A number of CathoIic
scholars espoused this futuristic interpretation of Antichrist, among
them Bellarmine, the most notable
of the Jesuit controversialists and the greatest adversary of the
Protestant churches.
This futurist interpretation with its personal Antichrist and three and
a half year period of tribulation did not take root in the Protestant
church until the early nineteenth century. The first Protestant to
adopt it was S.R. Maitland. He
received a legal training but abandoned the profession in 1823 to
become a curate. In 1826 he published a pamphlet whose title is
self-explanatory: An Enquiry into the Ground on which the Prophetic
Period of Daniel and St. John Has Been Supposed to Consist of 1260 Years.
This small pamphlet was an attack on the year day theory of the
historical interpreters, insisting upon a period of 1260 literal days
of tribulation before the return of Christ. The pamphlet resulted in a
"paper-war" with the historicists which lasted many years.
James H. Todd, professor of
Hebrew at Dublin, met Maitland and became his follower. In 1838 he gave
the Donnellan lectures using the subject, Discourses on the
Prophecies Relating to Antichrist in the Writings of Daniel and St. Paul,
dedicating the published lectures to Maitland. This is a detailed study
of over five hundred pages on these prophecies. Todd repeatedly refers
to Antichrist as "the head and leader of a formidable persecution of
the Christian Church," "the great enemy and persecutor of the Church,"
and the like. In 1840, he published a second series of studies on
Antichrist in the Apocalypse.
William Burgh has given us the
first systematic treatment of prophetic events following the new
futurist interpretation in Lectures on the Second Advent of Our
Lord Jesus Christ (1835). In 1820, Burgh had published a tract in
which he followed the historical premillennial view, but he became
converted to the new futurist interpretation.
Burgh knows of only one coming of Christ, at the end of the Tribulation
when the dead in Christ will be raised and the living believers
raptured. He believed that Israel was to be restored at the end of the
age when the seventieth week of Daniel 9 would occur. Antichrist will
make a covenant with Israel only to break it in the midst of the week
and to turn in wrath against Israel. The second coming of Christ will
bring destruction to Antichrist and a great outpouring of the Spirit
upon Israel who will then become the center of the millennial kingdom
to preach the Gospel of grace and to be the agency in the salvation of
the Gentile nations. Christianity will then be extended without
hindrance throughout the earth and the Gentiles will be brought en
masse into the Church. The first resurrection at the beginning of the
millennium will not include all the Church, for the greater part of the
Church will come to salvation during the millennium. The first
resurrection of saints to reign with Christ will be a blessing granted
to those who have been willing to share Christ's sufferings and
humiliation during this present evil age and especially in the time of
Tribulation at the hands of Antichrist.
These early futurists followed a pattern of prophetic events similar to
that found in the early fathers, with the necessary exception that Rome
was not the final kingdom. In fact they appeal to the fathers against
the popular historical interpretation for support of their basic view.
A pretribulation rapture is utterly unknown by these men, and while
Israel is to be restored, the Gospel which Israel will preach in the
millennium is the Gospel of grace, and those who are saved are included
in the Church. The Tribuulation concerns both Israel and the Church; in
fact, it will be the time of testing an apostate Christianity.
The Rise of Pretribulationism
A second out-growth of the prophetic awakening of the early nineteenth
century was Darbyism, or Dispensationalism, which had its birth within
the Plymouth Brethren movement. A pretribulation rapture is an
essential element of this system. The Brethren movement had its
beginnings in Dublin in 1825 when a small group of earnest men,
dissatisfied with the spiritual condition of the Protestant church in
Ireland, met for prayer and fellowship. Soon others joined the
fellowship and other similar groups sprang up. In 1827, J. N. Darby entered the fellowship. Although
there was an interest from the start in prophetic truth, the center of
emphasis was "The Nature and Unity of the Church of Christ" (the title
of Darby's first tract) in reaction to the deadness and formalism of
the organized church and the ordained ministry. Outstanding among the
new groups which arose in Ireland and England was the fellowship in
Plymouth, from which the movement derived its name. Leader of the
Plymouth fellowship for many years was B. W.
Newton, a man of considerable learning and scholarship.
Two other outstanding Brethren were S. P.
Tregelles, recognized by the entire world of Biblical
scholarship for his contribution to the study of the history of the
Greek text of the New Testament, and George
Muller, the great man of prayer.
We have already mentioned the Albury Park conference and the
Powerscourt meetings. Darby and other leaders of the new movement
attended the meetings at Powerscourt, and Darby's leadership in the
area of prophetic interpretation here became evident. It was at
Powerscourt that the teaching of a pretribulation rapture of the Church
took shape. Tregelles, a member of the Brethren in these early days,
tells us that the idea of a secret rapture at a secret coming of Christ
had its origin in an "utterance" in Edward Irving's church, and that
this was taken to be the voice of the Spirit. Tregelles says, "it was
from that supposed revelation that the mortem doctrine and the modern
phraseology respecting it arose. It came not from Holy Scripture, but
from that which falsely pretended to be the Spirit of God." [S.P.
