Page 220 - The Rapture Question by John F. Walvoord

The Rapture in I Thessalonians 5
without experiencing great tribulation. His position is further
complicated in that satanic wrath is expressly against the
saints and Israel. In some sense, Gundry was arguing against
himself, because if it is a period of satanic wrath and the
church is its object, then one cannot conclude that the church
is delivered from tribulation while passing through it.
A sober evaluation of the nature of the catastrophes that
occur in the last three and one-half years preceding the second
coming of Christ indicate they could not all be brought about
by Satan himself. They are pictured in Scripture as judgments
directed primarily against the wicked in which the righteous
arc unfortunately also caught. Satan has no controversy with
the wicked and is attempting to vent his wrath only against
the people of God, not against his own subjects. By contrast,
the wrath of God is world-wide in its extent and deals with an
earth largely Christ-rejecting and worshiping the world ruler
of the end time.
Though many believers are martyred in the Great Tribu­
lation, most of those who perish are actually unbelievers. Reve­
lation 6:8 indicates that a fourth part of the earth perishes.
These people do not die because of Satan but because of divine
judgments in the form of war, pestilence, and famine.
It may be concluded that the whole theory that the
Tribulation is purely and simply a time of satanic wrath and
not of divine wrath is both inaccurate and actually irrelevant
because it has nothing to do with the question of whether the
church goes through the period. Some of Gundry’s conten­
tions actually fight against the conclusion he was trying to
reach.
Nevertheless Gundry’s position on this point is critical to
his whole system. The church is promised deliverance from
the day of divine wrath according to 1 Thessalonians 5:9. This
is why Gundry attempted to support the concept that the
period is not a day of divine wrath. However, his viewpoint
requires him to support both the idea that the church is not
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