Tribulation - Introduction Part A

[Jim Watt]

“*TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE” MINISTRIES*

*Jim & Marie Watt*

*Tel: 253-517-9195 - Email: jmbetter at gmail.com*

*Web: www.2rbetter.org*

February 22, 2012


 *2012-02-22 - TRIBULATION - INTRODUCTION PART A - H. A. Baker*


 *A New Doctrine*

The teaching that the Church in whole, or in part, will be caught up to
heaven before the reign of the man of sin, the anti-Christ, did not appear
in church history until the early part of the nineteenth century. Neither
any of the early church fathers nor later church writers taught this
doctrine. Neither did the early church creeds nor the church creeds of
modern time before the nineteenth century teach this doctrine. On the
contrary, whenever these writers, or creeds, referred to the last days of
the Church, in every such instance they said that the Church would continue
on earth to the end of the reign of the anti-Christ.


 I intended to quote from some of the church fathers and from some of the
church creeds; but I believe that is unnecessary, since no one will deny
the above statement of facts, and since anyone who cares to do so may make
personal investigation as to their truthfulness.


 Of course beliefs of church fathers or beliefs as stated in creeds do not
prove a doctrine true. The Bible is the proof-standard. However, these
evidences from church history do show that this doctrine in question is a *new
doctrine. *


 *How We Got the New Doctrine*

After my study of the scriptures had led me to believe this an erroneous
doctrine I learned about its origin. You may be as surprised as I was to
learn how this teaching got into the Church and became so popular. It
appears that it came about as follows:


 In March, 1830, a woman in Richard Baxter's church in London, England,
when under supernatural power, prophesied that the Lord Jesus might come
any time and that true believers in Him might any day be caught up by
translation to heaven. This church and this woman were connected with the
Irvingite movement that soon went astray on many false doctrines. The
Irvingite movement at that time placed much emphasis on supernatural
manifestations such as speaking with other tongues, prophesying under
supernatural power, etc.


 At the same time John Darby and a little group of men gathered at
Plymouth, England, were engaged in independent Bible study. This was the
beginning of the sect later called “The Plymouth Brethren.” Although
Richard Baxter himself did not accept as true the prophecy of the Irvingite
woman in his church, it seems that many others did. And although Darby and
his group of Plymouth Brethren were not a part of the Irvingite movement
they nevertheless, accepted this prophecy as coming from the Lord, and they
incorporated it into their teaching.


 Since Darby was one of the most influential preachers in England at that
time, and since this easy way of escape-tribulation-doctrine was pleasing,
and since it is a natural weakness of Christians to be readily attracted by
any doctrine that promises to be a “new” revelation, this supposedly new
revelation about the rapture of the Church quickly spread throughout the
evangelical churches of England.


 George Muller of the famous Muller orphanage and Tregelles, reputed to be
the best Bible scholar of that century, and Spurgeon, and many others by
public addresses and in writing, opposed this new teaching, declaring it to
be unscriptural and false. However, all this opposition was in vain, as
already shown.


 Having accepted this “spirit”-inspired new teaching Darby and his group
proceeded by “new” interpretations and inferences to make the scriptures
support the new “theory.” Darby's line of “interpretations” and
“inferences” have come down to us today through the Plymouth Brethren sect
with little variation from the teachings of Darby. In our day Charles
Scofield, one of the Darby line and closely associated with the “Brethren,”
has perhaps done more than any other one man to propagate the
escape-tribulation, any-moment, secret-rapture teaching. Another man who
helped much in making this teaching widely known was W. E. Blackstone. He
summarized the Darby-Scofield teaching on this subject in a book called,
“Jesus Is Coming,” and with the help of some men of wealth sent free copies
to preachers and missionaries all over the world. That is how I first came
in contact with any definite discussion about the return of the Lord. This
was doubtless true in the case of thousands of others who had been as
ignorant as I about the whole question. I read recently that Blackstone,
after further study, reversed his former view and saw the error of his
previous belief. However, he did much in his time in promoting the
Darby-Scofield view.


 Like Blackstone, and Oswald Smith, and Henry Frost, American secretary of
the China Inland Mission, and like many, many others, who after more
careful study, have reversed their beliefs, you may have to reverse yours,
for you will see that the popular belief is “the tradition of the fathers,”
but not of the church fathers. At any rate, the above is a brief outline of
the history of this “new” Darby doctrine. Further information on this
point, supported by more evidence of its accuracy, is given in my book
*Tribulation
to Glory.*


 *What Darby Taught*

So far as I know, all familiar with the facts agree that Darby taught as
stated in this chapter. He taught that Jesus might return any moment to
raise the dead in Christ and to translate, without death, the believers in
Christ, who will be alive at the time. This coming, Darby claimed, would be
invisible, noiseless, secret. After the disappearance of the believers from
the earth the man of sin, the anti-Christ, would openly appear to reign
over the whole world. At the end of this usurper's reign the Lord Jesus
would *openly* return to earth to raise the rest of the dead believers,
judge the world, and set up His visible kingdom on earth. According to
Darby, this first coming of Christ would be “for” His saints and the coming
after the reign of the man of sin would be “with” His saints for whom He
had previously come.


