Gundry on Wrath and Rapture

From Robert Gundry's book "The Church and Tribulation - A Biblical Examination of Posttribulationism" - copyright 1972.

docs: I'm coming more and more to believe that the issue of the rapture, when it will happen, is among the top issues that the modern Church needs to come to clear terms with. It is going to have an effect on how we view the end of the end days and will certainly effect for bad or good the way the Church goes about preparation for the days ahead.

(BEGIN)
Gundry on Wrath and Rapture - ch 4

Basic pre-trib premise

The tribulation will be a time of divine wrath and therefore the Church must first be removed from the earthly scene of judgment.

Why should a child of God's grace - who is saved by grace, who has all the wonderful promises of God - be forced to go through a period which acording to Scripture is expressly designed as a time of judgment upon a Christ-rejecting world?

I Thessalonians 5:9-10

9 For God has not destined us for wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

10 who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.

Questions:

1) Won't tribulation saints, Jews and Gentiles, escape tribulation wrath and anger by virtue of Christ's blood who underwent judgment for them? If so, isn't it logical to assume that if the Church is to be present during the tribulation that it too would have escaped judgment because of this very same blood of Christ?

2) Or, if tribulational saints will receive shelter within the period of divine wrath, may not the same hold true if Christians enter that period, i.e., if Christians turn out to be the saints of the tribulation?

3) Is endurance of the tribulation to constitute a penalty for failing to believe in Christ prior to the tribulation?

4) Romans 8:1 assures us that there is now no condemnation, or judgment, for those that are in Christ Jesus....does it not also include deliverance from that time of judgment...which is primarily characterized by the pouring out of the vials of the wrath of God?

5) Would not tribulational saints (supposedly not belonging to the Church according to the pretrib view) also be "in Christ" because they have believed and made their robes white by the blood of the Lamb (Rev 7:14)?

6) Won't Christ's blood justify tribulation saints? If not, how will they be saved?

7) If tribulation saints are justified by Christ's blood (therefore passing from wrath to justification), why would they be in and continue to be in the tribulation if being in the tribulation is to expereince the wrath of God?

8) If one advocates that endurance of the tribulation constitues a penalty for not believeing prior to the tribulation doesn't this merely side-step the problem of the way in which any person saved by the blood of Christ coud be subjest to divine wrath if it is true that earthly presence in the tribulation will necessarily entail the endurance of divine wrath?

9) Shouldn't tribulation saints be individually raptured immediately upon conversion to escape divine wrath since they will then be saved?

10) Many will be saved during the tribulation. Some even hold that only such people will be convereted during the tribulation (II Thess 2:11-12). Are we to think that those saints will lhave to endure God's wrath because the Church failed to preach the Gospel to them before the tribulation - why the guilty Church goes scot-free?

11) It is argued that "the character of the judgments will affect everyone...." But pre-tribulationists, too, see saved people throughout the word during the tribulation, including a group of 144,000 Jews scattered over the earth as evangelists - and the 144,000 are expressly said to be sealed for protection (Rev 7:1-3). If the judgments cannot discriminate between saved and unsaved, sealed and unsealed,how are we to explain that the saints in general and the 144,000 in particular must be exempt from the divine wrath?

12) The blessedness of the blessed hope does not consist in exemption from persecution and trial, but in seeing the Savior face to face. If the general persecution and even marydom unto death did not take away this hope from the early disciples, why should the specific and intense persecution of the tribulation take away this hope for contemporay Christians?

Conclusion:

"Failure to distinguish between the wrath of God and other types of distress, such as persecution, has led to the charge that posttribulationists inconsistently say that the Church will be sheltered at the same time they espound the woes of the Church during the tribulation. The answer is simple: the Church will receive shelter from the penal judgments of God but will suffer persecution from other quarters." (END)

Gundry was pro post tribulation , docs you hold a post tribulation view

Yes he was. That is my view also.

I've been looking into the issue a bit again and I believe some of his questions are the same ones that have come into my mind when I delve into the issue. He is much better at it than me though.

I am as well , I do not think it holds water. I used to believe in the pre tribulation rapture then I opened my bible

Revelation 1 New King James Version (NKJV)

Introduction and Benediction
1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants””things which must [a]shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw. 3 Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near.

Greeting the Seven Churches
4 John, to the seven churches which are in Asia:

Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth.

To Him who [b]loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, 6 and has made us [c]kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

7 Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen.

8 "I am the Alpha and the Omega, [d]the Beginning and the End,” says the [e]Lord, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

I was recently discussing this as verse 7 of revelation 1 is a problem for any person who believes in the pre trib rapture as it states that every eye will see him. So Jesus is not coming to the church in the clouds.
I find it so missing out verse 9 . How come John does not write about the pre tribulation rapture in this verse.

Rev 1:9 9 I John who also am your brother and companion in tribulation and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ was in the isle that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Acts 1
.9 Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. 10 And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, 11 who also said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”

Where the apostles ignorant of the pre tribulation rapture here. To me it is a lie. As formally being from that view it is like banging my head against a brick wall to explain the outright contradictions with scripture
I can do it person linking 1 Thessalonians 4 with 5 and showing people the day of the lord is after the tribulation.