May 31, 2009

Prewrath Story - The Prewrath Position is the Natural Reading of Scripture

Bob writes,

I had read all the various positions after God saved and just decided upon Pretrib. I never was sure and was confused by a lot of verses. Of course I felt good that I wouldn't have to suffer at all (my built-in fleshy bias!). Then God laid it on my heart to seriously study it in 2007, and praise God He opened my eyes! From Marvin Rosenthal, Charles Cooper, Robert Van Kampen, Alan Kurschner, and others, Scripture became clear and all the verses harmonized! I rejoiced!

I then went back to my Pretrib books wondering how I was so easily deceived. Very simply - mention only a few verses and makes lots of assumptions about those verses. My jaw dropped when I saw how easily I was wrong! Now, about 8 years later as the Lord taught me how to interpret His Word, it was wonderful to see how the PreWrath teachings naturally reveal God's clear prophetic timeline.

They placed their markers at PreWrath since they could see verses line up, however, it would take more study to understand it fully.

I then created a chart to visualize the sequence of events and taught our Bible study group. My chart had the 4 viewpoints and I gave each person a Rapture marker and 10 verses on puzzle pieces that linked the chronology of events. I then asked them to arrange their puzzle pieces using the 'face-value' interpretation and then put their Rapture marker on the chart where they thought it would occur. They placed their markers at PreWrath since they could see verses line up, however, it would take more study to understand it fully.

So I praise God that He even chose to reveal the future to us; what a blessing! Especially in this day and age!

Bob

May 27, 2009

A Brief Note on Obadiah's "Day of the Lord"

For the day of the LORD is approaching for all the nations! Just as you have done, so it will be done to you. You will get exactly what your deeds deserve. (Obad 1:15 NET)

Obadiah, though the shortest book in the Old Testament, gives a grave warning to the nations of God's eschatological judgment. And Obadiah reminds Edom that because of their antagonistic treatment with their neighbor Israel (which is also their ancestral brother Jacob), he warns Edom of recompense. Obadiah teaches us that injustice can run, but it cannot hide--there will be Divine poetic justice. Wrongdoing against God's people requires divine reckoning. Obadiah encapsulates for us his primary message in verse fifteen, "Just as you have done, so it will be done to you. You will get exactly what your deeds deserve."

May 27, 2009

Mal Couch, Once Again, Demonstrates His Arrogance and Ignorance

This past weekend, Mal Couch writes,

Dr. Couch, what do you think of Marvin Rosenthal's Pre-wrath rapture position?

ANSWER: When you want Bible answers listen to those capable of truly exegeting the Scriptures. Rosenthal has virtually no biblical training. Those of us who have had years and years of strong theology, and hours and hours of the biblical languages, are far better qualified to explain the truth, and that is in this case, the fact is that the rapture of the church is clearly a PRE-TRIBULATIONAL RAPTURE!

He is bold behind a keyboard, but I challenge him to put his money where his mouth is. I would love to debate Mal Couch in a moderated public debate and challenge his assertions in cross-examination. Of course, this is unlikely since many pretrib teachers insulate themselves from being challenged publicly. I even question if Couch knows Greek. Sure, he must have taken it during seminary, and since then maybe picked up a lexicon every so often, but reading his material I am given the impression that he is all bluster.

In his remaining short blog post, he misquoted Rosenthal putting words in his mouth and did not even document his statements so someone can check the veracity of its accurateness! (I know that he misquoted Rosenthal because I am familiar with his material). Apparently, Couch assumes that he does not have to be scholarly and quote and document properly. His word must be gospel.

Couch attempts to argue grammatically that Revelation 6:16-17 refutes Prewrath. I have responded to him before on this and have shown him that he has committed grammatical fallacies, which are documented here in the second half of the article. I have never received any response from my exegesis on that text.

Some people ask me why I pick on low-hanging fruit such as Couch. First, I do so infrequently. Second, every popular pretrib teacher has some following, so it is my hope that there are some out there who will see these responses. I do prefer, though, to respond to the best arguments out there. But, sadly, sometimes the really bad argumentation can be influential.

