Page 161 - The Rapture Question by John F. Walvoord

The Rapture Question: Revised and Enlarged Edition
the doctrine of imminency by trying to define imminency as
possible but not necessary. He stated, “We should first of all
note a lack of identity between belief in imminence on the one
hand and pretribulationism on the other.” He continued, “By
common consent imminence means that so far as we know no
predicted event will necessarily precede the coming of Christ.
The concept incorporates three essential elements: sudden­
ness, unexpectedness or incalculability, and a possibility of
occurrence at any moment. But these elements would require
only that Christ might come before the tribulation, not that
He must. Imminence would only raise the possiblity of
pretribulationism on a sliding scale with mid- and post-
tribulationism. It is singularly strange that the most popularly
cherished argument for pretribulationism should suffer such
an obvious and critical limitation.”32
While Gundry’s statement is clever debating, it is also
lacking in cogency. A posttribulationist like J. Barton Payne,
who spiritualizes the Tribulation, can well hold that the Rap­
ture is imminent, but this is not true of Gundry', who clearly
holds that there is a series of events covering a period of years
that must occur first before the Rapture can occur. Such a
sequence of events, including the Great Tribulation, makes
imminence impossible in any reasonable definition of the
English term. Gundry is wrong that “these elements would
require only that Christ might come before the tribulation, not
that He must” come.33 In Gundry’s view, it is absolutely
impossible for the Rapture to come any moment. Gundry, in
effect, is denying imminency. Such arguments on the part of
Gundry do little to advance a clear understanding of the
problem and confuse the issue rather than state it properly.
Gundry’s study of the various words used expressing ex­
pectation in the Bible, while interesting, is quite irrelevant.
The problem is that the solution depends not on definition of
words but on the context in which the words are used. Gundry
completely confused the matter by putting together passages
168