Tregelles, The Hope of Christ's Second Coming, first published
in 1864...] This doctrine together with other important modifications
of the traditional futuristic view were vigorously promoted by Darby,
and they have been popularized by the writings of William
Kelly.
Not all of the Brethren accepted the teaching of a pretribulation
rapture. In 1842, B. W. Newton of
Plymouth published a book entitled Thoughts on the Apocalypse
in which he taught the traditional view that the Church would go
through the Tribulation. There arose a sharp contention over the issue
of pretribulationism between the two men. Newton "considered Mr.
Darby's dispensational teaching as the height of speculative nonsense" (H. A. Ironside). He was supported in his
posttribulation views by Tregelles. A rift followed which was never
healed. This was the first of a series of many contentions which marred
the history of the Brethren movement.
Within early Brethrenism, we find two types of prophetic
interpretation: the traditional futurism, and Darbyism or
Dispensationalism. The influence which has extended to prophetic study
in America has been the latter. Doubtless Newton's views on the Church
and the Tribulation were discredited because he was accused of holding
unsound views on the person of Christ.
Pretribulationism in America
In the early nineteenth century, postmellennialism was the prevailing
interpretation of prophecy in America. Jonathan Edwards had accepted
Whitbyan postmillennialism, and the publication of several popular
commentaries widely disseminated the doctrine. Matthew
Henry's famous commentary was published in America in
1828-29, and we are told that more than two hundred thousand volumes
circulated by 1840. Henry applied the prophecies on Antichrist to the
Papacy, and interpreted the first resurrection and the millennium to
mean political restoration of those who had suffered at the hands of
papal Rome. He understood the second resurrection to be the revival of
political power of wicked men.
Thomas Scott's commentary, the
most popular and widely quoted of the early nineteenth century works of
its sort, spread the Whitbyan theory. Adam
Clarke's commentary was first published in America in
1811-25. Clarke saw in Daniel's vision of the stone crushing the image
a prophecy of the victory of the Church over the Roman empire, a
victory which would extend until the Church filled the earth. Two of
the most effective agencies in accomplishing this end were the British
and Foreign Bible Society and the contemporary missionary enterprise.
Clarke interpreted the second coming of Christ in Matthew 24 of the
destruction of Jerusalem by Rome, and he understood the "end of the
age" in Matthew 24:3, 14 to refer to the end of the Jewish age
accomplished at that time.
A reaction to postmillennialism arose in America as it had in England.
This may be illustrated by two prophetic magazines. The Literalist
was published in Philadelphia between 1840-1842 advocating, as its name
indicates, a literal view of prophetic interpretation in opposition to
the spiritualizing method of the predominant Whitbyism. The
American Millenarian and Prophetic Review appeared in New York in
the years 1842-44 with a similar objective. Both journals drew heavily
upon writers of the English prophetic awakening such as Bickersteth,
Brooks, and Cuninghame. In fact, the Literalist consisted
largely of English reprints. Both journals followed the path marked out
by their English exemplars of the historical "Protestant"
interpretation with its 1260 years and papal Antichrist. Thus although
thoroughly millenarian, they were not futurist in their understanding
of the Tribulation and the Antichrist.
Against this background of prevailing postminennialism and a groping
search for a more satisfying interpretation of prophecy, it is easy to
see how Darbyan futurism possessed such attraction and impelling power.
It came with a freshness and vitality which quite captured American
Christians. Darby visited America six times between 1859 and 1874 and
was warmly welcomed. His system of prophetic interpretation was eagerly
adopted, not because of the attractiveness of the details of his
system, but because its basic futurism seemed to be a recovery of a
sound Biblical prophetic interpretation - which in fact it was - and to
give to the doctrine of the Lord's return the importance it deserved.
In other words, Darbyism to many Christians meant the rediscovery of
the precious Biblical truth of Christ's glorious second coming, even
though the basic truth was accompanied by some important details which
were not essential to the premillennial return of Christ and which many
later came to feel were not in the Word of God. Once more, as in the
early church, the return of Christ became a living and vital
expectation in the lives of Christian people and in the pulpit ministry
of many a preacher. Little wonder that the view has been cherished and
defended with such deep emotional overtones. Darbyism in fact restored
something precious which had long been lost.
This new prophetic emphasis at once found expression in the prophetic
and Bible conference movement. A. C. Gaebelein,
telling the story of the Scofield Reference Bible, finds its background
within this movement. Interest in premillennialism grew to a point
where a great prophetic conference was suggested by Nathaniel West. A call was issued by a
committee of eight men, among whom were James H. Brookes and A. J.