If you have not heard it yet, back ten years ago, Cooper and Best debated (although, not containing cross-examination) Couch and a few other individuals. The upshot of the debate was that Couch lost the debate, which resulted in him angrily exiting the building immediately after the debate. We never have received a debate invitation from a pretrib teacher since then. And they have turned down our debate offers. I think that speaks volumes: Prewrathers are willing to defend their position publicly under cross-examination; but Pretribbers...are not. Additionally, it has been my experience that pretribbers do not link to prewrath articles, or cite from specific books and page numbers, when they respond to them. But Prewrathers have nothing to hide, just as in this blog post I have linked Couch's article for all to verify my statements. Again, very telling.

Here is that debate audio.

May 26, 2009

What Beautiful Sound Does God Truly Desire?

"Last week I remembered the words which Barack Hussein Obama made while still on the campaign trail. He said that one of the most melodious and beautiful sounds in the world is the Islamic call to prayer, which by the way rings forth from the minarets here six times a day. Last Tuesday as the Mullah was shouting out his statement that 'there is no God but Allah', for the 9:00 pm call to prayer, a Sunni Muslim man was on his knees in my home confessing to God his sin of rejecting Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Yes [he] received Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. That is a beautiful and melodious sound as is the song of the angels rejoicing over this sinner that came to repentance."

Please keep this missionary to the Muslims in your prayers.

May 24, 2009

The Final Judgments

May 24, 2009

The Final Judgments

Charles Cooper explicates the doctrine of the final eschatological judgments. Amillennialists wrongly ignore specific aspects of the final judgment and end up focusing on generalities. This presentation was given last October in O'Fallon Missouri at an eschatology forum.

Download as MP3

May 20, 2009

"For People Will Be Lovers of Themselves"

I have been in the process of writing a book on Prewrath for some time. The past week I have been researching and studying Amos' oracle of the Day of the Lord. It is eerie to see some parallels between the northern kingdom of Israel that he preached against and American Religion. They had a popular eschatology that presumed upon God's holiness thinking they could placate God's holy standards by their religious ritualism -- and thus assumed that they were immune to any future judgment. The future for them was like looking through rose-colored stained glass windows. American religion has its own delusional external religious ritualism, and it is self-made.

I was directed this morning to a piece that encapsulated American Religion and thought to myself that Amos' categorical message of righteousness still rings true today. Here is an excerpt of that article:

In the Brownian worldview [Dan Brown], all religions -- even Roman Catholicism -- have the potential to be wonderful, so long as we can get over the idea that any one of them might be particularly true. It's a message perfectly tailored for 21st-century America, where the most important religious trend is neither swelling unbelief nor rising fundamentalism, but the emergence of a generalized "religiousness" detached from the claims of any specific faith tradition.

The polls that show more Americans abandoning organized religion don't suggest a dramatic uptick in atheism: They reveal the growth of do-it-yourself spirituality, with traditional religion's dogmas and moral requirements shorn away. The same trend is at work within organized faiths as well, where both liberal and conservative believers often encounter a God who's too busy validating their particular version of the American Dream to raise a peep about, say, how much money they're making or how many times they've been married.

These are Dan Brown's kind of readers. Piggybacking on the fascination with lost gospels and alternative Christianities, he serves up a Jesus who's a thoroughly modern sort of messiah -- sexy, worldly, and Goddess-worshiping, with a wife and kids, a house in the Galilean suburbs, and no delusions about his own divinity.

But the success of this message -- which also shows up in the work of Brown's many thriller-writing imitators -- can't be separated from its dishonesty. The "secret" history of Christendom that unspools in "The Da Vinci Code" is false from start to finish. The lost gospels are real enough, but they neither confirm the portrait of Christ that Brown is peddling -- they're far, far weirder than that -- nor provide a persuasive alternative to the New Testament account. The Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John -- jealous, demanding, apocalyptic -- may not be congenial to contemporary sensibilities, but he's the only historically-plausible Jesus there is.

For millions of readers, Brown's novels have helped smooth over the tension between ancient Christianity and modern American faith. But the tension endures. You can have Jesus or Dan Brown. But you can't have both. (Read it all here.)

