(originally posted at http://www.lastdaysmystery.info/rapture_debate.htm
)
The Great
Rapture Debate
This partial transcript is from an audiotape made during
the Bible Prophecy Conference featuring Dr. Thomas Ice, Executive Director of
the Pre-Tribulation Research Center. Calvary Chapel in Athens, Georgia hosted
the Bible Prophecy Conference on December 1-2, 2001. This portion is taken from
a question and answer period which followed the session that Dr. Ice taught on
the Book of Daniel.
Richard Perry: “In one
of your slides you seemed to connect Michael’s arising in Daniel 21:1 to
Michael’s casting Satan from heaven in Revelation 12.”
Dr. Thomas Ice: “No
those are two separate events.”
Richard Perry: “Why
did you put them together then? It seemed that you were showing that when Satan
comes down to earth he then empowers the Antichrist at the point of the
Abomination that causes desolation.”
Dr. Thomas Ice: “No, I
just brought that up as a point of the overview. However, you know, you may be
right, there may be a connection there.”
Richard Perry: “Then
if you go to Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2, he is talking about he that restrains
the secret power of lawlessness until he is taking out of the way. Then you
have the revealing of the Antichrist. Then you have the beginning of the Great
Tribulation. Those things seem to go together.”
Dr. Thomas Ice: “No,
the Daniel and the Revelation passage do not picture Michael as restraining, it
simply talks about him standing up and doing something.”
Richard Perry: “It is
interesting the timing. All those three things seem like they could be
happening at the same time.”
Dr. Thomas Ice: “It is
interesting, Arnold Fruchtenbaum holds that same view that Michael is the
Restrainer. However, I hold the position that the restrainer is the Holy
Spirit.”
Richard Perry: “A
question about the Seventy Weeks, at the end of Daniel’s Seventy Weeks, is that
when the Kingdom is established, when Christ is restoring everything?”
Dr. Thomas Ice: “Yes!
And it is very Jewish and those six things I mentioned in Daniel 9:24 will all
be completed by the end of the Seventy Weeks.”
Richard Perry: “If
that is so, I am struggling with the Pre Tribulation position. Acts 3:21 says
that Jesus must remain in heaven until it is time for Him to restore
everything. Which I see happening at the end of the Daniel’s Seventy Weeks. So,
how does He get out of heaven before the tribulation period to Rapture the
Church?”
Dr. Thomas Ice:
“Because in Acts chapter three as in Acts chapter two He is talking to the
Jewish people. And He is saying that the times of refreshing or the Kingdom is
not going to come until you Jewish people repent. That is what the tribulation
period is all about.”
Richard Perry:
“Whether He is talking about the Jewish people or not, the Word says, that He
must remain in heaven until it is time to restore everything.”
Dr. Thomas Ice:
“Right!”
Richard Perry: “Then
how does He come out of heaven into the air, if He must remain in heaven until
after the tribulation?”
Dr. Thomas Ice: “The
New Testament comes and gives us the new revelation about the Rapture. Where
Christ doesn’t come to the earth but He meets us in the cloud in the heavens
and we return back with Him to the Father’s house. There are only two comings,
when He came 2,000 years ago and the Second Coming when He returns with His
raptured Church called His Bride to Terra Firma and He reigns for a thousand
years. The rapture is said to be a mystery in 1 Corinthians 15 meaning a new
revelation. Something that was always part of God’s plan just never revealed,
why because the Church Age is a mystery, Ephesians chapter two and three....”
Richard Perry: “So,
you are interpreting the heavens in Acts 3:21 as not heaven where the Father
and the Son are residing at the moment, but as both heavens as in terms of the
heaven that means the air, meaning that Jesus hasn’t really left heaven if He
is still in the air?”
Dr. Thomas Ice: “Uh, I
don’t know that you have to resolve something that precise. All I know is that
the contexts of Acts chapter two and three is in relationship to the Jewish
nation. When are these things going to happen for Israel? That the times of
refreshing are going to come…. It is not dealing with the Church.”
Richard Perry: “So, if
I understand, Christ will come for the Church which is the “blessed hope” at
the Rapture before the seven year tribulation period and then at the end of the
seven-year period He will come to earth with the Church to judge the nations
and the unbelieving world.
Dr. Thomas Ice: “Yes!”
