Can We Still Believe in the Rapture? by Ed Hindson & Mark Hitchcock

Author:Ed Hindson & Mark Hitchcock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers

From Tim LaHaye and Thomas Ice, Charting the End Times (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2001), 129.

Step 3: Resolving the Rapture

After adopting an overall approach to the timing of prophetic fulfillment, and a view regarding the timing and nature of the millennium, the final timing decision concerns the rapture itself. There are four main views here:

• Pretribulation—The rapture occurs before the seven-year tribulation.

• Midtribulation—The rapture occurs at the midpoint of the tribulation.

• Prewrath—The rapture occurs three-fourths of the way through the tribulation.

• Posttribulation—The rapture occurs at the end of the tribulation as part of the return of Christ to earth.

These views are presented and evaluated in chapter 4.

Bringing the prophecies of the Bible into focus begins with adopting an overall approach, progresses from there to the meaning of the millennium, and culminates with determining the timing of the rapture. Now that we’ve walked through these steps, let’s put the pieces together and see how the various views relate to one another:

• Partial preterists are always amillennial or postmillennial and hold to a rapture in conjunction with the return of Christ.

• Historicists can be amillennial, postmillennial, or premillennial and believe in a posttribulational rapture.

• Idealists are amillennial or postmillennial and hold to a posttribulation rapture (or at least a rapture at the same time as the second coming).

• Futurists are generally premillennial but can hold to any of the four views of the rapture.

We realize that the various elements of the different views may be hard to remember at first. But as you come to understand how each view approaches Bible prophecy, you’ll gain a better sense for what each one says about the timing of the rapture and the millennium. And this, in turn, will help you gain a better sense for which views actually line up with Scripture as you study the many passages that have to do with Bible prophecy.

With those parameters established, let’s turn our attention back to the rapture itself.

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