Why I Believe the Pre-Tribulational Rapture is Unbiblical

Introduction: Brothers, Not Enemies

Let me begin with something important: Christians who believe in a separate, Pre-Tribulational Rapture of the Church are still my brothers and sisters in Christ. This is not an issue that determines salvation. It is what we call a secondary issue—meaning we can disagree in this area and still stand shoulder-to-shoulder at the foot of the cross, united by the blood of Jesus Christ.

I know many godly men and women who hold firmly to the Pre-Trib view. They love Jesus, they love the Bible, and they are doing the Lord’s work. They are not heretics. And this blog article is not written to attack them. My goal here is simply to walk carefully through the Scriptures and church history, and explain why I can no longer hold to the Pre-Tribulational Rapture as biblical.

Also, let me be clear: this article has nothing to do with any specific millennial views. I’m not here to argue for a historical premillennial view (even though that is where I lean). Whether you are premillennial, amillennial, or postmillennial is not my point here. What I’m specifically examining is the question of whether Scripture teaches that the Church will be raptured before a period of tribulation on the earth, or whether the Rapture of the Church and Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ are one and the same event at the end of the age.

Defining Key Terms

Before going further, it may help to define a few important terms that often get used in these discussions:

• Rapture: The word “rapture” comes from “raptus,” the Latin translation of 1 Thessalonians 4:17 (“caught up”). The Koine Greek word used in the New Testament is harpazo (Koine Greek: ἁρπάζω), meaning “to snatch away” or “to seize”). All Bible-believing Christians affirm that there will be a moment when believers are caught up to meet the Lord. At the same time, deceased believers will be resurrected in new bodies (1 Corinthians chapter 15). The debate is not whether a rapture happens, but when it happens in relation to the Tribulation and the Second Coming of Christ.
• Pre-Tribulational Rapture: This is the specific teaching that Jesus will come secretly to rapture the Church before a seven-year period of tribulation on earth. According to this view, the Church escapes tribulation, and then Christ returns again at the end of the seven years in His visible Second Coming.
• Second Coming: The visible, bodily return of Jesus Christ to earth in power and glory, as described in passages like Matthew 24:30 and Revelation 19. At this event, the dead are raised, judgment is rendered, and Christ establishes His eternal kingdom. Historic Christian teaching has always seen the Rapture and the Second Coming as part of this one climactic event.
• The Great Tribulation: Sometimes just called “The Tribulation,” it is a period of intense suffering, persecution, and upheaval described by Jesus in Matthew 24:21 as unlike anything the world has ever seen. Some understand it as a future climactic time of global distress before Christ’s return (such as a specific seven-year period), while others see it as the trials and persecutions that characterize the entire church age and climax at the end. In either case, Scripture makes clear that God’s people are called to endure faithfully through it.
• Dispensationalism: A theological system developed in the 19th Century by John Nelson Darby (more on him later). It divides history into distinct periods or “dispensations” in which God works with humanity in different ways. A hallmark of dispensationalism is the sharp distinction it makes between Israel and the Church. The Pre-Trib Rapture flows directly out of this framework, since it requires God to “remove” the Church from the earth before resuming His plan with Israel.

My Journey Out of Pre-Trib

For most of my Christian life, I held to the Pre-Tribulational Rapture. I grew up in the late 1980s hearing it preached, and I assumed it was the clear teaching of the Bible. In fact, I never really questioned it. The popular teaching was that one day, without warning, Jesus would secretly rapture His Church to heaven before a seven-year tribulation began. I thought it could literally happen at any second. The world would be left behind, and believers would avoid the horrors of coming Antichrist’s reign.

But around 2017-2018, my wife Darien and I went through a Bible study on the Book of Revelation written by John MacArthur. Now, let me pause and say this: I have great respect for MacArthur. I have learned much from him over the years. He is a faithful expositor of the Word of God. But MacArthur is also a staunch dispensationalist and a firm believer in the Pre-Trib Rapture.