May 19, 2009

A Pre-Wrath Journey

Dear Prewrath Rapture Dot Com:

I am writing you to let you know how much I appreciate the information on your website. I am no expert and am limited in Bible knowledge and theology as a layman. I am an engineer which requires me to be logical and analytical. I have studied several books and many articles on eschatology over the past 35 years. All come from a Pre-millennial perspective. I was brought up in a fundamental Pre-Trib environment since childhood in New England. I remember early on reading all about the Pre-Trib Rapture and thought it was great. But then I would read the passages of scripture dealing with the end-times in my Bible reading and something kept bothering me about exactly how the Pre-Trib scenario wasn't that clear. There were too many assumptions and interpretations made elsewhere to make it work. I couldn't put my finger on it, so I trusted the Bible scholars knew what they were talking about. In the early years I thought this was the only view. But the feeling of my wife was that why would God want to remove us during the entire tribulation when our witness would be needed most.

Because of my career in the Air Force and then the aerospace/defense industry, we moved around the country often and have been associated with many Baptist and Bible churches. Two had pastors with a Post-Tribulational view which started making us aware of the problems with the Pre-Trib view.

We were introduced to the Pre-Wrath view in the mid-90s by reading the writings of and listening to taped Bible studies of Marv Rosenthal who my parents loved to hear at Moody-Keswick Bible Conference in St. Petersburg, Florida, back in the 80s-90s until he was disinvited. I then obtained books by Robert Van Kampen and it was his The Rapture Question Answered that really convinced me that Pre-Wrath made the most sense. In the past few months I've been reaffirming this position by reading the writings and listening to the lectures of Charles Cooper and others at Prewrathrapture dot com and a few other linked sites. You have written excellent articles in defense of the Pre-Wrath view.

The problem I see with the Western Evangelical Church today is that the people do not want to hear such hard teaching or break from there comfortable "orthodox" beliefs. Pre-Wrath does not "tickle their ears", but Pre-Trib does. They want positive things that will help them deal with life and not worry about having to go through much of the 70th week. But we are commanded to not worry, but to trust Him to help us overcome and be faithful to the end of the age regardless of the circumstances. Christians 50+ (the majority now) like tradition. And all the favorite Bible teachers on radio and TV push Pre-Trib. To question that is "heresy". And 9 times out of 10 they never heard of Pre-Wrath, especially here in the Dallas Fort Worth area which is a Pre-Trib stronghold including Southern Baptist churches (where we now worship) even though SBC doctrinal statement allows for different views. The situation I hear Marv talking about in his 2008 Pre-Wrath conference address is very true. Churches and organizations can't change once they stipulate Pre-Trib in their doctrine. That creates all sorts of problems. Change in view will have to come from the bottom up - the grass roots. I am sharing the Pre-Wrath view with Christian friends at work and by e-mail with a few from the past. But I'm finding it very difficult at church and have to be careful. The pastor's mentor was the late Dr. W.A. Criswell known for his Pre-Trib views. But the Lord lead us to this church for other reasons.

In His Service,
Chuck

May 17, 2009

A Brief Structural Note on Matthew 24:15

Open up your Bibles.

There have been some interpreters of Matthew 24 that have wrongly viewed the martyrdom contained in verse nine as disconnected from the martyrdom of the great tribulation in verses 15-22. The grammar and context militates against such an interpretation.

In Matthew 24:5-14, Jesus describes mostly general events that will happen up to the end of the age. Then in verses 15-22, Jesus unpacks the martyrdom that he mentioned in verse nine.

Here are the reasons we know that starting in verse fifteen Jesus provides a parenthetical account of the martyrdom.

1) Jesus begins verse fifteen with "Therefore" (οὖν). This is a common discourse indicator, which in this case is giving an inference of what came before verse fifteen. In addition, the very use of "therefore" demonstrates that the audience before verse fifteen is the same audience after verse fifteen.

2) In verses 5-14 there is a general or "shotgun" description of events that will precede the end of the age. But in verses 15-22, Jesus focuses in on the monumental event that will be the cause of death for Christians: the "abomination of desolation" followed by the consequent persecution terror of the great tribulation.

