God's Wrath in the 4th & 5th Seals

This is a re-post. I still see people asserting that God's wrath does not begin until after the 6th seal. They continue to assert that the 5th seal martyrs are one proof of this. But I don't see where they properly respond to arguments set forth by Showers and Fruchtenbaum. Some of the links may be broken.

In a terse response to Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum's citation of Ezek 14:21 to show that God's wrath is present in the 4th seal (Rev 6:8), Dr. Charles Cooper once declared:

Fruchtenbaum fails to notice that these words are spoken against Jerusalem and not one fourth of the world as indicated in the fourth seal of Revelation 6:7...The issue is whether Scripture indicates that God will use these judgments in the future against one fourth of the world. There is no prophecy in the Old Testament that God is going to use these judgments against the world during the "great tribulation." Not one!

Fruchtenbaum well understood that the opening of the 4th seal by Jesus Christ inaugurates events which are called God's judgments in Ezekiel 14:21, and also wrath and anger elsewhere. Cooper failed to adequately address Fruchtenbaum's numerous points (When The Trumpet Sounds pp 385-387).  Robert Van Kampen stated that one needed more information to determine whether God's wrath was present in the 4th seal, rather than a comparison with Ezek 14.

...we cannot automatically conclude that these refer to the day of the Lord's wrath until all the data concerning the seventieth week is analyzed. ~ The Sign (pp 479-480). 

Van Kampen had the evidence he needed but couldn't accept the conclusion due to his system's preconditions that God's wrath must occur after the 6th seal, and only during the prewrath timing of the Day of the Lord. So he needed to find a way around the problem. Likewise, Chris White's presentation asserts that the 4th & 5th seals are Antichrist's wrath. He notes that the word for by in Rev 6:8 is different to the withs and can also mean under. According to White, the term "wild beasts" is "therion" which can simply mean beast and context determines which translation is best:

It’s used 39 times in the book of Revelation, and 38 times the term refers to either the beast (as in the Antichrist), or the false prophet (the second beast), or the image of the beast, and it correctly is translated there as “beast”; However the translators, attempting to clarify the meaning in Revelation 6:8 incorrectly translated the text as “wild beast”– the only time it is not translated simply as “beast” in Revelation –the only time it is not translated simply as “beast” in Revelation; There is no grounds for the translation “wild beasts” in Revelation 6:8; Both famine and plague are here attributed to the methods in which these “beasts” kill, that is in addition to the sword.

Either way, the hierarchy of authority in the verse is obvious. Death and Hades are subordinate to the Lord who opens the seals. Following on from that, the four judgments are the instruments of Death. Psalm 90:7-11 firmly establishes the relationship between death and God's wrath (see Showers, Maranatha - Our Lord, Come pp117-118). White echoed Van Kampen's arguments from The Rapture Question Answered (TRQA p147). It is crucial for them to contend that famine, pestilence and sword all come under the authority and wrath of the Antichrist-beast, rather than God's wrath. On page 147 Van Kampen claims that Death and Hell are given permission "to test and kill, if necessary, those who claim the name of Christ". Notably, he claims this "fourth" doesn't involve the unbelieving world (TRQA p145). In this instance he seems to have departed from his "face-value" understanding.

Darrel Cline sums up why his arguments are convoluted:

Rather than seeing the rather obvious meaning of the fourth seal as death to a fourth of the inhabitants of the earth as a consequence of sword (warfare), hunger (famine), death (Death and Hell), and the beasts of the earth, Van Kampen limits the meaning to only the professing Church (plus Judaism) and makes this the "wrath of Satan against the elect of God". He does this for two reasons. First, he does it to make his "parallelism" between Matthew 24 and the seals more "apparent", and, second, he does it because his construct will not allow the world in general to be subject to divine wrath at this point in the scenario. 

Van Kampen also asserted that Rev 3:10 means preservation within the tribulation (pp175-178), although he is vague as to the nature of this preservation. How can Rev 3:10 be preservation within when there are 5th seal martyrs and posttrib saints to be resurrected? Note that some prominent prewrath rapturists have now taken tereo ek to mean "kept out of" and have consequently migrated to the view that Rev 3:10 indicates a posttribulational-prewrath removal of the church. Here, again, their strategy is to restrict God's wrath to the trumpets and bowls. See also Robert Thomas' The Comings of Christ in Revelation 2-3 

We should ask why God needs to use Satan to sift the church when there's a sorting-out judgment at the end of the tribulation (Matt 25:32). Why does God orchestrate this uniquely terrible period in history against the church and Israel, only to cut it short to preserve flesh (Matt 24:21-22)? Could God not continue to "preserve" the "elect" within the entire tribulation period, including His wrath? Still another problem is that the Antichrist is slain at Christ's appearing (2 Thess 2:8), which is immediately after the tribulation (Matt 24:29-30; Rev 19:11-21).