Richard Perry: “Then I
have a hard time understanding what Paul is talking about in 2 Thessalonians
first chapter where he says, those of you that are troubled I will provide
relief, and it says, when He comes He will judge the unbelieving world with His
angles in blazing fire which is clearly a picture of His coming at the end of
the tribulation period.”
Dr.
Thomas Ice: “Take vengeance, he says.”
Richard Perry: “He is
saying at that point, this is when your relief comes, this is the “blessed
hope” comes. Clearly he is talking about the end of the seven-year period.
Dr.
Thomas Ice: “A week from now a guy in our
Tenth Annual Pre-Trib Study group is going to do a whole paper on that. So if
you will contact Jeffery, I will send a paper or a recording with the full
answer. But, basically he is saying in 2 Thessalonians 1 that “Quid Pro Quo” is
going to happen at the Second Coming when Christ returns to the earth and
judges people. That doesn’t relate or not relate to the Rapture. In other
words, things are going to be made right because that is the issue in 2
Thessalonians 1 when are things going to be made right. Things are going to be
made right at the Second Coming not at the Rapture because then you have the
whole tribulation period.”
Richard Perry: “Is not
the resurrection and the rapture two parts of the same event?”
Dr.
Thomas Ice: “Uh, Well, for the Church Age
it is. We saw in Daniel 12:1-2 the Old Testament saints are going to be
resurrected at the end of the tribulation. It explicitly says that.”
Richard
Perry: “It says, your people, everyone
whose name is written in the book.”
Dr.
Thomas Ice: “That’s correct!”
Richard
Perry: “My name is in the book.”
Dr.
Ice: “Well, but your part of the Church
and that is why if you don’t get past the fact that its said to be a mystery or
new revelation, in other words …”
Richard
Perry: “The mystery in 1 Corinthians 15:51
is a very clear description of the resurrection and the rapture combined,
everybody says that. Right?”
Dr.
Thomas Ice: “Yea, right”
Richard
Perry: “First Corinthians 15:51-55 is the
resurrection and the rapture.
Dr.
Thomas Ice: “No, the rapture, their
separate, the rapture is the translation of living believers the resurrection
can only happen to dead people.”
Richard
Perry: “The rapture as you call it, isn’t
that the resurrection also. I always thought that the Bible was teaching and
even Pre-Tribbers taught that the resurrection of the dead and the rapture of
the living where going to take place at the same time in the twinkling of an
eye.”
Dr.
Thomas Ice: “Yes, but, I wish I could go
through my rapture presentation because, you have the phrase twice in 1
Thessalonians 4:12-17, in Jesus and in Christ, it is those who are in Christ
who are going to be raptured. That is used almost a hundred times in the
Epistles as a technical term for the Church. That is only referring to people from
Pentecost to the rapture; it doesn’t include all Old Testament saints and
people who are saved during the tribulation. That is why their going to
resurrected at the end of the seven-year tribulation.”
Richard
Perry: “The Old Testament Saints?”
Dr.
Thomas Ice: “That correct.”
Richard
Perry: “One of the other things is, 1
Corinthians 15:55-55 being a great description of the resurrection, also gives
us some other indications of timing. It doesn’t specifically state, but refers
to two places in Scripture, both which seem to indicate timing of when the
Kingdom comes. In other words, Paul says, Listen, I tell you a mystery that
will happen at the last trumpet. If you look at the last trumpet in the Bible…”
Dr.
Thomas Ice: “No, just a second, he doesn’t
say the mystery will happen at the last trumpet. He says the mystery is we will
not all sleep; we will be changed in the twinkling of an eye.
Richard
Perry: “At the last trumpet.”
Dr.
Thomas Ice: “Right!”
Richard
Perry: “So, he tells you when it’s going
to happen.”
Dr.
Thomas Ice: “Well, the resurrection as we
just read, in Daniel 12:1 was not a mystery, it was revealed in the Old
Testament…the change in the twinkling of an eye is the translation of living
people that’s different technically than the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15.”
Richard
Perry: “Well, the twinkling of and eye
actually refers to both.”
Dr.
Thomas Ice: “Well actually it says that
the resurrection happens first”
Richard
Perry: “That in 1 Thessalonians 4.”
Dr.
