Posttribulation - Tumblr Posts

Can People Be Saved After the Resurrection & the Rapture?

By Bible Researcher Eli Kittim 🎓

The pretribulational view teaches that there will be many who will be saved during the great tribulation, AFTER the Resurrection & the Rapture take place (cf. 1 Thess. 4.16-17). Is this possible, or does it contradict scripture? Just like the parable of the 10 virgins suggests, when the doors of salvation are finally slammed shut, no one else could be saved. It’s all over. No one can go in or out. The rapture is that end point. Once the church leaves, it’s game over! And even if the tribulation saints could be saved, where would they go? How would they be *rescued* by God, given that the rapture was that final ticket out of here?

Let’s not forget that there are certain contemporaneous events that have to occur during the resurrection and the rapture, just prior to the departure of the church. For instance, scripture affirms that Christ will radically transform God’s elect so that they will resemble his glorious appearance (Phil. 3.21). What is more, 1 Cor. 15.52-53 reveals that the elect will attain a glorious immortality, during the resurrection/rapture process, so that they will never ever die again! That’s when Christ will finally grant God’s elect his “exceeding great and precious promises” so that they can become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1.4). But these divinely transformative events can only occur *once for all* during the resurrection & the rapture. So the question arises, if these momentous events take place once for all, and the elect eventually partake of the divine nature and are raptured out of here, how then can these glorious transformations reoccur over and over again in the absence of Christ, the Spirit, and the Church?

This demonstrates the fallacy of pretribulationism because it falsely maintains that people will continue to be saved even after the resurrection and the rapture. Really? And even if they could be saved, where would they go? The church has already left. How would they be rescued after the church has permanently left? Once again, it shows that pretribulationism is based on fallacious reasoning!

And how could the tribulation saints escape God’s wrath? If they die, how would they be resurrected again, given that the one and only resurrection of the dead already happened? Remember that there’s only one general resurrection of the dead in which both the saved and the damned will be raised together (Daniel 12.2). So, if the rapture already took place and the tribulation saints can no longer be resurrected, how could they escape God’s judgments? How would God rescue them? They would simply be forced to stay here on earth in the midst of unbridled terror? Would God allow his precious elect to remain here on earth during the zombie apocalypse, while his wrath was being poured out in judgment, and while all the rest of the elect were enjoying heavenly bliss?

So, if the tribulation saints could neither be resurrected nor raptured, what would be God’s rescue plan for them? In other words, *after* the resurrection & the rapture had taken place, what could the tribulation saints do here on earth? Would their task be to ride out the storm of God’s wrath during the day of the Lord? It’s reminiscent of Jean-Paul Sartre’s play, “No Exit.” It demonstrates the faulty reasoning and unscriptural position of the pretrib rapture view!

Conclusion

Mt. 24.29-31 says that the “gathering” of the Son of Man’s elect (i.e. ‘the rapture’) occurs AFTER the Great Tribulation (Gk. *μετὰ* τὴν θλῖψιν τῶν ἡμερῶν ἐκείνων). The clincher, the passage that settles the matter conclusively is Rev. 20.4-6. This passage tells us that those who were killed during the Great Tribulation took part in the first resurrection. However, given that the rapture is contemporaneous with the first resurrection (1 Thess. 4.16-17), and since those who took part in the first resurrection came out of the Great Tribulation, it means that the rapture must also take place *AFTER* the great tribulation. Hence, if this is the first resurrection that takes place AFTER the great tribulation, then there can’t possibly be an earlier one, as the pretrib doctrine assumes. Any way you look at it, the pretrib position doesn’t make any scriptural sense at all.

The reason people will continue to be saved during the great ordeal is because the *rapture* will take place at the *end* of the tribulation period, so that all God's elect will leave together as one church. Once the resurrection & the rapture take place (posttrib), it’s game over. No one else can be saved, or be resurrected, or go to heaven! Once again, these robust and cogent arguments prove that the pretrib position is completely bogus and misinformed.

——-

For further details, see my short essay:

Three Questions On the Rapture: Is it Pre-Trib or Post-Trib? Is it Secret or Not? And is it Imminent?

https://eli-kittim.tumblr.com/post/628794727776632832/three-questions-on-the-rapture-is-it-pre-trib-or

Eli of Kittim

Three Questions On the Rapture: Is it Pre-Trib or Post-Trib? Is it Secret or Not? And is it Imminent?