This view conflates Jacob's Trouble with the "testing of the church", but then it cuts that period short for the church. Jacob's Trouble and the Antichrist's period of authority are stated to be three-and-a-half years, and an unprecedented time of trouble (Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1, 7; Matt 24:21; Rev 13:5, 7, 12:6, 14). This is the time God uses to refine Israel (Hos 5:15; Zech 13:8-9; Mal 3:2-3 etc), not the church. Proponents of this system claim that Christ's warnings to the disciples are directed to the future church. Yet they finally differentiate between the church and Israel by having the former removed after a shortened great tribulation, while the latter remains on earth (Rev 12:6, 14).

Getting back to the 4th seal - there are very good reasons why translators render therion as "wild beasts". Aside from Ezek 14:21, Ezekiel 5 also references each of the four judgments mentioned in the 4th seal. Throughout the chapter they're referred to as God's judgment, anger (aph) and fury (chemah) e.g., Ezek 5:15.

So I will send against you famine and wild beasts, and they will bereave you. Pestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I, the LORD, have spoken Ezek 5:17 

If that isn't enough, in Ezek 7:3-19 we again find references to God's anger (aph), fury (chemah) and wrath (ebrah) associated with famine, sword and pestilence (v 15) and this time in context to the Day of the Lord's wrath (v 19).

Chris White also draws attention to the 5th seal:

The most interesting part of the 5th seal is that the martyrs are asking God how long it will be until He judges those that are killing them; This would seem to indicate that all that has happened so far in the seals (wars, famines, etc.), are not part of God’s judgment...

Pretribulationists point out that the martyrs' request is for God to avenge their deaths. God promises that this portion of His wrath will occur once the number of those to be killed has been fulfilled. However, there are martyrs waiting to be resurrected after God's wrath (Rev 20:4). As a solution, Van Kampen proposed that these were the 5th seal martyrs who weren't resurrected during the rapture (The Sign p 406). More recently, others have resorted to the posttribulational argument that Rev 20:4 is a recapitulation of what has occurred earlier.

The 5th seal does not preclude God's wrath from being present as part of God's sovereign plan to redeem the earth. In Isaiah 10:4-5 God states that He raised and used Assyria as the rod of His anger and indignation. Assyria is later punished for its actions (vv12-15). In When the Trumpet Sounds (p 394) Fruchtenbaum also cites Habakkuk chaps 1 & 2 to show that God actively (Hab 1:6) - rather than permissively - used the Chaldeans to punish Israel. Babylon was less righteous than Israel (Hab 1:13) and once God's will was accomplished, He also punished the Chaldeans (Hab 2).

According to Eschatos Ministries:

All pretribulationists (rightly) claim that believers will not experience the wrath of God (cf. 1 Thess 5:9). Yet this [5th] seal explicitly reveals that it is directed against believers, who have ended up as martyrs! So pretribulationists, according to their logic, have believers being killed by what they assume is the wrath of God. May it never be!

That is an odd statement about "logic" and assumptions considering Van Kampen's assertion that the 4th seal is authorized by God specifically against the church (and Judaism) and which results in martyrdom. This view posits that the church is exempt from God's wrath; therefore it cannot be present there. Authorizing these same OT-wrath judgments to be inflicted on the church appears to be okay, as long as God's motive isn't wrath. That is circular reasoning.

Pretribulationists note that the 5th seal reveals what has already taken place (see Showers' Maranatha pp 109-110). Unlike the previous seals, there is no hierarchy of authority administering punishment through a rider and horse. The reason for the saints' martyrdom is because of their testimony (Rev 6:9), not because of the seal.

Moreover, the prewrath position must have post-rapture unbelievers coming to faith in order to enter the millennium in their physical bodies. According to that view the 144,000 are saved immediately after the rapture of the church. At Rev 14:6, an angel preaches the everlasting gospel to those dwelling on the earth. Hence, contrary to the above objection, that view also has saints on the earth experiencing the "trumpets and bowls wrath". One might then ask - should the existence of these intra-wrath saints preclude a prewrath rapture? If not, then how does the existence of newly-saved tribulation saints, experiencing earthly conditions under God's wrath, disqualify a pretribulational rapture?

