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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Two Israels? Two Kingdoms? Two Second Comings?, #11
Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. (Acts 14:22)
And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. (I Thessalonians 1:10)
It is true that Christ will receive us to Himself before the wrath of God falls on the ungodly. The wrath of God is not the same thing as tribulation. Indeed, God has appointed His beloved to tribulations great and small. But God has not appointed His saints to wrath.
There is no suggestion in I Thessalonians 4:16-5:3 that a secret appearing of Christ is being announced. As we have stated, the Greek term translated coming in I Thessalonians 4:15 is the same word (parousia ) employed in the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew and in other descriptions of the Lord's coming. The term is not, as some have taught, an indication that this is a special coming or appearing. The New Testament usage of the word will not support this assertion.
How could this be a secret coming?
The Lord shall descend from Heaven!
There shall be a shout! (This is a secret? Rather, this is the army of Christ shouting for the Battle of Armageddon!)
The warrior archangel shall utter his voice!
The trumpet of God shall sound!
This is a defiant attack on Antichrist, not a secret evacuation of the saints from the scene of the conflict!
The teaching of a special secret coming of the Lord prior to His actual second coming is so unscriptural that it is a marvel it has gained such widespread acceptance. Whether the catching-up takes place before or after the great tribulation is not the problem; although the myth that the Christians will be removed from the earth in order to escape the troubles of the last days tends to wipe out the need for us to prepare ourselves to stand in the day of evil that is on the horizon.
The problem is the way we view the catching-up. Instead of the scriptural vision of the deceased saints of all ages descending to pick up their bodies from the graves, and the living saints being changed into immortality, we have an evacuation of the believers because of the threat of Antichrist. Instead of the coming of the Kingdom of God in thunderous power and Divine fury and a calling up to the Commander in Chief of His mighty men, we have a silly "rapture" of fleshly believers in their bikinis and overalls so they won't be injured by the "awesome" power of Antichrist. The truth is, Antichrist will be shaking in his boots when the trumpet blast of God sounds in the air above the earth.
Let us flee from the unscriptural two Israels, two kingdoms, two second comings fables that have captured the imagination of the believers in our day. These myths have prevented coherent Bible interpretation, have placed an unscriptural division between the Jewish elect and the Gentile elect, and have left the believers unable to stand during the soon coming age of moral horrors. (from Two Israels? Two Kingdoms? Two Second Comings?; from It Is Time for a Reformation of Christian Thinking)