Not Afraid of the Antichrist: Why We Don't Believe in a Pre-Tribulation Rapture

by Michael L. Brown

So far as we can tell from their surviving work, the earliest Church fathers in the second century were premillennial and post-Tribulational. That is, they believed that Revelation 20 described a literal future thousand years, but they believed that they were currently in the Great Tribulation2 or (in the case of the Didache or the Shepherd of Hermas)3 about to go through it. For example, the late second-century bishop and Church father Irenaeus wrote of “the resurrection of the just, which takes place after the coming of Antichrist, and the destruction of all nations under his rule.”4 Supporters of this post-Tribulational-but-premillennial position included writer-bishops such as Papias and Irenaeus, as well as a defender of the faith named Justin, who was eventually martyred. (This is why he came to be called Justin Martyr.) Although Justin did observe that not all Christians shared his views about the future thousand years, he seemed unaware of any other views about the Tribulation.