As we followed his study, something caught my attention: MacArthur never actually showed a biblical text that said the Rapture happens before the Tribulation. He assumed it. He argued from inferences, silence, and dispensational systematics. But when it came down to showing where in the Bible the Pre-Trib Rapture was explicitly taught, he simply couldn’t do it.

That bothered me.

So I decided to study the issue for myself. I scoured through every passage in the Old and New Testaments that spoke about the coming of Christ, the gathering of the saints, the “Day of the Lord,” and the end times. What I found surprised me. Instead of finding two separate comings of Christ (one secret, one visible), I found that the Rapture and the Second Coming were always spoken of as one and the same event.

That was the turning point for me. I could no longer, in good conscience, hold to the Pre-Trib position, and it’s a position I’ve adhered to since 2018.

Church History: The Early Fathers and Beyond

As I dug further, I realized something even more significant: no one in the early Church believed in a Pre-Tribulational Rapture.

• Irenaeus (c. 180 AD) wrote that the Church would endure persecution under Antichrist before being delivered by Christ at His return.
• Hippolytus (c. 200 AD) described Antichrist’s reign and the suffering of Christians before Jesus comes again.
• Justin Martyr (c. 150 AD) plainly said Christians should expect to face tribulation and Antichrist.
• Tertullian (c. 200 AD) and others believed the “restrainer” in 2 Thessalonians 2 was the Roman Empire, not the Holy Spirit leaving with the Church.
• Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) wrote extensively on end-times matters in The City of God (Books 20-22). He saw only one climactic coming of Christ, at which both the righteous would be raised and the wicked judged, and he expected the church to endure persecution in tribulation.

The early church fathers were not confused. They were unanimous: the Church would endure tribulation and persecution before the return of Christ.

From the 2nd Century through the Reformation in the 1500s and 1600s and beyond, no one in the Church ever taught that Christ would secretly rapture believers before tribulation. The doctrine was completely unknown.

The Origins of the Pre-Trib Doctrine

The doctrine of the Pre-Tribulational Rapture is actually a new teaching.

The story begins in Scotland in 1830. A teenage girl named Margaret MacDonald claimed to have a prophetic vision in which she saw believers “caught up” to meet Christ before a time of tribulation.

Around the same time, an English preacher named Edward Irving was stirring up interest in prophetic speculation. He heard of MacDonald’s vision, and some of his followers began to spread the idea.

Enter John Nelson Darby of the Plymouth Brethren in America. Darby was already developing his dispensational system, with a sharp division between Israel and the Church by advocating that God had two separate peoples (as opposed to the biblical teaching that there was one people in Christ, as spoken of in Ephesians 2:11-3:13 and Galatians 3:29). He heard about MacDonald’s vision, liked the concept, and incorporated it into his system. Darby became the great popularizer of the Pre-Trib Rapture.

A generation later, C. I. Scofield included Darby’s dispensational notes in his Scofield Reference Bible (1909). For many English-speaking Christians, Scofield’s notes became their theology. The Pre-Trib Rapture, now printed in the margins of their Bibles, spread like wildfire across evangelical and charismatic churches in the early, mid, and late-20th Century.

And so a doctrine that had never been taught in the first 1800 years of church history suddenly became the dominant view in modern American evangelicalism.

Matthew 24: Jesus on the End of the Age

Now let’s turn to the Bible itself. In Matthew 24, Jesus gives His great end-times discourse. I like to refer people to this chapter (as well as Luke 21, which is in a lot of ways identical) as a great overview of how things are to transpire in the future. Notice the flow:

• Verses 4-14: Jesus warns His disciples of false christs, persecution, tribulation, and endurance.
• Verses 15-28: He speaks of the abomination of desolation, the great tribulation, and the suffering of God’s people.
• Verse 29: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days…” cosmic signs occur.
• Verses 30-31: Christ appears in glory, and His angels gather the elect.

Matthew 24:29-31

Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”

Did you catch that? The gathering of the elect—the very event we would call the Rapture—happens after the Tribulation.

