The timing of the rapture

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Pre-millennialists believe that there will be a literal 1000yr millennial kingdom rein starting from the time of Christ's return, and preceded by a time of great tribulation. Within pre-millennial circles there is however considerable debate about the timing of the rapture; the event spoken of in II Thessalonians 4 and I Cor 15:51-53 where believers still alive on the earth will be caught up to the Lord. The three main views are called pre-trib, mid-trib and post-trib. They denote whether this catching up to be with the Lord occurs before the tribulation, during it or at the end of it at Christ's second coming to the Earth. Sound confusing? One might well ask if this is all just rampant speculation, or if on the other hand one answer stands out as more plausible than the others.

Proponents of pre-tribulation rapture certainly have a complete, and well thought out, theological argument behind their position; however the main strength of the theory actually lies in the following piece of logic:

Surely God will not pour out his wrath on his own children. This, presented in one wording or another, usually seems to be produced as the ultimate trump card by most pre-trib advocates. It appears further backed up by verses such as the following:

For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. (I Thessalonians 5:9)

But is this argument as convincing as it first appears? The first and most major hole is that, even according to pre-trib theology, there are a group of saved children of God who do go through the tribulation - those saved in it! Thus, pre-tribulation rapture in itself does not solve the problem of how God judges the world without pouring out his wrath on those who are his own. To play this issue down pre-trib advocates tend to call those saved in the tribulation "tribulation saints" rather than "Christians", and usually say that they are more akin to the saints of the Old Testament in their position before God. This point is based on the thought that after the pre-trib rapture the "church age" is over and Israel is back in prophetic view. There are problems with this conjecture though. First, it's quite clear from scripture that Christ comes only when Israel as a nation repents (Zechariah 12:10-11, Hosea 5:15). Thus Israel, at a national level, is still in unbelief during the tribulation, so while Israel is mentioned a few of times in Revelation it's questionable whether the church age really is immediately over. Second, aligning those saved with the Old Testament saints is kind of undoing the New Covenant. It makes no sense to think that anyone saved both after the establishing of the New Covenant and after Christ's sacrificial death are somehow in the category of Old Testament saints - it's rather artificial.

Now, going back to the verse we saw earlier about Christians not being appointed to wrath. The first thing to say here is that Christians definitely are spared from the outpouring of God's wrath, the only question being whether they are spared from it while still on the earth, or whether they are completely removed from this world before it is poured out.

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