Dr. Couch, I have just begun reading George Peters’ massive work The Theocratic
Kingdom. On two separate websites it is said Peters held to a prewrath
position and then others say he held to a partial rapture viewpoint.
What do you say?
When in graduate school for a course in eschatology with Dr. J. Dwight
Pentecost I surveyed all of Peters’ prophetic propositions (hundreds),
and, I got an A for the course for doing so. But it would take a
monumental search to prove the point of what he held. I cannot remember!
But I would say that, as I try to remember, the
rapture issue was not the first thought in his mind. Peters was
focusing on millennial kingdom issues. He had been a flaming Lutheran
amillennialist until he started reading the Bible (which most amills do
not, it seems!). Since most of the “old guys” had early-on simply lumped
the thirteen or fourteen rapture passages in with second coming
passages, they flat missed this great teaching in Scripture! The light
started dawning around 1840, and to our great surprise, hundreds of
outstanding old scholars saw it by the late eighteen hundreds. It is
impossible to escape the rapture passages. They have to do with Christ
coming for the church and taking the believers home with Him. That is
different than the Lord coming to judge the world and to reign over the
nations from the Davidic throne in Jerusalem!
By finding some of the books of the old guys, I
am shocked at how many held to the pretribulational rapture position.
Thanks for asking,
Dr. Mal Couch
