There are a number issues. Where is a pre trib rapure actually taught in the Bible? There is only one first resurrection, revelation 20:6 and those resurrected in the text happen to be tribulation saints, Revelation 20:4. And furthermore the rapture will in no way occure before the dead in Christ are raised, 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17.
Revelation 20 is not the resurrection of the church. Revelation 20 is a resurrection of those beheaded in the prior 42 months.
The first point to establish is why there are 42 months to begin with, and is this tribulation or desolation.
The 42 months do not even start until the 7th Trumpet has already begun to sound. The 7th Trumpet would be post tribulation, as the first 6 Trumpets and 7 Thunders in chapters 8-10 have already commenced. Why are the Trumpets and Thunders not considered tribulation?
Some claim the 7th Trumpet is the rapture, yet there is still 42 months after that point. Now I would point out the 7th Trumpet does not stop sounding for a week. That week is split in half per Daniel 9:27. That would mean the 7th Trumpet will not stop sounding even through the whole 42 months of desolation. So if any can agree on that point is the rapture when the 7th Trumpet starts or when it ends 42 months later at Armageddon? Because the 7th Trumpet is still post tribulation, but it also covers 3.5 years of desolation.
Or the 7th Trumpet is the main Trumpet perhaps sounded by Gabriel himself, but sounds in the 6th Seal, to announce the Second Coming, but then sounds as the last Trumpet after the final harvest. The 6th Seal matches what Jesus described as His only Second Coming in Matthew 24.
Jesus and the angels per several parables appear at the last harvest of souls. This harvest would take place during the Trumpets and Thunders and this harvest would be the Tribulation period. Jesus never claimed to come after the final harvest. He claimed to come after general tribulation. Tribulation has been non stop since the Cross. It was not supposed to be easy for thousands of years and then tribulation would intensify. People seem to want to view Revelation as a tossed salad with no systematic structure. So those in chapter 7 are allegedly killed in chapters later after 13. I ask why?
History shows us that Nations were prominent first in the dispensation of time, then God called out the Hebrews. And last called out a physical church. Although all 3 overlap, and the church has been called out by faith since Enoch and Noah. The emphasis was just not placed on Enoch and Noah to gather a physical church body at their perspective times. Even the Law was a type of church, but one with severe restrictions that just showed the bondage of sin, and not the freedom from sin.
Yet John points out at the end the church will be dealt with first, represented by Seals. Since the church is sealed by the Holy Spirit. Israel has always been represented by Trumpets. That leaves the Nations and the Thunders. We do not have explicit details of even life prior to the Flood, or even how life before Abraham was carried out. So how God deals with the Nations in the future is still not revealed to the church nor Israel. So why either group think they even will still be represented in the Thunders does not make sense. The wheat and tares were sown by Christ and the angels. At the most by the 144k. Satan also was responsible for the tares. So trying to place this harvest before the Seals instead of where they belong in the Thunders is wrong.
Why can no one see that Christ will be on earth during the Tribulation? And when Christ comes to earth for this time of Tribulation, the rapture will have already occurred at the point of the Second Coming. That is the point of the 5th and 6th Seal being opened.
There has to be a systematic harvest, and it cannot happen all at the same time, because we see different parables in the Gospels, and different judgments. Yet many want to combine them as a tossed salad instead of seeing them as separate points in time.
There has been one great big tribulation between the Cross and now. That is the tribulation of those days, because tribulation comes and goes, or is more intense in areas around the world. Preterist are that kind of pre-trib holders.
Then after the Second Coming is the GT. The time Jesus said would be like no other. That is when the angels are on the earth, after the 6th Seal is opened. The church should fall into this pre-trib position, because the church is taken away before the Trumpets and Thunders. The GT ends at the 7th Trumpet.
But then we have chapter 13 as a interruption of the 7th Trumpet. Even the angels, Jesus, and the 144k do not stick around for these 42 months of desolation. We only have the 2 witnesses. Even the harvesters themselves leave pre-desolation period. That only leaves those not harvested. The church is gone. The sheep and goats are all gone. Even the wheat and tares are all gone. Only those who will be beheaded and those who will choose the mark of the beast are left. So I am not sure where some think there are old and infirm, young children and mothers still left, unless they will not be redeemed and that hardened by sin, their only option is to have their head removed. Because those resurrected in Revelation 20 are those who have had their heads removed. I think the sheep and wheat harvested during the GT will be resurrected here also because they did not join the church at the Second Coming. I am not sure how Revelation 19 portrays the angels coming to harvest lost souls, nor why sheep, goats, wheat and tares, would still be around if the point of the Trumpets and Thunders could also fit a time of harvest. Those at Armageddon will be those who are left marked as hard core followers of Satan after 42 months of people choosing either to be beheaded or recieve the mark. Nor would it seem the Trumpets and Thunders happen after the Armageddon event, because some just want to switch up the chronology John gives to make their eschatology work.
Saying that all these events have always been happening since the Cross is just a different form of dispensational thinking. A generalized tossed salad dispensation is still a definition of a time period.
Also one can not separate the rapture from the Second Coming. The harvest as portrayed in the Gospels is of the living, not those harvested from the grave. I also do not think the church is in the grave, but alive in Paradise. Why not generalize the fact the dead will be raised eventually, but not all at the same time? Why not generalize and symbolize that verse, instead of letting it dictate all other Scripture? Daniel 12:2
"And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt."
Those set free from sheol, Jesus called Abraham's bosom, already fulfilled part of this at the Cross. They cannot go back to make this verse say the same day, or even the same millennium. It seems many use this verse to hold hostage the interpretation of many other Scriptures. Some even to the extent that many righteous will only be resurrected at the GWT. Why? None of the unrighteous came out of their graves at the Cross to be eternally damned. How would that even work? Those who came out recieved their eternal life never to die again. Yet many want them to die again, but for what purpose. Was the Atonement not powerful enough to work on the first try? Why give some resurrection, but then claim, oops, too soon, back you go into the grave.
If there is no need for one single resurrection, since the resurrection has been ongoing since the Cross, then why not separate the judgments in the book of Revelation instead of a jumbled mess, or stating it is just different camera angles of a singular event. 42 months is a specific time period. It is not a single event. Most claim there should be 7 years, 14 years, 7 years with a 3.5 year split, who knows, because all we really see is 42 months? John gives us a separate 5 month period and then those "prepared for a year, a month, and a day".
Bottom line, to rightly divide the Word does not fit a tossed salad, but more a systematic view of what each judgment stands for and see it is not just the same time all jumbled up. John in his approach, allows God to deal with the church, Israel, and humankind on an individual basis. That is why there are dispensations. Because God does have unique ways He has dealt with His creation, even though it has been all the same from beginning to end. I think that even Jesus Christ's post Cross physical body was available since creation, because God can do the impossible. Dispensations were for our benefit, not God's.
