Part X.1
KEPT FROM THE HOUR CHAPTER TEN
THE POSTTRIBULATION RAPTURE THEORY
It is never a pleasant task to refute favored beliefs held by those who are brethren in Christ, particularly men of like precious faith not only respecting the person and work of Christ but also concerning the fact and certainty of His premillennial return. While it is possible to fill a book with differences of opinion over the relation of the rapture to the Tribulation, it would not be difficult to fill many such with points of agreement as to the importance, certainty, and blessing of Christ’s return, the anticipation of rewarding and reigning, the task of the Church prior to the rapture, and the many other important features of our mutual premillennial faith. The points of disagreement are small indeed when compared with the widely divergent views of amillennialism, and premillennialists would do well to remember the basic unity which exists in spite of their differences. Nevertheless, it must also be remembered that the Bible does not teach two different systems of prophecy, nor three, nor four, and with vital issues at stake such as the hope and comfort of the Church, the intelligent believer will seek to learn “what saith the Lord” on these issues. The interpretation of an amazingly large segment of Scripture depends directly upon whether one accepts or rejects pretribulationalism.
Much of the first seven chapters has been given over to the defense of that viewpoint, or to the analysis of problems kindred to both the midtribulational and the posttribulational positions. In this chapter, several of the claims and problems peculiar to posttribulationalism will be discussed, with particular attention given to the viewpoint of its leading advocate.
I. POSTTRIBULATIONAL ATTITUDES AND METHODS A. Offensive Attitudes In any investigation where there is a sharp cleavage of opinion, there are always those who resort to unwise and intemperate language. Such has been the case with the issue at hand. However, anyone who reads widely in the literature of the four viewpoints involved will be forced to conclude that much of the harsh language and offensive attitudes stem from the posttribulational camp. Some of those who argue so strenuously that they must go through the Tribulation reflect in their writings an attitude of bravado, mingled with contempt for those who, either from ignorance or cowardice, do not share that conviction. Fromow, for instance, puts it this way: “We would lovingly ask, is there not a strain of weak-kneed, invertebrate, spineless sentiment in this idea of escaping tribulation?”[1] To Reese, pretribulationalists are “Darbyites,” who follow “the Rapture craze, fathered by theorists,” and whose views are held to be “supreme rubbish.”[2] Scruby, in his writings, seems not to give even the common courtesies of debate, but speaks (all on one page) of carrying “the war into the enemy’s country (Beard the lion in his den, so to speak) ... bring my guns to bear ... on these deceptive doctrines ... rank absurdities ... helpful in the fight against this latter-day delusion.”[3] Certainly, this is not the way to convince the brethren of their love, and fortunately, all posttribulationalists are not as picric. The book which has come to the fore as the most outspoken attack upon the pretribulational position is a large volume by Alexander Reese entitled The Approaching Advent of Christ. The title is somewhat misleading, for instead of giving a well-ordered, helpful analysis of the doctrine of the second advent, it is a sharp and unveiled attack upon the writings of Darby and the dispensational school, concerning itself primarily with the supposed merits of posttribulationalism over pretribulationalism. Lest the convictions of the present writer be thought to dominate at this point, here is a part of the analysis of Hogg and Vine, conservative British commentators: The book, issued by Marshall, Morgan & Scott, London, 1937, owes its bulk not to the variety or abundance of its matter, nor to the