Page 130 - The Rapture Question by John F. Walvoord

The Rapture Question: Revised and Enlarged Edition
Great Tribulation and that, therefore, the Great Tribulation
has in large measure already been fulfilled.
The leading modern representative of classic post-
tribulationism is J. Barton Payne. His views arc expressed in
his work The Imminent Appearing of Christ.9 In his most recent
writing he referred to it as “pasttribulation.”10 Payne's posi­
tion is also found in his major work on prophecy, Encyclopedia
of Biblical Prophecy, which attempts an exposition of all pro­
phetic passages of the Bible.” In general, Payne holds that the
prophecies of the Tribulation have already been fulfilled or arc
in process of being fulfilled to such an extent that the coming
of Christ could occur at any time. His view can be sum­
marized under four affirmations: (1) the second coming of
Christ is imminent and includes the Rapture; (2) the Second
Coming is posttribulational; (3) the Tribulation is to be
fulfilled in a nonlitcral way preceding the Second Coming; and
(4) following the Second Coming, there will be a literal Mil­
lennium.12
Payne derives his concept of imminency from the ante-
Nicene fathers: “The ante-Nicene fathers . . . held two basic
convictions relative to the second coming of Christ: that it was
imminent, and that it was post-tribulational.”13 He stated fur­
ther, "In the first place, it [the church] expected that the Lord
could appear in the clouds in immediate connection with any
day of contemporary life. The ante-Nicene fathers, in other
words, were committed to the concept of the imminence of
their Lord’s return."14 Payne referred to a number of the early
fathers as supporting imminency, among them authors of The
First Epistle of Clement, The Epistle of Barnabas, The Epistle of
Ignatius to the Ephesians, and Ignatius in the Epistle to Polycarp.
Payne established his conclusion that at least a portion of
the early fathers expected Christ’s coming at any moment. His
view is in contrast to that of Robert Gundry, who denies that
the early church fathers held to imminency. Gundry devoted a
whole chapter to refuting the concept of imminency.15 The
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