The Validity of Post/Pre trib positions

[Pete Richert]

As this debate continues across many forums, we often see a varitey of responses in terms of how much respect is given to the other position. Such things are said as, "The Holy Spirit led me to believe this (therefor I am right)", or "You just need to read your Bible" or "you just need to read your Bible more carefully" or "there are a few minor problems in your view" etc. Some feal it is obvious and some allow for difficulties in thier own view as well as their opposition. Hence this poll. There is two quesitons, one for post tribbers and one for pre-tribbers (sorry Amillers). There is a final response in both questions if you do not hold that belief. Please only answer the question that corresponds to your belief.

npetey, you can post as a post-trib if you like.

 

[Gunther]

Pete, I am trying to keep this very scholarly, so I will just say up front that I am pretrib because Christ and Paul were.

 

[Pete Richert]

This reminds me of something funny. Over on the Puritan Board someone posted a link to a "Calvinism is Heresy" site. On the site there was an "Open letter to a Calvinist". In the letter the writer expresses frustration about different sides simply posting their favorite texts back and forth and believes we should get away from the Bible in order to go into the deeper things of God. But that wasn't the funny part. The funny part was that this author admits that Paul was a Calvinist, it is just his belief that Peter and John and the writer of Hebrews weren't. Not exactly sure how I would answer that

 

[Gunther]

You could have done your duty as a citizen and called the paddy wagon.

 

[Tim too]

I was pretrib because I that was what I grew up being taught. I am posttrib because it is most Biblically accurate.

I answered that a person just needs to read the Bible to see the problems with the pretrib view. I know pretribbers read the Bible. The problem with their (and what used to be my) Bible reading is that they only read the verses given to support the pretrib rapture. Those verses are a hodgepodge collection of verses taken from everywhere to make the pretrib view work. However after reading what the Bible says about the end times in the contexts in which they were written I could come to no other conclusion than that the pretrib rapture was false.

In the love of Christ,
Tim

 

[Grasshopper]

I was pretrib because I that was what I grew up being taught. I am a Preterist because it is most Biblically accurate.

 

[Trotter]

I am pre-trib bacause that is how I read it. I can respect those who see it differently than I do, but do not appreciate the attacks that I have read across the board (no, I'm not pointing fingers, because mine were in there, too).

If Anyone believes differently on this subject, it is their right to do so...just as it is my right as well.

In Christ,
Trotter

 

[Gunther]

Pete, personally, I do not think it is an issue of not reading the text one way or another on certain passages.

I believe the issue is theological and not biblical. Let me explain.

Most post-trib people tend to mesh Israel and the Church into the same entity or at the very least, VERY close entities.

Those who are pre-trib come at the text believing that Israel is an ethnic group of people to whom God gave BOTH blessings and judgments. So far, we have seen the judgments. Pretribbers just believe the blessings are for them also.

Now, we could watch our best pretribber (perhaps Pastor Larry?) duke it out with the best posttribber (perhaps Posttrib?). We would watch them each tackle the various texts, with the same appreciation of the Word and its authority, and then watch how differently they see the text.

EVERY pretribber and postribber I know believes what they do because of what they believe about Israel and the church.

Now, when I say pretribber, I mean respectable ones. Ones that should never even be brought up would be any of the following:

Tim LaHaye, Jerry Falwell, Hal Lindsey, Grant Jeffries, and Clarence Larkin.

John MacArthur and John Piper are both New Covenant theologs, yet disagree about the timing of the rapture. These guys are top notch, serious preachers, VERY well versed in the word. Of course, MacArthur is correct.

I took a long look at posttrib. You know what, the whole Israel/Church thing doesn't bother me. When it comes down to it, I am pretrib not only because of the way I see Scripture, but because I think posttrib cannot deal with certain theological issues that are raised with their position.

Bottom line is that we are both on the same side fighting against the incompetencies of amills, the wishwill thinking postmills, and the laughableness of preterism.

- War the tribulation being after the rapture...
- War the day when all Christians are pretribbers
- War anyone playing Notre Dame
- and War the thinline ESV

Gunther

 

[Tim too]

Gunther,

I appreciated your whole post, but there was one thing I would like to comment on and one I would like to question. I appreciate your non-adversarial tone.

I humbly apologize to any pretribber who may feel that I am on a personal attack. I am not head hunting, just trying to challenge what is in pretribbers' heads.

Originally posted by Gunther:
Now, when I say pretribber, I mean respectable ones. Ones that should never even be brought up would be any of the following:

Tim LaHaye, Jerry Falwell, Hal Lindsey, Grant Jeffries, and Clarence Larkin.

John MacArthur and John Piper are both New Covenant theologs, yet disagree about the timing of the rapture. These guys are top notch, serious preachers, VERY well versed in the word. Of course, MacArthur is correct.

The reason why I have referenced the pretrib view to Jenkins, LaHaye, and Lindsey is because their books have been so embraced by American Baptists in general as truth. Among others we could include C. I. Scofield, of the Scofield Bible and Radio Bible Class Founder M. R. De Haan of the Our Daily Bread devotional magazines that are mailed out to anyone for free. These guys upstage any of the serious pretrib preachers with their high profile publications.