Gordon, with the indorsement of one hundred and fourteen "Bishops,
Professors, Ministers and Brethren." The conference was called to meet
in the church of the Holy Trinity (Episcopal) in 1878. A second
prophetic conference was held in Chicago in 1886. Prominent in these
conferences were such men as Stephen Tyng, W. R. Nicholson, Nathaniel
West, S. H. Kellogg, A. J. Gordon, James H. Brookes, W. J. Erdman, W.
G. Moorehead and A. T. Pierson.
Another series of meetings of even greater importance was that which
met at Niagara on Lake Ontario from 1883-1897. This conference was the
outgrowth of a small Bible study fellowship initiated in 1875 by a
handful of men among whom were Nathaniel West, J. H. Brookes and W. J.
Erdman. They were joined the next year by A. J. Gordon. This group met
from place to place until the conference at Ontario was undertaken.
Among the leading teachers of the Ontario conferences, according to A.
C. Gaebelein, were James H. Brookes, A. J. Gordon, W. J. Erdman, Albert
Erdman, George C. Needham, A. C. Dickson, L. W. Mundhall, H. M.
Parsons, Canon Howitt, E. P. Marvin, Hudson Taylor,J. M. Stifler,
Robert Cameron, W. G. Moorehead and A. T. Pierson. After this pioneer
of American Bible conferences was discontinued, a new conference at
Seacliff, Long Island, was opened in 1901, and it was here that the
plan for the Reference Bible embodying the dispensational system of
interpretation occurred to Dr. C. I. Scofield.
In view of the modern notion that pretribulationism has been one of the
foundational tenets of a, sound presentation of prophetic truth, it is
important to note tnat many of the leaders of this early prophetic,
Bible conference movement either were or became posttribulatiomsts.
Many of the teachers at the Niagara Conference accepted J. N. Darby's
pretribulation rapture along with the doctrine of Christ's return. Of
the men named above, James H. Brookes, A. T. Pierson, and C. I.
Scofield have been among the most influential supporters of this view.
However, other teachers did not accept it, and still others accepted it
at first only to give it up after more mature study of the Word of God.
Since it is often thought that all good and godly premillennialists
must be pretribulationists, we shall note the views of several of these
leadersjwho did not adhere to the pretribulation teaching.
Nathaniel West suggested and
arranged the first prophetic conference in 1878 and was one of the
leading teachers. His book, The Thousand Years in Both Testaments
(1880), has been called the most important defense of premillennialism
which has been written. However, West had no patience with
pretribulationism. He taught that the 144,000 who are sealed in
Revelation 7 are the fulfillment of the promise in Romans 11 - the
salvation of literal Israel. Their salvation will occur at the
beginning of the seventieth week as a result of the ministry of the two
witnesses (Rev. 11), and they are sealed that they might take the place
of the Church which is seen in the great multitude in Revelation 7 - a
multitude which is to suffer near extinction at the hands of Antichrist
in the Great Tribulation. "They (these two groups) assure us also that
the Christian Church will not be removed from the earth, or become
extinct under persecution, but, reduced and suffering, will also live
to see the Advent" (p. 245). "They (the 144,000) are ... the
Israelitish Church of the Future .... It is not that Gentile believers
have utterly perished in the apostasy, for Paul teaches the contrary. I
Thess. iv:16,17; nor that no Jewish believers become martyrs, for John
teaches otherwise, Rev. vii:9 . . . . But it is that, in the height of
the apostasy, when the true Church is almost gone, God will restore
Israel, and preserve of Israel an election, undestroyed by the
tribulation, who shall live to see the Advent" (p. 249). West believed
not that the Church would be removed by rapture and its place taken by
a Jewish remnant, but that the Church would be removed by persecution
and martyrdom.
These views were published in 1880 when emphasis upon pretribulationism
had not yet become strong. In a later book (Daniel's Great Prophecy,
1898) when the issue had become more important and pretribulationism
had won many supporters, West expressed himself in far more vigorous
terms. Speaking of the 70th week, he said, "All the devices of
interpretation which torture the Word of God to support a vain theory
of exemption of the church from the tribulation are forever shattered"
(p. 128). "It is needless to say that the apostles followed their
Master's teaching and it took his Olivet discourse as the textbook of
their eschatology. It ruled the whole faith of the early church. It
settled every heresy as to the time of the advent. It corrected the
Thessalonian error as to the 'any moment view.' Paul appeals to it to
decide the question" (p. 130). "When the Antichrist and the Jews are in
covenant, at the beginning of the 70th week, and clearer still, when
the breach occurs between them at the middle of the week, then the
determination of the year, perhaps the month, but never the day or hour
will be certain, i.e., to all believers" (p. 131). Is pretribulationism
a device which tortures the Word of God? a vain theory? a heresy? an
error? So West believed.