Finally, the Two Witnesses' ministry spans 1,260 days of the 70th week. Of these, Robert Thomas notes that: "Their power to accomplish their mission is phenomenal" (Revelation 8-22 p 90). Fire proceeds from their mouths; they can stop rain; turn water into blood and strike the earth with plagues (Rev 11:5-6). The scope of their ministry is so broad and effective that "the peoples, tribes, tongues and nations who dwell on the earth" celebrate their deaths because of the torment inflicted upon them by these prophets (Rev 11:9-10). Fire, plague and water into blood hearken back to Old Testament examples of God's wrath. The Two Witnesses are instruments of God's wrath.

I doubt that any of the above will sway someone who is predisposed to their preferred position. But claims that pretribulationists don't use scriptural arguments are way off the mark.

Further reading:

Myron Houghton's review of The Rapture Question Answered

Darrel Cline's The Rapture is When?

The Chronological & Sequential Structure Of Revelation

Alan Cole's Reviews Part One & Part Two

Cole's critique of the Pre-Wrath DOL

The Chronological Relationship of the Three Septet Judgments of the Tribulation
To Daniel’s Seventy Weeks

A Comparison of the Synoptic Eschatological Discourses
and Revelation 6–20

Prepping for the Tribulation

John MacArthur has been embroiled in a controversy. No, I'm not talking about the Strange Fire Conference. MacArthur was outed by Brannon Howse for a response he gave to a question which centered on whether someone could repent and be saved after accepting the Mark of the Beast. MacArthur responded that it was possible. Howse referred to it because it supported Jimmy DeYoung's position.

And so there ensued a collective outcry from horrified pretrib skeptics. This confirmed their suspicions that teaching pretribulationism was downright dangerous. Pretribbers are in danger of taking the Mark of the Beast when the Antichrist shows up before Jesus. Another all-time favorite - pretribulationists have been spoon fed a diet of "easy believism" and are inadequately prepared for the Tribulation.

It's an irony, then, that I first learned of the MacArthur "scandal" from pretribulationists. They were all shocked and appalled that John MacArthur and Jimmy DeYoung could possibly hold to such a position. Personally, I'm shocked that otherwise gullible pretribulationists were actually shocked. Are we all shocked now? I hope so.

Anyway, my non-pretribber friends may want to scratch the deception thingy from their handy little Reasons to Harass Pretribulationists workbooks. Maybe also get a clue in the process.

Some non-pretribulational-non-Calvinists (have I lost you yet?) soon jumped on the heresy bandwagon. One "watchman on some wall" plopped John MacArthur among his personal list of heretics, which included Joel Osteen. John MacArthur in the same lineup as Osteen? Sigh. Words fail me.

The heresy outcry eventually brought Calvinism into the picture, and prompted the following response from Eschatos Ministries:

...many of these same blog posts are also calling MacArthur a heretic because he is a “Calvinist.” Trust me, the vast majority of these people have no earthly clue what Calvinism actually teaches—they only know a caricature. And prewrathers who are calling him a heretic because he is a Calvinist, I want to remind them that the pioneers of the prewrath position are Calvinists...including myself.

MacArthur's problem isn't his Calvinism, it's his pretribulationism. Sadly, that ministry habitually spins a familiar line:

One can begin to see how pretribulationism is a false teaching. It has dire ramifications. It is setting up believers to become vulnerable during the Antichrist’s great tribulation...Eschatology matters. 

And so this brings me to my next little rant - what does Calvinism teach? How can one be a consistent Calvinist and yet claim the "unprepared pretribulationist" risks eternal damnation as a consequence of taking the Mark?

Here are the issues as I understand them (and I'm open to correction). T.U.L.I.P. holds that God sovereignly chooses and predestines the elect; that they cannot respond to the gospel of their own power (Total Depravity); that they are compelled to positively respond to God's Irresistible Grace and once having being saved, cannot lose that salvation (Eternal Security). It affirms that:

All who were chosen by God, redeemed by Christ, and given faith by the Spirit are eternally saved. They are kept in faith by the power of Almighty God and thus persevere to the end.

As James White writes:

So it is clear that each of the Divine Persons is vitally involved in the work of salvation. The Father sovereignly and unilaterally chooses us for salvation. He gives us to the Son, who, in obedience to the Father’s will, saves those who are joined to Him by the Father, and raises us up to eternal life. The Spirit of God is placed in our lives to empower and seal us as God’s own possession. Salvation, then, is of God - God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Since salvation is of God, and is God’s work, its eternal character is simply the reflection of the nature of its author - God Himself. Each of the three Persons is intimately involved in bringing about the salvation of the elect, and that salvation is eternal and secure.