3) Finally, this point is often missed, but the same Christian audience in verses 5-14, who will experience those events, is the same audience in verses 15-22 because Jesus uses the second person plural, "you" in both sections without any hint that he has two completely different groups of believers in mind.

May 12, 2009

"Unless The Lord Come First"

S. P. Tregelles writes,

The Apostle James (Chapter 5) speaks of the evil characteristics of "the last days"; in contrast to which he says, "Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and the latter rain. Be ye also patient, stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." (7, 8.) This , then, shows what the kind of waiting for the Lord's coming was which this Apostle taught: it was that in which "long patience" was needed. The expression, "the coming of the Lord draweth nigh", is not one to be measured by mere interval of time, but rather with the intelligence of its absolute certainty, even though the intervening period might seem great.

....He does not make instantaneous [imminent] looking for the coming of the Lord the reason why such things should not be said or done. He does not say (as some now do), in speaking of things presently before them, "Unless the Lord come first." (The Hope of Christ's Second Coming, p. 24)

May 10, 2009

Pre-Wrath Conference Only Two Months Away!

We are aware that there are some attendees who will be coming from out of state and are planning a summer vacation around the conference. Since I am a Wisconsinite at heart, and since I am absolutely convinced that Wisconsin is the most beautiful Midwestern state, I'd like to suggest a few vacation spots in Wisconsin.

(1) Wisconsin Dells cannot be pigeonedholed. It is basically a city turned wonderland. It touts as being the waterpark capital of the world. It has the most mini-golf courses per capital in the world. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Follow that link to the myriads of attractions.

(2) House on the Rock. Here is another Wisconsin Attraction that is unique: "The House on the Rock is the grand vision of Alex Jordan, who believed that sights and sounds were the most effective means of stimulating the senses. He wanted guests to question his creation, to come to their own conclusions and to turn his world of dreams into their own. The Attraction has room after room of some of the world's most unique and eclectic collections which has amazed thousands of visitors each year."

(3) If you like small resort towns, I have three for you: Lake Geneva in Southern Wisconsin. Hayward in Northern Wisconsin. Hayward is home of the Birkebeiner, the Lumberjack World Championship that is on ESPN annually (this year it conveniently lands a week after the conference). And Hayward hosts the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame. Have you ever vacationed on the Great Lakes? There is the tranquil Bayfield and the Apostle Islands on Lake Superior.

Here is a link to the Wisconsin Department of Tourism for more ideas.

May 8, 2009

S. P. Tregelles on the Sentimentalism of the Pretribulational Rapture

S. P. Tregelles was one of the most noted 19th century Greek scholars. His generation was the first to confront what was called back then, "the secret rapture" (a.k.a. the pretribulational rapture).

What he observed about pretribulationists back in the 19th century still holds true today: Many affirm pretribulationism out of sentimentalism.

One of the last books he wrote was on refuting this novel doctrine. In The Hope of Christ's Second Coming, he poignantly writes,

It is very manifest that the doctrine of a secret coming of Christ, and a secret removal of the Church to be with Him, is peculiarly suited to those who cherish the religion of sentiment. What more cheering (they say) than the thought that the Lord may take His people to Himself at any moment? What more animating than the belief that this may take place this very day? And when any one brings them to Scripture, and tries to point out the revealed hope of the Lord's coming, it seems as if there were nothing but coldness in the teaching, and as if the Lord were put far off from them. They ask sometimes if such chilling doctrines can be consistent with love to the Lord, and whether love to His person does not exclude the thought of a revealed interval, and of events that will take place first. It is thus that truth is judged by sentiment and emotion, instead of true emotions, which are according to God, being formed by truth in all its definite severity (p. 75).

May 7, 2009

Matthew 24, The End of the Age, Pretribulationism, "Accusative for Extent of Time" (Always, πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας)

Yes, all those topics are related! Let me explain.

