Page 197 - The Rapture Question by John F. Walvoord

The Rapture Question: Revised and Enlarged Edition

why the church rises from earth at all. Gundry ex] iplained this
as a delegation of citizens who would go out to meet a king and
would return with him on his journey.3 Again, however, the
problem is that the text says nothing about it, and it is pure
implication. Actually, the posttribulationists do not have a
good explanation of why it is necessary for the saints to leave
the earth if, as a matter of fact. Christ is coming to the earth to
reign on the earth.
If pretribulationists are correct, it would be natural for
Christ to meet the church in the air. If the posttribulationists
are correct, there is really no need for such a meeting. As
previously pointed out. such a meeting would separate the
saints from the unbelievers: and this separation does not take
place, according to Matthew 25:31-48. until later in the se­
quence of events.
The translation of the saints is also in contrast to their
resurrection. One of the important truths of 1 Thessalonians 4
is that it brings together two extraordinary concepts: (1) the
translation of living saints and (2) the resurrection of those
who died. The particular point of Paul’s revelation was that
the two events occurred at the same time. This is, however,
embarrassing to posttribulationism because in none of the ac­
counts of resurrection related to the second coming of Christ is
any translation of living saints mentioned.
Further, in passages that deal with the second coming of
Christ, as in Revelation 20:4, the resurrection is clearly an
event occurring after He has arrived on earth, rather than
during His descent from heaven. The resurrections related to
the second coming of Christ never include anything specific
about the church. For instance, in Revelation 20:4, the resur­
rection relates only to the martyred dead of the Tribulation,
the one generation of saints who will perish in that period.
Again, Old Testament saints are mentioned specifically in
Daniel 12:2 as being raised after the Tribulation. None of
these resurrections include translations relating to the saints of
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