necessities of its argument. If its attacks upon the character and competence of teachers, all of them God-fearing men, who sought to live honestly and to write sincerely, and many of whom were at least as competent and as well furnished as Mr. Reese himself, were eliminated, the size of the volume would have been considerably reduced and its general atmosphere sweetened. Erudite-seeming, lengthy, and irrelevant quotations could have been omitted with the same advantage.... He gives large space to modern translations of the New Testament.... The paraphrasists become not translators but interpreters of Scripture. Their readers should always bear this in mind. Wade, for example, p. 128, paraphrases Titus 2:13 thus: “Looking forward to the hope (so fraught with happiness) of witnessing the Manifestation.” Mr. Reese calls this a “translation,” which it assuredly is not. It may be “idiomatic,” but it is not what Paul said. The Christian does not look forward to being a spectator of “the appearing of the glory,” but to being a sharer in it, according to Romans 8:19; Romans 8:29 and Colossians 3:3-4.[4] This introduces something of the type of argument used in the book, but of the objectionable attitude which prevails throughout, Hogg and Vine continue:
I have just been reading, in a secular Review, of “the courtesies of debate” observed in the world, but these have escaped the notice of Mr. Reese.... Mr. Reese does not seem to have made up his mind whether those whom he attacks so trenchantly are fools, or only knaves; his language, indeed, frequently suggests that they are both! Here are some things he says about them, taken at random as the pages are turned: They are guilty of “aggressive sophistry and fantastic exegesis,” and of “paltry reasoning.” They prefer “any rubbish to the true and obvious explanation” of a passage, and they “wrest the Scriptures.” Their preference for the line of teaching they favor is “no longer a question of exegesis.... It is simply a question of ethics.... Have we the right moral disposition toward the truth, or will we still cling to error ... shall we act against the truth or for the truth?” (This, on p. 244, causes the balance to dip rather toward the knave theory!) They are not God-fearing readers of the Bible, but “theorists,” “showing little acquaintance with great exegesis.” Their teaching is “consistent and ludicrous” in its “absurdity.” Its effect is to blight “Bible study and Christian fellowship all over the world.” “It has cursed the (Brethren) movement from the beginning.” “They wrote their errors on their broad phylacteries.” (For the significance of this grave judgment reference must be made to Matthew 23:5 and its context.) They “are misguided and misleading teachers.” ... The list is not exhausted, but let this suffice.[5]
Reese follows the objectional practice of attacking, not ideas, nor conclusions, but individuals, characterizing the men of God with whom he cannot agree as Sadducees and Darbyists! In one section, he says:
I must leave to another place William Kelly’s contortions of exegesis on the nature of the Great Tribulation, put forth with studied offensiveness in his two books on the Second Coming. His statement, as miserable as it is inexact. ...[6] But even if the Apostle had mentioned a Rapture at 2 Thess. i. 7, Darbyists would arrange three shifts to get rid of it. This is not cruel or churlish, but the plain fact.[7] The reader will have to judge if these statements are “cruel or churlish,” or if Reese, in his denunciations, manifests the fruit of the Spirit which is (to quote Reese’s favorite translator, Moffatt) “good temper, kindliness, generosity” (Galatians 5:22). Indeed, if in dealing with his fellow brethren, a man fails to manifest such fruit of the Spirit, including as it does love, longsuffering, gentleness, and self-control, is he to be trusted as one who is Spirit-taught in the understanding of things to come? (John 16:13). It is one thing to rebuke false doctrine. It is entirely another to whip the brethren.
