The pre-tribulation rapture

jgr said:

You claim that Irenaeus' use of the expression “the righteous” is confined to the “tribulation saints”, who are associated only with end time prophecy and events.

Therefore, if Irenaeus was not “even speaking of either end time prophecy or of the people going through end time events” in the cited excerpts, then why in the cited excerpts did he use the expression "the righteous", which you've claimed is confined to the "tribulation saints", who are associated only with end time prophecy and events?

Evidently he was including end time prophecy and events.

But he was not confining "the righteous" to only that and those, as evidenced by his references to "all the righteous".

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Biblewriter said:

I neither said, nor even implied, that Irenaeus did not use the term "the righteous" in any way other than when speaking of the "tribulation saints." What I said was that he used only this term, rather than the term "the church," after the time at which he placed the catching away, which we now call the rapture. And my statement was absolutely correct.

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jgr said:

I would invite you to produce a quote of Irenaeus' describing how he changed his definition of "the righteous" from before "the time at which he placed the catching away", to the time thereafter. You will not find it.

Here is Irenaeus' last and final use of the expression "the righteous":

"For in the times of the kingdom, the righteous man who is upon the earth shall then forget to die."

Against Heresies, Book 5, Chapter 36, Paragraph 2

That is unquestionably a reference to all of the righteous, as it refers to their presence in the kingdom, not the tribulation, making it synonymous with "the Church".

At no time did Irenaeus ever redefine his use of "the righteous" to confine it to only "tribulation saints".

Nowhere is there any suggestion that he would have understood "the righteous" to be in any way different from "the Church" in those instances where he chose the former expression over the latter.

The expression "the Church" appears three times after the alleged "catching away", in one of which it is associated with the resurrection of the just, which is in turn associated with the kingdom, not with a pretrib rapture.

Your statement was absolutely incorrect.

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Biblewriter said:

I never even implied that Irenaeus "changed" his usage of the term "the righteous." Your posts are getting as far off the mark as the ones I am not even bothering to answer. I simply CORRECTLY observed that he never, even once, used either the term "the church" or the words "we," "us," or "ours," in reference to times after he placed the rapture. And this statement was ABSOLUTELY correct.

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jgr said:

Thus, then, the promise of God, which He gave to Abraham, remains stedfast. For thus He said: "Lift up thine eyes, and look from this place where now thou art, towards the north and south, and east and west. For all the earth which thou seest, I will give to thee and to thy seed, even for ever."(4) And again He says, "Arise, and go through the length and breadth of the land, since I will give it unto thee;"(5) and [yet] he did not receive an inheritance in it, not even a footstep, but was always a stranger and a pilgrim therein.(6) And upon the death of Sarah his wife, when the Hittites were willing to bestow upon him a place where he might bury her, he declined it as a gift, but bought the burying-place (giving for it four hundred talents of silver) from Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite.(7) Thus did he await patiently the promise of God, and was unwilling to appear to receive from men, what God had promised to give him, when He said again to him as follows: "I will give this land to thy seed, from the river of Egypt even unto the great river Euphrates."(8) If, then, God promised him the inheritance of the land, yet he did not receive it during all the time of his sojourn there, it must be, that together with his seed, that is, those who fear God and believe in Him, he shall receive it at the resurrection of the just. For his seed is the Church...

Against Heresies, Book 5, Chapter 32, Paragraph 2

Abraham and his seed, the Church, receive their promised land at the resurrection of the just, i.e. the Church.

That obviously refers to the time of the millennial kingdom (Irenaeus being premil), not the tribulation.

He refers to the Church being resurrected coincident with the start of the millennial kingdom, after his alleged reference to the rapture in Chapter 29 Paragraph 1.

The Church had therefore not been raptured.

Your statement is ABSOLUTELY INcorrect.

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Biblewriter said:

This is not speaking of the time when the end time events take place, but of a later time during the millennium.

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jgr said:

You claim that Irenaeus' use of the expression “the righteous” is confined to the “tribulation saints”, who are associated only with end time prophecy and events.

Therefore, if Irenaeus was not “even speaking of either end time prophecy or of the people going through end time events” in the cited excerpts, then why in the cited excerpts did he use the expression "the righteous", which you've claimed is confined to the "tribulation saints", who are associated only with end time prophecy and events?

Evidently he was including end time prophecy and events.

But he was not confining "the righteous" to only that and those, as evidenced by his references to "all the righteous".

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Biblewriter said:

Your pretended "exposure" was so laughable that I did not, and will not, even bother to answer it.

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safswan said:

This invented position by the writer is clear evidence of the error and inconsistency of his position.Which evidence he will not admit since this will cause his doctrine to fall flat on its face and his book to be irrelevant.



I think you should say, "can not",as that would be more appropriate and I am not the only one who has exposed your feeble attempt at deception.

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Biblewriter said:

Actually, the reason I did not even bother to answer your cavils was because, in them you revealed such a remarkable lack of understanding of the subject that your own posts revealed their errors, to anyone who actually understands the subject.

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Biblewriter said:

Actually, the reason I did not even bother to answer your cavils was because, in them you revealed such a remarkable lack of understanding of the subject that your own posts revealed their errors, to anyone who actually understands the subject.

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