The Origin Of The Pretribulational Rapture Theory
1. Origins
There have been many articles, essays, and books written about
the origin of the pretrib rapture teaching. The most prevalent
theories among scholars are:
1. that the doctrine began within the Irviningite sect in England in the early 1800's (see article by George Ladd, article by Art Katterjohn)
2. that it originated in the Plymouth Brethren movement from the teachings of John Nelson Darby in the early 1800's.
3. that it originated with a Mr. Tweedy, who passed it on to Darby and the Plymouth Bretren
4. that it originated with aberrant Catholic theologians (Jesuit priests) Ribera and Emmanuel Lucanza, see article by J.P. Eby)
5. that it originated with a Baptist minister named Morgan Edwards in 1788(1).
6. The doctrine started in the early church with a writer called Pseudo-Ephraim. (The author of this work is unknown (hence, 'pseudo'), its conclusions uncertain, and the date written is in question. Of all the 'theories' this is the least credible(2)).
One thing is clear from the available historical documents: Darby, called the 'father of dispensationalism', was responsible for the widespread dissemination of the new and novel pretrib doctrine beginning around 1830 through his ministry in the Plymouth Brethern movement. The doctrine soon spread to America and was widely popularized by the Scofield Reference Bible.
In my mind the final word on the origin of the pretrib teaching cannot be known with 100% certainty based on the documents available. I think that the best explanation is summarized by Timothy P. Weber (Memphis Theological Seminary) who wrote:
“The pretribulation rapture......historians are still trying to determine how or where Darby got it. . . . Possibly, we may have to settle for Darby’s own explanation. He claimed that the doctrine virtually jumped out of the pages of Scripture once he accepted and consistently maintained the distinction between Israel and the church”. (Timothy P. Weber, Living In The Shadow Of The Second Coming: American Premillennialism 1875-1982. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1983, pp. 21-22).
John Nelson Darby commenting on 2 Thess. 2:1-2 in 1850:
"It is this passage which, twenty years ago, made me understand the rapture of the saints before -- perhaps a considerable time before -- the day of the Lord, that is, before the judgment of the living."(3)
So, according to Darby he held a different
view until 1830 when he came to understand the pretrib rapture
doctrine. Until further documentation turns up it seems then
most likely that John Nelson Darby originated the pretrib
teaching and was responsible for https://platacard.mx/es/ its wide distribution in the
years that followed.
2. Quotes
from early Plymouth Brethren: (contemporary
with Darby)
Under The First Appearances of Secret Rapture Teaching on page 45 of B. W. Newton and Dr. S. P. Tregelles – Teachers of the Faith and the Future – 2nd Edition 1969, The Sovereign Grace Advent Testimony, London – George H. Fromow says, "Dr. S. P. Tregelles has recorded for us the origin of this teaching in his book The Hope of Christ's Coming, How is is Taught in Scripture and Why? (page 35 of the fifth edition).
Mr. Fromow goes on to opine, "If the exact terms used by Dr. Tregelles are noted, allowance can be made, that suggestions of a 'secret coming' were put forth a few years earlier, some say at the first Albury conference in 1826; but the precise date does not alter the fact that it was a novel doctrine"."Dr. Tregelles further wrote: 'When the theory of a secret coming of Christ was first brought forward (about the year 1832), it was adopted with eagerness; it suited certain preconceived opinions, and it was accepted by some at that which harmonized contraditory thoughts, whether such thoughts, or any of them, rested on the sure warrant of God; written Word".
There follows the quotation given above by Mr. Kelly.
3. More Quotes regarding
the origin of the pretrib rapture theory:
Charles C. Ryrie: a dispensational
theologian writes: "The distinction between Israel and the
Church leads to the belief that the Church will be taken from
the earth before the beginning of the tribulation (which in
one major sense concerns Israel)." (Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism
Today, pp. 158-160). (That seems to fit with the theory
that Darby originated the teaching based on his dispensational
hermeneutic. Ed.)
John
Walvoord: thinks the pretrib rapture theory originated
from Darby's understanding of ecclesiology: "any careful student of Darby soon
discovers that he did not get his eschatological views from
men, but rather from his doctrine of the church as the body of
Christ, a concept no one claims was revealed supernaturally to
Irving or Macdonald. Darby's views undoubtedly were
gradually formed, but they were theologically and biblically
based rather than derived from Irving's pre-Pentecostal group".
(Walvoord, The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation, p. 47.)
F. F. Bruce: well known Plymouth Brethren historian
and theologian says: "Where did he [Darby] get
it? The reviewer’s answer would be that it was in the air in
the 1820s and 1830s among eager students of unfulfilled
prophecy". (Book Review of The Unbelievable Pre-Trib
Origin in The Evangelical Quarterly, (Vol. XLVII,
No. 1).
Alexander Reese: "About
1830 a new school arose within the fold of Premillennialism
that sought to overthrow what, since the Apostolic Age, have
been considered by all premillennialist as established
results, and to institute in their place a series of doctrines
that had never been heard of before. The school I refer to is
that of ‘The Brethren’ or ‘Plymouth Brethren,’ founded by J.
N. Darby.” (Alexander Reese, The Approaching Advent of
Christ, page 18)
Harry Ironside(4):
In 1908 Ironside claimed Darby had rediscovered
the apostolic teaching lost to the church: "Until brought to the fore through
the writings and the preaching and teaching of the
distinguished ex-clergyman, Mr. J. N. Darby, in the early part
of the last century, [the pretribulational rapture] is
scarcely to be found in a single book or sermon throughout a
period of sixteen hundred years! If any doubt this statement,
let them search, as the writer has in measure done, the
remarks of the so-called Fathers, both pre- and post-Nicene,
the theological treatises of the scholastic divines, Roman
Catholic writers of all shades of thought; the literature of
the reformation; the sermons and expositions of the Puritans;
and the general theological works of the day. He will find
“the mystery” conspicuous by its absence". (Harry A.
