A cosmic exchange between heaven and earth

Over the past year, a few YouTube videos have come to me, powerfully stating that believers must go through the great tribulation. They were not the first of the best who proclaimed this, thereby signaling that they thought the doctrine of the rapture was just a pernicious doctrine. One considered it unworthy because, as a Christian, you would be saying to those left behind, "good luck with it, we're going to slip away". The other even called it a form of anti-Semitism, because you would be saying to the Jews, "We Christians go to heaven and you end up in the judgment of God.

In this blog, I want to add to what has already been said (e.g. here) about whether believers will experience the "great tribulation". It is something that is little heard and that I hope will encourage "rapture believers" in their looking forward to the coming of the Lord and that the "non-rapture believers" will want to put their view under a biblical microscope once again.

Tribulation and rapture - the terminology

A preliminary note about the terminology used in this discussion.
First about the term "great tribulation" or "tribulation" that people use. It is not always clear exactly what is meant by it. I understand it to mean the following.
By "tribulation"(or perhaps better, the "year week" from Daniel 9:22) we mean the 7-year period that begins with a "peace covenant" that the future world leader will agree with Israel. In Jerusalem, one can then again offer sacrifices to the God of Israel.
But halfway through those seven years, that covenant is cancelled - Israel is deceived - and the period called "great tribulation" begins. Most of Israel is slaughtered and the world undergoes the rule of the antichrist. That great tribulation then culminates after 3.5 years with the appearance of Christ Himself to judge all His enemies and establish His kingdom here on earth (Revelation 19:11).
I (and many with me) call the entire seven-year period "the tribulation" But halfway through the seven-year reign of the antichrist, the "great tribulation" (the second period of 3.5 years) begins, and before then the church is taken up from the earth.

The church of God will be taken away from the earth when the Lord Jesus returns on the clouds to take it up. Now we can differ on whether that moment will be there before the beginning of the week of the year, or whether it will be before the 2^th half of the year week (the "great tribulation" ) will take place. But personally I think it will take place before the great tribulation, that is, before the middle of the seven-year period. I have described the reasoning for this in a couple of articles on this site before¹.

Satan and the restainer

There, in 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul addresses the Thessalonians' question as to whether they might have missed the rapture. Paul's argument is that they would not, because they would have already experienced the revelation of the "man of lawlessness." When he puts himself in the temple of God and presents himself as God, that is something they should have noticed. But it hasn't happened yet, which is why they have the rapture ('the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our union with Him') not missed or misunderstood.
Here I assume that the 'revelation of the lawless one' takes place when he puts himself in the temple as God.

In the section that follows, there are two mentions of "the weather holder.

"And you know what him now withholds, that he may be revealed in his own time. ⁷ For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only there is someone who now withholds, until it disappeared from the center. ⁸ And then the lawless one will be revealed." (2 Thessalonians 2:6-8).

The first time the word 'withheld'² occurs in the New Testament is in Luke 4:42-44. The crowd there is trying to stop the Lord Jesus from going away from them so that He could do what He had come to do.
We see this same thing in the text in 2 Thessalonians 2, which speaks of someone being stopped from doing what he came to do and someone else stopping him from doing it. The context of this chapter shows that the 'man of lawlessness, the son of destruction' being stopped from fulfilling his demonic mission. The one who stops ('someone') is not a human being, but in my opinion can be none other than the Spirit of God. He dwells in the church, which is also 'a dwelling of God in the Spirit' is called (Ephesians 2:22) and a 'spiritual house' where God-pleasing sacrifices are offered (1 Peter 2:5). Thereby, the "disappearance" of the Spirit (the opposer) is closely tied to the rapture of the church from the earth.

The rapture of the church is not a kind of "flight ahead" of believers who will not experience the great tribulation, but it is at the same time the disappearance of the Holy Spirit from this earth. With that, the restrainer of ultimate evil in this world is gone and no longer performs that restraining work here on earth.
And that the evil from this moment on will be of a magnitude never before known may be evident from the following.

The ultimate evil

Revelation 12 mentions a war in heaven:

“⁷Then war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels made war against the dragon; the dragon and his angels also made war. ⁸ But they were not strong enough, and their place was no longer found in heaven. ⁹ And the great dragon was thrown down, namely, the old serpent, called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him." (Revelation 12:7-9).

The devil is removed from heaven. Now he is left with nothing but to "pull out all the stops" on earth to achieve his goal.

"Woe to them that inhabit the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you in great anger, because he knows that he has but little time left." (Revelation 12:12).

His goal is to exterminate the Jewish people so that the Lord Jesus could not become King over the people and all humanity (or what is left of it) would belong to him.

"(...) went forth to make war against the rest of her posterity [That's the Jews], who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ." (Revelation 12:17).