B. Questionable Methods
Many undesirable methods could be mentioned, but three or four will suffice. One of these is to imply that those who expect a pretribulation rapture are unqualified to judge, are of inferior intellect, and are unacquainted with the truly great literature in the field. Those of posttribulational persuasion, however, are among the greatest of exegetes! Reese expresses an attitude of mock humility when he says: “I have refrained from giving a bibliography; a long list of learned works is apt to convey the impression that the author is a scholar or a theologian; as I am neither I have omitted it.”[8] He then goes on to spoil all this by speaking with all the dogmatism of a pope, and by concluding the book with page after page of authors and publications either referred to or quoted.[9] Some of the authors examined reveal that for them, posttribulationalism became a lifetime hobby, conducted along the line of a proselyting campaign - making converts, and always insisting that leading pretribulationalists saw the light just before they died. Scruby obviously spent the better part of his time making converts for posttribulationalism. Reese speaks in his Preface of a friend who maintained an interest in the venture of his own book for over twenty years prior to publication. Of Cameron, Newell writes:
Robert Cameron, of Watchword and Truth, whose later life was largely a proselyting campaign for post-tribulationalism, used to claim that Dr. Brookes, of St. Louis, had given up this hope “before he died, in an interview with him!” But both the last books and the later associates of Dr. Brookes deny this. Others claimed that Prof. W. G. Moorehead gave it up, etc., etc. Someone told me that R. A. Torrey weakened. I challenged him. He could produce no proof whatever! Mrs. Torrey, when told that a Canadian magazine had claimed that her husband had given up the hope of Christ’s coming for the whole Church, was much distressed, and wrote the editor to publish her denial of such a false report.[10]
Much capital has been made of the fact that the revered George Muller of Bristol, misled by the mistranslation above alluded to [“day of Christ” in 2 Thessalonians 2:2, instead of “day of the Lord”] declared his belief that the Church would go through the Great Tribulation. He is quoted by Mr. Scruby as one of his witnesses [as also by Reese, Cameron, Fraser, et al.]. What was the result of this unfortunate mistake of beloved George Muller? I speak now from personal knowledge. The truth of the coming of the Lord was tabooed at Bethesda, where I was brought up, and was for many years a member and most regular attendant at the services. But I never once heard Mr. Muller or any other preacher say that they believed the Church would go through the Great Tribulation. And what is more, long after I had left Bristol Mr. Muller at the last conference at which he spoke said plainly that he believed the Lord might come at any moment.... Mr. Muller evidently changed his opinion a second time, which he would do, for he “could do nothing knowingly against the Truth.”
C. H. Spurgeon is another of Mr. Scruby’s [and Reese’s, etc.] supposed supporters. That mighty man of valor was not ashamed to confess publicly that he once believed the Lord would not return till the world was converted, but that he came to see that this could not be done in “an eternity and a half.” Mr. Spurgeon did not then believe the Lord would come before the Tribulation, but I heard Mr. Spurgeon at the Tabernacle not long before he died. It was at a conference on the coming of the Lord. Other speakers were Dr. Alexander Maclaren and Dr. John McNeill, and the impression left on my mind in the absence of any statement to the contrary was that all the speakers believed in the imminent coming of the Lord without any premonitary signs or the revelation of Antichrist. These facts show how futile it is to rest our faith on what great men may have believed. The greater the man the more ready he will be to revise his conclusions if he receives fresh light from the Word of God.[11] This latter quotation comes from the pen of F. W. Pitt, who indicates that he was taught the posttribulation rapture position from my youth up,” but who said, after carefully examining the Scriptures for himself: “When I saw these things I did not have to give up ‘Post-Tribulation Rapturism,’ it melted away.”[12] Yet posttribulationalists often argue that those who believe the pretribulational doctrine do so only because they are taught it, and that most of the “great men” finally see the light.
