Rapture Hermeneutics No. 2: The Seven Unities
The Seven Unities of Eph 4.4-6, which serve as our hermeneutical principles 1 through 7, form the theological boundary within which our interpretations of Scripture must stay.We discovered in our discussion that the Pre-Trib rapture doctrine impinges upon 4 of those unities. The specific idea of a Pre-Trib rapture does not itself violate the Unities, but the underlying theological system of Dispensationalism upon which the Pre-Trib doctrine relies, does, depending upon the extreme to which Dispensational ideas are taken.
An extreme (or distorted) Dispensational understanding of salvation, which proposes that people in the OT dispensation were saved by the works of the law or by performing temple sacrifices, violates the principle of One Faith (HP 5). There has only been one way by which anyone could ever be justified before God. The Pre-Trib doctrine does not depend upon a false understanding of salvation in the OT era, but it is sometimes a doctrinal bedfellow with such thinking.
Again, an extreme Dispensational interpretation of the mistranslation in 2Th 2.7 asserts that the Holy Spirit will depart the world with the believers in the Pre-Trib Rapture. Since Dispensationalism teaches that there will be people saved during the subsequent Great Tribulation, the extreme interpretation of 2Th 2.7 implies a “different spirit” by which the Tribulation Saints are saved! This idea would of course violate the unity of the One Spirit (HP 2).
In a different vein, when Pre-Trib teaching asserts that the Pre-Trib Rapture is The Blessed Hope of Tit 2.13, it thereby violates the unity of the One Hope (HP 3) by implying that anyone saved during the Great Tribulation or after must be satisfied with a different hope.
The instances above are only potential, extreme and hopefully rare cases in which Pre-Trib teaching might violate the Seven Unities. However, Dispensational thinking, hand-in-hand with the Pre-Trib idea, consistently violates the unity of the One Body (HP 1). Any doctrine of the church that emphasizes a disconnection between the present church and the saints of other eras, flies in the face of the One Body unity. However, the Pre-Trib Rapture teaching depends upon this disconnection. The reason is the last verse of Daniel. All futurists, Dispensational or not, agree that, according to Dan 12.13, Daniel will be resurrected after the final days of the Great Tribulation. If Daniel is part of The Church, then The Church cannot be raptured before the Tribulation (unless some members of The Church are inexplicably left behind). Therefore, for the Pre-Trib Rapture doctrine to stand, Dispensationalists must make Daniel part of a different group than The Church. But this violates the One Body, so Dispensational differentiation between The Church and Old Testament Saints cannot stand. And neither can the Pre-Trib Rapture doctrine.
posted by Roderick of TMin @ 4:46 PM
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