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It seems like almost every week these days I am confronted with a fresh attack on the concept of a Pre-Tribulation Rapture.
Some of the attacks are frivolous, some are silly, some are mean-spirited, and some are based on misconceptions. Few are substantive and biblical in nature.
A frivolous one that is repeated ad infinitum is the assertion that the word, Rapture, cannot even be found in the Bible. If that were true, it would be irrelevant for the names of several biblical concepts are not found in the Bible — such as Trinity, Shekinah and the word, Bible! And then there are words we use all the time to describe attributes of God, none of which can be found in the Bible. I have in mind words like "omniscience" which means all-knowing, "omnipotence" which means all-powerful, and "omnipresence" which means present everywhere.
But the fact of the matter is that the word, Rapture, can be found in the Bible. It appears in the Latin Bible in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, where English language Bibles refer to believers being "caught up" to meet Jesus in the sky when He returns for His Church. A word doesn't have to be in English for it to be a biblical word. After all, the Latin Bible was the definitive translation used in the Western world for over a thousand years (400 AD to 1530).
A silly attack on the Pre-Trib Rapture that has been bouncing around since 1973 is the idea that the concept came from a 15 year old demon-possessed Scottish girl who began to have visions in the 1830s about the return of the Lord. I deal with this nonsense in the issue's feature article.
A very mean-spirited attack is contained in a recently released video album that I analyze in detail in the feature article in this issue. It focuses on trying to besmirch the reputations of anyone they think was involved in developing the doctrine of a Pre-Trib Rapture.
A frequent attack that is based on mis-representation is one that claims that those who believe in a Pre-Trib Rapture are "escapists" who have no interest in the world's problems. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every Pre-Trib advocate I know of is very much concerned about societal problems and speaks out on them forcibly.
Nonetheless, the myth is perpetuated in articles like the one that was recently published by an English publication called Christian Today. In the article, the author referred to those who believe in a Pre-Trib Rapture as "the fundamentalist fringe" who are "burying their heads in the sand" and who have a "laissez-faire attitude toward societal problems" — all because they are "zombie Christians that are merely souls waiting for heaven, rather than ambassadors for Christ." This is a totally fictional straw man.
One characteristic of all these attacks is a lack of emphasis on biblical evidence that the Pre-Trib doctrine is invalid.
Most of these critics try to characterize the Pre-Trib doctrine as something Satanic in nature that is designed to destroy people's faith once the Tribulation begins and there is no Rapture. I think the exact opposite is true. I believe Satan hates the Pre-Trib Rapture doctrine with a passion because it gives Christians great hope.
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