Why Don’t Adventists Address the Rapture?
One thing I do not understand is why Adventists never address the Rapture. They claim it is not the Second Coming ,which is true. At Christ’s second coming He will come to earth. The Rapture is a separate event with an unknown time. We are raised to meet Jesus in the clouds before the horrible events of the final seven years. Why would Jesus leave his Bride, the Church, here to be beaten and subjected to His severe wrath? The Church is not mentioned in Revelation after Chapter 3 until chapter 19. When Jesus returns to earth we, the saints, are with Him.
When I read Revelation it is so clear. Why do they insist on denying it?
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Many Christians view the return of Christ differently. Some say Jesus will return to establish His earthly millennial kingdom after the tribulation but without a pre-tribulation rapture. This view is called Historic Premillennialism. Others hold to dispensational premillennialism which includes the rapture of the church before the seven-year tribulation which will end with Jesus returning to establish His millennial kingdom.
Other Christians see the end-time prophecies as somewhat symbolic or allegorical, and they define this present church age with Jesus reigning from heaven as the “millennium” which will be followed by a brief time of tribulation after which Jesus will return to establish the eternal state on a renewed earth. This view is often referred to as Amillennialism because it lacks a literal thousand-year kingdom on earth. Still other Christians hold to a view called Postmillennialism which holds that the church is spreading the gospel, and the goodness of the gospel will gradually transform the world. In this way the church will bring in the kingdom. No time of tribulation will occur before then Jesus will come and establish His eternal presence on earth.
Adventism, though, holds a completely different view from any of these.
Adventists have always mocked the idea of a rapture. Their investigative judgment theology insists that “believers” (read that true Adventists) will live through the tribulation. This dreadful time will be immediately after the investigative judgment closes, and the “saved” (the Sabbath-keepers and those who’ve confessed all their sins and have come the closest to perfectly obeying the law) will have to live through the Time of Trouble without a mediator. When people pass the investigative judgment, they will be counted perfectly righteous and will go through the tribulation without the Holy Spirit because their characters have been perfected. They will suffer and be greatly tempted as the world is given permission to hunt and kill them because of their Sabbath-keeping. They will hide in caves and flee for their lives as the Sunday-Christians hunt them for the kill.
The second coming will finally interrupt the Time of Trouble and take the perfect Sabbath keepers to heaven for 1,000 years. The wicked will be killed by the brightness of Jesus’ return. Satan will be “bound” on an empty earth with no one to tempt for 1,000 years while the saved are in heaven learning why those who didn’t make it to heaven were not saved. God will have to answer all their questions and demonstrate His justice and fairness to the saved. At the end of this millennium, Jesus will bring the saints back to earth in the New Jerusalem. He will resurrect the wicked who will rally around Satan, and they will stage one last battle in an attempt to defeat the New Jerusalem. But they will fail, and God will show them their sins on a sort-of cosmic “movie screen” so they have no questions about why they are lost. He will then send all of them into the lake of fire where they will be annihilated as that fire destroys the earth preparatory to its being made new. The most wicked will burn the longest. Satan will burn the longest.
Adventists believe they are spiritual Israel, so the Time of Trouble will be aimed at them. They will be pursued and hunted.
The rapture simply has no place in their worldview. Israel is DONE, and they themselves have taken the place of Israel. Sunday Christians who finally see the light will leave Babylon and join the Adventists in their loyalty to Sabbath—a loyalty that is unto death. Adventists demonstrate their readiness for salvation by remaining loyal to the seventh day no matter what happens. It is never Jesus they have to be loyal to; the Sabbath is what they defend, and this defense proves that they “belong to Jesus”. Sabbath is what identifies them as God’s true people.
Adventists have a completely different worldview. They read their great controversy scenario into Revelation, and they deny a pre-tribulation rapture since they themselves will be the object of tribulation hatred.
Where Does Repentance Fit in Knowing Jesus?
My question is this: where does repentance fall? Jesus does say “repent and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). It seems to me that repentance comes before faith. Jesus also says, “unless you repent, you will perish” (Luke 13:3). At the same time, Jesus says “whoever believes will not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). So are repentance and faith in Jesus the same thing?
—VIA EMAIL
Response: When the Lord reveals Himself and convicts us that we need a Savior, our response is to repent of our sin and our past life of sinfulness and to trust and believe. Repentance can be almost simultaneous with “seeing” the truth and believing. Repentance means we turn from our past life of sin and now live with and for Jesus. Repentance is a gift of God, just as is believing faith. I believe they are essentially simultaneous.