Ironside, The
Mysteries of God, New York: Loizeaux Brothers, 1908, pp
50–51).
Robert Cameron: “Now, be it remembered,
that prior to that date, no hint of any approach to such
belief can be found in any Christian literature from Polycarp
down.... Surely, a doctrine that finds no exponent or advocate
in the whole history and literature of Christendom, for
eighteen hundred years after the founding of the Church - a
doctrine that was never taught by a Father or Doctor of the
Church in the past - that has no standard Commentator or
Professor of the Greek language in any Theological School
until the middle of the Nineteenth century, to give it
approval, and that is without a friend, even to mention its
name amongst the orthodox teachers or the heretical sects of
Christendom - such a fatherless and motherless doctrine, when
it rises to the front, demanding universal acceptance, ought
to undergo careful scrutiny before it is admitted and
tabulated as part of ‘the faith once for all delivered unto
the saints.” (Robert Cameron, Scriptural Truth About
The Lord’s Return, page 72-73).
E. R.
Sandeen: "Darby
introduced into discussion at Powerscourt (1833) the ideas of
a secret rapture of the church and of a parenthesis in
prophetic fulfillment between the sixty-ninth and seventieth
weeks of Daniel. These two concepts constituted the basic
tenets of the system of theology since referred to as
dispensationalism" (E.R. Sandeen, The Roots of
Fundamentalism 1800-1930, University of Chicago Press,
1970)
A. W. Tozer: “Here is a doctrine that was
not known or taught until the beginning of this century and it
is already causing splits in churches.”
Philip
Mauro: "The entire
system of ‘dispensational teaching’ is modernistic in the
strictest sense; for it first came into existence within the
memory of persons now living; and was altogether unknown even
in their younger days; It is more recent than Darwinism.”“A
system of doctrine that contradicts what has been held and
taught by every Christian expositor and every minister of
Christ from the very beginning of the Christian era—suddenly
made its appearance in the later part of the nineteenth
century".”
Edmund
Shackleton: All who
held the premillennial Coming of Christ were, till about sixty
years ago, of one mind on the subject. About that time a new
view was promulgated that the Coming of Christ was not one
event, but that it was divided into stages, in fact, that
Christ comes twice from heaven to earth, but the first time
only as far as the air. This first descent, it is said, will
be for the purpose of removing the Church from the world, and
will occur before the Great Tribulation under Antichrist. This
they call "The coming for His saints" or "Secret Rapture." The
second part of the Coming is said to take place when Christ
appears in glory and destroys the Antichrist. This they call
"The coming with His saints."
Apart from the test of the Word, which is the only final one,
there are certain reasons why this doctrine should be viewed
with suspicion. It appears to be little more than sixty years
old; and it seems highly improbable that if scriptural it
could have escaped the scrutiny of the many devoted Bible
students whose writings have been preserved to us from the
past. More especially in the writings of the early Christian
fathers would we expect to find some notice of this doctrine,
if it had been taught by the Apostles; but those who have
their works declare that they betray no knowledge of a theory
that the Church would escape the Tribulation under Antichrist,
or that there would be any "coming" except that spoken of in
Matthew 24, as occurring in manifest glory "after the
Tribulation." This is all the more significant, because these
writers bestowed much attention upon the subject of the
Antichrist and the Great Tribulation. Augustine, referring to
Daniel 7, wrote: "But he who reads this passage even half
asleep cannot fail to see that the kingdom of Antichrist shall
fiercely, though for a short time, assail the Church." (Edmund
Shackleton, Will the
Church Escape the Great Tribulation? pp. 31, 32,
cited by Alexander Reese, The Approaching Advent of Christ, p. 231.)
4.
Implications!
Sometimes overlooked are the implications of
the pretrib rapture recent origins. In my book Outline Studies On
The Rapture Question (1973) I wrote "Search the pages of Church
history and literature, and you will not find one
mention of the Lord coming before the Tribulation until after
1800. No one has ever cited any
literature, writings, or quotes to the contrary! The
implications of this truth are serious. If the Pre-Tribulation doctrine
were true, it would mean that it was hidden from the
church for 19 centuries. Not one of the brilliant theologians or Bible
teachers before the 1800's were able to find a Pretrib
rapture and coming of the Lord on the pages of Holy
Scripture---an incredulous improbability to say the
least!".(5)
(1).
Some scholars like John L. Bray
promote the theory that the pretrib teaching originated with
a Baptist minister named Morgan Edwards in 1788. A close
analysis of his writing Millennium,
Last-Novelities clearly does not outline end-time
events as found in the teachings of Darby, Scofield,
Walvoord, etc. See the analysis by Tim Warner in his article
on Morgan
Edwards.
(2)
For
more information on the pre-Darby pretrib theories see my
friend Dave MacPherson's article Deceiving And
Being Deceived.
(3) Cited by Wm Kelly in The Rapture of the Saints: Who Suggested It, Or Rather On What Scripture? The Bible Treasury, New Series, vol. 4, p. 314-318.
(4) Harry Ironside (1876-1951) was an ardent pretrib dispensationalist, prolific writer,
and former pastor of Moody Memorial Church.
(5) This was written in 1973 before the various
claims of a pre-Darby pretrib rapture were widely known. But
even if
Morgan Edwards or one of the Jesuit priests
taught the pretrib rapture theory before the 1800's it would
mean that the doctrine was hidden from the Church for more
than 1600+ years!
Updated
7-24-2011