Some Pre-Trib teachers say Matthew 24 is only about Israel, not the Church. But Jesus repeatedly speaks to His disciples as “you,” and refers to “the elect.” During this passage, Jesus is talking to His disciples and continues to talk about His disciples in the end times. Go ahead; take a look at it yourself, verse by verse. There is no indication that He suddenly shifts to talking only about national Israel while excluding the Church.

So in His outline of end times events, Jesus mentions nothing of a separate, Pre-Trib snatching away of believers. If it was so important an event, why was Jesus (and for that matter, the other disciples) silent about this separate Rapture?

1 & 2 Thessalonians: Paul’s Plain Teaching on “When”

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17

“The dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive… will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”

Yes, this is the Rapture. As mentioned above, the Greek word Paul uses here is harpazo meaning “to snatch away” or “to seize.” So yes, during the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, He will snatch away the resurrected dead and those who are alive. But notice: Paul never says this happens before tribulation. He simply ties it to “the coming of the Lord.”

Now, here is an important point: in the time after Paul’s first letter, the people of Thessalonica had received an erroneous word that Jesus had returned. Some of the Thessalonians had panicked, thinking they had missed it. The Apostle Paul, in his second letter to this church, knowing of their confusion, had to reassure the frightened and dismayed people:

2 Thessalonians 2:1-4

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction”

Paul directly links the gathering (Rapture) with the Second Coming. And he says it will not happen until after the apostasy and the revealing of “man of lawlessness” or “son of destruction” (Antichrist). That completely undercuts the Pre-Trib view.

Revelation 20: The First Resurrection

Here’s another critical point: the Rapture is the resurrection of believers. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4 that “the dead in Christ will rise first.” But in Revelation 20:4-5, John explicitly describes the first resurrection of believers:

Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection.“

And when does this happen? After the return of Christ in Revelation 19 and 20, when the Lord defeats the beast and the false prophet and establishes His reign.

Here is a breakdown of what happens, which are all “sub-events” of the Second Coming:

Revelation 19

• Verses 1-10 – The marriage supper of the Lamb
• Verses 11-16 – The glorious return of Christ
• Verses 17-21 – Defeat of the beast and false prophet

Revelation 20

• Verses 1-3 – Satan bound
• Verses 4-6 – The first Resurrection (Rapture) and Millennial reign

This means the Resurrection/Rapture of the saints is not before a tribulation period—it is after the visible return of Christ. Scripture leaves no room for splitting the first resurrection into two phases separated by years. If you are a Premillennialist, you have to believe in a post-tribulational Rapture (AKA, the Second Coming).

The Visible and Glorious Return of Christ

Another major problem with the Pre-Trib Rapture is the idea that Christ comes secretly, invisibly, or privately to remove His Church, only to return again in glory later. The Bible never teaches this. Every time Scripture speaks of Christ’s coming, it is public, visible, and glorious.

• Matthew 24:27 – “For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.”
• Matthew 24:30 – “They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”
• Revelation 1:7 – “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him.”
• 2 Thessalonians 1:7-8 – Jesus will be “revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire.”

The Rapture, then, is not a secret, private removal of the Church. It is part of the one great, glorious appearing of Christ at the end of the age.

Refuting the Main Pre-Trib Proof Texts

1. 1 Thessalonians 5:9 – “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

   Pre-Trib claim: This verse proves the church will be removed before the Tribulation because God’s people are not appointed to wrath. Since the tribulation is seen as God’s wrath on earth, believers must be taken away first.

   Refutation: The “wrath” in context is not the Tribulation period but God’s final judgment on the lost. Paul contrasts wrath with salvation in Christ (see also Romans 5:9, Romans 8:1). Believers may experience suffering and persecution, but they are spared from God’s eternal wrath in hell. Just as Israel was protected through the plagues in Egypt, Christians are promised preservation through tribulation, not removal from it.

2. John 14:2-3 – “I go to prepare a place for you… I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” 

   Pre-Trib claim: Jesus is promising to rapture His Church and take them to heaven before the Tribulation. The “coming again” is understood as a separate, secret return distinct from the Second Coming in glory.

