“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear” (1 Peter 3:15; emphasis added).
As a younger Christian, I can still vividly remember being deeply convicted by those words you just read. One of my favorite Bible teachers, Ken Ham, regularly incorporates 1 Peter 3:15 into his books, and I believe the Lord used his resources to motivate me to look for answers to the commonly asked questions of our day. One of those commonly asked questions goes something like this: “Isn’t pretribulationism a modern invention? Didn’t John Darby come up with it?” Sometimes you’ll even hear well-intentioned Christians say that pretribulationism (i.e., the belief that the Rapture will occur before the End Times) comes from the Left Behind book series or that it is a belief held by groups on the fringes of mainstream Christianity.
The point of this article is to equip you, the reader, with a quick and easy answer to the titular question. After all, the return of Christ is the “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13) of believers; therefore, we ought to be prepared to answer questions pertaining to that hope which dwells within our hearts. The short answer is no, pretribulationism is not a new doctrine. It was clearly taught by the Lord Jesus (Luke 21:34-36; Revelation 3:10) and later elaborated on by the Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 15:51-52; 1 Thessalonians 4).
Furthermore, John Darby did not invent the concept (albeit he can be rightly credited with popularizing it). The following passage is attributed to a fourth-century hymnist known as Ephraim, although it may have been written by a later pre-Darby author and then ascribed to the real Ephraim. Nevertheless, here is the text in question:
“We ought to understand thoroughly therefore, my brothers, what is imminent or overhanging. Already there have been hunger and plagues, violent movements of nations and signs, which have been predicted by the Lord, they have already been fulfilled (consummated), and there is not other which remains, except the advent of the wicked one in the completion of the Roman kingdom…. Why therefore do we not reject every care of earthly actions and prepare ourselves for the meeting of the Lord Christ, so that he may draw us from the confusion, which overwhelms all the world? …. For all the saints and elect of God are gathered, prior to the tribulation that is to come, and are taken to the Lord lest they see the confusion that is to overwhelm the world because of our sins.”1
Note how Ephraim specifically said that all of God’s people would be gathered before the Tribulation period began. This makes it clear that Ephraim was not talking about believers simply dying and thus being spared from what was to come. He said that all the saints would be drawn from the confusion that will eventually come upon the whole world. His words square well with what we find in Scripture, too:
“Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth” (Revelation 3:10).
The Lord Jesus spoke these words to the faithful church at Philadelphia. They, like us, didn’t know exactly when He would return (Matthew 24:36). What they did know, however, was that they would be kept from the dreadful, worldwide “hour of temptation.” Lee Brainard discovered several more references to pretribulationism from Ephraim’s body of work, including this one right here:
“Let us pray the Lord in great humility that he would take us out (remove us) from the coming fear, and count us worthy of that rapture (snatching away) when the righteous are raptured (snatched) in the clouds to the air to meet the king of glory.”2
In closing, this is why we need to be equipped with biblically based answers! We shouldn’t want anyone to “miss the boat” and not be taken out of the way before God’s judgment is poured out on an unrepentant world. It’s evident that Ephraim held to the belief that believers would be taken away before a time of great judgment and difficulty, and he urged his listeners to ready themselves to meet Jesus. In view of these statements, pretribulationism is not a recent invention. In fact, John Darby was born at the turn of the 19th century – approximately 1,300 years after Ephraim! More importantly, however, we can say that because pretribulationism is biblical, the doctrine precedes Darby by a whopping 1,800 years!
Sources:
- https://orthochristian.com/101157.html
- https://prophecywatchers.com/ten-clear-pre-trib-rapture-references-from-ephraim-the-syrian-by-lee-brainard/