What Satan then does on earth and with what judgments it is accompanied can be read in chapters13 through 18. Then Christ appears in glory and the final battle takes place (Revelation 19:11 and on).

Try to imagine what a terrible time this will be, when Satan is removed from heaven and wages his final battle on earth. And remember that there will then be no defender to stop him in the pursuit of his goals. The weather holder, the Spirit of God is gone from the earth and with Him the church of God, all who belong to Christ.

A "Cosmic Exchange"

When the Holy Spirit disappears from the earth with the believers, the dragon - Satan - with all his angels is cast out of heaven onto the earth. We cannot imagine the consequences of this "cosmic exchange.

• On the one hand, wonderful consequences for those who go to heaven: "to be with the Lord forever!
• But on the other hand, horrible consequences for those who remain behind and will have to go through that terrible period of 3.5 years: "the great tribulation.

When serious brethren believe that the doctrine of the rapture is "a flight ahead" or "anti-Semitic thinking," I fear that they have no idea in the remotest sense of what will take place in those 3.5 years. That "the rapture" is not an easy story of Christians who have no desire for persecution, but of Christians who see that the world is in evil and that the destruction in the world - including the Christian world - has gone so far that God's final judgment must come.

Never before in history
Satan has been removed from heaven with his angels
To continue on earth their destructive work.
it is an event of cosmic proportions!

We must remember that it has not happened before that Satan, the devil, has been removed from heaven. It will happen one day soon and the consequences will be terrible.
In two previous blogs (here and here) we have already seen how Revelation 6 shows us that under God's permission demonic powers (the four horses with riders) are racing over the earth. It is the emergence of the antichristian world empire that is being built up not all at once, but in stages. You could also say: the conversion of "the Christian West" into the kingdom of the antichrist. If this view is correct, we are now living in the time of the fourth horseman.
The finale of this process is when the devil is removed from heaven with his angels. Then evil truly goes loose here on earth as never before seen. It is what Paul calls "the revelation of the man of lawlessness, the son of destruction" (2 Thessalonians 2:3).

In other words, you could also say the same thing this way: God disappears from the earth - He no longer dwells there - and in its place Satan comes in person - involuntarily removed from heaven - and tries to make his residence on this earth once and for all and bring every human being under his rule.

When God turns away, His judgments come. When He withdraws, evil is given room and does its destructive work; thus evil simultaneously executes God's judgments.
But our God is patient and does not go away all at once, but in steps, and in the meantime man is called to repent to Him.
Even after "the cosmic exchange," the call to repentance still sounds, so that a remnant from Israel is saved as well as a great multitude from the nations that no one can count. About this we wrote earlier that  

The recording is not an easy story

Actually, the Bible tells an extraordinary story. God makes a place for man on the earth and there He walks with him. You could say He lives with man. But unfortunately that does not last long and then separation comes. The period comes when each person must personally make a choice whether or not to choose God and believe "His story" and "His promises. In other words, to believe God and "walk with Him.
But unfortunately, the great masses decide not to do so and allow themselves to be deceived by the invisible world of darkness. This leads to the great flood as God's judgment on mankind.

Then mankind again falls into idolatry and God must again judge. God's judgment on Babylon causes divisions within humanity and in grace God then calls Abraham and in him His own people, Israel. Remarkably, God makes it clear that He wants to dwell with His people; the tabernacle in the desert and the temple in the land are the places where God dwells. Still have to believe this by the way. But the people of Israel also serve idols again and again, thus forsaking their God.

Therefore, after that God came to earth in the form of a man - Christ Jesus - to dwell with His people Israel and bring salvation to them. But they did not accept Him and eventually crucified Him. On Calvary's cross, He made atonement for all who would believe in Him. The Lord Jesus rose and went to heaven, where He now sits as Man at God's right hand in heaven.

But God came one more time to earth to dwell there. He, God the Holy Spirit, came into the church on the day of Pentecost, and from then on, every one who believes in Christ was added by the Spirit to that church in which God the Spirit dwells on earth.

Then what I have called "the cosmic exchange" happens. The church and the Spirit of God go into the invisible world and Satan is cast out of the invisible world, heaven, onto the earth. He will compete for power here on earth, but be defeated by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who comes back to earth to execute the judgment of God.

The rapture of the church is not an easy story from Christians who haven't quite grasped it yet and are afraid of tribulation or something. But as far as I can see, it is a necessary part of God's plan of redemption, His plan of salvation, to bring justice to the earth and fulfill His promises.
That leaves us with nothing here but to implore people - whether they are Jews or not - to repent to God and be reconciled to Him.

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Footnotes

1. See here, here and here. ︎
2. Strong g2722. κατέχω katechō ︎