A Brief History of The Rapture

Dr. Thomas Ice

One of the mostoften cited objections to pretribulationism is that it is a new teaching inchurch history having only come on the scene in the 1830s. It is often argued that if the pre-tribrapture were biblical then it would have been taught earlier and throughoutchurch history. In the lastdecade, individuals have found a number of pre-1830 references to a pre-tribrapture. Here is a summary of thatevidence.

Since imminencyis considered to be a crucial feature of pretribulationism by scholars such asJohn Walvoord,[1] it issignificant that the Apostolic Fathers, though posttribulational, at the sametime just as clearly taught the pretribulational feature of imminence. Since it was common in the early church to hold contradictorypositions without even an awareness of inconsistency, it would not besurprising to learn that their era supports both views. Larry Crutchfield notes, "This beliefin the imminent return of Christ within the context of ongoing persecution hasprompted us to broadly label the views of the earliest fathers, 'imminentintratribulationism.'"[2]

Expressions ofimminency abound in the Apostolic Fathers. Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, The Didache, The Epistle of Barnabas, and The Shepherd of Hermas all speak of imminency.[3] Furthermore, The Shepherd of Hermas speaks of the pretribulational concept ofescaping the tribulation.

You have escaped fromgreat tribulation on account of your faith, and because you did not doubt inthe presence of such a beast. Go,therefore, and tell the elect of the Lord His mighty deeds, and say to themthat this beast is a type of the great tribulation that is coming. If then ye prepare yourselves, andrepent with all your heart, and turn to the Lord, it will be possible for youto escape it, if your heart be pure and spotless, and ye spend the rest of thedays of your life in serving the Lord blamelessly.[4]

Evidence ofpretribulationism surfaces during the early medieval period in a sermon someattribute to Ephraem the Syrian, but more likely the product of one scholarscall Pseudo-Ephraem, entitled Sermon on The Last Times, The Antichrist, andThe End of the World.[5] The sermon was written some timebetween the fourth and sixth century. The rapture statement reads as follows:

Why therefore do wenot reject every care of earthly actions and prepare ourselves for the meetingof the Lord Christ, so that he may draw us from the confusion, which overwhelmsall the world? . . . For all thesaints and elect of God are gathered, prior to the tribulation that is to come,and are taken to the Lord lest they see the confusion that is to overwhelm theworld because of our sins.

This statementevidences a clear belief that all Christians will escape the tribulationthrough a gathering to the Lord and is stated early in the sermon. How else can this be understood otherthan as pretribulational? Thelater second coming of Christ to the earth with the saints is mentioned at theend of the sermon.

By the fifthcentury a.d., the amillennialismof Origen and Augustine had won the day in the established Church-East andWest. It is probable that someform of premillennialism persisted throughout the Middle Ages, but it existedprimarily underground.

It is believedthat sects like the Albigenses, Lombards, and the Waldenses were attracted topremillennialism, but little is know of the details of their beliefs since theCatholics destroyed their works when they were found. But there was at least one who held to some form ofpretribulationism, namely one named Brother Dolcino in 1304.

Francis Gumerlockis the individual who advocates the Brother Dolcino rapture find and said inhis book: "The Dolicinites held to a pre-tribulation rapture theory similar tothat in modern dispensationalism."[6] The reason Gumerlock believes that Brother Dolcino and theApostolic Brethren taught pretribulationism is found the following statement:

"Again,[Dolcino believed and preached and taught] that within those three yearsDolcino himself and his followers will preach the coming of theAntichrist. And that theAntichrist was coming into this world within the bounds of the said three and ahalf years; and after he had come, then he [Dolcino] and his followers wouldbe transferred into Paradise, inwhich are Enoch and Elijah. And inthis way they will be preserved unharmed from the persecution of Antichrist. Andthat then Enoch and Elijah themselves would descend on the earth for thepurpose of preaching [against] Antichrist. Then they would be killed by him or by his servants, andthus Antichrist would reign for a long time. But when the Antichrist is dead, Dolcino himself, who then would be theholy pope, and his preserved followers, will descend on the earth, and willpreach the right faith of Christ to all, and will convert those who will beliving then to the true faith of Jesus Christ."[7]

Afterover a thousand years of suppression, premillennialism began to be revived as aresult of at least four factors. By the late 1500's and the early 1600's, premillennialism began toreturn as a factor within mainstream Protestantism. With the flowering of biblical interpretation during thelate Reformation Period, premillennial interpreters began to abound throughoutProtestantism and so did the development of sub-issues like the rapture.