More objectional than this is the method resorted to of bending facts to suit the posttribulational fancy. Miles writes of Reese’s book:
I ... opened the book in a spirit of expectancy. The first hundred pages or so filled me with astonishment. It is almost incredible that any considerable number of Christians could believe in the fantastic and grotesque theories dealt with. They seemed to me to be so many ‘Aunt Sallies’ set up to be skittled down. ... The writer is so thorough that it comes as a shock to find him confusing things that differ and bending things to suit his case while engaged in criticizing others for doing the same, which certainly many have done.[13]
Pollock, who gives this citation, goes on to say: “We think it is a pity to have raked up so many silly fantastic opinions of this writer and that. It appears to us very like the trick of the lawyer with a bad case, who, to make up his deficiency, resorts to abusing the other side.”[14]
Such inconsistencies abound in the book. Everywhere, pretribulationalism is criticized as something newand novel, but when it comes to the pretribulational view on the twenty-four elders, “The old interpretation is abandoned, except by those who need it as a prop to an edifice reared on insecure foundations.”[15] Extreme positions are dismissed, and preference is given to Darby, with his own peculiar views, on the one hand, or to Bullinger, who muddies the waters with hyper-dispensationalism and “two church” theories, on the other. Yet when exigencies arise, both Darby and Bullinger (attacked so vigorously on other issues) may be appealed to when they can be used to prove a point. On page 71, Reese writes of “the wild dispensational theories of Dr. Bullinger,” yet, when it comes to the elders: “Bullinger, also, I believe, gives the true interpretation ... from his commentary on the Apocalypse.”[16] On page 123, “happily, it is only an odd expositor like Bullinger who deprives Christians of the Epistle to the Hebrews,” yet on pages 59, 295, etc., Bullinger again becomes the authority, or else the views of Moffatt, who is a liberal. Dalman, also, who sees Christ on earth as “merely a man,”[17]is cited with approval. Of this business of attacking extreme views and citing “off brand” authors, Pitt writes in the Advent Witness:
We find that Mr. Reese not only sets one side against the other but chooses the authors who shall engage in the controversy, and selects from their writings such passages as suits his purpose. Torn thus from their context the Darbyists are made to say what Mr. Reese wants them to say and no more or less, while the anti-Darbyists without regard to the subject in question are called upon to express their views on the different side issues which shore up the main proposition. This is like playing a game of chess with yourself. IF you are white you move black into positions where you know you can beat him.[18]
Certainly the large number of authorities that Mr. Reese quotes is astonishing. One would rather that he had expounded Scripture in such a clear way as to carry conviction of the truth. To come to an understanding of what Scripture says by depending on what others say is rather a weak way of arriving at the truth, and certainly beset with peril.[19]
One more objectional method should be noted before passing on to more constructive matters. Reese makes the statement: “Darbyist advocates ... smooth over a thousand difficulties in their programme of the prophetic future by judiciously keeping silent on inconvenient texts, and hoping for the best.”[20] Reese rather notoriously falls into the same condemnation, picking and choosing what is convenient and letting the rest go by. For example, he admits that John 14:3 is one of the three leading texts on the rapture, but where in his voluminous treatment of other matters does he give the verse anything more than a passing mention? Certainly, the fact that when Christ comes He will take His own to be with Himself, where many mansions are being prepared, does not forward the argument of those who say that the rapture is only an incident in the downward sweep of a returning and wrathful King.
Similar is the tendency to attack the non-representative positions, all the while dismissing main issues. An illustration of this is the adoption of Darby’s position on the coming and the appearingand on the Day of the Lord as the norm for pretribulationalism, while completely dismissing the more acceptable interpretation of other Brethren leaders, Hogg and Vine, whose position on these matters completely avoids both the attack and the conclusions drawn by Reese.[21] For one who would study Reese’s volume, it is important that these methods be kept in mind, for to do so goes a long way toward answering his arguments and takes the sting out of many of his rebukes. To note the approach and method a man uses is particularly important when his work is voluminous, for it is manifestly impossible to answer all arguments point for point and line for line without making the rebuttal as lengthy as the original document.
II. The Historical Problem
Chief among posttribulational arguments is the contention that anything else is new and novel, and that pretribulationalism in particular did not come into existence until about the year 1830. Although embodying the doubtful value of an “argument from silence,” the charge is thought to be an unanswerable one and is pressed to the limit.
