RFC: Tribulation Rapture, 2 Thess 1

2 Thessalonians 1

5 All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. 6 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7 and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might 10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.

Not itself explicitly a rapture passage, but it ties Christ’s coming in glory with relief for the Saints who are being troubled, most particularly “you” and “us”, linking whatever troubled Saints live in that day with those he is speaking to. Moreover, the relief to the “you” believers is given on a day where Christ is revealed to the world, and on that day Christ meets out punishment, even everlasting destruction. Conversely, it all seems to say that there will be “you”-associated believers up until the very day that Christ returns in glory.

At first glance, these sound like the Revelation 19 events. If, however, there is a pre-Tribulation rapture where Christ comes invisibly for the Church, then relief from trouble for the believers, is chronologically separated from Christ’s obvious appearing in glory with his angels and punishment. I understand the possibilities of time-compression in prophecy but without a textual reason apparent here, I’m uncomfortable simply inserting this here as an explanation, especially since Paul is giving the revealing of Christ as the time reference to anchor the promise of expected relief.

Objection 1:

2Thess 1:5-10. Notice that verses 4, 5, 6, and 7 all indicate that the persecution was happening (and had already happened) to the Thessalonian believers at the time Paul wrote this. It's not speaking of future persecution or tribulation. The main point seems to be that God is just, and those who persecute believers for their faith will eventually answer to Jesus some day, even if that day is in the well in the future. Of course, Paul didn't know how much in the future Christ's return would be; his terminology in 1 Thess 4:15 ("we who are alive and remain" at the time of the rapture) indicates he believed it could easily happen in his lifetime. 

So, since the focus is on righteous judging, perhaps may be a divide in time between the suffering Paul wrote about and the coming judgment of the tormentors and relief of the sufferers. It doesn’t say that, but it’s possible these words allow for it. That is, clearly Paul did not know the exact day or hour it would come, simply that he believed it would happen in their lifetime.

However, despite that Paul may have believed Jesus’ coming was significantly nearer than God plans, the theological point remains that Paul believed it was consistent to think that Christians would be directly relieved of their suffering and unbelievers punished at Jesus’ return. You can suggest the timing is extended far into the future, but still, the one event of Jesus’ return is tied with two expectations: relief for believers and judgment for unbelievers. There’s nothing to suggest that these two expectations are themselves separated by time, nor trying to stay as close to the simple wording, is there really any allowance for that.

What seems to be – at the least – here is that it is possible for believers to be suffering until Christ’s return.



Objection 2 (similar to Objection 1):

John fully expected the rapture to occur in his lifetime, not thousands of years later.  He's writing of trials specific to his lifetime.  There fore, if Christ returned soon he would be rescuing believers from the trials specific to their life, but this is still before the Tribulation.

Granted, that the trials here do not specifically indicate the Great Tribulation/Jacob's trouble.  But the problem remains that four events are predicted to coincide: believers are relieved from their suffering, unbelievers are punished with everlasting destruction, Christ is revealed from heaven with blazing fire and his angels, and He is glorified by and marveled at by those who believe.

The last three events put this in the Rev 19/20 timeframe, when Christ returns in obvious glory.  Viewing a pre-Tribulation Rapture, the whole idea is that Christ's half return is not to be obvious to the world.