Page 193 - The Rapture Question by John F. Walvoord

The Rapture Question: Revised and Enlarged Edition
holy angels against Satan and the demon world through all
these centuries.
The final step would be “the trumpet call of God,” the
signal for the dead to rise and the living to be translated. In
Scripture the trumpet is frequently a signal of an important
event; and there are many other trumpets mentioned in Scrip­
ture, both in the Old Testament and in the New, which should
not be confused with this event.
According to Paul, at the command of Christ and the
trumpet call, Christians who had died would be resurrected
from the grave; and living Christians on earth at the time “will
be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the
air. And so wc will be with the Lord forever” (1 Thess. 4:17).
On the basis of this glorious hope, Paul wrote, “Therefore
encourage each other with these words” (1 Thess. 4:18).
The events related to the Rapture are stated here with
great clarity and described in detail given nowhere else in the
Scriptures. Most important is the fact that this event, as de­
scribed, is presented as an imminent event with no preceding
order of events that had to be enacted. Although other Scrip­
tures make clear that Peter had to die and ultimately Paul
himself was told of his approaching martyrdom, as far as the
Thessalonians knew—and as far as Paul knew at this time—
the Rapture could occur any day. While obviously in the plan
of God, the Rapture is a dated event with events preceding
and following, as far as the presentation of the doctrine in the
Scriptures is concerned, Christians are exhorted to be looking
for the coming of the Lord. The implicit imminence of the
Rapture is an important facet in the pretribulational interpre­
tation and is a principal source of embarrassment to the post-
tribulational explanation. It is probably for this reason that
most posttribulationists do not give a detailed explanation of
this passage and tend to gloss over the details.
Gundrj', however, devoted a whole chapter to this pas­
sage and attempted to face the major problem of post-
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