 Although Darby and his followers of the Darby-Scofield line have written
volumes sufficient to fill many a library shelf dealing with the
ramification of the any-moment-rapture theory, the main points are
discussed in one section of the book “Tribulation to Glory,” to which we
refer the reader. However, for the benefit of those who do not have access
to that book I will here more concisely repeat what is in the other book. I
will now touch on some of the main teachings of Darby and suggest reasons
why these lack sufficient scriptural support.


 Because Darby and his group could find no direct statement of the
scripture that the believers would be translated before the time of the
anti-Christ, they found it necessary to support the new doctrine by
“interpretations” and “inferences” not found by direct statements of the
Word of God. How can it be emphasized too strongly that this much-embracing
doctrine from Darby's day to ours has only the support of “inference?”


 *A. The “Worthy-to-Escape” Passages*

Two passages of Scripture were favorite texts for Darby. One of these
reads: “Watch you therefore, and pray always, that you may be accounted
worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass and to stand
before the Son of man. Luke 21:36. Darby said that the things that were “to
come to pass” were the persecutions under the anti-Christ.


 Darby said that, but the Bible does not. Darby “inferred” that the reign
of the man of sin was in question. Does not the Bible “infer” that the
destruction of the wicked *after* the reign of the man of sin is referred
to? Read the context. The Lord was talking about the destruction of the
heaven and the earth and what would happen to “them,” to people on the
earth at that time. Who? The wicked. How would “they,” the wicked, be
caught? Unawares. How about us? We would not be caught unawares if we
should watch and pray, but would be safe in the day of judgment - “escape.”


 Now we see how the following Scripture fits in with my “inference” that
the *day of judgment* and not the reign of the anti-Christ is referred to
in the above passage in Luke, Read this: “What manner of persons ought you
to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hastening
unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall
be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat” 2 Peter 3:11,
12. Peter wrote primarily to Gentile churches, and hence this looking for
the day of destruction (post-tribulation) cannot be shifted over to the
Jews.


 Christians in general are to look for the day the wicked will be
destroyed. Although I believe that my “inference” is most scriptural that
the passages in Luke and in Peter refer to the same thing, and that in the
following Bible study I can show by much scripture that the day we hope to
“escape” is the day of judgment of the wicked, all I insist on here is that
this Darby-Scofield “inference” is unprovable in its setting and that this
passage can have *other** *interpretations.


 A second favorite passage much used to support Darby's theory was this:
“Because you have kept the word of my patience, I also will keep you from
the hour of temptation, upon the earth,” Rev. 3:10. The “hour of
temptation,” Darby “inferred,” was the time of the reign of the
anti-Christ, and being “kept” meant being translated to heaven by a rapture
before that reign began. So much for this new interpretation started by
Darby. So much for inference.


 Does the Bible say what this hour of temptation is? Does it say how anyone
is to be “kept,” or where, or when? The Greek can mean *kept through* or *kept
away from*. For eighteen months I and my people in the mountains of China
were kept safe in the midst of the communists. My people at this present
“hour” probably are unharmed in the midst of wolves. I am being kept from
“that hour” by being brought home. But none of us have been translated to
heaven.


 As I will show later, there is a plain scripture to show that the “hour”
through which the Christian hopes to be “kept” is the day of judgment of
the wicked at the end of the reign of anti-Christ.


 All that I insist on here, however, is that there is plenty of proof that
Darby's “inference” in not “proof” nor provable by any direct statement of
scripture anywhere.


 *B. The-One-Taken-and-the - Other - Left - Doctrine*

Another new interpretation of scripture, which no one seems ever to have
heard before the days of Darby, concerned the Lord's statement that at the
time of His return two would be grinding at the mill; one would be taken
and the other left. Two would be in the same bed; one would be taken and
the other left. Two would be together in the field; one would be taken and
the other left. Darby said these mentioned as being “taken” were saved
Christians or believers who would thus be “taken.” Taken where: To heaven.
How? By a silent translation, or rapture. When? Any time today, tomorrow -
any day, any moment. It would be when the Lord came near the earth to
secretly, without any external manifestation, raise the righteous dead and
catch the living believers up to meet Him in the air. But, we ask, what
proof did Darby have that these to be “taken” as spoken of by the Lord were
to be part of a general rapture of the saints at the time Darby stated:
Darby did not *prove* this. He *said* it. Does the Bible say it? No. Darby
simply “inferred” this and then somebody else inferred it and then somebody
else until today it still hangs there on “inference.”


