JOE SCHIMMEL: THE DAY OF THE LORD?

Wednesday Night BIble Study - YouTube

How long is the Day of the Lord? 

Joe Schimmel has postponed his prewrath/post-trib rapture comparison. I think this is a good thing because (hopefully) it will give him time to consider the subject in more depth.

Joe qualifies the post-trib view by calling it "the classical historical premillennial view". This is an assumption. There is no evidence that early church specified the rapture in "classical" post-trib terms. I don't want to be ungracious to Joe, but I feel that giving credit to Victorinus' recapitulation view of the bowl judgements is disingenuous. Victorinus was an utterly unreliable and confused third century church father. I have expanded my original post on this subject. {1} 

I do not consider the differences between prewrath and post-trib to be a salvation issue per se. However, the subject is critical because damage and confusion arises from wrong teaching, and this in turn gives ammunition to the pre-trib camp and other false views. In my experience one error inevitably leads to further errors.

Joe Schimmel: "Our prewrath brethren believe that the tribulation ends with the sixth seal.. they believe that the trumpets and the bowls are not really part of the tribulation period but God's wrath, and that we are out right before that... What they are calling the day of the Lord is the tribulation still.. prewrath is not truly post-trib because what they call the day of the Lord is the tribulation period." {2} 

Above: Joe teaches that the tribulation will continue right up until the battle of Armageddon when Jesus returns to earth with the saints. However the evidence that the tribulation will end before the wrath of God is poured out, is, in my view, overwhelming. 

According to Joe, the sixth seal in Revelation 6:15-17 is a picture of the very end. He also equates Matthew 24:39-30 with Armageddon (Revelation 19). Apart from the fact that Matthew 24 does not describe the battle scene of Revelation 19, we have to ignore the stated chronology of the trumpets and bowls that indicate a clear sequence of events. 

Revelation 6:12-14 draws from the celestial portents described in Joel 2:31.  

The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. (Joel 2:31).

Immediately after the tribulation of those days: ‘The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And He will send out His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. (Matthew 24:29-31).

The great tribulation is cut short and is followed by the gathering of the elect (the rapture). (Matthew 24:22,31). 

The Day of the Lord.. one literal day?

And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I shall lose none of those He has given Me, but raise them up at the last day. For it is My Father’s will that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:39-40, 44, 54 cf. John 11:24). The phrase "the last day" only occurs in John. Elsewhere it is called "the day of the Lord", "the great day" &c.

Clearly "the last day" is resurrection language and refers to the rapture. The prewrath position is that the church age comes to an end on "the last day" i.e. the rapture. Subsequently a shift occurs and events move from tribulation ~ to resurrection ~ to the onset of God's wrath. In other words, "the day of the Lord" is an ongoing event, it does not suddenly end at the rapture. As Joe says, there is evidence that the day of the Lord continues through the millennial period. 

We need to be wary about translating "yom" out of context as a single day. Rodney Whitefield: "Yom relates to the concept of time. Yom is not just for day, days, but for time in general. How yom is translated depends on the context of its use with other words in the sentence around it, using hermeneutics." {3} 

The following video from Alan Kurschner is important for post-trib believers to consider:

(3) The Bride Comes with the New Jerusalem BEFORE the Millennium - YouTube

1. WOLVES IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING: FALSE PROPHETS AND BIBLE TEACHERS IN THE LAST DAYS: JOE SCHIMMEL BLESSED HOPE CHAPEL: VICTORINUS IS UNRELIABLE (bewareofthewolves.blogspot.com)
2. (2) Wednesday Night Bible Study - YouTube
3. Untitled-2 (godandscience.org)