THE 2 THESSALONIANS 2 PROBLEM - 7 Pretrib Problems and the Prewrath Rapture

[Music] now concerning the coming of our lord jesus christ and are being gathered together to him we ask you brothers not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed either by a spirit or a spoken word or a letter seeming to be from us to the effect that the day of the lord has come let no one deceive you in any way for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed the son of destruction who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple of god proclaiming himself to be god second thessalonians 2 verses 1 to 4. the most problematic passage for pre-tribulationists 2 thessalonians chapter 2. 2 thessalonians was written by the apostle paul in part to refute a false teaching circulating at the time that the thessalonians had missed the rapture and were in the day of the lord paul's message to the thessalonians was very simple he told them not to worry they had not missed the rapture and were therefore not in the day of the lord and so the way he disabuses the thessalonians from that notion is he says certain things have to happen first and those things were the apostasy and the revelation of the man of lawlessness that is the antichrist what we would call the antichrist there are two main reasons why this is a problem for the pre-tribulationists the first is that as we have seen pre-tribbers maintain that there are no events that must occur before the rapture and here paul blatantly says there are two events that must occur first the rebellion sometimes translated as apostasy and the revealing of the man of lawlessness if paul had taught pre-tribulationism his simplest answer would be no the rapture hasn't occurred yet instead of no there are certain things that have to happen first and as soon as you say there are certain things that have to happen first you've undermined pre-tribulationism so pre-tribulationists have a very difficult time in my opinion uh making 2 thessalonians 2 fit with their their thinking 2nd thessalonians 2 poses the greatest problem for the pre-trip position or certainly is one of the greatest problem passages for the pre-trip position because paul does exactly what the majority of pre-tribbers say does not occur and that is he gives us a list a chronology of events uh specifically connected to the rapture we know that paul was teaching that these two events would occur before the day of the lord in part because he uses the specific greek word proton or protoss which is often translated first and is specifically used here to describe when these two events would take place in relationship to the day of the lord in the greek the greek is very specific it uses the term protos and it means before or first so paul here is teaching explicitly that two events have to happen before the day of the lord yeah the fact that paul says these things must happen first is important he doesn't just say these things must happen but these must happen first the second problem for pre-tribulationists is that at least one of the precursors mentioned here the revealing of the man of lawlessness is an event that takes place at the midpoint of the seven year period and most significantly this revealing of the man of lawlessness which paul describes in saying he will set himself up in god's temple proclaiming himself to be god which places the revealing of the antichrist at the midpoint so the coming of our lord and our being gathered to him cannot occur until after the midpoint of the 70th week take a look at this chart detailing the views of five prominent pre-tribulationists about 2nd thessalonians 2 and you get a sense that they have fundamentally different often mutually exclusive ways of explaining this section of scripture but despite this confusion there are some pre-trib arguments about 2 thessalonians 2 that are more common than others for example the most common way that pre-tribulationists deal with this is to say that paul did not actually mean that these two events would happen before the day of the lord rather he meant that these two events will happen during or be features of the day of the lord for example in his commentary david guzik says of this problem paul will not describe events which must precede the rapture but events that are concrete evidence of the day of the lord they are saying that paul wasn't saying these two events would come before the day of the lord rather paul was just naming things that happen during the day of the lord despite this denial that paul meant these things would happen before the day of the lord being one of the most common ways pre-tribulationists deal with this problem pre-tribulationists never seem to explain why they feel it's okay to ignore the grammar of this passage such as the greek word proton which means that these two events must come before the day of the lord you can confirm this by looking at other places in the new testament where the same greek construction occurs the same conditional word aeon may paired with proton always means one thing comes before the other our law doesn't condemn a man unless aeon may it first protan hears from him and learns what he is doing does it another example of the same construction is in mark 3 verse 27 but no one can enter a strong man's house to plunder his property unless aeon may he first protan ties up the strong man then tate indeed the house can be plundered mark 3 verse 27 these two examples that share the same greek construction with 2 thessalonians 2 verse 3 confirm that the correct reading here is that before the day of the lord begins two events must happen first the rebellion and the revelation of the man of lawlessness so at the end of the day with all these interpretations the 800 pound gorilla is the word protos another popular way that pre-tribulationists try to deal with 2 thessalonians 2 relates to the word rebellion sometimes translated as falling away or apostasy in verse 3 it is one of the two things that are supposed to happen before the day of the lord this is usually understood to mean a falling away from the faith that is christians apostatizing or leaving the faith of christianity recently some pre-tribulationists have put forward the idea that the word behind this word rebellion apostasia in the greek means the rapture the idea is that paul was teaching that the rapture would happen first and then the man of lawlessness would be revealed this is usually done to preserve the all-important pre-trib doctrine of imminence that no events can come before the rapture but in second thessalonians they come to this text they got real problems they know it's difficult they know it poses a great problem for their position and so what do they do they take a word apostasy say aha this word is referring to the rapture the falling away the taking away of the believers on the earth this interpretation has two serious problems the first is the complete lack of any evidence that the word apostasia can mean the rapture and the second is that such an interpretation would mean that paul is making a nonsensical and utterly useless point in this passage pre-tribulationists claim that the apostasia can mean the rapture because the word is sometimes translated in early english bibles like the tyndale and geneva bibles as the english word depart they would say that if the word can mean depart in english it might also be a reference to the rapture where believers will depart the earth the problem is that the word is never used that way when the early english bibles used the english word depart to define apostasia they meant it to be understood in a non-spatial sense as in he departed from the faith or he departed from sound doctrine the word is never used to describe physical departure as in