Welcome to Grace in Focus radio. Bob Wilkin and Ken Yates are answering a question about the timing of the Rapture. Do the books of First and Second Thessalonians teach a pre-tribulation Rapture or a mid-point Rapture? Why does 2 Thessalonians 2:3 seem to differ from the other references? How about the rest of the Bible? When does the Judgment Seat of Christ happen? Please listen each weekday to the Grace in Focus podcast!
The following is a listener supported ministry from the grace evangelical society. Do the books of 1 and 2 Thessalonians teach a pre-tribulation rapture or a midpoint rapture? Does 2 Thessalonians 2-3 differ from the other references in these books? When does the judgment seat of Christ happen? Friend, we’re glad you’ve joined us today on Grace in Focus. This is the radio broadcast and podcast ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our national conference is coming up. Find out more about it at our website faithalone.org. Currently, we’re taking early bird registrations and first-time registrations. Early birds are discounted and first-timers register cost-free. Find out more details at our website faithalone.org. Now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Ken Yates.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right, Bob, we got a question that came up. I met a woman named Ruth. In a Bible study?
SPEAKER 01 :
In a Bible study I was in.
SPEAKER 03 :
And we were talking, well, first off, we were talking about 1 Thessalonians. And someone asked in the class, what does it mean in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, where it says in verse 10 that we wait for his son from heaven, even Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. And the question is, what was that wrath? That was a discussion we were having in the Sunday school class. And I mentioned, well, in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5, it’s talking about the rapture, and the wrath is talking about the tribulation period. And so Jesus will come and deliver us from this wrath that’s about to fall upon the earth during the tribulation period. And Ruth asked the question. She goes, you know, many, many years ago she had gone to Wheaton, and she had been told what I had basically said, that the rapture is going to occur before the tribulation period. So the rapture will occur before the tribulation period. But she said years later, after she’d gone to Wheaton, someone pointed out to her 2 Thessalonians 2, which says—this is her words— The rapture will not occur until the man of sin is revealed, or the one that most people call the Antichrist. And she goes, and I’d always been told that the man of sin is not going to be revealed until the middle of the tribulation period. Right? And so… Which would suggest that the rapture then would not occur… Until after he’s revealed. Until after the midpoint of the tribulation. So that could either be a mid-tribulation rapture… Or pre-wrath. Or the end of the tribulation. Yeah. And so… Post-trib rapture. Yeah. And so her point… Here was her conclusion. She said… So the way I look at it now, it really doesn’t matter. That’s what she said. She goes, you know, we just can’t. This was her words. We can’t figure that out. The rapture is going to occur. But maybe 2 Thessalonians 2 says that the church is going to go through at least half of it because that’s when he’s going to be revealed. He’s going to proclaim.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s 2 Thess 2 3.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, and let’s go ahead and read.
SPEAKER 02 :
And then I’ve got lots of comments here, Ken. I’m loaded for bear.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, so here is 2 Thessalonians 2. It starts off talking about verse 1, our gathering together with the Lord. Okay? Paul says, now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, that would be the rapture, our gathering together to him. Right. And Paul says, don’t want you to be worried about it. And then he says in verse three. Let no one deceive you by any means. Well, first off, in verse two, he says the day of the Lord or the day of Christ, which we’re going to talk about. And so is that talking about the rapture? Right. And then in verse three, let no one deceive you by any means for that day will not come now. Those words are in italics. It will not come unless the falling away comes first. And here it is. The man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all other gods. And she says the man of sin being revealed there, when he makes himself the one who’s going to make himself above all gods, that happens in the middle of the tribulation. The abomination of desolation. The abomination of desolation. So that was her question. So she says, I agree. In 1 Thessalonians, it seems to say he’s going to deliver us from the tribulation. We’re not going to go through the tribulation. But 2 Thessalonians 2, she said, seems to be saying, no, wait a second. We’re going to go at least through the first half of it. And then the Son of Man is revealed. And that’s when the day is going to happen, sometime after that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. So basically what some people do is they say the seven year time of Jacob’s trouble in the Old Testament or New Testament, the time of the tribulation, the wrath, it’s only three and a half years of wrath. Or the pre-wrath position is, we don’t know exactly how long, but it’s less than three and a half. It’s maybe two and a half years. Or maybe one. Two and a half or one, something. They don’t know exactly, but it’s just near the end. So we’ll go through part of it, but that won’t really be wrath. Now, if you’ve ever read the book of Revelation… you know that before you get to the abomination of desolation, there’s widespread death and destruction. There’s probably going to be billions of people dying in the first half of the tribulation. To say that’s not wrath is bizarre, in my opinion. One of the things I would point out is every chapter in 1 Thessalonians, Thessalonians 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, ends with a statement about the rapture. All of them. 1 Thessalonians 1.10, which says that we’re waiting for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. The wrath to come is the tribulation. And you see the same thing in every chapter. It’s at the end of chapter 2. You know, who is our hope, our joy, our crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his parousia, at his coming? He’s thinking here of the judgment seat of Christ. that the Thessalonians are going to bring him great joy. And the same thing at the ending of chapters 3, 4, and 5. In fact, look at 5.10 real quick. 5.10, I think, shows that salvation in 1 and 2 Thessalonians is salvation from the tribulation. It’s the rapture.
