Q: Could you point me to materials that show the superiority of pre-wrath over post-trib? Most of the post-trib sites do a thorough job of addressing pre-wrath position, but I have not found pre-wrath responses to these.

A: Not specifically, because my main concern is the damage I feel that the pretrib rapture teaching does to the spiritual preparation of the Church. Post-trib teaches that the Church will go through the Great Tribulation, so I believe that, while the doctrine is in error by teaching that the Great Tribulation extends to the end of the 70th Week, it does not do the damage that pretrib does.

My book does address one critical issue of the post-trib doctrine, and that is dismissing the possibility that Matt. 24:29-31 is at Armageddon. Since this is the foundational verse for post-trib, this is an effective argument.

In short, my response would be this:

1. If Matt. 24:31 is the rapture, which post-trib believes that it is based on the similarities to 1 Thess. 4:16-17 and 1 Cor. 15:52...

2. Then, using the same argument, Matt. 24:29 must be the sixth seal based on the similarities (indeed, word for word correlation) with Rev. 6:12-13. If so...

3. Then the rapture must occur after the sixth seal, not at Armageddon.

Assuming a futurist perspective on Revelation, the only likely post-trib response to this could be that Revelation is not consecutive and that the six seals last the full seven years of Daniel's 70th Week. This would require the seals to be an "overview" of the 70th Week, covering the same period as the trumpets and the bowls. This, or they may use some other version of the "judgments in Revelation are not consecutive" argument, which is also impossible to reconcile with scripture. I refute any attempt to take the judgments in Revelation anything but consecutively in the book in the chapter "Is Revelation Consecutive?"

In my view, these two arguments, in themselves, do enough damage to the post-trib position to render it impossible to reconcile with scripture. I do have a short section, a page or two, discussing other reasons why Matt. 24:29-31 cannot be referring to Armageddon, but it's not a main thrust of the book.

The greatest refutation of the post-trib position is the strength of prewrath: its perfect consistency with scripture, from one end of the Bible to the other. Many posttribbers make the error of taking much of their doctrine from the Old Testament, when the Church — and, indeed, the two-stage coming of Christ— were still a mystery. Many prophets saw the Messiah coming only once, in the clouds, then immediately setting up His kingdom. This would favor the posttrib view, but we also know that many things were hidden from the Old Testament prophets, including the mystery of the Church, the rapture, and the detailed events described in the Book of Revelation. These visions are but a glimpse of the broader, more complex truths revealed in the New Testament. This is why we interpret the Old Testament prophecies in light of the additional revelation given in the New Testament, not the other way around.

It's also notable that most of the arguments against the prewrath view are on peripheral issues. Like trying to dismiss Christianity because there are inconsistencies in the genealogies in the Old Testament while ignoring the claims of Christ. Most of the criticisms of the prewrath view that I've seen have been of the same sort: so tangential as to be meaningless. This creates an illusion of effectiveness without actually doing damage to the position itself.

Q: I have a question about Dan 7:13-14. It says, “...with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, and He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him.” It doesn't sound like Christ coming to earth as we usually interpret it, but more like Christ going up to God in heaven. This of course, is a preterist argument, which states that when Christ ascended after His resurrection the "spiritual" kingdom of God was established (v. 14). Any thoughts about verse 13 and its mention of Christ coming up to the Ancient of Days?

A: Admittedly, this is a difficult passage. However, notice that not only does Jesus come to the Ancient of Days, but He does so after the beast is slain and his body is thrown into the lake of fire. This event is also described in Revelation 19, but it occurs after the appearance of Christ with His armies. Thus, it is out of order with all of the rapture positions, including the preterist position.

Therefore, when interpreting this vision, it is important to remember that...

1) It is a vision, so like a parable, it isn't necessarily to be taken as consecutive or literal in every point; and

2) It comes from the Old Testament, a time in which the details of the end-times were deliberately obscured because it was not yet God's timing to reveal them.

I dealt with this a little bit in a footnote in the book. It doesn't speak exactly to the point you are asking about, but maybe it will help:

• To support the contention that the Son of Man in Matt. 24:31 does not refer to the rapture but to Jesus' Coming at Armageddon, many scholars refer to Daniel 7, which describes the Messiah coming on the clouds, then immediately setting up His Millennial kingdom. Because Jesus borrows from the language of this passage in His Olivet Discourse, this leads to their conclusion that Matt. 24:30 is also at Armageddon, no matter how many similarities there may be to the sixth seal. There are several considerations to be taken here. First, prophetic literature often uses the foreshortening of two events so that they appear to be temporally successive, even if they are separated by long spans of time (Isa. 61:1-2, Dan. 12:1-2, and John 5:29). This is a technique called "telescoping." In this case, the telescoping resulted from the fact that the Church Age, which now separates the 69th from the 70th Week by 2,000 years, was a mystery to the Old Testament prophets, which is why they struggled to understand the chronology of their own writings (1 Peter 1:10-12). There are also several non-consecutive events described in this passage that tell us that, not only are the events telescoped, but they are nonconsecutive as well. This includes the books being opened prior to the slaying of the beast and Jesus' coming on the clouds after the beast has been cast into the fire. Therefore, this passage should not be used to override the clear order of events given by Jesus in the New Testament. Douglas Moo makes this point, saying, "Inasmuch as the rapture is clearly revealed only in the New Testament, the decisive evidence for its timing with respect to the [great] tribulation must come from the New Testament also. Furthermore, it is sound hermeneutic procedure to establish a doctrine on the basis of the texts that speak most directly to the issue" (Three Views on the Rapture, Ibid., p. 172).

It must also be remembered that even Daniel did not understand many of his own visions (Daniel 12:8). Therefore I would rather use Jesus' description to interpret Daniel's vision than Daniel's vision to interpret the Olivet Discourse.

Q: I have a question regarding Isaiah 34:8: "For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion." Assuming a pre-wrath perspective, do you think that Isaiah 34:8 is referring to the Day of the Lord (DOTL) and does it indicate that the DOTL will last one year? If the answer to both of those questions is “yes,” and assuming the rapture immediately precedes the DOTL, does that mean that the rapture will occur at near the six-year point of the 70th week? Is that too close to date setting?

A: It's an interesting viewpoint. From my understanding of the Day of the Lord, it could extend, and likely extends, beyond the 70th Week and into the Millennium since there are references to the Day of the Lord as both a time of judgment and a time of blessing for Israel, a time when all promises will be fulfilled. This extends the Day of the Lord beyond the period of judgment and into the Millennial kingdom.

In the passage that you mention, it seems to be specifically talking about God's judgment on Edom, which will take place during the Day of the Lord. If this is the case, then the year of judgment may refer only to the amount of time God plans to use to judge Edom and not have any reflection on the duration of the Day of the Lord as a whole.

Notice, in the subsequent passages, it reads, "Its streams will be turned into pitch and its dust into brimstone. Its land shall become burning pitch..." The perspective is square on Edom, so this is the interpretation I would favor.

Recommended reading on the rapture debate