The Rapture of the Church and the Coming of Christ

Let me begin by addressing the pretribulational issue. Again, several traditions hold it as a point of orthodoxy that the rapture is to take place before the Great Tribulation. What I would like to do is point out those passages that lead some of us to believe that the rapture is actually supposed to happen after the tribulation. Let me reiterate: my goal at this point is not to convince readers of my eschatological position. All I hope to do in this post is to demonstrate that a Bible-believing Christian, using only historico-grammatical methods of interpretation, could reasonably come to the conclusion that the rapture of the church is to occur after the Great Tribulation. The following is my first argument for this position.

1. The coming of Christ is clearly after the tribulation.

This is not really a point in dispute between the pre- and post- tribulational positions. In Matthew 24, Jesus, clearly speaking of the Great Tribulation (a tribulation than which no greater would ever be) (v31) says that immediately after the tribulation of those days (v29) He would be seen coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory (v30).

2. The rapture of the church occurs at the coming of Christ.

What is in dispute, however, between the two positions is the relationship between the coming of Christ and the rapture itself. Post-tribulationalists, like myself, believe that scripture teaches that the rapture occurs simultaneously with the coming of Christ. I believe there is good evidence for this. First, in I Thessalonians 4, Paul announces that the rapture would be experienced by those that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord (v15). He says that right before the saints are raptured, the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God (v16).

Also, in II Thessalonians 2, Paul speaks of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him as if they were a single event (v1) the day of the Lord (v2). In Matthew 24, Jesus links the two events in the same way. Right after He would be seen coming on the clouds of heaven with great power and glory, we see that He would send forth his angels with a sound of a great trumpet and they would gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other (v30-31).

Pretribulationalists say that the rapture does not occur at the coming of Christ. They believe that I Thessalonians and Matthew 24 are describing two totally distinct events, that the first is secret and invisible and that the second is public and visible. But is this conclusion really so clear? Is it really true that someone who disagrees with this idea can only be mishandling the Bible?

With all the parallels between the two passages: Jesus’ coming, appearance of angels, sounds of a trumpet, and gathering of saints, is it really so evident that two different events are being described? With I Thessalonians describing the rapture as being accompanied by the descent of the Lord, shouting, voices of the archangel and the sound of trumpets, is it really diving into allegory to question how secret this event might be?

3. The rapture of the church occurs after the Great Tribulation.

If it is all reasonable to view these two passages as describing a single event, then there is nothing extraordinary about our conclusion. We believe that the coming of Christ takes place after the tribulation. We believe that the rapture takes place simultaneously with the coming of Christ; therefore we believe that the rapture takes places after the tribulation. We do not see how the scriptures must be twisted or misinterpreted to support this conclusion.