Page 51 - The Rapture Question by John F. Walvoord

The Rapture Question: Revised and Enlarged Edition
ation of believers. As George E. Ladd stated, relative to the
historical argument, “Let it be at once emphasized that we arc
not turning to the church fathers to find authority for either
pre- or posttribulationism. The one authority is the Word of
God, and we are not confined in the strait jacket of tradi­
tion.”10 The history of the doctrine of the church has always
to this hour revealed progress in other areas, and it is to be
expected that this will continue also in eschatology.
The doctrine of immincncy appears more clearly in the
Protestant Reformation than it docs in the early church. It is
perhaps significant that Robert H. Gundry, after devoting
twelve pages to the refutation of immincncy in the early
church, dismissed the contribution of the Protestant Reforma­
tion to this doctrine in a few sentences.11 The facts are that
both Calvin and Luther, as well as other prominent Re­
formers, tended to identify the events of the Great Tribulation
with their own contemporary history; and accordingly the
concept of imminency became more prominent, even though
the Reformers were amillennial and posttribulational.
Through much of the history of the church, the apparent
conflict between the concept of imminency and the necessity of
intermediate events before the Second Advent continue to
be a problem, with no complete solution until pretribula-
tionism—placing the Rapture before end-time events—
was advanced.
The Hermeneutical Argument
It is generally agreed by all parties that one of the major
differences between amillennialism and premillennialism lies
in the use of the literal method of interpretation. Amillenar-
ians, while admitting the need for literal interpretation of
Scripture in general, have held from Augustine to the present
time that prophecy is a special case requiring spiritualizing or
nonliteral interpretation. Premillenarians hold, on the con­
trary, that the literal method applies to prophecy as well as

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