Originally posted by Gunther:
I took a long look at posttrib. You know what, the whole Israel/Church thing doesn't bother me. When it comes down to it, I am pretrib not only because of the way I see Scripture, but because I think posttrib cannot deal with certain theological issues that are raised with their position.

Not to shanghai this thread, but I would like to hear the theological issues that raised that postribbers cannot deal with. Maybe you could start another thread or put them here if Pete doesn't mind.

In the love of Christ,
Tim

 

[IfbReformer]

I was raised in Dispensational Premillenial(pre tribs) churches my whole life. I studied it out for myself after I graduated from highschool and became a Historic Premillenialist(post-trib).

I agree with Gunther - that the crux of the matter is how you see Israel and the Church, are the elect of God of all ages the church(as Historic Premils believe) or are the elect of God divided into different groups with different promises and plans as pre-tribs see it.

IFBReformer

 

[Pete Richert]

Gunther,

I think you post should be saved and set as an example of thoughful and fair presentation of the issues. If people would only be as down to earth and patient (and use their thinline ESV as Psalm 12 clearly commands), then we could all benefit a lot more from this board.

I set out recently to see if I could track down all of the positions of my favorite commentators and teachers, but had only small success. On the post-trib side I found Douglous Moo, Thomas Schreiner, Piper, and Scott Hafemann. On the Pre-trib side we have MacArthur, Robert Mounce, and I believe Wayne Grudem (though his systematic theology allows for both views, he seems to lean towards pre-trib). Those I could not discover were FF Bruce, DA Carson, Peter O'Brien, William Lane, and a few others. I will keep looking. All of my presbyterian friends (Poythress, Silva, Packer, Sproul, etc) are amilleniel of course. (Packer is Anglican, not presbyterian).

 

[Pete Richert]

Looks like Bruce is post-trib. Here is a site listing him with others

click here only if you a faithful to the thinline

Here is another site that is got itself all confused. It profeses to teach Historic Premillenilism, which is always post-trib. It then goes on to list a sequence of events that are pre-trib??? It lists as proponents Bruce but also Ladd who is the flagship of the historic premillenilism position and is definitly post-trib. What up

confused historic

 

[IfbReformer]

Originally posted by Pete Richert:
Looks like Bruce is post-trib. Here is a site listing him with others

click here only if you a faithful to the thinline

Here is another site that is got itself all confused. It profeses to teach Historic Premillenilism, which is always post-trib. It then goes on to list a sequence of events that are pre-trib??? It lists as proponents Bruce but also Ladd who is the flagship of the historic premillenilism position and is definitly post-trib. What up

confused historic

Definetly whoever did that site does not know what he is talking about. Does not accurately represent the Historic Premil view.

IFBReformer

 

[Pete Richert]

Here is a guy who is going against your thesis. He is a dispensational (as he will describe in quesiton 11) and believes in a distinction of Israel and the Church and a future for Israel, yet is still post-trib. He seems to believe that the tribulation is transitionary between the Church back to Israel just as the time up during Christ's life and Acts were transitionary between Israel and the Church.

click here to have fun reading me.

 

[IfbReformer]

Pete,

Interesting link. This is the statement I zoomed in on:

"The Church will enter the 70th week and co-exist with Israel. God will have purposes for both, cleansing for the Church and judgment and salvation for the Jews. Then both will live and reign with Christ forever."

He is right(from a Historic Premil perspective) in seeing the church in the tribulation.

He is also right in seeing one of the purposes for the tribulation as God saving an entire generation of physical jews.

He is also right in saying they will both live and reign with Christ forever(I think he also includes the millenium in this).

I think this guy should drop the Dispensationalist label and just join our camp, most Disps I have read including Ryrie say pre-trib is Disp and Disp is pre-trib, you can't seperate them.

Where he is wrong(from our perspective - or at least mine) is that he looks at the Church and Saved Jews as two groups.

The Church includes both saved Jews and Gentiles, otherwise he has to say the Church is saved Gentiles only or it is saved Jews and Gentiles from a specific time period then there are just saved Jews again and the Church - you really get into a mess when you try and seperate saved Jews and Gentiles and say there are different plans for saved Jews than there are for saved Gentiles - really you are making two classes of elect then and that gets messy.

IFBReformer

 

[IfbReformer]

Just a little humor for you while we are talking on the subject:

I have a Pastor friend who is staunch pre-trib.

He says to me "I will be waving to you laughing on the way up before the tribulation"

And I say "I will be comforting you when you are crying because the tribulation has started and we are still here."

IFBReformer

 

[Gunther]

I just wanted to bring something else up.

The guys on the other side are not idiots. I have the Romans commentary from Moo and the one from Schreiner. I have books by Piper.

I also have books and commentaries by Ryrie, MacArthur, Ice, Ironside, etc.

I think all of these guys have read through the bible once or twice.

