Pastor Eric Douma once presented a formidable defense of the pretribulational rapture view as a response to a challenge. Sadly, these audio studies had been offline for quite some time.
Well, they are finally back up again and can be accessed HERE
Showing posts with label Pre-wrath. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pre-wrath. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Monday, October 1, 2012
Those Itching Ears
I know I should ignore it, but I won't. I still have some spiritual maturing to do. In the meantime; there have been a series of arrows shot at pretribbers by the prewrath camp of late - which is business as usual. This is one of the latest:
"These pretribulational conferences grieve me because you will not find sober biblical exposition—it is basically hype, sensationalism, sprinkled with Bible proof-texts. The message to the attendees at these conferences is basically: “Look at all the ominous prophetic signs out there, the rise of Antichrist must be soon, but thankfully the Lord’s imminent return will rapture us away before the suffering.
"[Jan] Markell and other speakers will tell their itching-ear audience what they want to hear: don’t fret about the current world’s problems, we will be raptured soon! It’s the same old same old with these pop-teachers."
I'm sure many "sober" dispies don't like pretribulational conferences either, but not for the same reason. Jan doesn't need me to defend her but my suggestion to these critics is to spend more time addressing flaws within their own eschatology rather than incessantly attacking other systems, and undermining the motives of people they disagree with.
"Itching ears" - that brings back memories (circa 2006-7) of when I first heard pretribbers described that way. I thought it had gone out of fashion. Guess I was wrong.
I was a posttribber when I first joined the pretrib-dominant Omega Letter. I had no issues with the folks accepting me there. Many of these "fearful" pretribbers were/are ex war vets and some are still in the military and I'd love to introduce them to the author of the above article.
After the OL was invaded by a handful of adamant prewrathers miffed at something Jack Kinsella (ex cop, ex marine) wrote, I thought I'd take a closer look at the prewrath rapture. Now I'm pretrib.
I believe Eric Douma and Bob DeWaay came to the same conclusions after studying that particular system.
See HERE and HERE. One will find "sober biblical exposition" there.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Was Renald Showers Wrong?
It’s understandable that people get frustrated when their eschatological view is misrepresented. One leading prewrath proponent has complained that Renald Showers and Jimmy DeYoung misrepresented the prewrath position. He writes:
First, DeYoung kept confusing prewrath with midtrib, which just goes to show you that DeYoung is ignorant with “prophecy today.”...But DeYoung was not the only ignorant one, for Showers spoke of the prewrath as the position that believes that the rapture will occur about “3/4″ into the 7 year period, which is not true.
Ironically, a link was originally provided to a chart which depicted the prewrath rapture at about ¾ of the way through the 7 years. The chart was subsequently removed and the link now points to “Page Not Found!” Official laminated prewrath charts can presently be purchased HERE. Or you can just go online and check some out HERE or HERE. Scroll down to the section “The Timing of the Rapture” HERE for a clarification of the prewrath position.
Dr Showers has a reputation for being meticulous so I was keen to listen to the interview. Note that he wrote an in-depth critique of the system (The pre-Wrath Rapture View) and has interacted extensively with it. You hear him immediately responding to DeYoung’s question regarding “midtrib, prewrath”. What Dr Showers actually said was that the prewrath view is the rapture won’t occur until “maybe three fourths to two thirds through the 7 year tribulation period.” And I think that that is a fair summation of the view. He was merely distinguishing its approximate timing as distinct to the midtrib view, rather than going into detail.
A lengthier and more detailed summary can be found on page 7 of his prewrath book where he states that it occurs, “sometime between the middle and the end of the seventieth week.”
What exacerbates misunderstanding is that just about all prewrath charts (see above) have depicted the rapture point at about ¾ into the 70th week. Elbert Charpie is, perhaps, unique in that he thinks it might occur very early in the last half. However, one would think that a reasonable amount of time needs to elapse for Satan’s wrath (the Great Tribulation) to be administered. It’s also true that an article at the Pre-Trib Research Centre calls it The Three Quarters Rapture Theory which may aggravate those sensitive to that generic description. And to be fair to prewrath proponents, Dr Ice should have been a little more specific.
My limited experience has been that the system has sometimes been misrepresented but I doubt these instances have always been intentional. I remember having niggling questions after reading Marvin Rosenthal’s book. Several prewrath proponents I consulted seemed also somewhat confused over key issues such as the shortening of the Great Tribulation, the location of Christ in relationship to the church after the rapture and the resurrection of beheaded tribulation saints in Rev 20:4 etc. This may be one reason why PRI has offered special courses on the prewrath view for the benefit of its proponents.
