The New Covenant Kills the Pretrib Rapture Doctrine:
Since the New Covenant is “everlasting” in Hebrews 13:20, how is the New Covenant Church age going to end before the Second Coming of Christ? Why would anyone think God is going back to the Old Covenant system now made “obsolete” by the New Covenant in Hebrews 8:13? We are not come to Mount Sinai in Hebrews 12:18. We are come instead to the New Covenant church of Mount Zion and the blood in Hebrews 12:22-24.
Once a person comes to understand the New Covenant promised to Israel and Judah in Jeremiah 31:31-34, which is found fulfilled by Christ during the first century in Hebrews 8:6-13, and Hebrews 10:16-18, and specifically applied to the Church in 2 Corinthians 3:6-8, and Hebrews 12:22-24, modern Dispensational Theology falls apart, and the pretrib removal of the Church falls with it.
The Capitol "C" Church, as we use the word today, is not found in the entire Book of Revelation. Individual church bodies in ancient Asia Minor are found. In Revelation 12:11 we find those under the blood of the Lamb. A person cannot be under the blood of the Lamb and not be a part of the New Covenant Church of Jesus Christ. Verse 12 of this passage proves at least part of the tribulation period is the wrath of Satan upon the people of God.
Rev 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
Rev 12:12 Therefore rejoice,
ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
"It may come as a surprise to most pre-Trib prophecy students that the post-Trib position (in its primitive form) is the oldest point of view."
(The quotation above is from the book "
Will You Escape The Tribulation? RAPTURE [Under Attack]", by Tim LaHaye, copyright 1998, Page 197.)
The gathering of the Church is described at the end of 1 Thess. Chapter 4, and the timing of the event is found in chapter 5. The word “But” in the first verse of chapter 5 connects the two chapters, and the words “we” and “sleep” in verse 10 of chapter 5 prove the two chapters are connected.
PROPHETIC DEVELOPMENTS
with particular reference to the early Brethren Movement.
F. Roy Coad (Brethren Historian) pages 10-26
http://brethrenhistory.org/qwicsitePro/php/docsview.php?docid=418
Origin of the Pretrib Rapture Doctrine
Pastor Tim Warner
http://www.4windsfellowships.net/articles/rapture_23.pdf
Pretribulationist Revisionism
(Grant Jeffrey’s revision of early Church Posttrib viewpoints)
Pastor Tim Warner
http://www.4windsfellowships.net/articles/rapture_22.pdf