I had a Greek professor once who would often cite Greek grammatical categories to rule out particular interpretations of a Biblical text (that is an essential practice for good exegesis). For example, he would say, "This doctrine cannot be true because of the perfect, passive, present, participle." I enjoyed this because it demonstrated the Protestant spirit that you did not have to learn grammatical categories from a pope or some magisterial teaching authority. The priesthood of believers allows each individual to interpret the Scriptures accordingly. This does not mean that every believer is going to have the learned skills to discern all the subtleties of Greek for example. But it shows that it is available.

For those who know the original languages of Greek and Hebrew, they understand that grammatical categories, most of the time, cannot give you the precise meaning of an interpretation, but it often eliminates dubious meanings and narrows the options. Or said another way: Exegesis has never been about possibility, it is about probability.

That being said...

Pretribulationists assert that the events in Matthew 24 do not apply to the Church, but rather the teaching is for a future generation of "saved Jews" (apparently not part of the Church) who will experience the Second Coming. And often you will hear them qualify this by saying, "But there is some spiritual application in Matthew 24 for the Church." I find this latter statement quite odd since the spiritual warnings in Matthew 24 depend on the doctrinal teaching. To detach the spiritual application of "watchfulness" found in vv. 36ff., from the doctrinal teaching found in vv. 1-35, is to violate all sorts of interpretative sound principles. This inconsistency is indicative of a tradition.

Pre-wrath literature abounds in argumentation demonstrating that the Church is the primary audience of Jesus' teaching in Matthew 24. One particular argument I want to address is that Jesus says that the Church will be here until the end of the age; as well, he promises the Church that he will be with them, through the Holy Spirit, to the end of the age. In the Great Commission passage, it says,

"And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. (19) Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, (20) teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always [πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας], to the end of the age." --Matt 28:18-20

It is significant in this verse that the word "always" is found in the accusative case in Greek, not the genitive case. As a general rule, the accusative functions to limit the quantity (extent), and the genitive used to limit quality (kind). And when the accusative is used adverbially, as in this verse, this is particularly significant. Here we have what is called an "accusative for extent of time," which answers "How long?"

If "always" was placed in the genitive, then Jesus would have been saying that he would be with them during this present Church age, but not necessarily the entire Church age and to the end of the age. But Jesus' choice of the accusative assures that Jesus will be with believers to the extent of the entire Church age, up to the end of the age. (cf. Greek Grammar: Beyond the Basics, Wallace, 201-203.)

The following two concepts are illustrated:

This brings me to my main point. In the Olivet Discourse, we have two references to the end of the age. First, the discourse begins with the disciples asking a question of what would be the sign of the end of the age (v. 3). The second reference is Matthew 24:14, which Jesus says,

"And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come."

These references to the end of the age are problematic for the pretribulationist who says that Matthew 24 is not a teaching for the Church. Since all pretribulationists would affirm that Matthew 28:18-20 is a teaching for the Church and that Jesus is with his Church to the end of the age, why all of a sudden in Matthew 24:3,14 is the Church no longer found to exist up to the end?

There is no Scriptural basis for this inconsistency. It's indicative of Tradition. Further, pretribulationists are in direct disobedience to Jesus' command in Matthew 28:20, "teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you," when they teach believers that Jesus' commands in the Olivet Discourse do not apply to them.

To get around this plain teaching I have even heard some pretribulationists assert that there are two "end of the ages"! That is a desperate attempt at reconciling their pretrib tradition while denying Jesus' teaching.

Let's thank the Lord that his particular promise is found in the "Accusative for Extent of Time" and thereby he will not leave his Church during the greatest of all tribulations!

May 5, 2009

Where Do Believers Go After They Are United With Christ at the Rapture?
A Response to Post-Tribulationism

There are three possibilities:

1) Remain in the Air
2) Enter the Heavenly Abode into the Father's Presence
3) Immediately Escort Christ downward to Earth

The pre-wrath position is that after the rapture their destination is to enter the heavenly abode of God's presence. Then after a duration of time during which the Lord metes out eschatological wrath upon the ungodly and their nations, believers will descend to the earth for the millennium and eternity.