A. J. Gordon
Another great man of God and student of the prophetic Word was A. J.
Gordon, famed pastor of Clarendon Street Baptist Church in Boston,
where he experienced many movings of the Spirit of God in revival.
Gordon joined the Bible study fellowship in its second year and was a
constant speaker at the Niagara conference. Yet if he were alive today,
many zealous brethren would be ready to pronounce him dangerous.
In his book on the Lord's coming (Ecce Venit. 1889). Gordon
parts company with the whole Darby system of interpretation. Although
he constantly emphasized the importance of the truth of the Lord's
return and often sounds like one who holds the "any-moment" view,
Gordon did not look for a personal Antichrist and a three and a half
year Tribulation. In its stead, he embraced the historical
interpretation believing it is "more scriptural, and rests upon the
more obvious and simple interpretation of the Word" (p. vi). Antichrist
was the Papacy; the temple of God in which Antichrist sits in II
Thessalonians 2 was the Church. "Where a Judaizing interpretation would
lead us from this phrase of the apostle, to imagine a future temple
rebuilt in Jerusalem, enthroning an infidel Antichrist, we have only to
collate the passages in which the expression occurs to find how
invariably it stands for Christ's mystical body, the church" (pp. 110f).
What then of the three and a half years of Antichrist's reign? Adopting
the usual day-year theory of the historical school, Gordon believed
that by the use of the 1260 years, "If the rise of the papacy could be
fixed as to the exact day and year, we might not err in seeking by
computation for the day and year of its fall, and so approximate
closely the date of the coming of the Lord" (p. 205). Where does this
leave the usual "any-moment" theory which holds that Christ could have
returned at any moment after His ascension? How could the coming of
Christ have been "imminent" to anyone living before the 1260 years had
elapsed?
As to the details of Christ's return, Gordon said, "Will He be visible
to His Church alone at His Parousia, manifesting Himself unto them, but
not to the world until a later epiphany, when,He shall appear in glory
with His saints? Already there has been too much dogmatizing on these
points; therefore we prefer to leave them for the day to reveal" (p.
211). On the secret rapture, he said, "upon the whole question of a
secret rapture, we would speak with reserve, knowing that there are
scriptures which give a different impression" (p. 246). There is no
hint in Gordon's book of anything but a single, glorious, visible
coming of Christ.
W . J. Erdman
One of the key men in the movement was W. J. Erdman, who served as
secretary and leader of the Niagara Bible Conference for more than
twenty years, and who also was one of the consulting editors of the
Scofield Reference Bible. In his story of the Scofield Bible, A. C.
Gaebelein describes Erdman as "an able, logical, and spiritual teacher
of the Word." Dr. Erdman was pastor of the Moody Church in Chicago when
Dajrby visited that city and at first he accepted Darby's
pretribulation, any-moment view of Christ's return. Upon further
searching of the Scriptures, Erdman decided that this view was not
taught in the Word, and he felt he could no longer support a view for
which he could not find Scriptural warrant. He thereupon wrote a tract
entitled, "A Theory Reviewed" in which he questioned the any-moment
theory, concluding with these words: "Should any deplore the adoption
of the belief that the Lord will not come any moment, as if it would
take away all joy and comfort, it is enough to answer in the words of
another, 'Better the disappointment of truth than the fair but false
promises of error.' " Erdman continued to believe in Christ's
premillennial coming and that His return might take place within his
own generation. However, he believed that the Church must pass throught
the Tribulation. In his Notes on the Revelation, Erdman said of
the saints who are to be persecuted by Antichrist, "unless the contrary
can be proved, it is a fair inference from many facts that by the
'saints' seen as future by Daniel and by John are meant 'the Church'
which consists of Jews and Gentiles" (p. 47).
Robert Cameron
Another teacher, coming into the fellowship in 1878, was Robert
Cameron. He like Erdman at first accepted the Darby teaching but later
turned from it. In 1922, he wrote Scriptural Truth About the Lord's
Return in which he set forth his mature conclusions. "The Coming
for and the Coming with, the saints, still persists,
although it involves a manifest contradiction, viz., two Second
Comings which is an absurdity" (p. 16). ""Everywhere in the New
Testament it is taught that to suffer for Christ is one of the highest
honors Christians can have bestowed upon them. A desire to shirk
suffering for Christ is a sign of degeneracy. At the close of this
dispensation, it will still be counted an honor to suffer shame for our
adorable Lord" (p. 18). The entire book is devoted to a refutation of
the any-moment theory of Christ's coming.