Somebegan to speak of the rapture. Paul Benware notes:

PeterJurieu in his book Approaching Deliverance of the Church (1687) taught that Christ would come in the airto rapture the saints and return to heaven before the battle ofArmageddon. He spoke of a secretRapture prior to His coming in glory and judgment at Armageddon. Philip Doddridge's commentary on theNew Testament (1738) and John Gill's commentary on the New Testament (1748)both use the term rapture andspeak of it as imminent. It isclear that these men believed that this coming will precede Christ's descent tothe earth and the time of judgment. The purpose was to preserve believers from the time of judgment. James Macknight (1763) and Thomas Scott(1792) taught that the righteous will be carried to heaven, where they will besecure until the time of judgment is over.[8]

FrankMarotta, a brethren researcher, believes that Thomas Collier in 1674 makesreference to a pretribulational rapture, but rejects the view,[9]thus showing his awareness that such a view was being taught in the lateseventeenth century. There is theinteresting case of John Asgill, who wrote a book in 1700 about the possibilityof translation (i.e. rapture) without seeing death.[10]

Perhaps theclearest reference to a pretrib rapture, if not the most developed system,before Darby comes from Baptist Morgan Edwards (founder of the Ivey Leagueschool, Brown University) who saw a distinct rapture three and a half yearsbefore the start of the millennium.[11] The discovery of Edwards, who wrote about his pretrib beliefsin 1744 and later published them in 1788, is hard to dismiss.[12] He taught the following:

II. Thedistance between the first and second resurrection will be somewhat more than athousand years.

I say, somewhat more-, because the dead saints will be raised, and theliving changed at Christ's "appearing in the air" (I Thes. iv. 17);and this will be about three years and a half before the millennium, as we shall see hereafter: but will he and they abide in the airall that time? No: they willascend to paradise, or to some one of those many "mansions in the father'shouse" (John xiv. 2), and disappear during the foresaid period oftime. The design of this retreat and disappearing willbe to judge the risen and changed saints; for "now the time is come thatjudgment must begin," and that will be "at the house of God" (IPet. iv. 17) . . . (p. 7; The spelling of all Edwards quotes have beenmodernized.)

I have heard fromanother scholar who is reading through many Latin manuscripts of previously unpublisheddocuments that he has found a number of previously unknown pre-trib rapturestatements from pre-nineteenth century Christendom. He is planning on publishing his material in a fewyears. What these pre-Darbyrapture statements prove, if nothing else, is that indeed others did see therapture taught in Scripture similar to the way that pretribulationists in ourown day teach. Thus, the argumentthat no one ever taught pretribulationism until J. N. Darby in 1830 is just nothistorically true and it is becoming increasingly clear with each passingyear. Maranatha!

Endnotes

[1] John F. Walvoord, The BlessedHope and the Tribulation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1976), pp. 24-25.

[2] Larry V. Crutchfield, "TheBlessed Hope and the Tribulation in the Apostolic Fathers" in Thomas Ice& Timothy Demy, editors, When The Trumpet Sounds (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1995), p.103.

[3] Crutchfield, "The BlessedHope and the Tribulation in the Apostolic Fathers", pp. 88-101.

[4] The Shepherd of Hermas 1.4.2.

[5] For more information on thismatter see Timothy J. Demy and Thomas D. Ice, "The Rapture and an EarlyMedieval Citation," Bibliotheca Sacra (Vol. 152, No. 607; July-Sept. 1995), pp. 306-17.

[6] Francis X. Gumerlock, The Day and the Hour: A Chronicle of Christianity's PerennialFascination with Predicting the End of the World (Powder Springs, GA: American Vision, 2000), p. 80.

[7] Gumerlock's translation of the Latin text in Gumerlock,"A Rapture Citation," pp. 354-55.

[8] Paul N. Benware, Understanding End TimesProphecy: A Comprehensive Approach (Chicago: Moody Press, 1995), pp. 197-98.

[9] Frank Marotta, Morgan Edwards: An Eighteenth Century Pretribulationist (Morganville, N.J.: Present Truth Publishers, 1995), pp. 10-12.

[10] The entire title of Asgill's work is as follows: An argument proving, that accordingto the covenant of Eternal Life revealed in the Scriptures, Man may betranslated from hence into that Eternal Life, without passing through Death,although the Human Nature of Christ himself could not be thus translated till hehad passed through Death.

[11] Marotta, Morgan Edwards.

[12] Morgan Edwards, Two Academical Exercised on SubjectsBearing the following Titles; Millennium, Last-Novelties (Philadelphia: self-published, 1788).