After believing and trusting Jesus alone and letting go of our past life of control and sin and attempts to please God and trusting Him alone, we continue our new lives in mortal bodies. Romans 7 describes it has having a law of sin in our members (v 23) while our minds now love God’s word and commands. This love for God’s words is not the response of a non-born-again person. People who are dead in sin do not love God and His word/law. But even born-again Christians still have flesh. When we are indwelled by the Holy Spirit, He convicts us moment by moment sometimes, of our need to trust Jesus and stop doing our natural responses of defensiveness, anger, manipulation, control, or indulging secret desires. We turn and trust Him as He directs and convicts us. These sins of the believer are the sins John speaks of in 1 John when he talks of repentance. We ask God to forgive us of those things we do according to the flesh. It is a matter of admitting that we can’t justify our self-protective responses. Instead of trusting our Father, we responded to our flesh.
But this repentance is not repentance for salvation. It is the natural life of a born-again Christian. This process of repenting as the Spirit convicts us is the process of sanctification. We are already justified and born again. We have already passed from death to life. Now we learn to submit our fleshly desires and habits to the Lord, and He teaches us to say NO to sin.
But this ongoing process does not mean we fall out of salvation. We are saved and indwelled by the Holy Spirit when we trust the Lord Jesus and His finished atonement. This new life makes us more sensitive to the sins our flesh drives us to do. The indwelling Spirit makes us aware and reminds us to trust Him instead of indulging. We repent—turn away from our temptation to act in the flesh—and ask Him to show us how to trust Him instead. We tell Him we are sorry.
Repentance as a Christian is not going back and forth into and out of salvation. Rather, it is the way we keep an open communication with the Lord. When we have a fight with a spouse or a child or a friend, we often feel an invisible “wall” between us until we make it right and apologize. That wall doesn’t mean we are suddenly not married and must retrieve our marriage; it doesn’t meant we are no longer parents or that we no longer have our friend. It means we are accountable and take responsibility for what we did and admit our fault and ask forgiveness, and that invisible “wall” keeping us distant disappears. This is the same way repentance works between a believer and God. The Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin and holds us accountable, and He gives us the courage to repent and admit we were wrong and to begin trusting God in the area of our temptation. It doesn’t get fixed all at once, but in an ongoing way, the Holy Spirit will always convict us of sin and hold us accountable to Him and to whatever apologies we might have to make to another person. But we don’t fall out of salvation. We are growing in salvation as the indwelling Spirit matures us and teaches us what is godly and good and convicts us of our need to be accountable.
So, repentance for salvation means believing the truth and agreeing with God about our sin and helpless condition and our need of a Savior. When we repent, we relinquish our “right” to hold onto the things that we love and that identify us and trust Jesus alone, allowing Him to be our identity instead of the things that defined us before we believed. We give up our pretenses; we give up our “right” to have the relationships we thought we deserved if they are unbelievers and unwilling to stay close to us. We give up our “right” to be known for our accomplishments. We give up our dreams and desires and turn to Jesus. He gives us new identities and and new life and new hope and new power and new potential. If our unbelieving loved ones pull away from us, He gives us Himself to hold us together as they pull away, and He gives us new family in Him in His body of Christ.
Repentance when we see our need of a Savior accompanies saving faith. I’m not sure we can separate them. When we truly see and know we must repent, that realization is from God, and He shows us Jesus as the only One we can trust and believe. He is our only hope, our one true Rescuer!
I have an assignment. Stop reading Adventist publications. Make a point to immerse yourself in God’s word. Get a notebook, and begin, verse by verse, copying books of the New Testament into the notebook. Begin with Galatians or Romans or Ephesians. When you’re done, go to one of the others, or go to Hebrews or Colossians—you get the idea. Copy the books of the New Testament systematically into your notebook and ask the Lord to teach you what He wants you to know. Ask Him to direct your study and to show you what to read and study next.
These questions will begin to resolve as your worldview becomes rewired from a great controversy worldview to a biblical worldview. It takes time. God’s word is the great “fixer”. His word is living, and it teaches us what is real and true
Have you listened to the Former Adventist Podcasts on Romans and Ephesians and Galatians? I believe these would be very helpful for you to listen to as you copy the books. You can find them on Youtube or on any podcast server. †
Write to: LifeAssuranceMinistries@gmail.com
- July 25–31, 2026 - July 23, 2026
- We Got Mail - July 23, 2026
- But the Babies? - July 16, 2026