SPEAKER 01 :
We will rejoin in just a moment. But years ago, Zane Hodges wrote The Gospel Under Siege. Sadly, this is still true, and GES President Bob Wilkin has recently written its sequel. Bob’s new book, The Gospel Is Still Under Siege, is a book about theological clarity on the biblical teaching about eternal salvation. It is available now. Secure yours today at the Grace Evangelical Society’s bookstore. Find it at faithalone.org. That’s faithalone.org. Now back to today’s content.
SPEAKER 02 :
5.10, I think, shows that salvation in 1 and 2 Thessalonians is salvation from the tribulation. It’s the rapture. And Ruth agreed with that. She did?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, she said this is what she had always taught, but 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 3, throws her for a loop. She didn’t know how to answer it.
SPEAKER 02 :
All right, we’ll get there in a minute, but read verse 10, if you would. I’m sorry, 5.9.
SPEAKER 03 :
5.9, for God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER 02 :
so the salvation there is from the tribulation and the wrath there is the tribulation right so he hasn’t appointed us for that now if you’re going to argue that the tribulation the first half of the tribulation is not wrath then okay but it is all wrath all seven years yes it gets worse in the second half But it’s terrible in the first half as well. I should mention, by the way, that going over to 2 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians 2.2, the expression day of the Lord is in the critical text. Which is most of our English translations. Like the Net Bible, the New American Standard, the NIV, the Holman Christian Standard. All of those would read the day of the Lord.
SPEAKER 03 :
And they take the day of the Lord to be a reference to the tribulation.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. But the majority of manuscripts, which would follow the King James, the New King James, and I think it’s the modern English version, and there’s a few others, read the day of Christ here. Like I have the Hodges Forstead majority text here, and it reads the day of Christ, not the day of the Lord. I remember hearing Dr. Dick Mayhew speak on the day of the Lord at the pre-trip study group conference one year. And he was talking about the day of the Lord. And he said the day of the Lord appears in the Old Testament, appears in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, every time it happened, it would be a time of judgment upon Israel that resulted in blessings for Israel. Ultimately, the Gentile nations would be judged as well, and Israel would be blessed. And he said the same thing is true in the New Testament. It’s going to be judgment on Israel and the nations resulting in the blessing of Israel. And so the day of the Lord is going to result in the millennial kingdom. Israel being the dominant world power and Jerusalem being the world capital and that sort of thing. But he said the expression the day of Christ or the day of Jesus Christ or the day of the Lord Jesus, all those expressions refer to the judgment seat of Christ. That’s a big difference. Yeah, and I remember going to Zane Hodges on that Sunday, and I said, Zane, is that right? And he said, oh, everybody in dispensationalism knows that. Except you. Except me. So I remember saying to him, well, 1 Corinthians 5, 5, Paul says, I’ve delivered such a one over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh that his spirit might be saved in the day of Christ Jesus. You’re telling me that’s the judgment seat of Christ? Of course, Bob. What else could it be? And I said, well, what is the salvation there? He said, well, you know that salvation often refers to being made well, to being made healthy. The people he healed, he would say, your faith has made you well. That’s the word sozo. Your faith has saved you. So I said, so what does 1 Corinthians 5.5 mean? He says, well, it’s the destruction of his fleshly inclinations that his spirit might be healthy at the judgment seat of Christ. So he’s being disciplined by the Lord, right? Right. But for the purpose of restoration. Sure. And so that he would rule and reign with Christ in the life to come. He would be healthy at the judgment seat of Christ. So anyway, I think 2 Thessalonians 2 is talking about the judgment seat of Christ.
SPEAKER 03 :
And that changes everything, because what he’s saying is the judgment seat of Christ will not occur…
SPEAKER 02 :
Until the apostasy occurs, or the rapture, depending on how you understand the falling away, and the man of sin is revealed. So whether you take it the man of sin is revealed when he signs the covenant at the beginning of the tribulation, or whether you take it at the midpoint… Either way, the judgment seat of Christ doesn’t occur until after that. In my view, the judgment seat of Christ occurs after the tribulation, during the 75 days in between. Let me just give a quick summary. The Olympic Games just were in Paris, right, in 2024. Where did they give out the awards? At Paris. They didn’t give them out in Detroit. Right. They didn’t give out in Kiev, right? They gave them out where you did the actions. Same thing’s going to be true of the judgment seat of Christ. We serve the Lord here on earth. We’re going to be judged here on earth after the tribulation. It’ll be during those 75 days. The awards will be given out or rebuked for the negative consequences for believers who’ve been unfaithful. But either way, it’ll occur here on earth after. the tribulation so there’s really no problem ruth with second test two three saying because see these people were afraid that they’d missed out on the judgment and they were already in the tribulation or the tribulation was coming to an end or whatever the case may be but they’re thinking they’ve missed out on rewards too right because they’ve missed the day of christ well unless you take the view it’s day of the lord in which case now you’re saying i’m in the tribulation right
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, that was a great question, Ruth. This comes up in other Bible studies as well, so we hope this discussion at least gets you thinking. And until we meet again, keep grace in focus.
SPEAKER 01 :
We invite you to check out our Monday, Wednesday, and Friday five-minute YouTube videos at YouTube Grace Evangelical Society. You will love the content and learn a lot. Maybe you’ve got a question or comment or feedback. If so, please send us a message. Here’s our email address. It’s radio at faithalone.org. That’s radio at faithalone.org. Please make sure your question is as succinct and clear as possible. That would be a great big help. on our next episode, How to Answer Flat Earthers. Please join us for that. And until then, let’s keep grace in focus. The preceding has been a listener-supported ministry from the Grace Evangelical Society.
