Encouragement For Why It Is Scriptural To Believe in a Pre-70th Week Rapture

Do you ever get weary of the assault we pre-tribbers are subjected to, often hostile and anything but Christlike, about why believing in a rapture at all, much less one that takes place before the 70th week of Daniel (aka pre-tribulation) is “unscriptural”?  The seemingly never-ending drum beat rolls on for inane straw-man arguments like how John Darby supposedly came up with this in the 1800s or, my all-time favorite, how the word “rapture” is not even in the Bible.  smh.

I respect each person’s right to form their own opinion and I certainly don’t claim to have cornered the market on truth regarding every eschatologically debatable topic.  That said, when folks start arguing that there is no scriptural basis to believe in a pre-Daniel’s-70th-week rapture, it makes me mad.  Not because they are right.  I am fully convinced they are not.  It makes me mad because there is so much evidence in the Word of God that can be cited to make a reasonable and compelling case for a pre-trib rapture.  Now, you might ultimately still choose to come to a different conclusion, but any fair-minded, scripturally literate person would have to admit that there is at least some meaningful evidence worth considering in support of this view.

At the same time, I will be the first to concede that you must be willing to dig into the Word of God to find these treasures that support the pre-trib belief.  To use a simple analogy, you might find pennies, nickels and dimes, so to speak, on the surface of the sand at the beach, but if you want to find sacks of gold, you are going to have to dig deeper!  I believe the Lord made it that way on purpose.  Kind of like a variation on the theme of, “You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”  You have to want Truth!!!

So, against that backdrop, I want to offer up encouragement to the body with my top 7 reasons that I believe we are on solid scriptural ground when we embrace the idea of a pre-tribulation rapture (i.e., before Daniel’s 70th week):

1) The dispensational imperative of Daniel’s 70th week: the first 69 weeks of Daniel’s prophecy were all about the Jews, with the Church nowhere to be found.  It makes perfect sense that the 70th week will be exactly the same way as the age of grace comes to a close and the Lord returns His focus onto Israel for the final 7 years of Daniel’s prophecy.  It aligns perfectly with the absence of the Church in Revelation from chapter 4-18.

2) The structure and content of the Book of Revelation:  Church is talked about in chapters 2-3.  Then John is called up with a voice like a trumpet through an open door into heaven (4:1).  The 24 elders represent the church (maybe I missed some, but the only place I find the number 24 in the Bible with significance is representing the 24 divisions of the Priesthood in the Old Testament).  Priests with crowns.  A royal priesthood.  Sound familiar?  That’s us!!!  The Church!!!  As borne out with the proper translation of we and us in the verses of 5:9-10.  We are in heaven around the throne before the first seal is even opened.  Then we are not mentioned once in chapters 4-18, except arguably in the context of the rapture in Rev 12.  Then we come back with Jesus in Rev 19.  The whole structure of the Book of Revelation bears witness to a pre-seal, pre-70th-week rapture.

3) God’s pattern to rescue before destruction: Enoch raptured before the flood (one body, the Church) and Noah & family delivered through it (as type and shadow of remnant Israel).  Daniel removed completely from facing the fiery furnace (again, one man), while Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (type of remnant Israel) are saved through the fire.  Lot and his family removed from Sodom & Gomorrah before fire and brimstone fall.  God provides a way of escape for His own before the destruction of His wrath.  (Luke 21:36 talks about asking God to find us worthy to escape all these things coming upon the earth, so He is obviously not against escapism!)

4) The promise that we are not destined for wrath:  God promised He would NOT pour out His wrath on us.  I believe all of the seals, trumpets, and bowls are wrath.  God uses the sword, famine, and pestilence as His wrathful judgment many times in the Old Testament.  Who do you think is opening the seals to unleash their substance upon the earth?  It is none other than Jesus and I do not believe He is going release that stuff onto His Bride.  The first four seals alone take the lives of somewhere around 2 billion people.  That’s billion with a B.  Sure sounds like wrath on an unprecedented scale to me.

5) Word study of “apostasia” in 2 Thessalonians 2:3:  I believe a strong and rational case can be made that the word “apostasia”, which is typically translated as apostasy or falling away, is better translated as “departure”.  If you trace the Greek verb form of “apostasia”, which is “aphestemi”, you can see that it is frequently (far more often than not) translated as a physical departure.  Frankly, in context when considering the content of Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, the idea of a physical departure (rapture) fits much better than some vague reference to a general spiritual falling away from the faith, a falling away which by that interpretation becomes even more ambiguous when you consider the definite article “the” in front of it.  How would you even know you were experiencing “the” falling away, when there have been so many instances of spiritual apostasy throughout history.  “The” physical departure, on the other hand, as in the rapture, would be very distinct and unmistakable.  It also fits perfectly with the rest of the text in that passage.  And by the way, in quoting the research of Thomas Ice, if you check the first seven English translations of the Bible {Wycliffe Bible (1384); Tyndale Bible(1526); Coverdale Bible (1535); Cranmer Bible (1539); Breeches Bible (1576); Beza Bible (1583); Geneva Bible (1608)}, you will find that they ALL translate the noun for apostasia as either departure or departing.  It was not until later that it was changed to apostasy or falling away.  Hmmmmm!?!

6) The ancient Jewish Wedding Tradition: every aspect of the ancient Jewish wedding tradition is embedded in scripture as you study the relationship between The Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, and His Bride, the Church.  Every single aspect of it!!  And that includes a period of seven at the end where the Bridegroom and the Bride are tucked away in the bridal chamber at the Bridegroom’s Father’s house as they consummate the marriage.  7 days in the type and shadow of the ancient Jewish wedding tradition.  7 years for Daniel’s 70th week.  The bridal chamber at the Father’s house (“I go to prepare a place for you and I will come again, that where I am, there you may be also…”) is exactly where the Bride of Christ, the Church, us, will be while God’s wrath is poured out on a God-hating, Christ-rejecting world.

7) Synergy: to borrow a quote from Aristotle, the whole is greater than the sum of its part.  When you consider the collective weight of all these evidences combined as a whole, the synergy if you will, results in a compelling argument in favor of the truth that God is going to remove His Bride before Daniel’s 70th week.

Now, if you still want to disagree with the idea of a pre-tribulation rapture, knock yourself out.  But at least display a modicum of intellectual integrity to acknowledge that many of us who passionately embrace such a belief do so not only with a scriptural basis for that position, but also with an ability to offer a compelling defense for it.

Longing to be home at Abba’s house with our Bridegroom and Savior.  Maranatha, Lord Jesus!!!