My Journey from Pretrib to Prewrath
This article was published in the American magazine Biblical Prophecy in Spring 2021
I was not brought up in a Christian home and was converted at the age of 18 by the direct intervention of the Lord much to the astonishment of everyone who knew me. I completed my degree at Cambridge University where I was much involved with Christian activities, including working with missionaries in Zambia in the summer vacations. I developed a passion and hunger for the Bible and used to slip away to the University Library to read books by the renowned British Bible teacher, the late Derek Prince. As well as giving me a good grounding in the foundations of the Christian faith, Prince’s teachings cemented in me a love for Israel and the Jews and convinced me of the premillennial view.
For those in the UK, like me, who held a premillennial position the influence of the Scofield Reference Bible and popular books such as The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsay meant that the pretribulational view was dominant. As I began my teaching career, I became involved in a church where I did some Bible teaching and later became an elder. The founder and lead elder of the church was a popular and gifted Bible teacher who firmly held a pretribulational position. Recommended books on eschatology in this church included those by Lewis Sperry Chafer and John Walvoord from Dallas Theological Seminary.
It was only when I moved away from the area, to posts as a deputy head and then a headteacher, that I questioned some beliefs that I had taken for granted in the pretribulational view. These included the view that the rapture was imminent (in the sense that it could happen at any moment without any preceding signs) and also the teaching that the entire seventieth week of Daniel’s prophecy was “the tribulation” and a time of wrath. I found pretribulational interpretations of Matthew 24 were confusing, and even contradictory, with claims that there was no mention of the “rapture of the living saints” in this passage as it was said not to apply to the church. Contrary to pretrib teaching, it became clear to me, from passages such as 2 Thessalonians 2, that before the return of Jesus, believers would experience persecution from the Antichrist.
The churches in Britain are predominantly amillennial and the fastest growing churches often tend to view eschatology as a distraction and prophetic passages are not often addressed. Replacement theology prevails, with the church being viewed as “spiritual Israel,” and many prophetic passages are interpreted allegorically. Reliable teaching on prophetic issues is thus not readily available in the UK.
As I looked for alternative positions within the premillennial view, I initially shifted to the posttribulational view but soon became uncomfortable with how it seemed to concertina so many of the events comprising the second coming into a small window of time – even within one day. However, when I read Alan Kurschner’s Antichrist Before the Day of the Lord, I realised that the prewrath position answered so many of my questions. It was a relief to find such clear exposition and exegegis. There were many points in this book that clarified my understanding. These included: distinguishing between the great tribulation and the day of the Lord’s wrath, the identification of the wrath as following after the seals, including the trumpet and bowl judgments, and also the explanation of the great tribulation being “cut short” by the rapture. Prewrath’s view of the return of Jesus – the parousia –consisting of a complex series of events, made so much sense. It was good to read Alan’s explanation in the book’s notes, concerning Matthew 24:36-44, that both the specific Greek verbs used and the contextual information clarify that the believers are “taken” into the Lord’s presence in the rapture whilst the unbelievers are the ones “left” to face the wrath of the day of the Lord.
The prewrath view is just beginning to gain a small foothold in the UK. I hope it will grow in influence and that some Bible teachers are willing to admit to mistakes in their previous views. For me, this admission was liberating.
Brian Melia, Brighton, UK