If I Were a Post-Tribber

   I am not an advocate of the post-trib/pre-wrath school of eschatology but I try to be honest.  I try to admit when a verse stumps me and I try to admit when I have no idea what I'm talking about.  In that spirit, I recently was listening to a man expound on 2 Thess 2, and I did that dangerous thing I do sometimes--I thought about what he was saying.

 If I were a post-tribber, I wouldn't plant my flag in Matthew 24.  No friend, I would dig my heels into 2 Thess 2 and I would call folks like me on our loose handling of the text.  Becuase I'm an honest type, I'll tell you why.

  A component of the general 'pre-trib camp ' is the idea of imminence of the rapture.  The approach is that it could happen at any time. It could happen tonight. It could happen before you finish reading this. No other prophetical event is left to prevent the catching away of the church.  Paul expected it in his lifetime and every generation of the church has lived in expectation of the imminence of the rapture.

  I agree with that except---well...let's just look at what it actually says.

  2 Thess 2 says "Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.  Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;.."

  Let's just assume, in the interest of not getting bogged down, that the "day of Christ" is both the rapture and the topic at hand. There is already enough in these verses without me chasing that rabbit.

  According to verse 3, the 'imminent' rapture is preceded by 2 events; a 'falling away ' and the revelation of the man of sin.  Now I'm no novice so I know what the typical teaching is by my crowd.  I know where the verses are.  But if I'm honest, the typical explanation isn't without its problems.  Let me explain.

  The typical teaching is that the 'falling away ' is a sort of worldwide apostasy as marked by all sorts of things going on in churches and in society.  It's very easy for me to look around at 21st century American Christianity or society and say 'Yeah man, we're here', but honestly--it isnt everywhere.  Oh, I agree the western church is not only a mess but proud of it.  I cant honestly say that the church in China or the church in Saudi Arabia or the church in Korea is a mess. Frankly, it looks like they're doing fine without our help.

  Truth be told every generation can look around and see apostasy. Cotton Mather saw it in the 1660s. Lester Roloff saw it in the 1960's. Both of them were right. It has existed since day one.  Besides, I did a little bait and switch there on you. The verse doesn't say 'apostasy', it says 'falling away', and as much as I would love a solid cross reference to nail down what the phrase means, I don't have one.  And yes I know about Hebrews 6.  Different rabbit.  I can speculate that it means apostasy, but I can't prove it.  Maybe we pre-tribbers ought to quit acting like we can.  Just a thought.

  There is also the matter of the revelation of the man of sin.  It looks to me like, grammatically speaking, verse 4 and 5 aren't the revelation but rather a factoid about the man of sin.  Of course that doesn't really get me completely out of thorns, does it?

  The man of sin is revealed you say? To whom?  To the world? To the church? To himself?  Not clear from the verse.  So I'm going to say that I don't know, and after having listened to and read behind a lot of guys, I'm not convinced that they know either.  Yeah, I know I'm never going to become a best-selling prophecy author by saying 'I don't know,', but there it is.

  How about this?  The rapture isnt 'imminent' in the sense that literally nothing else has to happen first. It is 'imminent' in the sense that it is preceded by events that I have no control over and events that I may not even realize have been accomplished.

  As I said before, I'm a pre-trib guy, but pre-trib doesn't explain everything in a neat little bow, and we need to admit that.  Maybe if we quit poring over recycled charts from the 1920s and sought God's face, He would explain it to us.  That's my plan anyway.