Pretribulationalism has been variously attributed to the writings of Edward Irving, to the utterances of a woman-prophet in a trance, to the writings of Darby and his associates, to a godly clergyman named Tweedy, and ultimately to the Devil himself! The following quotations illustrate the general tenor of posttribulational claims:
These views, which began to be propagated a little over one hundred years ago in the separatist movements of Edward Irving and J. N. Darby, have spread to the remotest corners of the earth.[22]
About 1830, however, a new school arose within the fold of Pre-millennialism that sought to overthrow what, since the Apostolic Age, have been considered by all pre-millennialists as established results, and to institute in their place a series of doctrines that have never been heard of before. The school I refer to is that of “The Brethren” or “Plymouth Brethren,” founded by J. N. Darby.[23]
Darby, the author of a new programme of the End - a secret, pre-tribulation Parousia, followed by the rise of Antichrist. ...[24]
Darby ... sponsored a doctrine of a secret, pre-tribulation Rapture, brought from the West Indies by a godly clergyman. [Mr. Reese has difficulty making up his mind who authored the doctrine, and in which hemisphere!][25]
I am not aware that there was any definite teaching that there would be a secret rapture of the Church at a secret coming, until this was given forth as an “utterance” in Mr. Irving’s Church.[26] The theory that “the great tribulation comes after the rapture,” is not taught in the Bible. It is traceable to the Irvingites and the Plymouth Brethren, with whom it is quite definitely shown to have originated about the year 1830. It is said to have been first suggested by Mary McDonald, an Irvingite woman, supposed to be speaking in an “unknown tongue,” which was interpreted that: “The Church will not go through the tribulation.”[27]
It remained for a nineteenth-century “Irvingite” woman to introduce the flesh-pleasing doctrine, and that at a time when Irvingism admittedly had begun to corrupt. And the “weak” “flesh” causes the vast majority of Pre-Millennialists to hold that doctrine today, although they reject almost all else that the Irvingites taught.[28]
Indeed, no one, in all Christian History from the Apostles to Edward Irving, ever heard any other view (i.e., than that the true Church has no hope of the Lord’s Coming at any moment, but must remain on earth during the time of the Great Tribulation). Such a thing is not even hinted at as a possibility until the women-prophets of Irving’s assembly gave it out in those awful days of demoniac delusion. [Italics in the original citation.][29]
Here then is the alleged origin of pretribulationalism: either Darby, or Irving, or Tweedy, or Margaret McDonald, or Satan. It originated in both Great Britain and the West Indies. It was produced because of craven cowardice, to please the flesh, and ultimately, because of demonic delusion. Reese concludes that “the secret, pre-tribulation Rapture is a Gentile conceit of the nineteenth century,”[30]but even he is outdone by another who speaks extravagantly of “the Scripture wresting, God insulting, Christ dishonoring, saint-deceiving doctrine of Pre-Tribulation Rapturism.”[31] Nor is this the worse example of posttribulational bitterness, but let it suffice. The point is that pretribulationalism is looked upon as a new and novel doctrine, with “no hint of such a belief ... from Polycarp down ... never taught by a Father or Doctor of the Church in the past ... without a friend, even ... amongst the orthodox teachers or the heretical sects of Christendom - such a fatherless and motherless doctrine ...”[32] What, then, is there to say in answer to such claims?
(1) At the very best, all of this is an argument from silence, the absence of a record never proving the absence of a belief. There have been times in history when even the most cardinal doctrines of Christianity have been obscured by ignorance or ecclesiasticism. Were the great reformation doctrines recovered by Luther and Calvin, such as justification by faith alone, “new and novel,” just because they had for centuries been in obscurity?
(2) As it is has been demonstrated in chapter 6, the early church lived in expectation of the imminent return of Christ. They viewed his coming as a momentary possibility - so much so that some had left their work, and all had to be exhorted to patience. They were disturbed by the false report that the Day of the Lord had already come, hardly the attitude of men who view the Tribulation as the prelude to Christ’s coming. In a word, the soon coming of Christ was the hope and expectation of the early church, which would never have been the case if they first expected the Tribulation and Antichrist, if not the certainty of a martyr’s death. In this connection, Anderson writes:
It is a fact of great significance that the Coming of the Lord is never mentioned in the Epistles of the New Testament save in an incidental manner - never once as a doctrine that needed to be expounded, but only and always as a truth with which every Christian was supposed to be familiar.... The fact is clear then, that in Apostolic times the converts were taught to expect the Lord’s return.[33]
(3) It can likewise be demonstrated that, although the advanced details of a pretribulational theology are not found in the ancient church Fathers, belief in an imminent return was widely held, and if imminent, then pretribulational. Belief in the soon coming of the Lord Jesus Christ was standard doctrine in the Church throughout the first three centuries. Almost any church historian will grant that “the early Fathers lived in expectation of our Lord’s speedy return,”[34]although there is not too much clear reference in the writing of the Fathers to the Tribulation itself.