   Refutation: Jesus is speaking of His ultimate return to bring His people into eternal fellowship with Him in the Father’s house. This is about the final consummation (see Revelation 21:1-3), not a temporary trip to heaven for seven years. Nothing in the text suggests two separate comings. Christ’s one return gathers His people into His eternal dwelling.

3. Revelation 3:10 – “Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world.” 

   Pre-Trib claim: The phrase “keep you from” (the Greek tēreō ek) must mean physical removal before the Tribulation begins. This is viewed as the clearest promise of a Pre-Trib Rapture.

   Refutation: The same Greek phrase is used in John 17:15, where Jesus prays, “Keep them from the evil one.” Clearly, the disciples were not taken out of the world, but preserved in it. The meaning is preservation through, not removal from. Revelation consistently shows God sealing and protecting His people in the midst of judgment (Revelation 7:3-4, 9:4). This verse, properly understood, supports a post-trib preservation rather than a Pre-Trib escape.

   Contextual note: Another important observation is often overlooked: Jesus is speaking specifically to the church in Philadelphia in this passage. One of the basic rules of biblical interpretation is to ask first, “Who is being addressed?” before applying it broadly. The promise was given to a particular First-Century church for their encouragement in the days of persecution of the Roman Empire. To immediately universalize it into a guarantee of a Pre-Trib Rapture for the entire Church is to misapply the text.

4. 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 – “You know what is restraining him now… only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.” 

   Pre-Trib claim: The “restrainer” is the Holy Spirit indwelling the Church. Once the Church is raptured, the restrainer is removed, and Antichrist can be revealed. This is taken as strong evidence for a Pre-Trib removal of believers.

   Refutation: The text never identifies the restrainer, and the early Church did not interpret it as the Holy Spirit. Many believed it referred to the Roman Empire, which was holding back chaos. Others have suggested an angelic being or simply God’s sovereign timing. To say this is the Church being Raptured is reading a modern system back into the text. Paul’s point is that Antichrist will be revealed in God’s time, not that the Church must disappear first.

5. Titus 2:13 – “Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” 

   Pre-Trib claim: The “blessed hope” refers to the imminent Rapture, which must be distinct from the later appearing of Christ in glory. Otherwise, there would be no sense of an “any moment” hope.

   Refutation: The text ties the blessed hope directly to “the appearing of the glory” of Christ. There is no division into two phases. Our hope is not in escaping tribulation but in the glorious return of Christ at the end of the age. Far from teaching imminency, the New Testament connects His appearing with visible signs that must occur first (2 Thessalonians 2:3, Matthew 24:29-31). The blessed hope is one event: the glorious appearing of Jesus Christ to raise the dead, rapture His people, and judge the world.

“The Church Isn’t in Revelation Chapters 4 through 19”

One of the most common arguments from Pre-Trib teachers is that the Church is not mentioned in Revelation chapters 4-19, which cover the Tribulation period. They conclude the Church must have been raptured already.

But this is an argument from silence. The word “church” (ekklesia) isn’t used, but the people of God are still clearly present, described with other terms:

• Revelation 6:9-11 – Martyrs slain “for the word of God.”
• Revelation 7:3-14 – A great multitude “coming out of the great tribulation,” referring to numerous saints being martyred (see above).
• Revelation 11:3-13 – The two witnesses prophesy for 1,260 days.
• Revelation 12:17 – The dragon wages war on “those who hold to the testimony of Jesus.”
• Revelation 13:7, 10 – The beast makes war on “the saints.”
• Revelation 14:12-13 – A call for “the endurance of the saints.”
• Revelation 16:15 – Jesus exhorts believers: “Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!” 

  This line in Rev 16:15 about “coming like a thief” is a direct reference to the Apostle Paul’s line in 1 Thessalonians 5:2, “For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” Peter also uses that phrase in 2 Peter 3:10, as well as Jesus Himself in Matthew 24:43. All refer to Christ’s Second Coming, and imply that we as believers should be vigilant about watching out for His coming. Why would believers in Revelation 16 be told to watch for Christ’s coming if He’s already come and raptured us away?

