Role: Executive Director of The Pre-Trib Research Center |
Dr. Ice is Executive Director of The Pre-Trib Research Center. He founded The Center in 1994 with Dr. Tim LaHaye to research, teach, and defend the pre-tribulational rapture and related Bible prophecy doctrines.
Dr. Ice has co-authored about 30 books, written hundreds of articles, and is a frequent conference speaker. He has served as a pastor for 15 years. Dr. Ice has a B.A. from Howard Payne University, a Th.M. from Dallas Theological Seminary, a Ph.D. from Tyndale Theological Seminary, and is a Doctoral Candidate at The University of Wales in Church History. Dr. Ice lives in Justin, Texas with his wife Janice and is a member of the Chafer Theological Seminary faculty.
Passage: 1 Thessalonians 4:17
Last month Dr. Tim LaHaye, Dr. Ed Hindson, and I did a weekend prophecy conference in the Philadelphia area. As usual, we had a time of questions and answers about Bible prophecy. One attendee turned in the following written question: ...
It is not uncommon to hear anti-pretribulationists discount pretribulationism because the Bible teaches that Christians will suffer for Christ. Since pretribulationists teach that the church will not go through the tribulation, some attempt to equate this with a view that Believers will never experience hardship of any kind during the current church age. This is a distortion of our views. Pretribulationism teaches, by God’s grace and decree, the church will not go through the time of God’s wrath because the tribulation is designed for purposes which do not include the church.
The eleventh chapter of Romans clearly reveals the profound continuity between Israel and the Church. In this passage, Paul crafts a careful analogy of an olive tree. Unbelieving Jews were taken out of the olive tree, while believing Jew remained. At the same time, believing Gentiles were grafted into this tree...
With the revival of premillennialism during the post-Reformation period, there have been a number of two-stage second coming theories postulated. There are numerous claims or suggestions of pre-trib rapture statements that have been made down through recent history. However, I think many of them should be grouped into a category that could be better described as “a two-stage second coming.” In other words, this species is not pretribulationism which is composed of the rapture of the church, followed by a few years of the tribulation, resulting in the second coming of Christ to earth. Instead, this variety occurs at the end of the tribulation and may have two stages involved in the second coming. Such a scenario is posttribulational and may have as many as a 45-day interval between the two comings.
I believe that John 14:1-3 speaks of Christ's return at the Rapture for His church. However, many who do not believe that the Rapture will occur before the tribulation say that this passage refers to Christ coming at death for a believer. There are good reasons why this passage is Christ's introduction of the Rapture of the church...