Thank you Jason Hommel for your opening statement. After carefully reading through your Biblical evidence for a pre-trib rapture, it is apparent that you have provided a wordy smokescreen to conceal your lack of evidence for this doctrine. Dear reader, did you notice that Jason Hommel talked about totally non-related subjects and provided no clear specific Scripture/s (and/or logic) for a pre-trib rapture! Remember that. If the reader thinks this observation is false, carefully read what Jason Hommel has written looking only for pre-trib rapture timing evidence. It is terribly lacking.
Furthermore, to provide links to other writings (including my own) is not what this debate is about. Jason Hommel is to give the best evidence in a concise fashion here, which makes a text debate very important and convenient for the readers. We are not interested in reading various articles and sorting through them for answers. We are interested in something clear and concise for our text debate now so it can be examined and addressed point by point. Hopefully, Jason Hommel’s next response will yield something other than links, but rest assured, if anything comes, it will be very weak at best. How can I write this? Because the problem for Jason Hommel rests with the faulty doctrine he is trying to defend. Neither Jason Hommel nor any pre-trib rapture proponent can provide any clear passage to prove the timing of the rapture is before the tribulation. Why? Because the Bible teaches a post-trib rapture. The Bible does not teach a pre-trib rapture, even though non-related Scriptures have been misapplied for such.
The passages I stated for a post-trib rapture were concise and to the point. All Jason Hommel has done with them is to simply state his own biased opinion, which is: “each and every single one of Dan’s arguments” has already been refuted on his other pages! Imagine that. Show us your Scriptural refutations here and now in this text debate. Provide your Biblical evidence for a pre-trib rapture and refutations to a post-trib rapture here, not somewhere else for us to seek out and find. We don’t want to read those pages. We don’t care what they say.
Let me now continue on with more Biblical evidence for a post-trib rapture. The Lord Jesus taught:
But in those days, following that distress, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens. (Mark 13:24-27)
The gathering (or rapture) of the saints from earth to the heavens will occur following that distress (another name for tribulation, KJV). Verse 19 clearly shows the context is the great tribulation period, as we commonly call it today. NOTE: The great tribulation period is characterized by especially two important events—the abomination that causes desolation and a major change in the way we view the sun, the moon and the stars. Anything less is not the great tribulation. Hence, it is impossible for the rapture to happen today in January 2009, since we didn’t even get to that point.
How good it would have been for people to know these basic truths before 1988, when various pre-trib, any-moment rapture teachers were shamefully declaring that 1988 would be the rapture of the church. It was Biblically impossible for the rapture to happen then, based on the missing aforementioned signs. Only ridicule from unbelievers and damage occurred by this pre-trib rapture nonsense over the years. That is its rotten fruit because it is not true.
Again, Mk. 13:24-27 is crystal clear for locating the timing of the rapture and that points to after the tribulation. This passage coincides with Rev. 11:15 (the last and seventh trumpet), which also follows a change in the way we view the darkened sun, moon and stars at the fourth trumpet:
The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night. (Rev 8:12)
NOTE: The wrath of God begins at Rev. 11:18, that is, at the seventh trumpet (the rapture). This means the tribulation period will end when God’s wrath begins. Christians will be delivered from God’s wrath starting at the seventh trumpet via the rapture, but before the rapture (during the first six trumpets) there will be unparalleled tribulation and pain.
Remember, the last trumpet of 1 Cor. 15:52 is the same as the seventh trumpet of Rev. 11:15. Jason Hommel, at one point, has trouble with this because when Paul gave us 1 Cor. 15:52 Revelation was not written yet. That is a mute point. The similarity between 1 Cor. 15:52 and Rev. 11:15 is like that of Isa. 40:3 and John 1:23 where we are told, hundreds of years after Isaiah, that voice referred to was John the Baptist. Scripture supplementing Scripture is what we have in both cases and all through the Bible. The last trumpet is not any Feast of Trumpets, as Jason Hommel suggests. There is no Feast of Trumpets mentioned anywhere in Scripture! Dear reader, look this up for yourself.
[After that, Jason Hommel shockingly wrote the 7th Trumpet of Revelation might refer to the rapture. Imagine that! That is great news to hear from him, but it is not consistent with his doctrine. The seventh trumpet of Rev. 11:15 is clearly a post-trib passage, which happens after the great tribulation—not before, as Jason Hommel has been teaching!]
All of that is related to the following passage commonly misused by the any-moment, pre-trib rapture people:
When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. (Luke 21:28)
Luke 21:28 is referring to the redemption of the physical body which occurs at the rapture, but the immediate context reveals the glaring error of the pre-trib rapture people, who have often mentioned it related to irrelevant past events. Here is Luke 21:28 in its context:
There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. (Luke 21:25-28)
The things which must precede that redemption include the change in the way we view the sun, moon and stars. People will be so frightened they will actually be fainting. After that, the rapture will occur—not before. If you have ever heard any pre-trib rapture person use Luke 21:28 for the soon-to-happen rapture it has been out of context and misapplied.
What about the antichrist? Will the last generation of Christians face the antichrist or escape through the rapture? The order of events is: first the antichrist, then the Christ. This is shown in more than one way.
In 1 John 2:18 we read of the coming of the antichrist. Afterwards, in 1 John 2:24-28 we read of the coming of Christ. That same order of events is repeated elsewhere. Note also the following passage:
I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. (Rev 20:4,5)
Rev. 20:4,5 refers to Christians who were overcomers, as described in Rev. 12:11. In short, they died to remain faithful to Jesus rather than worship the antichrist to get his mark and to go on buying and selling in society.
The clincher is: they are part of the first resurrection—another way of referring to the rapture. The ones martyred there face the antichrist and die, which occurs before the rapture.
Jason Hommel thinks people who reject a pre-trib rapture, in favor of a post trib rapture, are heretics and false prophets! For anyone to elevate the rapture to a salvation issue, like him, shows the deception they are in.
For the complete debate click Jason Hommel vs. Dan Corner Rapture Debate.
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