The saints of God—the followers of Jesus—are unmistakably present in the Tribulation. The argument that “the Church isn’t in Revelation 4-19” simply doesn’t stand.

Daniel’s 70 Weeks

Pre-Tribulationalism leans heavily on Daniel 9:24-27. The prophecy of the seventy weeks (seventy “sevens” of years) is often read as a precise timetable for Israel’s future, with the final, 70th week pulled out of the flow of history and projected into the future as a seven-year tribulation. In this view, the Church has no place in Daniel’s prophecy, since it is said to apply strictly to Israel. The Rapture, therefore, must occur before this “week” begins so that God can return His focus exclusively to Israel.

The problem: the New Testament never makes this connection. Nowhere do Jesus, Paul, or John ever say that Daniel’s 70th week equals a seven-year tribulation that excludes the Church. This is a later theological construction, not a biblical statement. The apostles quoted Daniel often when speaking about end-times events (for example, Jesus referring to the abomination of desolation in Matthew 24:15), but they never present the 70th week as a time when the Church would be removed.

The focus of the prophecy: Daniel 9 actually centers on the coming of the Messiah and His redemptive work. Verse 24 speaks of finishing transgression, putting an end to sin, atoning for iniquity, and bringing everlasting righteousness—all of which point directly to the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Verse 26 says plainly, “the anointed one shall be cut off”—a clear prophecy of Christ’s death. The emphasis is not on a distant rapture, but on Christ accomplishing salvation and judgment falling on Jerusalem (fulfilled in AD 70).

The “gap theory” concern: Pre-Tribulational teaching requires inserting an indefinite gap of thousands of years between the 69th and 70th week. But the text of Daniel 9 never suggests such a gap. The weeks are given as one continuous sequence. To tear the final week out of the flow and push it into the far future creates more problems than it solves. It is a theological necessity for dispensationalism, but not an exegetical one from the text itself.

The danger of silence: To build an entire system of eschatology—including the timing of the Rapture—on the assumption of a future 70th week applied only to Israel is precarious. Scripture never makes that leap. Daniel’s prophecy points ultimately to Christ’s first coming, His atoning work, and the consummation of His kingdom, not to a secret, Church-absent Tribulation.

In short, Daniel 9 magnifies Christ, not a hidden Rapture. To force it into a Pre-Trib timeline is to miss its central message and to build doctrine on silence where the New Testament is itself silent.

The Imminency Argument

Pre-Trib teachers often claim Christ’s return must be “any moment.” I admire that sense of readiness for Christ’s return, and we definitely should all be observant and vigilant. But Scripture itself lists precursors:

• The apostasy must come first (2 Thess 2:3).
• The man of lawlessness must be revealed (2 Thess 2:3).
• Cosmic signs must occur (Matt 24:29-30).

We are called to watch and endure, not to expect escape.

And speaking of that…

Preservation, Not Escape

“I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.” (John 17:15)

Right before His arrest and crucifixion, Jesus prayer to the Father that His believers stay in the world yet be ready for warfare with the evil one, enduring his difficult tactics, which we know would often involve persecution and tribulation.

That’s exactly what Revelation shows as well: God sealing and preserving His people in the midst of tribulation, just as Israel was preserved during the plagues of Egypt.

One of the clearest themes in the New Testament is that Christians are not promised escape from tribulation in general but are called to endure faithfully until Christ returns. Here are the passages where believers are exhorted to stand firm, endure, or persevere, especially in connection with persecution, hardship, tribulation, or the end times:

In the Gospels

• Matthew 10:22 – “You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”
• Matthew 24:9-13 – Jesus warns of betrayal, hatred, false prophets, and lawlessness in the last days: “But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”
• Matthew 24:42-44 – “Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.”
• Mark 13:13 – Parallel to Matthew: “You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”
• Mark 13:33-37 – “Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come.”
• Luke 21:16-19 – Jesus tells His disciples they will be betrayed, hated, and killed: “By your endurance you will gain your lives.”

