As a youngster of 12 -and-a-half years old, I first heard the teaching of the pre-tribulation rapture from Dr. Charles J. Woodbridge, of dear memory. He was most impressed with an air of authority in his person. He presented the familiar chart of the course of world history and the future from eternity past to the end, eternity future. Between them were the seven dispensations. At the end of the present dispensation, the Church Age, the rapture of the Church would take place, and then the 7-year tribulation. After this, the Millennium would come and finally eternity, the New Heavens and New Earth. Dr. Woodbridge was a graduate of Princeton and had been a faculty member of Fuller Theological Seminary. How could a Princeton graduate embrace this theology? I never found out. I was completely convinced. His presentation was so certain and his credentials so solid, that it was certainly not to be doubted. I looked forward to being raptured and escaping the tribulation. It was a joyful thought that was with me for the next 6 ½ years.
At 19 years old, I gave up this doctrine. I could not find it in the texts of the New Testament when read in context. I explained this in an earlier essay. I actually felt betrayed, though amazingly, I was confirmed under a Reformed pastor who did not believe this. For all these years, in dispensational Bible Clubs, Word of Life Camp (which had a great and wonderful impact on my life), and dispensational churches, I was not only taught the pre-tribulation rapture but was taught that when one loses this belief, he or she is on the road to liberalism and backsliding. It was considered a bullwork belief. Why? Because only this doctrine made sense of any moment possible return of Jesus. How this fit with the signs of the times conferences is for another essay. There is an explanation for them teaching these signs of His coming. However, one reason for such passion for this doctrine was that any moment pre-trib rapture would keep us on our toes. We would thus be ready so that the Lord would not come when we were involved in sin. If we were sinning, how would we then feel? How embarrassed would we be? So, fear that He would come when we were not ready was a great motivator. Yet there was a paradox. Since Dispensationalism taught that when someone accepted Yeshua, he or she could never lose salvation. They would go up in the rapture even if backslidden. Yet how many young people thought that they would miss the rapture due to sin. For me, the issue was the joy of going up and not having to face the great tribulation. We sang, “I’m going up, going up, going up to meet with Jesus, up to be with Jesus, up to be with Him, going up going up going up to be with Jesus in the sweet by and by.”
Then I found that this belief had no foundation. I made an appointment with a beloved professor at The King’s College, Dr. Thomas McComiskey, who became a renowned Old Testament Professor. He said that teaching at the time of the rapture was a tertiary matter. Wow, I responded. I was taught this as a cardinal and foundational doctrine, equal to the resurrection. This is why it was held so deeply and written in the doctrinal statements of denominations and churches. Acceptance of this doctrine was a condition of membership. How did this happen? It was because of the timing when the conservatives were pushing back against the liberals over 110 years ago and scholars wrote the Fundamentals, from which we got the term Fundamentalism. It was at this time that Dispensationalism swept the American Evangelical world. In this context, it became fundamental, but it is not. I now see that this imbalanced teaching produced a conformity requirement, not in accord with Scripture. In my view, it is not only tertiary but wrong and divisive.