Robert Duncan Culver was a sober premillennial scholar who had some interesting things to say about prophecy, Israel, the Church, the rapture and many other subjects.
Recently Dan Phillips mentioned Culver’s little Commentary on Daniel in a tweet. That exchange spurred me to get out his Systematic and the Daniel commentary, and take a look at them again. Dr. Paul Henebury reviewed Culver’s Systematic Theology HERE
I like Culver’s thinking concerning Israel in Daniel and the Olivet Discourse, and his defense of premillennialism. He is irenic and respectful of positions he disagrees with. Though not a pretribulationist, his thoughts are worth noting. In Daniel and the Latter Days, he graciously wrote:
I have heard and read the arguments of the pre-, mid-, and post-tribulationists, and have been much impressed by many of them, to say nothing of the evidence of Scripture that I have surveyed in preparing this book. I have the personally expressed opinions of the heads of at least three premillennial schools of higher learning that any just presentation of this subject by a premillennialist must recognize these three respectable opinions. E. S. English’s series in Our Hope magazine entitled “Rethinking the Rapture” was, I think, a harbinger of more gracious understanding of our differences in matters of this sort. (Page 75)
My copy of Culver’s book is the 1977 Revised Edition. Since then the Prewrath Rapture System has been formulated. I think of it as a Neo-Posttrib View – a modified futurist posttrib system. Some will prefer to use the word “refined.” Prewrathers are currently more vocal than classic futuristic posttribbers but there’s a strong affinity between these two camps.
No doubt proponents of the prewrath view will be tempted to think that, had Culver been aware of this new system, he would have embraced it. Somehow I doubt this. Yet Culver’s hope of a “harbinger of more gracious understanding” hasn’t been realized. Rapture timing discussions almost inevitably devolve into heated debates.
Proponents of prewrath (PW) and futuristic posttrib tend to emphasize the church in the Daniel prophecies and the Olivet Discourse. Meanwhile pretribulationism is criticized (and even accused of eisegesis) for focusing on Israel in these areas.
The prewrath and posttrib position is to take the terms “saints” and “your people” in Daniel chapters 7 and 12, and often apply them to the church. These assumptions are employed in their eschatological schemas. See a previous article Israel Replacement Eschatology and The Gathering of the Elect.
For example, one PW author appeals to the resurrection in Daniel 12 because of its omission in Matthew 24:31 (an alleged PW rapture passage). He argues that Dan 12 covers the same territory as Matt 24. A closer look at the length of the tribulation of “Daniel’s people” (Dan 12:7), and the end-of-days timing of this resurrection, suggests that it doesn’t suit the PW scheme. PW shortens the Great Tribulation (an unnecessary interpretation of Matt 24:22) and needs Daniel’s resurrection to occur earlier than the one implied in Daniel 12.
In his Daniel commentary, Culver brings us back to Daniel’s people (saints etc), Israel. Remember that he’s not pretribulational! While it isn’t possible to cover everything, here are some interesting comments. On Dan 7 and the amillennial view etc:
One need look no farther, however, than the Book of Daniel itself to find who the “saints” or “holy people” are. Chapter eight may contain eschatological material, viewed in a typical fashion, but most interpreters of every school of eschatology unite in regarding it as primarily a prophecy of the conflict of the Jewish people… (Page 142)
Their church kingdom they try to relate to the “saints” in the passage, but the saints are clearly not the kingdom here, but the ones who after a period of suffering receive a kingdom. So even granting (which I do not) that the saints herein are the New Testament church (Young, Keil, Leopold), their theory will not fit. (Page 141, emphasis mine)
By the “people of the saints of the Most High,” to whom dominion is then to be given (Dan. 7:18-27), Daniel evidently could only understand the people of Israel, as distinguished from the heathen nations and kingdoms, which were to rule up till then (2:44); nor have we, according to strict exegesis, a right to apply the expression to any other nations; hence we cannot apply it immediately to the church…(Page 141, emphasis mine)
Again, Daniel 12:7 mentions the “holy people” (am qodesh). There also, as in chapter seven, they suffer for three and one-half times (or years) [not less]. The correspondence with the suffering of the saints of chapter seven for the same period of time (7:25) is unmistakable. Neither can it be seriously questioned that this refers to the same tribulation of Israel prophesied in 12:1. There these folk are called “the children of thy [Daniel’s] people,” and “thy [Daniel’s] people.” (Page 143, bold emphasis & note mine)
In his Systematic Theology (p 1131) Culver notes that “this tribulation will be unique in history.” He adds that while there’s a special reference to Israel in these OT prophecies regarding this “uniquely distressful period” (Jer 30:4-11; Dan 12:1), it will be world-wide in scope, and he connects it to Matt 24:21 (p 1124).
Quite notably, Culver also writes:
In Jesus’ message to the Philadelphian church He spoke of it [this distressful period] as the ‘hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth’ (Rev 3:10).
That Culver connects Rev 3:10 to the Great Tribulation is interesting in light of the fact that PW proponents have adopted this verse as their rapture passage. Dr Robert Cooper compiled a booklet allegedly debunking the pretribulationist’s use of this verse. Cooper then produced a video boasting that the pretrib rapture was dead. This dire pronouncement is built on the presumption that Rev 3:10 only promised exemption from the PW version of the Day of the Lord. This position is read into the text because of necessity rather than exegesis. See more HERE.
I think Culver is correct based on 2 Thess 2:9-14. However I’d further press the connection between Rev 3:10 and the hour of trial to before the Great Tribulation given that the Antichrist’s rise to power commences before then. God ordains the “hour of trial” and Satan is His instrument. For more see these blog articles: God’s Sovereignty, the Antichrist etc and More on God’s Sovereignty.
To sum up, while Robert Culver wasn’t a pretribulationist, some of his conclusions fit very well with pretribulational thinking.
Maranatha!
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