According to Moffatt [Expositor’s Greek Testament, on Revelation 3:10], “Rabbinic piety ... expected exemption from the tribulation of the latter days only for those who were absorbed in good works and in sacred studies.” Thus there was a Jewish background for the expectation that some men would not pass through the Tribulation. When we come to the early Fathers we find an almost total silence as to the Tribulation period. They abundantly testify to the fact of tribulations, but they say little about the future period called by preeminence The Tribulation. This fact should cause us no perplexity. These writers lived during the second and third centuries, and we all know that those were the centuries of the great Roman persecutions. The Church was passing through sore trials, and it did not much concern itself with the question of the Tribulation yet to come.... Silver says concerning the Apostolic Fathers, that “they expected the return of the Lord in their day.... By tradition they knew the faith of the Apostles. They taught the doctrine of the imminent and premillennial return of the Lord.”[35]
It is not necessary to enter into a detailed analysis of the belief of the early church Fathers pertaining to the coming of Christ. There is an abundant literature to prove that they were almost without exception premillennial, down to the end of the third century. There is also sufficient evidence to prove that many of them held the coming of Christ to be an imminent event, as seen in the following quotations.
Clement of Rome, undoubtedly a fellow-laborer with Paul as indicated by Php 4:3, wrote in his First Epistle to the Corinthians (about 95 a.d.):
Ye see how in a little while the fruit of the trees come to maturity. Of a truth, soon and suddenly shall His will be accomplished, as the Scriptures also bear witness, saying, “Speedily will He come, and will not tarry”; and “The Lord shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Holy One, for whom ye look.”[36] Again, in his Second Epistle:
If therefore we shall do what is just in the sight of God, we shall enter into His kingdom, and shall receive the promises, which neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man. Wherefore, let us every hour expect the kingdom of God in love and righteousness, because we know not the day of the Lord’s appearing.[37] We read in the Didache, dated about 100 a.d.:
Watch for your life’s sake. Let not your lamps be quenched, nor your loins unloosed; but be ye ready, for ye know not the hour in which our Lord cometh.[38] [The post-communion prayer in the Didacheends with “Maranatha - The Lord Cometh.”] Of special interest is a passage taken from The Shepherd of Hermas, written about 100-120 a.d., and thought by many to be the person mentioned by Paul in Romans 16:14. In a vision, Hermas was told:
You have escaped from the great tribulation on account of your faith, and because you did not doubt in the presence of the beast.... Go, therefore, and tell the elect of the Lord His might deeds, and say to them that this beast is a type of the great tribulation that is coming. If ye then prepare yourselves, and repent with all your heart, and turn to the Lord, it will be possible for you to escape it, if your heart be pure and spotless, and ye spend the rest of your lives serving the Lord blamelessly.[39]
Lest it be asserted that all the passage teaches is the hope of preservation inTribulation, let it be noted that according to the dialogue only the “double-minded” enter the Tribulation that they might be purified. Hermas, who “opened (his) heart to the Lord, believing that salvation can be found through nothing save through the great and glorious name,” completely escaped the beast and “passed it by.” The Greek word used throughout (ekphugo, to escape) is very explicit, as a careful comparison with its New Testament usage will confirm. It does not speak of patient endurance in tribulation, but of complete exemption from the judgment of God (Luke 21:36; Romans 2:3; Hebrews 2:3; 1 Thessalonians 5:3). Moreover, the maiden of the vision herself typifies the Church, as expressly stated. She is “adorned as if coming forth from the bridal chamber,” hardly the description of one locked in dread encounter with the beast!