Henry W. Frost
In 1885, Henry W. Frost attended the Niagara Conference for the first
time and there received his first impulse toward missionary service, an
impulse which blossomed in a ministry of thirty-six years of service
for the China Inland Mission as Home Director. Frost also served as
recording secretary for the Niagara conference.
In 1924, Frost wrote Matthew Twenty-four and the Revelation,
and from it we would extract one passage. Frost discusses
interpretations of Matthew 24 which he believes to be unscriptural. One
such view is that "Christ taught that the saints, dead and living,
would be caught up to meet Him in the air at His coming, that this
coming would occur before the seven-year-rule of the Antichrist, that
during the tribulation of the following seven years many persecuted
ones would be converted, that these would form a last band of
Christians, and then, that these too, dead and living, would be caught
up to meet the Lord in the air as He descends to the earth with those
saints who were previously resurrected and translated." This view, says
Frost, "might be held as truth if there were anyscripture to confirm
it, but (it) may not be held in view of the fact that no scripture even
suggests such a process of events and many scriptures positively
contradict it . . . .Nowhere do the Epistles state that the coming will
take place before the tribulation, most passages being silent as to the
time and some passages strongly teaching a post-tribulation advent."
Frost's conclusion is that "living Christians will go into and through
the'lribulation" (p. 69).
W. G. Moorehead
The name of W. G. Moorehead of Xenia Theological Seminary from 1873 to
1914, appears in the call for the first prophetic conference in 1878.
He was active in the Niagara movement from 1882; and his name will be
found in the Scofield Reference Bible as a consulting editor. Yet he
has written, "What becomes of (the saints) and of the Lord whom they
encounter in the air (at the Rapture)? Do they abide there? No their
stay in the air is but - momentary. There are only two other places in
the New Testament where the phrase 'to meet' occurs . . . and in both
of them the party met continues to advance still in the direction in
which he was moving previously. Augustine perceived this : 'It is as He
is coming, not abiding, that we shall go to meet Him.' Christ does not
return to heaven with His saints; He comes on with them to the earth.
As an ancient writer expresses it, - We shall be caught away to meet
Christ, that all may come with the Lord to battle.' " Here is a clear
rejection by an editor of the Scofield Bible of the pretribulation
rapture of the Church with the two comings of Christ which is found in
the Scofield Bible.
Charles R. Erdman
Among the scholars who contributed to the formation of the Scofield
Reference Bible was Dr. C. R. Erdman of Princeton. In the Introduction
of the Reference Bible, Scofield includes him among those "learned and
spiritual brethren in Europe and America to whose labours he is
indebted for suggestions of inestimable value."
Yet Erdman did not follow the prophetic outline taught by Scofield.
Referring to the idea of a secret, any-moment rapture before the
Tribulation with its two comings of Christ, Erdman says, "The doctrine
appears to be founded upon a false interpretation of the translation,
in the King James Versionm of the opening verse of the second chapter
of Second Thessalqnians. . . . The Revised Version, however, directly
contradicts this mistaken view ... He (Paul) clearly stated that the
day in which believers were to be delivered from their tribulations,
the day of Christ's coming and of their 'gathering together unto him,'
would not dawn 'except the falling away' came first and 'the Man of
Sin' was revealed" (The Return of Christ, pp. 54f).
How are we to account for the fact that a view which was at first quite
widely accepted was later given up by so many of the outstanding
leaders of the prophetic and Bible conference movement? Was it because
of pernicious influences which turned them away from the pure teaching
of the Word of God? Was it due to enemies of pretribulationism who
prevailed upon these leaders to abandon the truth? Was it due to
inroads of liberalism? None of these suggestions gives us the correct
answer, which appears to rest in a simple historical fact. At the
beginnings of the movement, the premillennialism which was so warmly
received and taught was the Darby type of premillennialism with its
pretribulation rapture. The two doctrines were thought by most of the
teachers to be synonymous; but the emphasis was placed on the Lord's
return, not on such details as the relationship of the Rapture to the
Tribulation. Pretribulationism was accepted "uncritically" along with a
sound premillennialism. The thrust of James H. Brookes' influential
book Maranatha (1878) shows that the enemy of that day was
postmillennialism. Pretribulationism or posttribula-ionism were not
issues. The Darby view of a pretribulation rapture was accepted without
much question or careful study.
However, some of the outstanding teachers were unable to go along with
the pretribulation theory, among them Nathaniel West and A. J. Gordon.
Later in the movement, when greater emphasis began to be laid upon the
details, the teachers began to study the Word more carefully, and many
of them came to realize that along with sound Biblical
premillennialism, they had accepted a teaching which upon mature
reflection and study they decided was not Biblical. They had the
courage publicly to reverse themselves at this point without in any way
giving up the essentials of a Biblical doctrine of the Lord's
premillennial return.
