Page 234 - The Rapture Question by John F. Walvoord

The Rapture in 2 Thessalonians
lationism. In the process there is considerable confusion be­
tween the indwelling of the Spirit, the fullness of the Spirit,
and the baptism of the Spirit. Gundry attempted to prove
on the basis of Mark 13:11 that the Holy Spirit indwells
His witnesses during the Great Tribulation; but the passage
in Mark teaches the empowering of the Holy Spirit, saying
nothing about indwelling.
As a thorough student of dispensationalism, Gundry
must certainly know that he was misrepresenting the pretrib-
ulational view. Pretribulationists hold that at the Rapture we
have a reversal of what occurs on the day of Pentecost—
namely, that every believer was indwelt and baptized by the
Spirit into the body of Christ. Certainly before Pentecost
people were empowered by the Spirit and born again, even if
they were not necessarily all indwelt or baptized by the Spirit.
As a proof or support for posttribulationism, Gundry’s
argument is unusually weak, and one almost senses in reading
his discussion that he was aware of it. None of his proofs
contradicting the concept that the Holy Spirit is removed with
the church stand up under investigation. Pretribulationists
agree that the removal of the Spirit is not complete, for the
Holy Spirit is still omnipresent and still exercises some re­
straint, as the Book of Revelation makes plain in the protec­
tion of the 144,000. But neither Gundry nor anyone else can
prove that the baptizing work of the Spirit that forms the
church is ever seen in the Tribulation.
That the Spirit works in the Tribulation all agree. That ■
the Spirit indwells all believers in the Tribulation is nowhere
taught. Gundry, in making the concession that the Holy Spirit
is the restrainer, has put himself in an untenable position to
support posttribulationism in this passage. His statement,
‘‘The usual pretribulational interpretation of 2 Thessalonians
fails at every point,” is simply not supported by the argument
that he presented; neither is his broad statement, “At every
point the posttribulational view of the passage commends it-
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