As an aside, an exception was taken over Showers’ views of imminency and his comparison of the 4th seal of Revelation to the Ezekiel 14:21 “four severe judgments”. Dr Showers details compelling arguments in favor of imminency and God’s wrath (regardless of Hebrew or Greek expressions) at the 4th seal in “Maranatha, Our Lord Come!” and his abovementioned prewrath critique.
I can well appreciate the motivation for a non-pretribber to restrict the contents of the 4th seal to God’s disciplinary measures inaugurated to somehow “refine believers”. Yet, despite the elaborate attempt at expositing that position, one only has to read Ezekiel 5 to see that God’s anger and wrath (judgment) are associated with “plague, sword, famine and wild beasts.”
So it will be a reproach, a reviling, a warning and an object of horror to the nations who surround you, when I execute judgments against you in anger, wrath, and raging rebukes. I, the LORD, have spoken. When I send against them the deadly arrows of famine which were for the destruction of those whom I shall send to destroy you, then I shall also intensify the famine upon you, and break the staff of bread. Moreover, I will send on you famine and wild beasts, and they will bereave you of children; plague and bloodshed also will pass through you, and I will bring the sword on you. I, the LORD, have spoken. Eze 5:15-17
Why would it be any different at the 4th seal when Death and Hades are empowered to kill a fourth of the earth’s population using the same means? Renald Showers is right on the money. His two books speak for themselves.
Further reading:
Zechariah's Horses
First, DeYoung kept confusing prewrath with midtrib, which just goes to show you that DeYoung is ignorant with “prophecy today.”...But DeYoung was not the only ignorant one, for Showers spoke of the prewrath as the position that believes that the rapture will occur about “3/4″ into the 7 year period, which is not true.
Ironically, a link was originally provided to a chart which depicted the prewrath rapture at about ¾ of the way through the 7 years. The chart was subsequently removed and the link now points to “Page Not Found!” Official laminated prewrath charts can presently be purchased HERE. Or you can just go online and check some out HERE or HERE. Scroll down to the section “The Timing of the Rapture” HERE for a clarification of the prewrath position.
Dr Showers has a reputation for being meticulous so I was keen to listen to the interview. Note that he wrote an in-depth critique of the system (The pre-Wrath Rapture View) and has interacted extensively with it. You hear him immediately responding to DeYoung’s question regarding “midtrib, prewrath”. What Dr Showers actually said was that the prewrath view is the rapture won’t occur until “maybe three fourths to two thirds through the 7 year tribulation period.” And I think that that is a fair summation of the view. He was merely distinguishing its approximate timing as distinct to the midtrib view, rather than going into detail.
A lengthier and more detailed summary can be found on page 7 of his prewrath book where he states that it occurs, “sometime between the middle and the end of the seventieth week.”
What exacerbates misunderstanding is that just about all prewrath charts (see above) have depicted the rapture point at about ¾ into the 70th week. Elbert Charpie is, perhaps, unique in that he thinks it might occur very early in the last half. However, one would think that a reasonable amount of time needs to elapse for Satan’s wrath (the Great Tribulation) to be administered. It’s also true that an article at the Pre-Trib Research Centre calls it The Three Quarters Rapture Theory which may aggravate those sensitive to that generic description. And to be fair to prewrath proponents, Dr Ice should have been a little more specific.
My limited experience has been that the system has sometimes been misrepresented but I doubt these instances have always been intentional. I remember having niggling questions after reading Marvin Rosenthal’s book. Several prewrath proponents I consulted seemed also somewhat confused over key issues such as the shortening of the Great Tribulation, the location of Christ in relationship to the church after the rapture and the resurrection of beheaded tribulation saints in Rev 20:4 etc. This may be one reason why PRI has offered special courses on the prewrath view for the benefit of its proponents.
As an aside, an exception was taken over Showers’ views of imminency and his comparison of the 4th seal of Revelation to the Ezekiel 14:21 “four severe judgments”. Dr Showers details compelling arguments in favor of imminency and God’s wrath (regardless of Hebrew or Greek expressions) at the 4th seal in “Maranatha, Our Lord Come!” and his abovementioned prewrath critique.
I can well appreciate the motivation for a non-pretribber to restrict the contents of the 4th seal to God’s disciplinary measures inaugurated to somehow “refine believers”. Yet, despite the elaborate attempt at expositing that position, one only has to read Ezekiel 5 to see that God’s anger and wrath (judgment) are associated with “plague, sword, famine and wild beasts.”