There are three important passages that teach that we do not immediately descend to the earth just after the rapture, but rather are brought into the Father's presence:

"Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, "I believed, and so I spoke," we also believe, and so we also speak, (14) knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence." --2 Cor 4:13-14 (cf. 1Th 4:14).

"In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? (3) And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also." --John 14:2-3

"Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, "These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and where have they come from?" (14) I said to him, "My lord, you know." And he said to me, "These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (15) "For this reason, they are before the throne of God; and they serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will spread His tabernacle over them." --Rev 7:13-15

On a similar note, post-tribulationists argue that in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 the Greek noun, "meeting" (ἀπάντησις) requires the technical meaning of an "immediate escort back to the origin of place." Thus, according to this understanding, the Church will immediately escort Jesus back to earth just after the rapture.

This understanding of that Greek word is simply in error. I devoted an entire lecture on this word at the Orlando Prewrath Conference in 2008. Here are my notes on it.

May 4, 2009

Douglas Moo on Mid-Tribulationism, a.k.a. Mid-Seventieth Week Rapture

The mid-tribulational rapture position is not discussed much here simply for the reason that it has been unconvincing to believers since it's inception around the mid-20th century. To be sure, this minority view has had its proponents in the past such as Gleason Archer, Norman Harrison, and J. Oliver Buswell. But there is even disagreement between these individuals on important categories, particularly between Archer and Buswell. Today, the mid-tribulational view has mostly become defunct. In fact, I have been informed that the next edition to the popular rapture book by Zondervan, Three Views on the Rapture, the mid-trib view will be jettisoned and replaced by the . . . yes, you guessed it, the pre-wrath view! To be sure, this is not to suggest that the mid-trib and pre-wrath positions are similar or variations of each other—they are not. If anything, it is the pretrib and mid-trib that have affinities with each other; and the pre-wrath and post-trib with each other.

Post-tribulationalist Douglas Moo argues against the mid-trib rapture error that the saints experience persecution during the first half of the 70th week of Daniel,

For Daniel 9:27, the text that most clearly delineates the sequence of events in the seventieth week, explicitly states that it is only at the mid-point of the week that the Antichrist begins his persecution of the saints—during the first half of the week, he is in covenant relationship with Israel. Similarly, Paul indicates that the evil of the Antichrist is restrained at the present time but that restraining will one day be lifted, at which time the Antichrist will exalt himself above God and demand worship in the temple (2 Thess. 2:1-10). A comparison of the texts reveals clearly that this is the same event predicted by Daniel for the mid-point of the seventieth week. With this picture the Revelation is in complete agreement; the thirteenth chapter portrays the Antichrist as the active initiator of persecution against the saints. Even the Olivet Discourse hints at this by commanding the saints to flee from Jerusalem only after "the abomination of desolation" is set up in the temple. The point, then, is that Scripture consistently portrays the first part of Daniel's seventieth week as a time of relative tranquility for the saints; it is only at the midpoint of the week when the Antichrist asserts his authority that the "wrath of man" against the saints becomes evident. It is this outbreak of satanic activity that makes the midpoint of the seventieth week significant. p. 166

May 3, 2009

Paul Feinberg's Faulty Exegesis

The following three juxtapositions speak for themselves. Feinberg's statements are from Three Views on the Rapture: Pre-, Mid-, or Post-tribulation (Zondervan, 1996).

Feinberg: "In each of the Rapture passages there is no mention of trial before the event." p. 81

The Apostle Paul: "Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring. (5) This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering-- (6) since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, (7) and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels (8) in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. (9) They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, (10) when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed." --2 Thess 1:4-10

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Feinberg: "There is no clear, indisputable reference to the Rapture in any Second Advent passage." p. 81

The Apostle Paul: "But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. (14) For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. (15) For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming (parousia) of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. (16) For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. (17) Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. (18) Therefore encourage one another with these words." --1 Thess 4:13-18

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Feinberg: "There is no clear, indisputable mention of the resurrection of the church at the Second Advent." p. 82

The Apostle Paul: "But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. (21) For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. (22) For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. (23) But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming (parousia) those who belong to Christ." --1 Cor 15:20-23