Will Christians Live during the Tribulation?
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| English: Diagram of the major tribulation views in Christian theology (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
When Jesus predicts the siege and destruction of Jerusalem (Matt. 24:15–22), he asserts, “For then there will be great distress [thlipsis megalē], unequaled from the beginning of the world until now” (v. 21 NIV). The expression translated “great distress” (NRSV and NET translate “great suffering,” NLT “greater anguish”) is rendered “great tribulation” in older and a few recent translations (KJV, RSV, NASB, ESV).
The expression “great tribulation” or “great distress” refers to the period of horrific extreme suffering during the siege of Jerusalem. This “great tribulation” was a local event, a fact that made it possible for Jesus’ followers to flee. Neither Jesus’ listeners nor Matthew’s readers would have related this prophecy to a much later period of time unrelated to the Jerusalem temple of the first century.
Revelation 7:14
The expression “great tribulation” or “great distress” (thlipsis megalē) occurs a second time in the New Testament. In Revelation 7:14, the multitude of believers “that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Rev. 7:9) is described as the people “who have come out of the great distress [ek tēs thlipseōs tēs megalēs]; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (author’s translation of Rev. 7:14; NRSV has “great ordeal”).
The tradition of translating the expression here in Revelation 7:14 as “great tribulation” (KJV, RSV, NASB, NLT, ESV, NIV) is so strong that several translations that use different English terms for the same Greek expression in Matthew 24:21 (NET, NLT, NIV) use “great tribulation” here.
Interpreters who assume that the followers of Jesus will be taken up into heaven in the rapture before the great tribulation connect the latter with the trumpet judgments in Revelation 8–9 (some include the seal judgments in Revelation 6). And they interpret the people “who have come out of the great tribulation” (Rev. 7:14 NIV) as people who came to faith after the rapture and who were thus “stuck” on earth during the tribulation where they had to endure persecution and even martyrdom. This interpretation requires, among other assumptions, that the expression “the great tribulation” is a technical term.
There is no evidence that requires us to interpret the expression “the great tribulation” (hē thlipsis hē megalē) as a technical title for the final seven-year period or three-and-a-half-year period before the end.
The term thlipsis is used by John in the sense of the distress, that is, the suffering and persecution that Christians have to endure (Rev. 1:9; 2:9, 10). John alludes in Revelation 7:14 to Daniel 12:1, a passage that prophesies “a time of distress” (Greek, hē hēmera thlipseōs, “the day of distress”) that would be “such as has not occurred since they were born until that day,” giving the assurance that “on that day the whole people will be exalted, whoever is found inscribed in the book” (LXX translation, NETS).
It appears that John also alludes to Daniel 11:35 (“Even some of the wise will stumble, resulting in their refinement, purification, and cleansing until the time of the end, for it is still for the appointed time,” NET) and to Daniel 12:10 (“Many will be purified, made clean, and refined” [NET]—he asserts that the people before the throne “have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,” Rev. 7:14).
This means that “the great tribulation” is the particular event (note the definite article) of the final war between the satanic forces and the saints. With the allusion to Daniel 12:1, John makes the point that “the messianic army is an army of martyrs who triumph through their martyrdom because they are followers of the Lamb who participate in his victory by following his path to death.”
The great tribulation, taken from Daniel 12:1, is the time of persecution in which the people of God triumph through martyrdom (not through fighting). The phrase “they who have come out of the great tribulation” (Rev. 7:14 NIV) most plausibly presupposes that they have been in the great tribulation, and then left it (through martyrdom). Some limit the reference to the end of the period of distress that Jesus had prophesied and that John describes in his visions.7 This is not necessary, however.
The protection symbolized by the seals is not a protection from martyrdom but speaks of the spiritual preservation of the faith of those living through the judgments that befall the evil world and who endure the attack of the satanic forces.
The spiritual nature of the protection of the people of God is evident from the fact that believers endure the same (seal) judgments as unbelievers. When the Lamb opened the fifth seal, John saw “the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained” (Rev. 6:9 NIV).
Believers who wonder how long it will take until God will judge the inhabitants of the earth who have killed them are told “to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants and their brothers and sisters were killed just as they had been” (Rev. 6:11 NIV). Whether “the great tribulation” describes the entire time between Jesus’ first and second coming or a specific period during that time, believers have no promise and no guarantee that they will never experience suffering and martyrdom.
Schnabel, E. J. (2011). 40 Questions about the End Times. (B. L. Merkle, Ed.) (pp. 78–81). Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic & Professional.
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