Page 47 - The Rapture Question by John F. Walvoord

The Rapture Question: Revised and Enlarged Edition

tional position is limited to conservatives as opposed to liber­
als and to premillenarians as opposed to other millenarian
views. It is largely a teaching within the ranks of premillenar­
ians. In the ensuing discussion, premillennialism will be as­
sumed as the basis for discussion, along with a general struc­
ture of conservative theology including the inspiration and
infallibility of the Scriptures. First to be considered arc the
arguments in favor of the prctribulational position.
The Historical Argument
One of the commonly repeated reasons for opposing pre-
tribulationism is that it is a new and novel doctrine beginning
no earlier than Darby. Reese, who is usually regarded as the
outstanding champion of opponents of pretribulationism,
stated categorically that it is “a series of doctrines that had
never been heard of before," 1 that is, before the nineteenth
century. Reese charged that the followers of Darby “sought to
overthrow what, since the Apostolic Age, have been consid­
ered by all premillennialists as established results.”2
It may be conceded that the advanced and detailed the­
ology of pretribulationism of today is not found in the early
church fathers, and there are some grounds for tracing this to
Darby, who seems to have been the first to make this sharp
distinction. What posttribulationists do not seem to realize is
that the detailed arguments for posttribulationism as they are
now advanced are even more recent than Darby; and if re­
cency is an argument against pretribulationism, it is also an
argument against posttribulationism. The fact is that the
development of most important doctrines took centuries, and
it is not surprising that even in the twentieth century new light
should be cast on our understanding of Scripture. If the doc­
trine of the Trinity did not receive permanent statement until
the fourth century and thereafter, beginning with the Council
of Nicaea in 325, and if the doctrine of human depravity was
not a settled doctrine of the church until the fifth century and
50