Pretrib has become yet another of those quirky American ideas which most of the worldwide believers would reject as contradicting the teachings of Christ. Yet to Americans and those influenced by Americans, it is fundamental Christianity.
Well, what does Christ himself teach in the gospels and epistles, through to today? We have today texts of gospel records with original sayings of Jesus Christ. Then we have epistles, mostly by Paul, which are sayings of closest apostles of Jesus Christ, amplifying and analysing what they have learned from Jesus Christ, both directly, and what they learn from the Holy Spirit whose inspiration brings the teachings of Christ from heaven, teachings given Jesus Christ by the Father.
(Then we have various other writings of more or less accepted teachings such as Church Fathers and Church Councils, but these are not necessarily in keeping with the apostles and Jesus himself, and are more accepted as part of Western Christian tradition but not so much in more mystical Eastern Christian tradition.)
What this gives us is a spectrum of teachings which have influenced Christians over the centuries and have not always been consistent with what we find in modern American doctrines. The apostles taught what they learned from Jesus directly and also what they learned from the resurrected Jesus, and what they learned indirectly from Jesus via the Holy Spirit.
Jesus learned from the Father who is in heaven. He passed on these teachings to apostles. These apostles understood his teachings to a high degree, given their proximity to him and their apostolic anointing from the Holy Spirit. What they taught was an insight into Jesus’ teachings we do well to follow.
Paul was especially given us as an example of such discipleship of Jesus, having come from being in enmity with Jesus, through to completely being won over to Jesus, then to being sent to the whole world to proclaim the teachings Jesus taught him.
Paul taught a view of the prophesied last days as one of a very strictly ordered sequence of foretold events. The events will have an order to them. This amplifies the teachings of Jesus in the gospels. Paul perceived in Jesus’ beliefs, and in revelations subsequently given to him and sometimes to churches, through the work of the Holy Spirit.
Paul perceived that there must be certain events preceding the eventual return of Jesus Christ. One of these is the appearing of the man of lawlessness. Paul might have seen this foretold in scriptural prophecies which he knew Jesus had accepted. He knew that Jesus believed certain written prophecies which foretold events preceding the return of the Christ. So Paul presented this as part of his teachings regarding the faith given by Jesus Christ.
Why look at this? Because American traditions being spread internationally seem to ignore it. Yes, the American traditions teach there will be a sudden return and rapture, but the concept of it happening “at any time” ignores the teaching of other events having to happen first. So these American traditions only seem to focus on some sayings but ignore others.
That, to Paul, constitutes a threat to the faith he was proclaiming. Jesus intended his ministry to include sending Paul as an exemplary apostle to teach the full gospel, some of which he revealed specially to Paul. Paul taught that anyone teaching another gospel than this was to be accursed.
Even if great teachers came to the USA and taught a different gospel, they should not be accepted. There should not be a gospel taught by Paul and a different faith taught by Americans.
One very significant teacher accepted in North America tried to make sense of it all, trying to combine concepts such as a second coming at any time, with events having a certain order. He introduced the possibility that the rapture of Christ’s faithful might happen at any time, but then a separate return of Christ would happen after the ordered sequence of other foretold events.
It is an effort to teach both an event happening at any time, with an event happening only after other events have happened. But neither Christ nor Paul ever taught this, and they actually taught things which contradict it. Nevertheless, Americans are taught to wave aside and downplay the contradictions and teach the acceptance of this combined teaching as fundamental to the faith.
That is a threat to the real faith, a faith accepted widely outside of the USA, which motivated many teachers to reject the American accepted doctrine. The rejected doctrine of two separated events is most commonly called ‘pretrib’, short for Pre-tribulation Rapture.
It is part of an overall American tradition known as Dispensationalism. The teacher who first introduced it to North America was John Nelson Darby, two centuries ago, and it has been spread wherever American Evangelicalism has been introduced internationally.
The actual faith accepted before Darby was a faith which held in tension the belief that disciples faithful to Jesus should keep watch for his return as though it could happen now, not knowing exactly when it will happen, together with the belief that the resurrection and rapture will happen at this return but it will only happen once other events have occurred, including the outpouring of God’s wrath and the appearing of the man of lawlessness.
It is a tension between two teachings, yet it is the ‘faith once delivered to the saints’. Beware of anything in addition to it.