Also, historic premill does not necessarily place the rapture on the chart. As far as I understand the position, the timing of the rapture is not the most important thing. This is because the early fathers (all of who were premillenial) did not really even talk about the rapture. They did talk about the 1,000 earthly reign though.

 

[Ed Edwards]

Tim too: "I humbly apologize
to any pretribber who may feel
that I am on a personal attack."

I cannot accept your apology. A precondition
for apology acceptance is that an offence
has been committed. You committed no
offence, therefore i cannot accept
your apology.

I pray for my oponents and allies alike.
I pray that God might heap blessings
upon them to the glory of our blessed
Lord and Savior: Messiah Yeshua. Amen.

 

[Tim too]

Originally posted by Ed Edwards:
Tim too: "I humbly apologize
to any pretribber who may feel
that I am on a personal attack."

I cannot accept your apology. A precondition
for apology acceptance is that an offence
has been committed. You committed no
offence, therefore i cannot accept
your apology.

I pray for my oponents and allies alike.
I pray that God might heap blessings
upon them to the glory of our blessed
Lord and Savior: Messiah Yeshua. Amen.

Thanks Brother Ed,

I am glad we can discuss and wrangle without offending.

In the love of Christ,
Tim

 

[DeafPosttrib]

I was pre-trib before. At first, I learned pretribulation doctrine at independent fundamental baptist church through my friends. In my early Christian life as ifb. I heard ften, baptists saying, "I am a Bible believer". The reason they saying it, because they support KJV 100%. The same thing as what I saying to them. To be honest with you, yes I still a truly Bible believer. I agree 100% everything what the Bible saying.

At first, in my early Christian life, I thought pretrib doctrine was the only right doctrine on rapture. Because I notice nearly every baptist churches teaching on pretrib doctrine in America.

I learned pretrib lot by reading book - Hal Lindsey, Peter Ruckman, Chicks, John R. Rice, Jack Van Impe, etc. also, learned pretrib lot by through baptist friends, and listened from baptist pastors preached on it.

I did read verses in the Bible on the end times often while I was pretrib, but I did not get it. I mean when I was pretrib in that time, I read verses on 'pretrib' doctrine often, but, I did not get it(finally understand).

I was a student at Midwestern Baptist College. In the class, I heard the teacher lectured on th book of Revelation. He said, many saints will be die during tribulation, many will raptures during through tribulation. I strongly disagree wih his teaching while I was pretribber. I think his teaching sounds like 'partial raptures' to me.

One day, I visited my old deaf couple's house. They asked me, when rapture will be happen? I told them, rapture before tribulation. THey told me, rapture after tribulation. I was surprise that they told me, rapture will be after tribulation, because both are IFB. I did debate or argue with them on rapture. They wanted me to read 2 Thess. 2:1-3. I told them, "When read verses, I will sign and read same time, I MUST follow and agree with God's Word." When I read and sign same time. 2 Thess. 2:3 hits me so hard. That's how it changed my belief forever. Also, they showed me of Matt. 24:29-31. I told them, the same thing. Again, Matt. 24:31 hit me so hard.

I was shocked that I cannot understand why so many IFB people seems cannot understand Matt. 24:29-31 and 2 Thess. 2:1-3 explain so very clear and simple?

When I looked at 2 Thess. 2:1-3, and Matt. 24:29-31, after deaf couple asked me to read them. I understand them very clear. I cannot wrestle or resist the truth of Matt. 24:29-31 & 2 Thess. 2:1-3. I determined to accept the fact and plain what verses saying so, I follow them without wrestle. God's Word caused me left pretrib camp.

I realized that there are about 95% of IFB churces in America, teaching on pretrib doctrine today. I am still a truly IFB. But, I am not pretrib, I am posttrib, because the Bible teaches th gathering together will be occur after the tribulation.

I realized that the Early Church was not teach on pretribulation doctine, because it was not yet exist in their time. I realized that the Early Church believed there is a future one coming of Christ, while 'posttrib' was not named or exist yet. Although, their teaching sounds lik posttrib very clear.

In fact, Early Church was not teach on split or partial comings. None of them teach on it for the frst of 18 Centuries. Till in year 1830, Maraget MacDonald claims, she saw split comings in her viion. That how Edward Irving received coe from her vision.

John Darby developed new doctrie called, 'pretribulation rapture', while he was in Great Britian. He came to America 6 times, he tried to spread that doctrine to churches in America while on his visits.

Finally, in year around early 1880's, many churches incude baptist churches started to adopt pretribulation doctrine.

That's how pretribulation doctrine was introduce to churches in America in 1880's. Today, it is very popular doctrine among baptist churches in America.

I prefer follow the Bible than men's teaching - Col. 2:8. I do not accept pretribulation doctrine, because it is not fundametal doctrine, it is man-making doctrine.

I am curious, why do you believe pretibulation doctrine is correct? If it is true doctrine, then you have to show me verses to support pretrib doctrine.

In Christ
Rev. 22:20 Amen!

[ October 20, 2003, 08:01 PM: Message edited by: DeafPosttrib ]