 Now, while Darby's “inferences” about what was meant by the one “taken”
and the other “left” fit into his unproven theory of a secret rapture,
these “inferences” do not fit into the plain statements of the Bible. In
fact, the Word of God directly contradicts Darby in this connection.


 For instance, the Lord Jesus definitely stated that when He comes he will *
first* gather out of His kingdom that which offended. He Himself in
explaining the meaning of the parable of the wheat and tares and that of
the dragnet, said that the tares among the wheat and the bad in the
drag-net represented the *wicked* who would “first” be destroyed before the
*good* were gathered in. Matt.13. There it is: Darby said the the Lord
would come and first gather the *wheat* from among the tares and leave the
tares still in the world. Jesus said that when He comes He will do the very
opposite - *first* gather the tares out of the wheat and not leave the
tares but bind them into bundles and *burn them*. Does not Jesus' definite
statement flatly contradict Darby's “inference?”


 What proof is there that the particular moment Jesus had in mind was the
time of the resurrection of the dead and the translation of living
believers when He was talking about “the one taken and the other left?” If
He referred to the translation of the Church, and the one “taken” was to be
one of those caught up by secret rapture, then do we not have here still
another contradiction of scripture? Paul said that it was *he* who revealed
to the church the “mystery” of living believers being caught up to meet the
Lord in the air and that of the resurrection of believers at that time.


 As every Bible student knows, the idea of “mystery” as used in the Bible
is that of making known some truth not previously made known. Now, if Jesus
was telling His disciples about the translation of living believers when He
told about “the one taken and the other to be left,” would not Jesus,
rather than Paul, have been the revealer of this rapture-“mystery?” And if
Jesus revealed this mystery, would not such a comforting and inspiring hope
have been handed down through disciples to the days of Paul? And if so, how
could Paul have been revealing any “mystery” at all when he would have been
telling disciples what they already would have known? Surely Darby here
makes Jesus and Paul contradict one another.


 In view of the above scriptures and definite statements of Christ, I
submit the following “inferences” as being more consistent than those of
Darby: Since the “tares,” or the wicked men, are *first* to be taken out
from the good, could not the “one taken” be the one taken to be burned and
the one not so wicked be “left?” Could Darby or any one prove that it could
not be so?? Here is further support for this inference: Jesus was talking
about the similarity between the day of His coming and that of the
destruction of the world in the days of Noah and of the destruction in the
days of Lot.* Destruction of the wicked* is what He was talking about, was
it not?


 Then what is inconsistent in “inferring” that although in the days of Noah
and Lot the wicked were *all* destroyed suddenly and unexpectedly, in like
manner not all, but *some* of the wicked, or unregenerated, would be
suddenly destroyed when the Lord comes with His angels to gather the tares?
The two in the same bed, the two grinding together at the mill, the two
working together in the field might every one of them be *unbelievers. *As
students of the Bible must know without argument, the Lord will not *
immediately* destroy *all* of the unbelievers when He appears. Will not the
destruction of the wicked, begun then, extend over considerable time? At
any rate, the believers of the Darby-Scofield interpretations agree that
there are unbelievers to be left for the millennium, most of whom, they
say, will not ever be converted. Thus, consistent with Darby's own theory
about the judgment of the wicked, the worst wicked of the two unbelievers
could be “taken” and the best of the two “left.” Why not?


 Equally consistent could not, in some cases, the “one left” be a true
Christian - a grain of wheat left when the tares were taken out? Why not?
Furthermore, where is there anything in the statement of the Lord to
indicate that anyone was to be “taken” away from the earth? They were not
“taken” from the earth in the days of Noah or in the days of Lot, were
they? These last considerations are not submitted as definite proof; but
are they not more consistent with scripture than those of Darby? In short,
the above should show that Darby's theory of the righteous being
*first*taken from among the wicked is direct contradiction of
scripture and the
statements of the Lord, and in the second place, when it comes to
“inferences,” plenty of inferences based on direct scripture statement
directly oppose those of Darby, showing that he had no sufficient ground
for trying to support his theory by such unscriptural and scripture
opposing “inferences.”


 *Note: *Dr. James R. Graham, Presbyterian scholar and Missionary to China,
has unusual confirmation to the views expressed above by H. W. Baker - JAW.


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