Dr Tommy Ice - Myths of the Origin of Pretribulationism Pt2, Ebooks
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A
PRIL
, 2001
M
YTHS OF THE
O
RIGIN OF
P
RETRIBULATIONISM
Part II
Thomas Ice
In the last issue we began a look at myths of the origins of the pre-trib
rapture. This issue I conclude that study.
T
HE
B
IG
L
IE
One of the things that facilitated the Nazi rise to power in Germany
earlier this century was their propaganda approach called “The Big Lie.” If
a big lie is told often enough, people will come to believe it. This the Nazis
did well. This is what anti-pretribulationists like John Bray
1
and Dave
MacPherson
2
have done over the last 25 years. Apparently the big lie about
the origins of the pre-trib rapture penetrated the thinking of the late Robert
Van Kampen
3
and Marvin Rosenthal to the extent that they have adopted
such a falsehood as true. This is amazing in light of the fact that their own
pre-wrath viewpoint is not much more than fifteen years old itself.
Rosenthal must have changed his mind about pre-trib origins between the
time he wrote his book
The Pre-wrath Rapture of the Church
(1990) and the
recent article (Dec. 1994) since, in the former, he says that the pre-trib
1
John L. Bray,
The Origin of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture Teaching
(Lakeland, FL.: John L. Bray Ministry,
1982).
2
Dave MacPherson,
The Unbelievable Pre-Trib Origin
(Kansas City: Heart of America Bible Society, 1973).
The Late Great Pre-Trib Rapture
(Kansas City: Heart of America Bible Society, 1974).
The Great Rapture
Hoax
(Fletcher, N.C.: New Puritan Library, 1983).
Rapture?
(Fletcher, N.C.: New Puritan Library, 1987).
The Rapture Plot
(Monticello, Utah: P.O.S.T. Inc., 1994).
3
Robert Van Kampen,
The Sign
(Wheaton, IL.: Crossway Books, 1992), pp. 445-47.
rapture “can be traced back to John Darby and the Plymouth Brethren in
the year 1830.”
4
Rosenthal goes on to say, “Some scholars, seeking to prove
error by association, have attempted (perhaps unfairly) to trace its origin
back two years earlier to a charismatic, visionary woman named Margaret
MacDonald.”
5
Even this statement is in error, since the Margaret
Macdonald claim has always been related to 1830, not 1828. However,
Rosenthal is correct in his original assessment that these charges are
“unfair” and probably spring out of a motive to “prove error by
association,” known as the
ad hominem
argument.
Pretribulationists have sought to defend against “The Big Lie”
through direct interaction against the charges.
6
In a rebuttal to these
charges I made in 1990, I gave two major reasons why “The Big Lie” is not
true. First, it is doubtful that Margaret Macdonald’s “prophecy” contains
4
Marvin Rosenthal,
The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church
(Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1990), p.
53.
5
Rosenthal,
Pre-Wrath Rapture
, pp. 53-54.
6
Some of the pre-trib responses include the following: R. A. Huebner,
The Truth of the Pre-Tribulation
Rapture Recovered
(Millington, N.J.: Present Truth Publishers, 1976);
Precious Truths Revived and Defended
Through J. N. Darby
, Vol. 1 (Morganville, N. J.: Present Truth Publishers, 1991). Gerald B. Stanton,
Kept
From The Hour
, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1956). John F. Walvoord,
The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979). Robert L. Sumner, “Looking For The Blessed Horrible Holocaust!” A
book review of
The Late Great Pre-Trib Rapture
in
The Biblical Evangelist
(Vol. 10, Num. 1; May, 1975);
“Hope? Or Hoax?”
The Biblical Evangelist
(Vol. 18, Num. 3; Feb., 1984). Hal Lindsey,
The Rapture: Truth
Or Consequences
(New York: Bantam Books, 1983). Charles Ryrie,
What You Should Know About the
Rapture
(Chicago: Moody Press, 1981). Tim LaHaye,
No Fear of the Storm: Why Christians will Escape
All
the Tribulation
(Sisters, Ore.: Multnomah, 1992). Thomas D. Ice, “Why the Doctrine of the Pretribulational
Rapture Did Not Begin with Margaret Macdonald,”
Bibliotheca Sacra
147 (1990), pp. 155-68; “The Origin of
the Pre-Trib Rapture,” Part I & II,
Biblical Perspectives
, vol. 2, no. 1, Jan./Feb. 1989 & vol. 2, no. 2,
Mar./Apr. 1989; “Did J. N. Darby Believe in the Pretrib Rapture by 1827?” Dispensational Distinctives,
vol. I, no. 6, Nov./Dec. 1991.
any elements related to the pre-trib rapture.