Throughout the entire movement as we have traced it, pretribulationism
was never a teaching which was considered essential to a sound,
Biblical view of The Blessed Hope. Men who differed at these points
were not accused of betraying the Bible. In more recent times, due to
the influence of the Scofield Reference Bible, the Bible school
movement, etc., pretribulationism has been more widely accepted than
ever before with the result that many Christians have never heard any
sound Bible teachers who held a different position and therefore have
naturally concluded that pretribulationism is essential to
premillenialism. This is not true historically, and it is not true
theologically or Biblically.
The teachers of the Word whose views we have discussed were all
associated with the prophetic and Bible conference movement of a half
century ago when pretribulationism was taking root in American
Christian thought. We must add the views of others of more recent date
who are outstanding men of God and defenders of the faith, who have
found themselves compelled to abandon pretribulationism.
Philip Mauro was a patent lawyer
who, after conversion, gave himself vigorously to the defense of the
faith. He is included among the writers of the Fundamentals and
produced some twenty-five books.
Mauro at first espoused dispensationalism. In 1913 he wrote Looking
For the Saviour in which he defended the usual pretribulation
rapture of the Church. In The Kingdom of Heaven (1918) he
departed from the dispensational view of the postponed kingdom but was
still a premillenarian. In The Patmos Visions, A Study of the
Apocalypse (1925) he forsook the usual futurist interpretation of
the Revelation, seeing in the two beasts the Roman empire and the
Papacy. Finally, in The Gospel of the Kingdom (1928), Mauro
broke completely with dispensationalism. Among the reasons was the
sudden realization that the Scofield Bible "has usurped the place of
authority that belongs to God's Bible alone." He says further, "It is
mortifying to remember that I not only held and taught these novelties
myself, but that I even enjoyed a complacent sense of superiority
because thereof, and regarded with feelings of pity and contempt those
who had not received the 'new light' and were unacquainted with this
up-to-date method of 'rightly dividing the word of truth.' . . . The
time came .... when the inconsistencies and self-contradictions of the
system itself, and above all, the impossibility of reconciling its main
positions with the plain statement of the Word of God, became so
glaringly evident that I could not do otherwise than to renounce it."
[Mauro later became a ardent Preterist]
Rowland V. Bingham was General
Director of the Sudan Interior Mission, President of Canadian Keswick
Conference, and Editor of The Evangelical Christian. In 1937,
Bingham published a little book under the title, Matthew The
Publican and His Gospel in which he set forth his changed views. In
the Introduction, he tells us that during the first period of his
Christian life he accepted the Gospel of Matthew at face value and
revelled in its truth. But later he came in contact with dispensational
writings which for the first time presented to his mind the reality of
the second coming of Christ. "Never having listened to a single address
on the Second Coming of Christ, I at once became infatuated with
prophetic study." The second period of his life thus was dominated by a
dispensational interpretation. "The reiteration of these
(dispensational) propositions by such great and godly men whose names
are known and beloved by the whole Church, many of them personally
known and loved by me, had made their impression upon me."
There came a day, however, when his wife asked him, "Rowland, where do
you get the 'Secret Rapture' idea in the Bible?" Bingham had no
satisfactory answer; and he was driven to study the Word of God afresh
but in deep confusion. Finally, faced with a week's Bible conference
but with no message, "in sheer desperation I took out my Bible and
threw myself helplessly on the Lord. And I know the blessed
Illuminator, the Holy Spirit, responded. I commenced to read in
Matthew, and all day long I read and reread, with such an unveiling
that my soul was filled to ... overflowing. . . My old theories were
being dispelled like mists before the sunshine. It means a great deal
to have the cherished teaching of years upset in a day, and that
without argument or human instrument." After outlining the
interpretation to which he was driven, he adds, "As time has gone by,
all my future study has confirmed me in the changed views of that day.
In the study of this book I cannot expect to carry with me all those
whose cherished teaching of years it upsets. I simply in the whole
prophetic sphere plead for that liberty of interpretation which I
gladly accord to others."
G. Campbell Morgan was one of
the most gifted Bible teachers and expositors of the Word of God of the
preceding generation. It is difficult indeed to discover Dr. Morgan's
position in matters of prophetic interpretation, for different writings
suggest different viewpoints. Sometimes he writes as though he were a
thorough-going dispensationalist. In an early book (God's Methods
with Man, 1898) Morgan distinguished between the Gospel of the
Kingdom and the Gospel of Paul and offered the usual dispensational
outline of prophetic events (p. 172). In The Teaching of Christ
(1913), he devoted a third of the book to our Lord's teaching about the
Kingdom of God, but no dispensationalism is to be found. Almost no
reference is made to Israel's relation to the Kingdom. Rather, the
Kingdom is primarily the rule of God, then the sphere in which the rule
is realized, and finally the results of that rule. The Kingdom is to be
established by processes leading to, and culminating in a crisis - the
second coming of Christ. Speaking of the Olivet Discourse, he says that
the Church is the instrument of the Kingdom in the economy of God. In
this book, Morgan sounds more like an amillennialist than a
dispensationalist.
