Reasons for Pretrib Rapture

Dr. Couch, I hold to the PreTrib rapture of the church but my elders do not. They think the church has to go through the trib in order to be cleaned up. Could you give the reasons for the PreTrib rapture? ANSWER:  I wrote the most complete chapter on this issue that has ever been written! It is used in three nationally published books. If you want the full facts you need to order my Dictionary of Premillennial Theology, published by Kregel. In this dictionary, the full answer is given.    You will be completely convinced by reading the chapter in that volume. Your elders are simply quoting someone else. They cannot substantiate what they say from the Bible. They do not understand positional justification and sanctification. They thus are very theologically ignorant and should not be elders!    The rapture of the church is as defensible as the virgin birth or the deity of Christ. I still cannot figure out why some are so adamant about denying the rapture. They just "don't like" the doctrine but have no reason to resist so much. Some folks just cannot read! They do not know how to study Scripture. And they are great quoters. They just say what someone else has said!    It will prove to me that those who do not order my book are showing that they really don't want to know the answers to this doctrine. The issue is over from my chapter! You need to get it!    Thanks for asking.    Dr. Mal Couch (9/10)

The Theocratic Kingdom

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