While pretribulationalists get their doctrine directly from the Bible and not from early Christian writers such as Hermas, this passage direct from the turn of the first century completely voids the argument that the concept of escaping the Tribulation is something “new and novel,” originating with Darby and Tweedy, etc.
Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, who flourished as a writer 220-250 a.d., declared:
It were a self-contradictory and incompatible thing for us, who pray that the kingdom of God may quickly come, to be looking for a long life here below.... Let us ever in anxiety and cautiousness be waiting the second coming of the Lord, for as those things which were foretold are come to pass, so those things will follow which are yet promised; the Lord Himself giving assurance and saying, “When you see all these things come to pass, know that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.[40]
Similar passages might readily be cited form other writers of this period. Although the fathers were not always consistent in their views, it is apparent that not a few of them looked upon the return of Christ as imminent, expressing a definite conviction that the Church may escape the Great Tribulation. As for the testimony of the apostles themselves, their belief in the imminency of Christ’s coming shines forth from nearly every book of the New Testament. To reiterate, a belief in imminency implies a belief that the rapture will precede the Tribulation; this fact is further attested by the bitter attack which posttribulationalism has launched upon the very idea of an imminent return. In the light of such evidence from the early church and from representative Apostolic and Ante-Nicene Fathers, it can hardly be sustained that pretribulational beliefs “are new and novel, and have never been heard of in the whole history of the Christian Church since the Apostolic Age.”[41]
(4) Cameron himself suggests a logical solution why the doctrine of a pretribulational return apparently started about the year 1830. While he claims that no mention of this doctrine is found “from the first century until a.d. 1830,”[42]he notes a little later that “the doctrine of the Lord’s Coming was recoveredabout ninety years ago.”[43] Now, ninety years before the publication of Cameron’s book in 1922 takes us right back to the date he sets for the first mention of posttribulationalism. In other words, up until the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the entire doctrineof the Lord’s return had been obscure, if not almost lost to the Church. The Brethren and other godly men of that period were used of the Lord to restore to the Church the whole truth of the second coming of Christ, and when that truth was restored it was pretribulational! For centuries, prophetic study had been in disrepute. During the time of Roman ascendancy even justification by faith was almost lost and had to be recovered. The Reformers, occupied as they were with the cardinal issues of the gospel, largely carried over a Romish amillennial eschatology, and when the doctrine of the second coming was finally restored, pretribulational distinctions shared in the restoration.
(5) One more important fact must be noted, for it helps to explain the resurgence of interest in prophecy which has marked the course of the last century. Early centuries were occupied primarily with Bibliology and Theology Proper: the problems of inspiration and canonicity, the deity of Christ and the relationship of His two natures, and kindred problems. Later centuries debated Angelology. At the time of the Reformation, the primary issue was Soteriology. Then followed the rise of the great denominations, the chief issues of which fell largely in the area of Ecclesiology.