How can we account for these two points of view? We can only conclude
that Morgan changed his interpretation of prophetic truth. Perhaps
Philip Mauro's writings contributed to the change. We quoted at some
length from Mauro's The Gospel of the Kingdom. Of the argument
of this book, Morgan wrote, "It is unanswerable." Furthermore, Morgan
reviewed Mauro's Study of the Apocalypse which departs radically from
the usual futurist interpretation and wrote, "(My) reading results in a
conviction that the general thesis is completely established. It is the
most lucid and satisfying work on the Apocalypse that I have ever read."
Nor is this all. When Rowland Bingham's Matthew the Publican
appeared, Morgan wrote to Bingham in the following words: "I suppose I
may say that across the years I have passed through very much of your
own experience with regard to these prophetic matters. At any rate, at
the moment I accept without any qualification the philosophy of your
interpretation .... I think the view that makes Matthew Jewish is
utterly false. The phrase 'secret Rapture' has to me for a long time
been a very objectionable one, and utterly unwarranted in its wording,
and in what it is made to stand for by the teaching of Scripture."
Bishop Frank Houghton, General
Director of the China Inland Mission since 1940, has written, "While
our primary emphasis must surely be upon the fact of our Lord's
personal coming, and the obligation upon us who have this hope to
'purify ourselves, even as He is pure,' and to bear witness to His
Gospel in all lands, I cannot but say that, as the years go by, I am
more and more amazed that any one should claim to have found in the
Scriptures justification for the view that the coming is to be in two
stages (one secret and the other public), and that the Church will
escape the Tribulation.
"We are on unsafe ground as soon as we begin to conjecture, apart from
the clear statements of Scripture, what God is, or is not, likely to
do."
Oswald J. Smith is known around
the world because of his great zeal for world evangelization. We are
compelled to conclude that Dr. Smith experienced a change of view about
the Rapture and the Tribulation. In his book, Is the Antichrist at
Hand? (1926) he wrote, "I have always held the view that the
rapture precedes the revelation by some seven years, and that the
Church therefore will not go through the Tribulation." He admits that
he cannot be dogmatic and that his mind is open toward the other view.
Apparently his mind was shortly changed, for a year later appeared When
Antichrist Reigns in which he sees the Church in the Tribulation.
He holds that Matthew 24 is the seventieth week of Daniel. Verses 1-14
describe the first half of the week, and verses 15-51 the second half
of the week. Of verses 9-10 which fall in the first half of the final
seven year period, Smith says, "So the church will again be bitterly
persecuted even to the point of martyrdom." Of the Great Tribulation
and the appearance of Antichrist, he says, "For when the Antichrist
emerges from the temple it will be to exterminate both Jews and
Christians alike." False prophets will tell "the fleeing Christians and
Jews that the Messiah has come and is at Jerusalem." Applying these
truths, he writes, "Surely the hour is at hand. The great tribulation
must be almost upon us, the fearful reign of the Antichrist about to
commence. And then the battle of Armageddon, and then - the glorious
revelation of our blessed Lord. And then, ah, then, at last, at last,
the Golden Age, the Millennium. Hasten, glad Day! Hasten, judgment and
tribulation! Hasten, oh hasten, Thou Christ of God, Thou mighty Prince
of Peace!" He then describes the return of Christ which he finds in
verse 31: "As He descends the trumpet sounds, and the angels are
dispatched to gather the elect and to bear them in the twinkling of an
eye to their Lord and Master." This apparently is the Rapture of the
Church.
That this represents Dr. Smith's present views may be seen from the
fact that this chapter was reprinted, with only minor verbal changes,
in Prophecy - What Lies Ahead? (1952). In this book, Christ's
return is placed after the Tribulation. If the question of the Rapture
and Tribulation, Dr. Smith says, "But, you ask, is the Church to go
through the Tribulation? That is not the question. It is this: Is the
Church ready? Are you ready, ready either for Tribulation or Rapture?
If you are, that is all that matters. What difference does it make so
long as you are ready? ... If you are to be in it, you cannot escape,
and, if you are to escape, you will not be in it." This is hardly the
language of pretribulationism.
Dr. Harold John Ockenga, Pastor
of Park Street Church, Boston, has been raised up by the Lord to be one
of the giants of our day in defending the faith, in the winning of
souls through the promotion of evangelism in New England and through
evangelistic campaigns, and in the prosecution of worldwide
evangelization. When he came to his present church, the missionary
budget was less than $2500. After nineteen years this has been raised
to $220,000.