Thomas Ice: “A twinkling of an eye before
we are translated, people joke that they are six feet under so they need a head
start. So they are resurrected first. We who are alive and remain will be
caught-up, that’s where we get the word rapture. We will be caught-up to meet
them in the air. Those are two separate events, the resurrection and the
rapture….”
Richard
Perry: “I’m still struggling, you can
tell. I have read several verses in Scripture where Christ in the Olivet
Discourse is talking about the great distress (tribulation) of those days.
Immediately after that, He says, the Son of Man will come in the clouds after
the darkening of the sun, moon and stars which is a sign before the Day of the
Lord. Then He says you will see the Son of Man in the clouds and He will send
His angles with a trumpet call and gather His elect. So, here you have the
tribulation period and Christ coming after the tribulation period. Says the
same thing in Luke. And Paul says the same thing in 2 Thessalonians 2 as he
talks about letting no one deceive you in any way for that Day, your gathering
the coming of the Lord will not occur until two things happen. The rebellion
and the man of lawlessness being revealed, that after the tribulation. Here’s
my question. Is there any Scripture or verses or passages in Scripture that
place the return of Christ before either the appearing of the Antichrist, the
tribulation period or the Great Tribulation? Any Scripture, nobody has been
able to show me any, so far.
Dr.
Thomas Ice: “Ok, I just finished a article
on Matthew 24:29-31 that will be out in our Pre-Trib Perspectives in January
2002. We do not publish a Pre-Trib Perspectives in December we take the month
off. And that grew out of a debate I had with Irving Baxter, you heard of him.
He a big Post Tribber… Then you get to 2 Thessalonians 2:3 that the word
apostasia, very likely refers to the rapture. It is a word that is only used
twice as a noun in the whole New Testament, as it is used there. It is used as
an ellipsis which means there is no object and so he says unless the departure
occurs first and he doesn’t have a subordinate clause or and ajitiable phase
explaining what the departure is. It was something that the Thessalonians knew
about and something that Paul knew.
Richard
Perry: “So, you take Schuyler English’s
position on the apostasia?”
Dr.
Thomas Ice: “Yes”
Richard
Perry: “But, he focuses in on that so much
that he losses the context of the sentence. The sentence says, Paul says, about
the coming of the Lord and our being gathered together, that the Day of the
Lord would not come until … The Rapture occurs? Wait a minute, the Rapture
doesn’t occur until the Rapture occurs?
Dr.
Thomas Ice: “I had a debate with Robert
Gundry, he is the number one Post Tribulationalist, and he had a book he came
out with in 1997 called First the Antichrist. He wrote me a personal
letter saying that err finding of the pseudo Ephraim letter inspired him to
write that book. So we had a nice little debate, and his whole premise is that
the Antichrist has to come first. And that is one of the implications is that
Post Tribbers are looking for the Antichrist, not for Christ. They have a
problem harmonizing other the New Testament passages, there are about ten of
them that say we are to be looking for Christ, we are to be looking for
Christ…. In the letter, Paul was explaining to the Thessalonians that they were
not in the Day of the Lord. They thought the Day of the Lord had already come.”
Richard
Perry: “Clearly the Thessalonians were
confused. Now if you study the Day of the Lord in the Old Testament you see
pretty clearly that the Day of the Lord is the Wrath of God. That seems obvious
to me and we know we are not appointed unto Wrath.
Dr.
Thomas Ice: “Right.”
Richard
Perry: “In the Olivet Discourse, Jesus
even gives us the sign that Joel 2 gives us when he says that the sun and the
moon and the stars will be darkened before the Day of the Lord. And Jesus tells
us that following the tribulation, the distress of those days, that the sun,
moon and stars will be darkened which is the sign before the Day of the Lord.
And that is the Wrath or the Bowls in Revelation. So obviously the Thessalonian
Church was confused.
Dr.
Thomas Ice: “Yeh, well, if you go to
Zephaniah chapter one second half, it has like twelve or thirteen different
terms that describe the Day of the Lord… People don’t define the many Old
Testament terms that are used for the time of the Day of the Lord and fail to
harmonize these passages. …. If wrath refers to the seven-year period then
obviously in 1 Thessalonians we are promised to be kept from that time and in
Revelation we are told we will be kept from the time of testing. …”