During these past nineteen centuries, there has been a progressive refinement of the details of Christian theology, but not until the last one hundred years has Eschatology come to the front to receive the major attention and scrutiny of foremost Bible scholars. It is not that the doctrine of Christ’s coming, or any of its special features, is new or novel, but that the doctrine has finally come into the place of prominence it rightfully deserves. With that prominence there has become a greater discernment of prophetic detail. A distant mountain range, upon closer inspection may turn out to be two distinct ranges with a great valley lying between. Even so, a general view of the second coming may reveal one united event, but upon closer scrutiny, two separate aspects may be seen. This progressive attention to and refinement of Christian doctrine satisfactorily explains the lack of emphasis prior to the nineteenth century upon anything but the most obvious outline of prophecy. James Orr, in his Progress of Dogma, may well be quoted to sustain this thesis: Has it ever struck you ... what a singular parallelthere is between the historical course of dogma, on the one hand, and the scientific order of the text-books on systematic theology on the other? The history of dogma, as you speedily discover is simply the system of theology spread out through the centuries - theology as Plato would say, “writ large” - and this not only as regards its general subject-matter, but even as respects the definite succession of its parts.... If now, planting yourself at the close of the Apostolic Age, you cast your eye down the course of the succeeding centuries, you find, taking as an easy guide the great historical controversies of the Church, that what you have is simply the projection of this logical system on a vast temporal screen.... One thing, I think, it shows unmistakably, viz., that neither arrangement is arbitrary - that there is law and reason underlying it; and another thing which forces itself upon us is, that the law of these two developments - the logical and the historical - is the same.
. . . Using, then, the controversies which impelled the Church in the formation of its creed as a guiding clue, mark, in a rapid survey, the exactitude of the parallel. The second century in the history of the Church - what was that? The age of Apologetics and of the vindication of the fundamental ideas of all religion - of the Christian especially - in conflict with Paganism and with the Gnostics.
. . . We pass to the next stage in the development, and what do we find there? Just what comes next in the theological system - Theology Proper- the Christian doctrine of God, and specially the doctrine of the Trinity. This period is covered by the Monarchian, Arian, and Macedonian controversies of the third and fourth centuries.
. . . What comes next? As in the logical system theology is succeeded by Anthropology, so in the history of dogma the controversies I have named are followed in the beginning of the fifth century by the Augustinianand Pelagian controversies, in which ... the centre of interest shifts from God to man.
. . . From the time of Augustine’s death we see the Church entering on that long and distracting series of controversies known as Christological - Nestorian, Eutychian, Monophysite, Monthelite- which kept it in continual ferment, and rent it with the most un-Christlike passions during the fifth and sixth, on even till near the end of the seventh, centuries.
. . . Theology, Anthropology, Christology had each had its day - in the order of the theological system, which the history still carefully follows, it was now the turn of Soteriology ... the next step, that taken by the Reformers in the development of the doctrine of the Application of Redemption. This, as we saw, is the next great division in the theological system. ...
What now shall I say of the remaining branch of the theological system, the Eschatological? An Eschatology, indeed, there was in the early Church, but it was not theologically conceived; and a Mythical Eschatology there was in the Mediaeval Church - an Eschatology of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory ... but the Reformation swept this away, and, with its sharply contrasted states of bliss and woe, can hardly be said [note] to have put anything in its place, or even to have faced very distinctly the difficulties of the problem....
Probably I am not mistaken in thinking that, besides the necessary revision of the theological system as a whole, which could not properly be undertaken till the historical development I have sketched had run its course, the modern mind has given itself with special earnestness to eschatological questions, moved thereto, perhaps, by the solemn impression that on it the ends of the world have come, and that some great crisis in the history of human affairs is approaching.
. . . I am very far from disputing that there is still room for fresh developments in theology.... I do not question, therefore, that there are still sides and aspects of divine truth to which full justice has not be accorded.... All I am contending for is, that such a development shall be a development within Christianity and not away from it.[44]
Posttribulationalists should have seen this progress in doctrinal study as the logical solution to the problem they have raised, even though they missed the concept of imminency in the early church and the writings of the Fathers. Even Reese admits: “Darby had his place in causing fresh light to break forth from God’s Word.... And the great work goes on: fresh light always breaking from God’s Word, in all sections of the Church.”[45]
If God used Darby and his associates to restore to the Church doctrines long obscure and neglected, his name should be remembered with gratitude and not profaned as the originator of a twentieth century heresy. In this whole matter concerning the history of the imminent, pretribulational return of Jesus Christ, there is little by way of factual support or by way of attitudes taken to commend the writers from the posttribulational school.