One thing we should acknowledge as we dissect this text is that “the coming of the Lord” is synonymous here with “the day of the Lord.”
If the rapture comes a moment before the sudden destruction start of the Day of His wrath, then they cannot be the synonymous. Some argue that wrath is written at the 6th seal but does not start until the 7th.
Paul wrote that God won't make any appointments for us with His wrath, so I think it is rapture first, with wrath following hard after.
You are right: we are to be watchful. It could be any day.
the fact that when Christ comes again it is “with” and “for” His saints in one glorious single second coming.
Sorry, but this is myth.
I did not say it, John did. The Day of His wrath begins at the 6th seal in Rev. 6, but there will be another coming in chapter 19, over 7 years later. The DAY then starts before the 70th week and continues on - perhaps through the entire millennium.
Again, this has been repeatedly and ably rebutted in this thread and others. Pretribbers have zero grounds for their gap theory. If you were directed to go to the next state and told and told it was exactly a 490-mile journey (right down to the very yard). You were told that in-between the starting point and your destination you would pass two important landmarks, the first after 49 miles, which was accurate to the very yard. The next was a further 434 miles ahead (bringing your journey to 483 miles in total), which also occurred right down to the very yard. The journey's end would be a final 7 miles down the road from your second landmark, making your total journey 490 miles. Exactly half way between 483 miles and 490 (486 ½ miles) you would witness a monumental landmark that would surpass anything you have ever seen. How would you then feel if you were told when you hit the second landmark that your final location was still a possible 2,000+ miles down the road with NO exact finishing point? Such an idea would be totally unthinkable in the natural, but unprecedented in God's economy. God always fulfills His promises.
The rapture - PAUL'S rapture - and Jesus second coming will be a moment before the earthquake at the 6th seal.
Again, there is no such mention of a rapture in Scripture. That is a Pretrib invention to support false doctrine. You need to listen and respond to other peoples rebuttals instead of always talking and avoiding.
But here He comes only to the air. It most certain is a coming as Paul wrote: His SECOND coming. It is further proof that John SAW the raptured church in chapter 7, shortly after the 6th seal events. John did not see the rapture - did not see the church arrive in heaven, but show the church in the throne room shortly after they arrived: the large group too large to number. Think of it: probably 40 to 50 generations of believers all in one place at one time! The raptured church will be BY FAR the largest group mentioned in Revelation.
The text itself refutes your reasoning. The wrath of God that arrives on this climactic day is described as
“sudden destruction.” I Thessalonians 5:2-7 confirms that it isn’t just Christ’s coming that is sudden but also the destruction that accompanies. Likening Christ’s return to
“a thief in the night” capably serves to impress the surprising nature of this Coming for the lost. It shows that the wicked are caught abruptly in their folly at the apocalypse. The “sudden destruction” is so impactful that
none escape. That is explicit in the narrative. Furthermore, we learn that the swiftness that the travail of childbirth comes upon a woman will be the way destruction suddenly hits the wicked. It is not saying that the whole child-birth experience is like the coming of the Lord, which would be needed to allow for the Premil understanding. That is not found in this text. In doing this they diminish the sudden nature of the destruction.
This whole narrative is a record of Christ’s one and only future coming. Contrary to what Pretribs impute into this text (namely that that Christ is only coming “for” His saints), this reading describes how Christ comes both “with” and “for” His people the next time. Verse 14 of our reading explicitly states,
“them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.”
Hello!!! Those living will be “caught up” with "the dead in Christ" to meet Jesus when He appears. This is the ultimate uniting of the elect on earth (the live in Christ) and those in heaven (the dead in Christ).
“them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.”
Sorry, my friend, but these are not coming on white horses, nor are they coming for Armageddon. They are SPIRITS coming to join with their new, resurrection bodies. Neither will this group be the entire Bride of Christ.
Where is your supposed "rapture" in Revelation???
Revelation 19 is the one-and-only second coming. It is the 6th recap in Revelation. The horses are part of the apocalyptic genre of Revelation and is not intended to literal physical animals riding in the air. Is Jesus a literal lamb? Is He a literal lion? Of course not! Is Satan a literal dragon? Is he a literal serpent? Of course not!
Therefore, there are not two separate comings or
parousias of the Lord separated by a notional 7-year period – one for His Church and another with His Church. In fact, nowhere in this reading does it even vaguely intimate such.
You are mistaken. The problem is only that you have not SEEN two more comings. They are certain written and easy to see without preconceived glasses.
AGain notice where John put the start of the DAY: it is at the 6th seal. At this time in the vision (and in reality when it begins) the BOOK has not yet been opened to reveal the 70th week. This book cannot be opened until ALL SEVEN seals are opened first. What we read in chapter 8 after the 7th seal is what is written INSIDE the book now opened.
Revelation 6:13-14 relates to the final destruction described in Isaiah 34 to the appearance of the Lord at the second coming, where the wicked finally receive their reward. The sixth seal says,
“And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?”
This passage, which is speaking of the exact same scene as Rev 19, asks a simple question:
"who shall be able to stand?” This of course is a rhetorical question: meaning
the answer is obvious. Well, it is obvious to those who don't have a theological agenda to impute into the text. No one that is left behind will survive the wrath of God that He pours out on the ungodly on this fateful final day. So rather than rewarding all those that attack Jerusalem by allowing them to inherit the new earth, Christ destroys them and their rebellion.
So as to remove any confusion over the full extent of those that will be destroyed who are left behind, the Holy Spirit says: "the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man." Obviously if a human isn't "free" they are "a bondman" (or a slave).
