This is a review of the book Antichrist Before the Day of the Lord by Alan Kurschner.
The 238 page book is well structured and clearly written. It is supported by an abundance of illustrations and tables. The body of the book has three main sections followed by an epilogue, notes and appendixes. The three main sections are:
Part 1) The Antichrist’s Great Tribulation
Part 2) The Rapture of God’s People
Part 3) The Day of the Lord’s Wrath
The book’s premise is that the church experiences the Great Tribulation (GT). The position is premillennial with a future 70th week of Daniel. The rapture view promoted by Kurschner is called prewrath. The pretribulational rapture is frequently contrasted with the author’s view in the book.
In this view, the GT begins at the midpoint of the week when Michael ceases his restraining work, but it is cut short. The rapture occurs at some indeterminate time between midpoint and towards the end of the week. Note that the 70th week is still seven years long. Only the GT is shortened.
Daniel’s 70th week is divided into three segments: beginning of the birth pangs; Satan’s wrath and God’s wrath. Satan’s wrath commences at midpoint and is cut short by the rapture. God’s wrath (the Day of the Lord) then begins. The seven seal, trumpet and bowl judgments are sequential but the seven bowl judgments occur after the end of the 70th week. You can view a chart from a prewrath source HERE
The author asserts that the Thessalonians Epistles (especially 2 Thess 2:1-4) point to events needing to occur before the rapture and the Day of the Lord. He ties the cosmic signs of Joel 2 & 3 to Matt 24:29 and Rev 6:12. The contention is that Matt 24:31 is the rapture which occurs between the 6th & 7th seals.
This view was conceived by Robert Van Kampen some time prior to 1990. He convinced Marvin Rosenthal (formerly pretribulational) and Rosenthal introduced it in his book The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church. Van Kampen then wrote The Sign and followed up with The Rapture Question Answered.
Since then there have been more prewrath books – among them Ryan Habbena’s The Parable of the Fig Tree and Heidi Nigro’s Before God’s Wrath. The view was defended by Alan Hultberg in Three Views on the Rapture: Pretribulation, Prewrath, or Posttribulation.
Unlike Rosenthal who came across as bitter and combative, and Van Kampen who was abrasive and combative (in my opinion), Antichrist Before the Day of the Lord manages to maintain an irenic tone. This is a welcome turnaround given Kurschner’s polemical zeal to win converts.
There isn’t time or space to engage all of the book’s assumptions. For those interested, Renald Showers’ The Pre-Wrath Rapture View does a fine job critiquing the system at length. But we can touch on some points.
Firstly the entire system hangs or falls on its interpretation of Matt 24:22. The book assumes the GT is shorter than three-and-a-half years. Kurschner tells us that unless the rapture cuts the GT short the Antichrist would exterminate every believer (p 60). One wonders why God allows so many saints to be martyred and then finally cuts the GT short for the remaining, just to rapture them alive.
There’s a more logical interpretation. Christ tells his disciples that those days are terminated else no flesh would be saved. At the rapture, anyone who has been martyred will be resurrected. Hence it wouldn’t make any difference if all the saints were killed. It makes better sense that the GT is terminated otherwise no flesh would remain alive to populate the millennium. In fact Kurschner writes that the Jewish remnant is protected after the rapture (p 94). Why does God then have to cut the tribulation short by removing the church? Furthermore if Matt 24:31 is the rapture, it cannot cut the GT short because it occurs after the tribulation and after the signs (Matt 24:29-30).
Kurschner notes that Matt 24 parallels Daniel 11 & 12 (p 90). He draws a connection with Dan 12 to find the resurrection portion of the rapture missing from Matt 24:31. It doesn’t help his argument because the same chapter (as elsewhere) has the tribulation lasting three-and-a-half years, with a resurrection at the end of the days (Dan 12:7, 12-13).
He also connects the v31 gathering out of the great tribulation with the Great Multitude (GM) of Rev 7 (p 94). Yet while the GM comes out of the GT, v31 occurs after the tribulation (see above). The connection is faulty. A. T. Robertson holds that the martyrs are continuously arriving from within the GT.
The word “episynago” used in v31 is cited as rapture language. Van Kampen made the same argument in his book. But that isn’t the case. The same word was used by Christ in Matt 23:37 in context with Israel’s gathering.
For good reasons pretribulationists see Matt 24:31 as the gathering of Israel. Prewrath also teaches a gathering of Israel. This is where the system gets fuzzy and Kurschner’s book doesn’t really help. On page 174 there’s a chart which depicts the period from the rapture onwards as the Lord’s “Arrival and Continued Presence.” On page 83 we’re told that the Lord takes believers to heaven. The book doesn’t mention that Van Kampen taught four separate comings of Christ within the Parousia (The Sign). One of these is to gather Israel back into the land. In each of these “comings” (save for the last) Christ returns to heaven.
Proponents of this system criticize pretribulationists for teaching more than one future coming of Christ. We often see prewrath tables depicting rapture passages as being the same as the second coming verses in order to disprove a “secret rapture” (p 179). Yet there are no verses describing the extra three comings of the prewrath system. Four comings do not constitute one coming. Eric Douma comments on the Parousia problem HERE.
The author denies rapture or Day of the Lord imminency, preferring the term “expectancy.” Yet verses like 1Thess 5:2-3 stand in contrast with the argument that at the 6th seal (Rev 6:17) unbelievers predict God’s future wrath at the 7th seal. The argument that the Day of the Lord begins at the 7th seal also seems at odds with Isaiah 2 which appears to place the 6th seal within the DotL event.
Another problem is found in placing the bowl judgments after the 70th week. The 5th bowl is poured upon the throne of the beast and his kingdom (Rev 16:10). How can this be when the beast is allotted 42 months to rule (Rev 13:5)?
There are other issues which cannot be addressed in this review. Those interested can listen to Douma’s lengthy analysis of the prewrath system HERE.
In conclusion I recommend Antichrist Before the Day of the Lord for those who want to learn more about the system from someone who is a leading proponent. However the book is not an exhaustive resource, nor does it pose unassailable arguments for the prewrath rapture view. No rapture timing position is entirely free from difficulties.
You can purchase the book from the author’s website HERE
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