Writing in Christian Life (February, 1955), Dr. Ockenga tells
us how he came to give up his pretribulation eschatology and to believe
that the Church would enter into the Great Tribulation. The article is
very brief and is more a personal testimony than a defense of
posttribulationism. Insuperable difficulties were recognized in
pretribulationism. "Is it conceivable that the Jews without the
Pentecostal presence and power of the Holy Spirit will do during the
tribulation what the church in Holy Spirit power could not do in 2,000
years?" "No amount of explaining can make (I Thess. 4:16,17) a secret
rapture. It is the visible accompaniment of the glorious advent of the
Lord. No exegetical justification exists for the arbitrary separation
of the 'coming of Christ' and the 'day of the Lord.' It is one 'day of
the Lord Jesus Christ.' " "Another shattering blow to my dispensational
eschatology came when I realized that the church age is not a
parenthesis in the divine redemptive plan but is the great era of
redemption, of salvation, and of revival."
These men, like those of the earlier generation, passed through the
experience of accepting dispensational teaching but of being driven to
conclude that it did not coincide with the teachings of the Word of
God. But who is to say that Mauro, Bingham, Morgan, Houghton, Smith and
Ockenga are any less men of God and true to the Word? The author is
personally acquainted with other Christian leaders who have given up
pretribulationism; but they have not gone on record and so cannot be
quoted.
Pretribulationism has not been and never ought to be a test of a sound
view of prophetic truth. Pretribulationism is a recent view which was
formulated 125 years ago by one wing of the Plymouth Brethren and
accepted in America by a circle of devout and godly men but rejected by
others who were equally devout and godly and equally devoted to the
propagation of the truth of the Lord's return.
There ought to be today liberty in the interpretation of the Word at
this point. It is a reversal of history and Scripturally indefensible
to label any deviation from a pretribulation eschatology a step toward
liberalism, and it is holding up a human interpretation as though it
had the authority of Scripture itself.
One of America's outstanding pretribulationists was H. A Ironside; we would do well to imitate
his words of charity toward those who differed with him. Speaking of
Baptist theologian A. H. Strong's accusation of heresy in Brethren
doctrine, Ironside replied, "It passes our comprehension how any man,
or set of men, with an atom of genuine love for the Lord and His
people, can deliberately brand as heretics fellow-believers whose lives
are generally fragrant with Christian graces, who stand unflinchingly
for the inspiration of the entire Bible, simply because they hold
different views on prophecy. Dr. Strong evidently does not believe in
the secret rapture of the saints, but in the coming of the Lord in
judgment at the end of the world. 'Brethren' would not brand him as a
heretic for this, though they feel he has lost much by his defective
views." Let us distinguish if we will between adequate and defective
views of prophetic interpretation, but let us not be guilty of accusing
another of heresy or liberalism because he does not agree with our
pattern of prophetic truth.
Those who "love His appearing" should close ranks and stand together on
the great fundamentals of the Word of God. A monument to American
Fundamentalism is the series of twelve small volumes, published in
1909-11, financed by two laymen and sent to every Protestant minister
in America. The purpose of The Fundamentals was to unite those
who stood squarely on the fundamentals of the faith and to make a
powerful statement in face of the inroads of liberalism. Included in
the circle of defenders of the faith were not only dispensationalists
like R. A. Torrey, A. T. Pierson, J. M. Gray, C. I. Scofield and A. C.
Gaebelein, but non-dispensationalists like W. G. Moorehead, W. J.
Erdman, H. W. Frost and C. R. Erdman, and even postmillennialists James
Orr, B. B. Warfield, and E. Y. Mullins. Why can such unity not be
demonstrated today?
Ten years later, the Fundamentalist movement within the Northern
Baptist Convention was organized. Describing the first Fundamentalist
convention held in Buffalo in 1920, Curtis Lee Laws wrote, "The
movement . . . was in no sense a premillennialist movement, but in
every sense a conservative movement. Premillennialists were much in
evidence because premillennialists are always sound on the
fundamentals, but eschatological questions did not enter into any of
the Buffalo controversies. Standing solidly together in the battle for
the re-enthronement of the fundamentals of our holy faith were
premillennialists, postmillennialists, promillennialists and
nomillennialists. Fortunately the conservative group contains no one
who repudiates the blessed doctrine of the second coming of our Lord,
but the group does contain those who differ radically with one another
concerning the whole millennial question." If those who are "set for
the defense of the faith" can stand together in the same spirit of
basic unity in spite of differences in details, they will win far more
ground than they will if they squander their energies in controversy.
* From George E. Ladd's book The Blessed Hope. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. Grand Rapids, Michigan. 1956. Pages 19-60.