Paul’s Letters

• 1 Corinthians 15:58 – “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.”
• 1 Corinthians 16:13 – “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.”
• Galatians 6:9 – “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”
• Philippians 1:27-28 – Paul urges the church to “stand firm in one spirit” and “not be frightened in anything by your opponents.”
• Philippians 4:1 – “Stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.”
• Colossians 1:22-23 – Reconciliation is promised “if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel.”
• 1 Thessalonians 3:8 – “For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord.”
• 2 Thessalonians 2:15 – “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us.”
• 2 Timothy 2:12 – “If we endure, we will also reign with him.”
• 2 Timothy 3:12-14 – “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted… But as for you, continue in what you have learned.”
• 2 Timothy 4:7-8 – Paul’s testimony: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith… henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.”

General Epistles

• Hebrews 3:14 – “For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.”
• Hebrews 10:23 – “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.”
• Hebrews 10:36 – “For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.”
• Hebrews 12:1-2 – “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus.”
• James 1:12 – “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life.”
• James 5:7-8 – “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord… Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.”
• 1 Peter 1:6-7 – Believers rejoice though “you have been grieved by various trials… so that the tested genuineness of your faith… may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
• 1 Peter 4:12-13 – “Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you… But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings.”
• 2 Peter 3:17 – “Take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability.”
• Jude 21 – “Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Revelation

• Revelation 2:10 – “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.”
• Revelation 2:25 – “Only hold fast what you have until I come.”
• Revelation 3:11 – “I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown.”
• Revelation 13:10 – “Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.”
• Revelation 14:12 – “Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.”

Summary

From Jesus’ Olivet Discourse to Paul’s letters, from Hebrews to Revelation, the consistent refrain is clear: believers are called to stand firm, endure, and remain faithful until the end, even through persecution and tribulation. The New Testament never tells us to expect removal from trial but to be steadfast through it until Christ appears. It’s to be a regular part of our earthly lives.

The Danger of the Pre-Trib View

One of the real dangers of the pre-tribulational view is that it can leave believers unprepared for the suffering and persecution that Scripture says the Church will indeed face. While it rightly encourages watchfulness for Christ’s return, it also fosters an expectation of escape rather than endurance. If Christians are taught that they will be taken out of the world before tye Tribulation comes, many may be shaken, disillusioned, or even fall away from the faith when trials and persecution actually arrive. Jesus Himself warned in Matthew 24:9-13 that believers would be hated, betrayed, and even killed during a time of tribulation — and that “the one who endures to the end will be saved.” Likewise, Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 taught that the coming of Christ would not happen until after a great apostasy and the revealing of the man of lawlessness. The New Testament consistently calls us to prepare our hearts to suffer for Christ, to endure hardship, and to remain faithful until the end.

Conclusion: Be Ready to Endure

As I’ve studied this issue, the evidence has become overwhelming. The Bible simply does not teach a Pre-Trib Rapture. The early Church never believed it. The doctrine originated in 1830 with a vision from Margaret MacDonald, was popularized by Darby and Scofield, and has since spread widely through modern evangelicalism.

But Scripture is clear:

• Jesus in Matthew 24 places the gathering of the elect after the Tribulation.
• Paul in 2 Thessalonians says the man of lawlessness must appear first.
• John in Revelation 20 places the first resurrection after Christ’s return in Revelation 19.
• The supposed “proof texts” collapse under careful examination.
• The absence of the word “church” (koine Greek ἐκκλησία or ekklesia) in Revelation 4-19 doesn’t mean absence of believers.
• The return of Christ is always described as visible and glorious, not secret.

Again, this is not a salvation issue. I love my Pre-Trib brothers and sisters. But I cannot teach something Scripture does not say.

The New Testament calls us not to expect escape, but to be ready to endure. Jesus said, “The one who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt 24:13). Our blessed hope is not avoiding tribulation; it’s the appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who will raise the dead, gather His people, destroy evil, and reign forever.

“Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him.” (Revelation 1:7)

That is the true hope of the Church.