7
Second, no one has ever
demonstrated
from actual facts of history
that Darby was influenced by
Macdonald’s “prophecy” even if it had (which it did not) contained pre-
trib elements.
8
John Walvoord has said,
The whole controversy as aroused by Dave MacPherson’s claims
has so little supporting evidence, despite his careful research, that
one wonders how he can write his book with a straight face.
Pretribulationalists should be indebted to Dave MacPherson for
exposing the facts, namely, that there is no proof that MacDonald
or Irving originated the pretribulation rapture teaching.
9
There is a third reason why MacPherson’s theory is wrong. Darby
clearly held to an early form of the pre-trib rapture by January 1827. This is
a full three years before MacPherson’s claim of 1830.
7
The following books are some of those which have the full text of Macdonald’s utterance: MacPherson’s
Cover-Up
, and
Hoax
. R. A. Huebner,
The Truth of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture Recovered
(Millington, N.J.:
Present Truth Publishers, 1976), pp. 67-69. Hal Lindsey,
The Rapture: Truth Or Consequences
(New York:
Bantam Books, 1983), pp. 169-172. William R. Kimball,
The Rapture: A Question of Timing
(Grand Rapids:
Baker Book House, 1985), pp. 44-47.
8
Ice, “Why the Doctrine of the Pretribulational Rapture Did Not Begin with Margaret Macdonald,” pp.
158, 161.
9
Walvoord,
The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation
, p. 47.
D
ARBY AND
T
HE
P
RE
-T
RIB
R
APTURE
Brethren writer Roy A. Huebner claims and
documents
his belief that J.N.
Darby first began to believe in the pre-trib rapture and develop his
dispensational thinking while convalescing from a riding accident during
December 1826 and January 1827.
10
If this is true, then all of the origin-of-
the-rapture-conspiracy theories fall to the ground in a heap of speculative
rubble. Darby would have at least a three-year jump on any who would
have supposedly influenced his thought, making it impossible for all the
“influence” theories to have any credibility.
Huebner provides clarification and evidence that Darby was not
influenced by a fifteen-year-old girl (Margaret Macdonald), Lacunza,
Edward Irving, or the Irvingites. These are all said by the detractors of
Darby and the pre-trib rapture to be bridges which led to Darby’s thought.
Instead, he demonstrates that Darby’s understanding of the pre-trib
rapture was the product of the development of his personal interactive
thought with the text of Scripture as he, his friends, and dispensationalists
have long contended.
Darby’s pre-trib and dispensational thoughts, says Huebner, were
developed from the following factors:
1)
“He saw from Isaiah 32 that there
was a different dispensation coming . . . that
Israel and the Church were
distinct
.”
11
2)
“During his convalescence JND learned that
he ought daily
to expect his Lord’s return
.”
12
3)
“In 1827 JND understood the fall of the
church. . . ‘the ruin of the Church.’”
13
4)
Darby also was beginning to see a
gap of time between the rapture and the second coming by 1827.
14
5)
Darby himself said in 1857 that he first started understanding things
relating to the pre-trib Rapture “thirty years ago.” “With that fixed point
of reference, Jan. 31, 1827,” declares Huebner, we can see that Darby “had
already understood those truths upon which the pre-tribulation rapture
hinges.”
15
German author Max S. Weremchuk has produced a major new
biography on Darby entitled
John Nelson Darby: A Biography
.
16
He agrees
with Huebner’s conclusions concerning the matter. “Having read
MacPherson’s book . . .” says Weremchuk, “I find it impossible to make a
just comparison between what Miss MacDonald ‘prophesied’ and what
Darby taught. It appears that the wish was the father of the idea.”
17
When reading Darby’s earliest published essay on biblical prophecy
(1829), it is clear that while it still has elements of historicism, it also reflects
10
R. A. Huebner,
Precious Truths Revived and Defended Through J. N. Darby
, Vol. 1 (Morganville, N. J.:
Present Truth Publishers, 1991).
11
Huebner,
Precious Truths
, p. 17.
12
Huebner,
Precious Truths
, p. 19.
13
Huebner,
Precious Truths
, p. 18.
14
Huebner,
Precious Truths
, p. 23.
15
Huebner,
Precious Truths
, p. 24.
16
Max S. Weremchuk,
John Nelson Darby: A Biography
(Neptune, N. J.: Loizeaux Brothers, 1992).
17
Weremchuk,
Darby: A Biography
, p. 242.
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