So what am I missing? Isn't MacArthur more consistent in his Calvinism (Phil Johnson too, for that matter)?

Mind you, I disagree with MacArthur's response. Revelation gives an emphatic warning. He should have stressed something like - if someone can be eternally damned for taking the Mark of the Beast, then an elect person wouldn't accept it to begin with. Or, if a person accepts the Mark, then they weren't Christ's from the beginning.

But why are professing Calvinists concerned about the elect possibly taking the Mark of the Beast as a result of their belief in a pretribulational rapture? Don't they take their own doctrines seriously? Or is the 70th week of Daniel a special period where those tenets cease to function? You know, like a different dispensation?

Of course, there are those pious non-Calvinist-non-pretribbers who take the position that one can lose one's salvation. They suppose that the expectation of being in The Tribulation and facing the Antichrist affords them some advantage over the pretribulationist (or the amil, postmil, preterist etc).

How does that work, exactly? I've never seen it clearly explained. Is there some profound spiritual (or even physical) protocol that's superior to living each day abiding in Christ? How are these people spiritually better prepared than someone who expects to face Christ at any given moment, and lives it? Please write me, I'd be keen to get started on that program.

Are you trusting in your own strength and resources, or placing your trust in Christ? If it's the former, you could be in deep do-do.

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Rom 8:38-39

That pretty much covers everything for me. I find it very comforting.

Further reading:

The 'Comings' of Christ in Rev 2-3

P.S. The "pioneers of the prewrath position are Calvinists"? Pioneers? Think about it!

A Sad Case of Slander

I can trace the very beginnings of this sad case to a simple difference in rapture timing. Yet, somehow, it has evolved to include the KJVO debate, and with a Christian unfairly slandering another. Here is a lesson for all of us. Click Here

Chris Rosebrough’s commentary addresses this issue very well HERE

Rossing's Hermeneutics of Diversity, Gay Activism & Revelation

Yes, they are all somewhat connected - at least in my little world.

Last year I stumbled across Lutheran Minister Barbara Rossing's "The Rapture Exposed" and thought it would be an interesting read. Rossing is considered to be a leading scholar and one of the go-to persons when it comes to debunking the "Left Behind" genre. Her 2004 book is still being praised by those who are academically offended by the likes of Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins and Hal Lindsey, yet know zilch about dispensationalism or any other people connected with it.

In my opinion, the only thing Barbara Rossing exposed was her lack of biblical integrity, inattention to detail, and a proclivity to mine quote sensational tidbits by the wrong people as if they represented the normative dispensational view. You'll note later that her issue wasn't really rapture timing, although she brought Bob Gundry into the mix (for some credibility?). Essentially, she wanted to make the LB franchise look stupid and inept because its fundamentalist positions conflicted with the type of ideology she holds sacred. Rossing caricatured dispies as irresponsibly anti-Green, anti-Earth and dangerously pro-Zionist, even to the point that they conspired to usher in Armageddon:

"Eschatology is something I am working on in relation to environmental issues and the LWF climate change program, how we can move away from the escapist, earth-denying eschatology of a text such as 2 Peter 3 to embrace a more new creation-oriented eschatology." ~ Rossing

She also had some unique insights on Revelation and wrote a book on the subject - just to set things straight. I haven't read it but, judging from "Exposed", I can only guess how Lutheran Ministers Joseph A. Seiss and George N. H. Peters might have reacted to her view of Revelation.

Glad I got that off my chest.

Her name recently popped up again as I was reading some news items regarding the current push for same-sex marriage, and how various Christians are handling it. I did some digging around and found a number of self-described Christian websites that have been set up to "biblically" defend the practice of homosexuality.

I also discovered that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), of which Rossing is a member, has been wrestling with the "gay" issue for some years. In a 2005 Lutheran Advent publication, I found an article called In casting Revelation as a “survivor” show, Tim and Jerry miss the boat. Author Cathy Ward-Crixell notes:

When my friends found out that I was reading Left Behind, their reactions were telling. None of them thought I was reading it for fun or because I agreed with authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Instead, they made slightly guilty, slightly disgusted faces. “I know I should read it, but I just can’t,” one of them said. “I guess I’ll have to read it sometime,” another said. “I know people in my congregation do.” I found Left Behind to be disturbing, infuriating, and ridiculous. But I am grateful that since I read it I have a better idea of what fundamentalists are doing to the book of Revelation. The most subversive book in the Bible, one filled with hope for diverse groups in an oppressive culture, has been transformed by Left Behind into violent, sexist, homophobic propaganda. Lutherans can’t afford to ignore Left Behind or to think of Revelation as too weird for mainstream Christians. We must claim the hope Revelation offers and not let LaHaye and Jenkins’ assertions about what is “biblical” speak for us.

