The Return of Christ

The teaching that Christ will return for His church before the tribulation, is a fairly new one by history’s standards. It was pushed mainly in the 1800s by many Puritans and several prominent preachers such as John Darby and later C.I. Scofield. In my teen years, I attended a church that was a huge proponent of this pre-millennial doctrine. For years, I never questioned it. Why should I? It sounded so nice that I might escape physical death and be free from intense persecution. There were also, at the time, books and movies being made that touted this same view, so it had to be true, right?

Of course, when I began studying the passages that supposedly support the idea of the rapture before the tribulation, I saw that such teaching was based more out of an ingrained system of thought, rather than out of genuine scriptural truth. Are there verses that could be plucked out of context and made to fit this view? Certainly. There are also many other passages that reveal something far different. Will Christ’s return be unexpected (1 Thessalonians 5:2)? Yes, but it will also be a day that the glory of His presence is revealed to all (Revelation 1:7). Study up on what Jesus said in Matthew 24 concerning His coming. It is not so easy to say with confidence that He taught pre-millinialism. Time does not permit me to go further into scriptures, seeing as we can debate all day long when Christ is coming.

My fear is that there are many Christians who hold to a pre-millinialist concept, not because of scripture, but simply because they may have heard one or two hardened preachers propagate it, they watched it get pushed on a motion picture and read fictional books about it, or they just want to feel like they are the privileged few who will not have to face any kind of persecution. We don’t want to think that we might face martyrdom under the rule of the anti-christ. Yet, do we truly believe we are better than the New Testament Church which faced horrific suffering at the hands of Pharisees and the Roman government?

Have we forgotten that, even if we were to experience some measure of the tribulation, God knows those who are His (2 Timothy 2:19) and will protect them from His wrath on this world (1 Thessalonians 5:9)? Whether Christ comes back before, midway, or after the tribulation, makes no difference to me. I know He is coming again in victory! He is faithful and His wrath can pass over His children just as the plagues in Egypt impacted the Egyptians, but did not affect the Israelites. I suppose I am just tired of seeing the average American Christian hold onto their pride and comfort without realizing that the apostle Paul once affirmed, “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” (2 Timothy 3:12) I ask the same question that Missionary Amy Carmichael posed in her poem No Scar, “...can he have followed far who hast no wound or scar?”