Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10027 The pre-wrath rapture view is a relatively recent entry into the eschatological debate, developed most fully by Marvin Rosenthal in his 1990 book The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church and further defended by Robert Van Kampen. It attempts to chart a middle course between pretribulationism and posttribulationism, arguing that the Rapture occurs during…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10028 The partial rapture theory is perhaps the least well-known of the major rapture positions, and it differs from the others not in its timing but in its scope. While pretribulationism, midtribulationism, posttribulationism, and the pre-wrath view all debate when the Rapture occurs, the partial rapture theory debates who is included in it. The…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10024 Pretribulationism is the view that Christ will return to gather His Church to Himself before the seven-year Tribulation period begins. It is the position held here at Bible Proclaimer, and it is the view that Ian believes best accounts for the full range of biblical evidence when the text is read according to…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10022 Few doctrines provoke more debate among evangelicals than the Rapture, and one recurring challenge comes from those who argue that the concept is not actually taught in Scripture at all. The word “rapture” does not appear in English Bibles, and critics contend that the entire idea was invented in the nineteenth century by…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 10023 One of the most common sources of confusion in eschatology is the assumption that the Rapture and the Second Coming are the same event described from different angles. If they are, the debate about timing is largely irrelevant. If they are not, then two distinct future events await, each with its own character,…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 10081 The doctrine of imminence is one of the most distinctive and practically significant features of pretribulational eschatology. It holds that the Rapture of the Church could occur at any moment, without prior warning, without the fulfilment of intervening prophetic events, and without any sign that must precede it. Understanding this doctrine requires careful…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10090 The question of whether the Church is promised deliverance from God’s wrath is not a secondary curiosity within eschatology. It goes to the heart of the pretribulational position and has direct bearing on how believers understand their relationship to the coming Tribulation period. If the Church is destined to endure the Tribulation, the…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 10086 Few eschatological questions carry as much pastoral weight as this one. Parents and grandparents who hold to the pretribulational Rapture naturally want to know what will happen to the young children in their lives when the Lord returns for His Church. The question touches on some of the deepest instincts God has placed…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 10153 The phrase “the blessed hope” has become so familiar in Christian vocabulary that it can lose its force through sheer repetition. But when Paul used it in his letter to Titus, he was describing something specific, something that was meant to shape the way believers live in the present. The blessed hope is…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 10143 The term “realised eschatology” is one that many Christians will never encounter in the pulpit but which has profoundly shaped how the New Testament is read in academic theology. It refers to the idea that the eschatological promises of Scripture have already been fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, with…