In the very next paragraph she writes:

Homosexuality is “out”: Amy Johnson Frykholm interviewed Left Behind readers from various church and social backgrounds. Her conclusions are published in Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evangelical America. She describes “a position that is common among readers and common to the books—that homosexuality is a sign of the depravity that leads to the end of the world”

The publication is centered on "diversity" and a thinly-veiled defense of homosexuality. In fact "diversity" seems to be the sacred paradigm embraced by the ELCA. Notably, one gentleman even suggests that it's time to: "...close our Bibles for a few months. We won’t find the answer we’re looking for there—at least not in the places we’ve been looking." 

In one internal ELCA paper (apparently "Not for publication or citation") entitled Diversity in the Bible as a Model for Lutheran Hermeneutics, Rossing explores the "different types of biblical diversity".

Given the statements above it's not difficult to conclude where Rossing's paper is really heading. On the one hand, she affirms the "joy" that Lutherans derive from studying Scripture "together with others", yet she deftly segues into the inevitable warning that the Bible "can also become the locus of conflict."

You know, the stuff that fundamentalists obsess and attack others about: "war and peace, creationism versus evolution, slavery, economic issues such as usury or wealth and poverty, interfaith issues of Jews and Muslims, social issues such as roles of women, divorce, or homosexuality."

She notes that (pardon my citations): "Christian history shows that it is possible to use the Bible to foster intolerance and justify absolutist claims for one’s own biblical position over against the reading of others." 

Of course, what I think she really means is that her anti-LB-fundamentalist books are okay, even though they don't tolerate that particular view...because...well...because she's right.

Rossing regards the Bible as theologically diverse. Some clear examples for people like me would have been appreciated. I didn't go to seminary and hadn't realized that harmonizing biblical layers was a no-no:

"Some of the most fascinating diversity is not simply between different biblical documents, but also between different voices represented within a single document. This is especially the case in the Old Testament—the way in Genesis, for example, we can identify and retrieve different theologies of the Yahwist as contrasted to the Priestly writer, as seen in their different creation accounts. We need both creation accounts, with their different theologies and contexts. The richness is lost if we simply harmonize the layers."

This is the sort of fodder the ELCA feeds its congregation:

"The Bible is God’s word. But it is God’s word spoken differently through different communities and authors in different contexts. It is not a single monolithic book dropped from heaven. It is a library of voices. Various communities in the biblical conversation understood God’s word in different, even competing ways. The early church in its wisdom included many voices in the canon, canonizing not just one view but a range of views."

It's obvious to me that what drives ELCA hermeneutics is its obsessive need to embrace diversity at the expense of faithful theology. They're trying to cleverly find ways to keep the Bible relevant to modern needs rather than letting God's Word speak for itself. In other words, the ELCA has embraced a culturally driven hermeneutic. It uses that paradigm to achieve its activist goals. They interpret God's Word based on cultural needs. They are looking for escape clauses for justifying same-sex marriage, rather than sincerely seeking God's will.

Alan Kurschner of Eschatos Ministries recently touched upon the gay activism issue HERE and HERE. He warns that the church will be affected, and those who remain faithful to God's Word may be forced to go underground. He has hit the nail on the head!

Not that long ago, two Australian pastors were jailed*, ordered to pay hefty court costs, and ordered to take out newspaper ads for a public apology; all because they'd preached a sermon against Islamic jihad. Ironically, one of the pastors was originally from Pakistan and had suffered under Islamic persecution. The sermon was delivered at their church in a closed setting. Members of the Islamic Council of Victoria infiltrated the church and recorded the sermons.

* Correction: They were threatened with jail.

Think about how gay activists may walk into any church in the U.S. and monitor what is being taught regarding practicing homosexuality in respect to God's Word. In the current climate, that will have very real consequences for faithful Christians and pastors.

In contrast, the ELCA won't be bothered by such concerns. As Dan Skogen notes in Exposing the ELCA, they've already embraced same-sex marriage.

Some recommended resources:

Fred Butler of Hip and Thigh has spent some time on Answering the Claims of Gay “Christian” Apologetics.

Dr James White of Alpha & Omega Ministries responds to Matthew Vines' Gay Apologetics speech in "Gay Christianity" Refuted!

Frank Turk: Not That There's Anything Wrong With That (a continuing conversation)

Kevin Zuber: Exposing Barbara R. Rossing’s The Rapture Exposed