Page 240 - The Rapture Question by John F. Walvoord

The Rapture in 1 Corinthians
of an eye, al the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the
dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”
Posttrihulatiouists tend to identify this “last trumpet” with
the seventh trumpet of the angel in Revelation 11:15 and the
great trumpet of Matthew 24:31. Midtribulationists also tend
to identify the seventh trumpet of Revelation with the last
trump of 1 Corinthians 15 but place it three and one-half years
before the second coming of Christ because they view it as
introducing the Great Tribulation.
The problem here is that posttribulationists are assuming
what they are trying to prove. The seventh trumpet of Revela­
tion is an announcement of the coming reign of Christ, but
there is no indication in the text that the second coming of
Christ actually occurs. Many interpreters, including Ladd, a
posttribulationist, view the seventh trumpet as only an an­
nouncement, not the actual coming of Christ, and place the
events of the seven bowls of the wrath of God in Revelation 16
as following the seventh trumpet. Ladd wrote, “The preced­
ing three chapters [Revelation 12-14] have constituted
an interlude between the sounding of the seven trumpets
and the outpouring of the seven bowls. The time of the sound­
ing of the seventh trumpet announced the period of the end
(10:7); but when the trumpet was sounded, which was to be
the third woe (11:14), no woe or plague occurred; instead we
have a proleptic announcement of the coming of God’s
Kingdom.”6
The distinction between the last trumpet of 1 Corinthians
15 and the seventh trumpet of Revelation 11 and the great
trumpet of Matthew 24:31 is therefore not confined to pre-
tribulationists, but careful expositors see that these are en­
tirely different trumpets. In Revelation, the trumpets relate to
the judgments and events of the end time and are declared to
be trumpets of angels. For the most part, they relate to the
unsaved world. The great trumpet of Matthew 24:31 deals
with the saints of all ages who are assembled at the time of the
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