People Who Taught A Pre-Trib Rapture BEFORE John Nelson Darby In 1830

 

Post-trib heretics love to claim that nobody before 1830 taught a pre-trib rapture, this claim is nonsense, there are plenty of examples of a pre-trib rapture being taught hundreds of years before 1830.

Irenaeus (130 – 202 AD):

“Those nations however, who did not of themselves raise up their eyes unto heaven, nor returned thanks to their Maker, nor wished to behold the light of truth, but who were like blind mice concealed in the depths of ignorance, the word justly reckons “as waste water from a sink, and as the turning-weight of a balance — in fact, as nothing;”(1) so far useful and serviceable to the just, as stubble conduces towards the growth of the wheat, and its straw, by means of combustion, serves for working gold. And therefore, when in the end the Church shall be suddenly caught up from this, it is said, “There shall be tribulation such as has not been since the beginning, neither shall be.”(2) For this is the last contest of the righteous, in which, when they overcome they are crowned with incorruption.”

(Irenaeus, 'Against Heresies' 5.29)

Ephraim the Syrian (306 – 373 AD):

"Or do you not believe unless you see with your eyes? See to it that this sentence be not fulfilled among you of the prophet who declares: “Woe to those who desire to see the day of the Lord!” 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. And so, brothers most dear to me, it is the eleventh hour, and the end of the world comes to the harvest, and angels, armed and prepared, hold sickles in their hands, awaiting the empire of the Lord."

(Ephraim the Syrian, 'On the Last Times 2')

Joseph Mede (1586 - 1638 AD):

"I will add this more, namely, what may be conceived to be the cause of this rapture of the saints on high to meet the Lord in the clouds, rather than to wait his coming to earth....What if it be, that they may be preserved during the Conflagration of the earth and the works thereof, 2 Pet.3:10, that as Noah and his family were preserved from the Deluge by being lift up above the waters in the Ark; so should the saints at the Conflagration be lift up in the clouds unto their Ark, Christ, to be preserved there from the deluge of fire, wherein the wicked shall be consumed?"

("The Works of Joseph Mede," 1672, London edition, Book IV, p.776)

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