The Purposes of the Tribulation
The divine intentions of the Tribulation will be:
First, to prepare Israel for her King and His kingdom (Ezekiel 36:18-32; Malachi 4:5-6). It is “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jeremiah 30:7) when God will discipline disobedient Israel, which suggests that Israel is the focus of the tribulation period. Daniel 9:24-27 is perhaps the passage that best explains in detail the primary purpose of the Tribulation.
Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city—to bring the rebellion to an end, to put a stop to sin, to atone for iniquity to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy place. Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until an Anointed One, the ruler, will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be rebuilt with a plaza and a moat, but in difficult times. After those sixty-two week the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing. The people of the coming ruler will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come with a flood, and until the end there will be war; desolations are decreed. He will make a firm covenant with many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and offering. And the abomination of desolation will be on a wing of the temple until the decreed destruction is poured out on the desolator.
Second, to judge people living on earth. He will bring judgment on both nations and people for their unbelief and sin.
They cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, the one who is holy and true, how long until you judge those who live on the earth and avenge our blood?... Those who live on the earth will gloat over them and celebrate and send gifts to one another because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth… All those who live on the earth will worship it, everyone whose name was not written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slaughtered… It exercises all the authority of the first beast on its behalf and compels the earth and those who live on it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed… It deceives those who live on the earth because of the signs that it is permitted to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who live on the earth to make an image of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived… Then I saw another angel flying high overhead, with the eternal gospel to announce to the inhabitants of the earth—to every nation, tribe, language, and people… The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come up from the abyss and go to destruction. Those who live on the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast that was, and is not, and is to come (Revelation 6:10; 11:10; 13:8, 12, 14; 14:6; 17:8).
Neither of these pertains to the church. The church will not be part of that period simply because she does not fit into the purposes of God for the Tribulation.
The Need for an Interval
There are three events that the Bible teaches will take place before the Second Coming but after the Rapture. First, the Judgment Seat of Christ. The rewarding of believers is connected closely to the Lord’s return in several passages (e.g. 1 Peter 5:4 and Revelation 22:12). The reason for this time is to reward believers for their faithful service to the Lord during their lifetime (1 Corinthians 3:11-4:5; 2 Corinthians 5:10).
Second, the Marriage of the Lamb. According to Revelation 19:7-9 there will be great joy in heaven when this event takes place. The text In Revelation 19 places this event in heaven, not on earth or in the clouds. The Marriage of the Lamb is a very important event to the Lord Jesus, since He has given His life for her, He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless (Ephesians 5:27). At the marriage, believers (the church) are united forever with Him, so that where I am you may be also (John 14:3) and we will always be with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:17). John Walvoord states,
“The implication is evident that those in heaven who compose the “bride” are already translated or resurrected and their righteous acts determined and rewarded….If the church is to be judged, rewarded, and joined to Christ in the symbol of the marriage before the Second Advent, an interval of time is required.”1
Third, the salvation of those who will enter the millennial kingdom in non-glorified bodies. At the rapture, all believers on earth are removed, leaving non-believers only. Yet, when Jesus returns at His second coming, large numbers of believers populate the earth. They come to faith after the rapture and before the second coming. At the second coming these believers are not said to be changed—they will not receive glorified bodies. This will make it possible for them to repopulate the earth in the millennial kingdom. Walvoord states,
“The Scripture declares emphatically that life on earth in the Millennium relates to a people not translated and not resurrected, a people still in their mortal bodies. Isaiah 65:20-25 declares of the inhabitants (of Jerusalem): “they will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit…They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them.” The passage closes with a description of millennial conditions… Obviously, only a people in mortal flesh build houses, plant, work and have offspring.”2
Forth, the judgment of the sheep and the goats. In Matthew 25:31-33, Jesus spoke of His own return at the end of the tribulation period to judge the Gentiles survived. Jesus Christ is the Shepherd who will separate the sheep from the goats, the believers from the non-believers.
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on the left.
Survivors of the seven-year tribulation will be gathered when Jesus Christ returns. This passage is referring to the judgment of the nations. This event is significant for the timing of the rapture. As I mentioned previously, the post-tribulation view believes that the rapture will occur concurrently with the second coming of Christ, a single event separated by a few moments. If that is the case, then who are the sheep spoken of in this Matthew passage? The post-tribulation view is correct then there would be no sheep left since they would have been raptured, there would only be goats. Charles Ryrie explains that,
“There is no way the rapture can remove the sheep yet have them present on the earth immediately following the rapture to be judged.”3
There is no way that the rapture and the second coming can happen simultaneously as the post-tribulationalist argues because there will be no need for the Shepherd to separate the survivors of the tribulation since all that is left is the one group, the goats.
MacArthur and Mayhue write that,
“If the rapture occurs in connection with a post-tribulational coming, the subsequent separation of the sheep from the goats in Matthew 25:31-46 would be redundant.”4
1 John F. Walvoord, The Rapture Question, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979), p. 84.
2 Ibid., p. 86.
3 Charles C. Ryrie, Come Quickly, Lord Jesus (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1996), pp. 89-90.
4 John F. MacArthur and Richard Mayhue, Biblical Doctrine (Wheaton; IL: Crossway, 2017), p. 900.
All Scripture quotations, unless indicated, are taken from The Christian Standard Bible. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible®, and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers, all rights reserved.
Copyright © 2021 by Miguel J Gonzalez Th.D.
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