By Goodreads Author Eli Kittim ——- Is the Rapture Visible or Invisible? The putative “secret rapture” and the “futurist eschatological vie

——-

A Response to Tiff Shuttlesworth’s “The Last Trumpet in Revelation”

Eli Kittim

Tiff Shuttlesworth is the President/Founder of Lost Lamb Evangelistic Association at Northpoint Bible College and Seminary. He is also a well-known pastor and Bible prophecy teacher who holds to the pretribulational view of the rapture. His videos on bible prophecy are very popular on YouTube and elsewhere. Recently, I came across a video by Tiff Shuttlesworth, entitled, “The Last Trumpet in Revelation.” In that video, Shuttlesworth took issue with the mid and post tribulation rapture views and publicly denounced them as “poor scholarship.”

In this video, Tiff Shuttlesworth says that the last (or 7th) trumpet in Rev 11:15 is not the same as “the last trumpet” in 1 Cor. 15:51-52, and that it also bears no relation to “the trumpet of God” in 1 Thess. 4:16-17, chronologically or otherwise. He is in error. They are the same. He offers some tendentious reasons why this is so, but they are all based on a basic misunderstanding and misinterpretation of scripture. He says that 1 Cor. 15 is talking about the church, whereas Rev 11 is referring to the judgments of God, and he claims that not only is the timing of these events different but also “the last trumpet” in 1 Cor. 15:51-52 is not the same as the last (or 7th) trumpet in Rev 11.15. As will be shown, this is not the case. The reason he tries to dissociate the last trumpet of 1 Cor. 15:51-52 from the 7th and final trumpet in the Book of Revelation is because Rev ch. 11 implies that the last trumpet takes place AFTER the great tribulation, not before. It is similar to Matt. 24:29-31 (NASB) in which the rapture of the elect occurs AFTER, not before, the great tribulation. Notice that the rapture will begin “with a great trumpet blast” (italics mine):

“But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. … and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet blast, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.”

So, because Tiff Shuttlesworth is a pre-tribulationist, he obviously wants to dismiss this piece of evidence, which challenges his pre-tribulation rapture view. Naturally, he tries to argue that these passages are diametrically opposed to each other. But this is poor scholarship. As we dig deeper, we realize that they’re very much connected. Moreover, since they are inspired, we must read the books of the Bible in “canonical context,” rather than as separate books that are unrelated to each other.

It is interesting to note that Rev 11, just before introducing the 7th trumpet, mentions the rapture of the two witnesses. And it follows with a celebration of the church triumphant, in heaven, which foresees the reign of Christ. Interestingly enough, Rev 11 makes mention of the esteemed tribulation saints, otherwise known as “the twenty-four elders”——whom we know from chapter 4—-in order to inform us that the great tribulation, the general resurrection of the dead, and the rapture are in view. Revelation 11:18 reads thusly:

“and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to reward Your bond-servants the prophets and the saints.”

This is a direct reference to the general resurrection of the dead, that we’re all familiar with from 1 Thess. 4:15-17, which happens simultaneously with the rapture, when the faithful will be rewarded with immortality and glory (theosis). They will shine. There is no other resurrection of the dead (Dan. 12:1-2). This is it! Similarly, 1 Thess. 4:16-17 says that Christ will appear for the resurrection and the rapture with the sound of God’s trumpet:

“For the Lord Himself will descend … with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who remain, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”

First Corinthians 15:51-52 further clarifies that all this will take place “at the last trumpet”:

“Behold, I am telling you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”

So, when is the last trumpet? According to Rev 11:15, the last (or 7th) trumpet is blown during the time period when the Lord’s Messiah begins to reign over the entire world. So, it is obviously a period that takes place AFTER the great tribulation, not before. Rev 11:15-17 reads:

“Then the seventh angel sounded; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever.’ And the twenty-four elders, who sit on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying, ‘We give You thanks, Lord God, the Almighty, the One who is and who was, because You have taken Your great power and have begun to reign.’ “