Page 49 - The Rapture Question by John F. Walvoord

The Rapture Question: Revised and Enlarged Edition

and, ‘The Lord shall suddenly come to His temple, even the
Holy One, for whom ye look.’”4
The Didache (a.D. 120) contains the exhortation, “Watch
for your life’s sake. Let not your lamps be quenched, nor your
loins unloosed; but be ye ready, for ye know not the hour in
which our Lord cometh."5 It would seem from this quotation
that the coming of the Lord is considered as possible in any
hour, indicating belief in the imminency of the Lord’s return.
A similar reference is found in the “Constitutions of the
Holy Apostles” (Book VII, Sec. ii, xxxi): “Observe all things
that are commanded you by the Lord. Be watchful for your
life. ‘Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning,
and ye like unto men who wait for their Lord, when He will
come, at even, or in the morning, or at cock-crowing, or at
midnight. For what hour they think not, the Lord will come;
and if they open to Him. blessed are those servants, because
they were found watching.”6 Here again the doctrine of im­
minency is implied.
The expectancy of the Lord’s coming was clouded, how­
ever, by the belief that the events of the Tribulation were
impending and that Christ’s coming to establish His kingdom
was posttribulational. Frequently the same writers who
seemed to imply imminency later detailed events that must
precede the Rapture and the second coming of Christ. At best,
the situation is confused. Gundry', for instance, denied that
any of the early church fathers held the doctrine of immi­
nency.7 On the other hand, Payne, although a posttribu-
lationist, clearly affirmed that some of them held to immi­
nency.8 The general impression one receives from reading the
early church fathers is that they followed a posttribulational
interpretation similar to the false teachers whom Paul rebuked
in 2 Thessalonians 2, who had taught the Thessalonians that
they were already in the day of the Lord.
Typical of the problem of imminency in the early church
is the Didache, quoted earlier, with its exhortation to watch
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