So it will be a reproach, a reviling, a warning and an object of horror to the nations who surround you, when I execute judgments against you in anger, wrath, and raging rebukes. I, the LORD, have spoken. When I send against them the deadly arrows of famine which were for the destruction of those whom I shall send to destroy you, then I shall also intensify the famine upon you, and break the staff of bread. Moreover, I will send on you famine and wild beasts, and they will bereave you of children; plague and bloodshed also will pass through you, and I will bring the sword on you. I, the LORD, have spoken. Eze 5:15-17
Why would it be any different at the 4th seal when Death and Hades are empowered to kill a fourth of the earth’s population using the same means? Renald Showers is right on the money. His two books speak for themselves.
Further reading:
Zechariah's Horses
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Those misleading pretribulationists
The very first article I posted when I started this blog was on 2 Thess 2. I wanted to respond to a claim made by Rev Larry Wolf to the effect that:
“Pre-Tribulation Theory has no clear Biblical basis of support, but in distinct contrast it does have problem passages which are ignored instead of explained, such as II Thess 2:1-8.”
Prewrath proponent Dr Charles Cooper recently criticized Dr Robert L Thomas’ work on 2 Thess 2 and imminence. Dr Cooper made a number of, what I’d call, provocative statements:
“Dr. Robert L. Thomas’ efforts to defend pretribulational imminence may be likened to gymnastic contortions with his exegesis of II Thessalonians 2:1-3, and suggest either a deliberate attempt to deceive his readers or an ignorance of the whole counsel of the Word of God. I refuse to believe either conclusion to be true. Therefore, I am at a loss to explain why Dr. Thomas takes the positions he does when seeking to interpret what some conclude is the most difficult passage for the pretribulational position to overcome.”
He's at loss to explain it, cannot believe it and yet chooses to poison the well.
Dr Cooper again:
“For their definition of imminence to be correct, pretribulationalists like Thomas must distort Scripture to prove it.”
One of the main bones of contention was this:
“First, an uneducated reader is immediately mislead (sic) by Thomas’ first defense of his conclusion that “is present” is the best translation of enestēken (ἐνέστηκεν) because of the three translations that support his position.”
I contacted Dr Thomas and asked him about enestēken (ἐνέστηκεν). He graciously pointed out that some have not delved deeply enough into the documentation that he has presented in Vol 12 of the Expositor's Bible Commentary (revised edition). He added that it takes time for the truth to sink in if one adopts a position before a thorough examination of the text.
By the way, what wasn’t mentioned in Dr Cooper’s curious introduction of Dr Thomas - which included a bizarre reference to his age - was his contribution to the Expositor’s Bible Commentary. He has also penned one of the most outstanding commentaries on Revelation.
As Dr Cooper knows, not all pretribulationists agree that the day of the Lord covers the whole of Daniel’s 70th week - Richard Mayhue (a colleague of Dr Thomas) being one of them. He even refers to Dr Mayhue as he takes Craig Blaising to task in a more recent PRI article. Yet Dr Mayhue is more than capable of defending his pretribulationism, despite his DOL stance.
But either way, pretribulationists don’t have problems with 2 Thess 2.
Earlier, Dr Cooper suggested that some conclude that 2 Thess 2:1-3 is the most difficult passage for the pretribulationist position to overcome. Some may well "conclude" that but they'd be wrong.
I strongly recommend reading Dr Mayhue’s book 1 & 2 THESSALONIANS – TRIUMPHS AND TRIALS OF A CONSECRATED CHURCH in conjunction with Dr Mike Stallard’s first & second Thessalonians – LOOKING FOR CHRIST’S RETURN.
At this stage it’s worthwhile revisiting Eric Douma’s contribution to 2 Thess 2 and his thoughts on the prewrath system. While I don’t agree with his angle on the identity of the Restrainer, Pastor Douma has some challenging questions for the prewrath model that haven’t been adequately addressed yet.
This is, perhaps, one of the motivations for the recent spate of activity in this area.
More later....
“Pre-Tribulation Theory has no clear Biblical basis of support, but in distinct contrast it does have problem passages which are ignored instead of explained, such as II Thess 2:1-8.”
