For many years, Christians who take the Bible seriously have believed that Jesus will remove true Christians from earth before the Great Tribulation. There are many strong arguments for what is called the pre-tribulation rapture. However, throughout Church history there have always been people who believed that Christians would go through all or part of the Great Tribulation.

Some believe in a mid-tribulation rapture, which would take place halfway through the 70th week which Israel needs to finish their transgression and making an end of sins. (See Daniel 9:24-27.) Others believe in a post-tribulation rapture, which would take place at the same time Jesus returns at the end of the seven year period. Still others believe in a pre-wrath rapture, which would take place after the last trump / 7th trump (1 Cor. 15:51,52, not prior to the Great Tribulation. The idea is that Christians go through part of the horrible tribulation (7 seals and 7 trumpets) but not God's wrath (7 bowls.) The entire Church Age was a mystery until the time when the Gentiles were included in the Church. The Apostle Paul spoke of this mystery in Eph. 3:8,9, and the pre-wrath rapture view states that the Apostle John also spoke of this mystery being finished in the days of the sounding of the seventh trumpet (Rev. 10:7).

Since most Christians who take the Bible seriously were taught the pre-tribulation view, many web sites cover this view, and this web site will not go into detail about it. Similarly, the post-tribulation rapture view has much written to support it on other web sites, so it will not be discussed here. The mid-tribulation rapture view is not very common, so it will not be discussed here either. However, few people talk about the pre-wrath rapture view, so a few comments about this are presented here.

First, it's important to note what the Apostle Paul warned in 2 Th. 2:1-10:

1 Now, brothers, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to Him, we urge you 2 not to be quickly shaken from your conviction or disturbed, whether by a spirit or a word or a letter as from us, as though the day of Christ has come. 3 Don’t let anyone deceive you by any means; because that day cannot come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of sin is revealed, the son of ruin, 4 who opposes and exalts himself over everything that is called a god or an object of worship, to the point of taking his seat as God in God’s sanctuary, proclaiming himself to be God. 5 (Don’t you remember that I used to tell you these things while still with you?) 6 So now you know what is restraining, to the end that he may be revealed at his own time. 7 For the mystery of the lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He removes Himself. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and abolish by the splendor of His coming; 9 that one’s coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, 10 and with all wicked deception among those who are wasting themselves, because they did not receive the love of the truth so that they might be saved.

Dr. Wilbur Pickering, a Greek scholar,  in the notes about this English translation of his wrote:

Some 15% of the Greek manuscripts have ‘Lord’ (as in NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.); the 85% that have ‘Christ’ (including the best line of transmission) are doubtless correct. I remember one day in a Greek exegesis class, the professor stated that one reason he preferred the ‘critical’ text (that reads ‘Lord’ here) is that it fit better with his view of eschatology—the ‘Day of Christ’ is usually associated with the Rapture and blessing of the saints, while the ‘Day of the Lord’ is usually associated with heavy judgment upon the world and unrepentant Israel, including the outpouring of wrath just before and after the Second Coming of Christ, when He returns in glory to establish His Millennial Reign. The perceived difficulty here would appear to be that while verses 1, 6 and 7 evidently relate to the Rapture, verses 3-4 and 8-10 evidently relate to the Great Tribulation and the Second Coming. What to do? Look carefully at the Text. In verse 2, why would the Thessalonian believers be “disturbed”? Someone was teaching that the Rapture had already happened and they had been left behind—I would be disturbed too! So ‘day of Christ’ is precisely correct with reference to the content of verses 1 and 2. The trouble comes in verse 3 because a clause is elided; as an aid to the reader translations usually supply a clause, preferably in italics to show that it is an addition, as in NKJV—“that Day will not come”. But that would put the Rapture after the revelation of the man of sin and the ‘abomination of desolation’—definitely not congenial to certain eschatological systems. An easy ‘solution’ would be to change ‘Christ’ to ‘Lord’ in verse 2, but that would put the Rapture within the ‘day of the Lord’—also not congenial. I submit that fine-tuning our view of eschatology is preferable to tampering with the Text.

Thus, what are you to do if you find that the Great Tribulation has started and a world dictator emerges? Will you simply go with the flow, follow the man of sin and become part of the rebellion [in the original Greek: apostasy - 'great falling away'] Will you become angry or disillusioned that you are "left behind"? Some Christians claim that disappointment of not being raptured will actually be one of the main causes of the great falling away! Regardless of which view you take, a prudent approach is to to hope for a pre-tribulation rapture but prepare for the other options. For more information, see Tribulation Contingency Plan. In any case, it's important to know Jesus as your Savior. (For more information, see How to Be Saved.