Before chapter 19 then, and Christ's 3rd coming WITH His saints, the 7 trumpets must be sounded. The man of sin must enter the temple and declare He is God. Then those in Jerusalem must flee. The Beast then goes to war and takes out three kings - and becomes the 8th. He will then develop his MARK and erect and IMAGE. Then he and the false prophet will force people to bow and worship the image or lose their head. The beheaded BEGIN to show up in heaven in chapter 15. Finally, to shorten those days of GT, God will pour out the vials of His wrath. Finally, the 7th vial will end the week. Then the marriage and supper will take place in heaven.
FINALLY, after all this, Jesus will descend with the armies of heaven - all on white horses.
Your theory then of only one more coming won't fly. It does not match what is written.
You have to prove your second coming before you even get to your third coming, until you do we can only consider Revelation 19 to be the one-and-only second coming.
the Greek word perileipo, which means “to survive.”
Sorry, but it also means to be left over or remain. That fits far better than survive. That is why all the translators use "remain."
1 Thessalonians 4:14-17 declares,
“if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the [Gr. parousia] of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain [Gr. perileipo] shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”
Pretribulationists employ this narrative as supposed proof that Christ is coming in a two-stage return, firstly, at ‘the rapture’ to the sky for his saints and, secondly, at the revelation of Christ (which they say is different from the rapture and is a third coming 7 years later) which they argue involves the Lord’s ‘coming to the earth with His saints’. However, one of the first truths we encounter in this passage, and which immediately eliminates much of the folly circulating within Pretribulationist circles today, is the fact: ‘when Christ comes again it is with and for His saints in one glorious single second coming’. Verse 14 of our reading explicitly states, “
them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.” Furthermore, the second party of Christians at this great climatic event are those believers that are “alive” are said to “remain.” Interestingly, when we examine the meaning of the word “remain,” we find it is the Greek word
perileipo, which means
“to survive.” Therefore, we can deduce from this meaning that the Lord is returning for those who remain by surviving.
The “sudden destruction” is so impactful and thorough that none escape. This is explicit in the narrative.
The wicked are totally and completely destroyed, allowing no room for the Pretrib theory of a subsequent 7yrs trib packed with unsaved people.
No, all will not be killed. This takes place before the 70th week. Think about that: the 6th trumpet will kill 1/3....of those who are dead? NOT! The truth is, SOME will die in the sudden destruction earthquake, but not all. Don't read into a verse what is not there! It is clear you read this with preconceptions that cloud your understanding. you cannot get around the fact that this will take place in chapter 6, LONG before chapter 19! What are you going to do with the 70th week that goes from chapter 8 to chapter 16?
Always know, anyone who rearranges Revelation to fit a theory will always be proven wrong.
Pretribbers are always fighting with the actual text. They have a habit of making wild evasive unsubstantiated statements rather than addressing the text under discussion they get into their usual evasive what-aboutery tactics with some other text?
Pretribbers refuse to let the Scripture speak for itself.
Revelation 10:5-7 says of the Second Advent and the concluding last trumpet,
“And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer: but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.”
For those who would lightly dismiss this important narrative as anything other than a magnificent picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and His glorious Second Coming, they do unwisely ignore the great wealth of explicit and consistent end-time teaching on this subject and divorce the undoubted harmony of this chapter from the rest of New Testament prophetic teaching. We must first of all recognise, this is the second of seven similar symbolic parallels relating to intra-advent period, each of which take us up to the one final future all-consummating Coming of Christ (the day of God’s wrath) and the end of the world (when time shall undoubtedly be no more). This pattern of repeating the record of the same event from different angles is common throughout Scripture on most themes, none more that the glorious Coming of Christ.
The statement:
“the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets” refers to the many Old Testament predictions by the prophets of the end of the world and the introduction of a new perfect arrangement. There are many passages describing the day of the Lord.
The third parallel in Revelation 11:15 also makes reference to the seventh angel with the last trump, again being in complete agreement with consistent New Testament teaching (including the conclusion of the second parallel in Revelation 10) on this single, final, all-consummating nature of the Second Advent, saying,
“And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.”
The whole import and wording of the remainder of the passage perfectly supports the King James Version rendering and confirms the all-consummating nature of the Second Advent, which says, “when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be
etelesthee (or) finished.” It should be noted that the word
etelesthee is a very strong all-consummating word that is rightly translated ‘finished’ in this reading and is consistently interpreted: completed, concluded, expired and accomplished.
The supposition that some Premillennialists thus advance is totally negated by (1) the consistent interpretation of the word elsewhere in Scripture, (2) the all-consummating nature of the reading, and (3) the undoubted fact that the last trumpet elsewhere ushers in the end – seeing the destruction of the wicked/world.
Also, whatever particular individual event this narrative is speaking of, it is of no small importance to Bible prophecy and to God’s “prophets,” who evidently from this reading spoke often of this day and also of its detail. The reading expressly declares,
“the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.” There is no more need for prophets. There is no more need for spiritual predictions. We will now know everything.
The next verse, verse 18 then reveals how the Second Advent ushers in the general judgment, saying,
“And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest (1) give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest (2)
destroy them which destroy the earth. And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.”
The last trump is the time when “
the time of the dead, that they should be judged.” This is the last trump, which is after the thousand years. It the time when the righteous expressly receive their “reward” and when Christ will “destroy” the wicked. For those that refuse to bow the knee to Christ it will be a time of “wrath.” We see here that there are two parties standing before the same throne receiving two diverse sentences.
One cannot help but note the finality attached to the sounding of the seventh trumpet. This is particularly striking when you then compare this to the trumpet passages that connect to the second coming of the Lord. The link is unquestionable.
Whichever way you look at it, there is an unquestionable finality surrounding the echo of the seventh trumpet. This corresponds with the conclusiveness associated with Second Coming passages elsewhere in Scripture. Let us look at some of the all-consummating detail.