Prewrath proponent Dr Charles Cooper recently criticized Dr Robert L Thomas’ work on 2 Thess 2 and imminence. Dr Cooper made a number of, what I’d call, provocative statements:
“Dr. Robert L. Thomas’ efforts to defend pretribulational imminence may be likened to gymnastic contortions with his exegesis of II Thessalonians 2:1-3, and suggest either a deliberate attempt to deceive his readers or an ignorance of the whole counsel of the Word of God. I refuse to believe either conclusion to be true. Therefore, I am at a loss to explain why Dr. Thomas takes the positions he does when seeking to interpret what some conclude is the most difficult passage for the pretribulational position to overcome.”
He's at loss to explain it, cannot believe it and yet chooses to poison the well.
Dr Cooper again:
“For their definition of imminence to be correct, pretribulationalists like Thomas must distort Scripture to prove it.”
One of the main bones of contention was this:
“First, an uneducated reader is immediately mislead (sic) by Thomas’ first defense of his conclusion that “is present” is the best translation of enestēken (ἐνέστηκεν) because of the three translations that support his position.”
I contacted Dr Thomas and asked him about enestēken (ἐνέστηκεν). He graciously pointed out that some have not delved deeply enough into the documentation that he has presented in Vol 12 of the Expositor's Bible Commentary (revised edition). He added that it takes time for the truth to sink in if one adopts a position before a thorough examination of the text.
By the way, what wasn’t mentioned in Dr Cooper’s curious introduction of Dr Thomas - which included a bizarre reference to his age - was his contribution to the Expositor’s Bible Commentary. He has also penned one of the most outstanding commentaries on Revelation.
As Dr Cooper knows, not all pretribulationists agree that the day of the Lord covers the whole of Daniel’s 70th week - Richard Mayhue (a colleague of Dr Thomas) being one of them. He even refers to Dr Mayhue as he takes Craig Blaising to task in a more recent PRI article. Yet Dr Mayhue is more than capable of defending his pretribulationism, despite his DOL stance.
But either way, pretribulationists don’t have problems with 2 Thess 2.
Earlier, Dr Cooper suggested that some conclude that 2 Thess 2:1-3 is the most difficult passage for the pretribulationist position to overcome. Some may well "conclude" that but they'd be wrong.
I strongly recommend reading Dr Mayhue’s book 1 & 2 THESSALONIANS – TRIUMPHS AND TRIALS OF A CONSECRATED CHURCH in conjunction with Dr Mike Stallard’s first & second Thessalonians – LOOKING FOR CHRIST’S RETURN.
At this stage it’s worthwhile revisiting Eric Douma’s contribution to 2 Thess 2 and his thoughts on the prewrath system. While I don’t agree with his angle on the identity of the Restrainer, Pastor Douma has some challenging questions for the prewrath model that haven’t been adequately addressed yet.
This is, perhaps, one of the motivations for the recent spate of activity in this area.
More later....
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
2 Thessalonians 2:1-8
Here's a commentary on 2 Thess by Eric Douma. He responds to the pre-Wrath interpretation of Paul's Epistle and points out some difficulties with that system.
He also demonstrates why, despite so many claims and assertions that 2 Thess is incompatible with pre-Trib, the pretribulational model is still viable and even likely.
I like the humble manner in which he has approached this critique and agree with his following comment:
"I don’t hold to my own pre-tribulation position with absolute certainty. If certitude must be asserted, then I will claim with certainty that Antichrist cannot both be destroyed at the parousia (2 Thessalonians 2:8) and continue to reign for 3 and ½ years (Revelation 13:5) as pre-wrath would have to maintain without engaging in a form of equivocation."
2 Thessalonians 2:1-8: Does it Support a Pre-wrath View?
More on this subject can be found at Twin City Fellowship
Begin at Class 1- Introduction to Eschatology
Note: In the first audio, Pastor Douma has some interesting comments on the pre-Wrath position on the parousia and the single versus multi-stage Second Advent.
Highly recommended!
He also demonstrates why, despite so many claims and assertions that 2 Thess is incompatible with pre-Trib, the pretribulational model is still viable and even likely.
I like the humble manner in which he has approached this critique and agree with his following comment:
"I don’t hold to my own pre-tribulation position with absolute certainty. If certitude must be asserted, then I will claim with certainty that Antichrist cannot both be destroyed at the parousia (2 Thessalonians 2:8) and continue to reign for 3 and ½ years (Revelation 13:5) as pre-wrath would have to maintain without engaging in a form of equivocation."
2 Thessalonians 2:1-8: Does it Support a Pre-wrath View?
More on this subject can be found at Twin City Fellowship
Begin at Class 1- Introduction to Eschatology
Note: In the first audio, Pastor Douma has some interesting comments on the pre-Wrath position on the parousia and the single versus multi-stage Second Advent.
Highly recommended!
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