he departed from his house or as in our case he departed from the earth it always means a non-physical departure such as for example a political rebellion or a an apostasy from the faith the word is used five other times in the bible and each time it's used in a political or religious sense never in a physical sense even if you expanded your search to include all of the secular writings in koine greek you wouldn't find the word used in a spatial or physical sense show me a historical reference where this word is used that way any writing any historical writings 200 years before the new testament 200 years after the new testament in defense of this view some pre-tribbers will go so far as to committing the so-called root fallacy what they will do is say that the root for apostasia which is probably the greek word ephistemy can mean a physical departure this method of interpretation is universally rejected by greek scholars because it's not a reliable way to determine the definition of words to give you an example from english the root word for nice in latin actually means to be ignorant but no one thinks that the sentence john is nice has anything to do with john being ignorant bringing up the root of apostasia is a desperate attempt to defend a particularly bad theory the second reason this argument makes no sense is that if the word apostasia means the rapture then paul's argument to the thessalonians is essentially that the rapture can't happen until the rapture happens the fatal problem with this is paul says that these things happen before the coming of our lord and are being gathered to him which is the rapture and so it is illogical to say that the rapture must occur before the rapture occurs what it's doing is making paul say that well the rapture can't come before the rapture to their credit this apostasia is the same thing as the rapture theory is openly rejected by the vast majority of pre-trib scholars even their own scholars such as paul feinberg and john walvoord two of the most esteemed pre-tribulational scholars have completely rejected this interpretation uh they haven't even convinced all pre-tribulationists of this who argue that the apostasy in greek hay apostasia means the rapture by that paul means the rapture that's a very difficult case to make if not an impossible case to make some pre-tribulationists who don't want to play the kind of games with the text we just saw will actually agree that paul wrote that the apostasy and the revealing of the man of lawlessness will occur first or before the day of the lord take for example john wolverd and john macarthur both men in their commentaries tell their readers that the two events the rebellion and the revealing of the antichrist would occur before the day of the lord which of course we agree with but for them it's a very odd thing to say since in other places they teach that the day of the lord is a seven year period which is immediately preceded by the rapture and since both men also agree that the revealing of the man of lawlessness in verse 3 is a reference to the abomination of desolation which happens at the midpoint they are essentially saying that something which they know happens at the midpoint occurs before the day of the lord the obvious result is that the day of the lord can't be the seven year model that they teach in other places the rapture must start sometime after the midpoint this massive contradiction is not brought up or explained in either of their commentaries astute viewers have already noticed another contradiction which is how can they teach that these two events occur before the day of the lord but not before the rapture since like most pre-tribulationists they teach that the day of the lord occurs immediately after the rapture with no significant gap between the rapture and the day of the lord in other words since neither walvord or macarthur are rapture gap theorists in their view if something is before the day of the lord it is necessarily before the rapture as well so why are they essentially teaching here what they certainly don't agree with in other teachings that there are events before the rapture it's not clear as i said they don't mention these serious contradictions in their commentaries this could be called the forgetful paul view because in their commentaries and sermons they will correctly teach that in verse 1 the words coming and gathering are in fact references to the rapture this is not a debate among pre-trib or pre-wrathless pre-tribs and pre-wrathers agree that this reference the gathering to be with him in in second thessalonians chapter two verse one uh is the rapture but they will go through the rest of their commentaries talking about these two precursors to the day of the lord as if they are only precursors to the day of the lord as if they have nothing to do with the rapture it's as if paul forgot to talk about the rapture even though he said that was specifically what he was going to talk about in this section he says now regarding the arrival of our lord jesus christ and our being gathered to him let me just stop there well paul hasn't made any connections here he's just saying now i'm going to talk about this now isn't it sort of odd if he says now i'm going to talk about the rapture and the parousia and then he doesn't mention it ever again well he actually does he's um he's unpacking what it means the day of the lord pre-wrath solves this problem by understanding that these two events will occur before the rapture and before the day of the lord and that paul is using both concepts interchangeably here as he often does in the new testament pre-wrath also understands the revealing of the antichrist in verse 3 is a reference to the abomination of desolation at the midpoint of the seven year period they also see the falling away or rebellion in verse 3 as a reference to the falling away that jesus mentions in association with the abomination of desolation in matthew 24. in fact this clear and consistent connection between matthew 24 and 2nd thessalonians 2 is a really important point a fundamental problem of the way that pre-tribulational interpreters interpret the apostle paul is they don't recognize that paul is getting his teaching from jesus for example just look at the similarities in matthew 24 before the rapture in verse 31 what does jesus say must come first you guessed it a falling away and the abomination of desolation and it's only after those events occur that you can expect to see the sign of the impending day of the lord in verse 29 and the rapture in verses 30 and 31 just before it begins jesus's teaching on the end times is a perfect mirror to paul's in terms of the timing of events which is probably why paul said that he got this doctrine about the rapture quote from the lord how do we know that the apostle paul received his teachings from the olive discourse from jesus's olive discourse well we know this we know this because there are at least 30 parallels between paul's teaching in 1st and 2nd thessalonians and between the olive discourses 30 cohesive links between their teachings it's not just pre-wrathers that see the connection between first and second thessalonians and matthew 24 just check the margins of your favorite bible ever since cross references have been invented they have been linking these two passages it's only the pre-tribulationists who can't accept that these passages are parallel to one another if you're a pre-tribulationist just you know lay your positions aside for a moment and just read second thessalonians two without your traditions and see what it says

Channel: 7 Pretrib Problems

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Length: 18min 35sec (1115 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 27 2020