I have read a lot about the pre-trib rapture being false because "no one taught it or believed it" until John Nelson Darby started teaching it in the 1800's. This view is promoted a lot by people who denounce the pre-trib rapture view.
It reminds me a lot of the view that Protestantism has no basis in the historical church up until the 1500's. Protestants believe that the church failed for 1500 years and that only because of Martin Luther and his fellow reformers, the "true church" was restored to its first century purity. However, there is no record of anything approaching today's Protestantism in the early church. Even Martin Luther believed in venerating the Virgin Mary and the doctrine of Communion being the literal body and blood of Christ. Most of Protestantism's evangelical denominations are pretty divorced from historical Christianity and that includes Reformed Christianity as it existed 400 years ago.
So, my question to those who say the pre-trib rapture is false because no one taught it or believed it until the 1800's, why are you Protestant? According to your logic, Protestantism is false, because no believed it or taught it until the Reformation? Seems like shaky logic to use if you're Protestant and post-trib.
The fact is the Bible itself is against the idea of Pre-Tribulation.
Paul, Jesus, and Daniel, and John all prophecy persecution of Christians and the arrival of the man of sin before his coming.
- Persecution of Christians (Mat 24:9-13, Rev 13:7-10, Dan 11:33-35)
- Man of Sin (Mat 24:15-21, Daniel 11:36-39, Rev 14:4-6, 2 Th 2:1-8)
2Th 2:1-8 Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come.
Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.
As for protestant teaching, I agree much of it also is wrong. Specifically the Reformed idea of Predestination, which was not taught by the early church, or church fathers. But it still uses the Bible for support. The rapture can not do that honestly.
As for my statement about Reformed theology: Irenaeus (120-202 AD) in his Against Heresies - Book 4 Ch 35-38 shows clearly that it is man's free will choice to choose or reject God, as taught by the early church fathers.
Chap. XXXVII. — Men Are Possessed of Free Will, and Endowed with the Faculty of Making a Choice. It Is Not True, Therefore, That Some Are by Nature Good, and Others Bad.
1. This expression [of our Lord], “How often would I have gathered thy children together, and thou wouldest not,” (Mat 23:37) set forth the ancient law of human liberty, because God made man a free [agent] from the beginning, possessing his own power, even as he does his own soul, to obey the behests (ad utendum sententia) of God voluntarily, and not by compulsion of God. For there is no coercion with God, but a good will [towards us] is present with Him continually. And therefore does He give good counsel to all. And in man, as well as in angels, He has placed the power of choice (for angels are rational beings), so that those who had yielded obedience might justly possess what is good, given indeed by God, but preserved by themselves. On the other hand, they who have not obeyed shall, with justice, be not found in possession of the good, and shall receive condign punishment: for God did kindly bestow on them what was good; but they themselves did not diligently keep it, nor deem it something precious, but poured contempt upon His super-eminent goodness. Rejecting therefore the good, and as it were spuing it out, they shall all deservedly incur the just judgment of God, which also the Apostle Paul testifies in his Epistle to the Romans, where he says, “But dost thou despise the riches of His goodness, and patience, and long-suffering, being ignorant that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But according to thy hardness and impenitent heart, thou treasurest to thyself wrath against the day of wrath, and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” “But glory and honour,” he says, “to every one that doeth good.” (Rom 2:4, Rom 2:5, Rom 2:7) God therefore has given that which is good, as the apostle tells us in this Epistle, and they who work it shall receive glory and honour, because they have done that which is good when they had it in their power not to do it; but those who do it not shall receive the just judgment of God, because they did not work good when they had it in their power so to do.
