A Response to the Pretribulationism and Dispensationalism of James C. Morris in Light of His Abuse of the Early Church Fathers

First, I must say, when you write me through the contact page, it is best to give a salutation and signature to your email, otherwise I typically do not even read emails that do not contain these basic and respectful elements to a letter. I receive scores of emails (many that are “drive-byes” with an agenda, which I tag it as spam) throughout the week and can only reply to a handful a week.

In addition, it is best not to start your letter—as James C. Morris has done recently—with the following: “The only things yoy [sic] have proved here are [sic] your ignorance of the doctrine you are resisting and your own carelessness in analyzing the teachings of Irenaeus.”

I do, however, want to respond to a point in his email that is illustrative of how many pretribs abuse the early church fathers.

Morris, in responding to my recent blog post arguing that Irenaeus teaches that the church will face the Antichrist, writes:

Pre-tribbers teach that these “tribulation believers” are not part of “the church,” and call them “the righteous,” to distinguish them from ourselves. And they teach, as standard doctrine, that the great tribulation will indeed be “the last contest of the righteous,” And that when “the righteous” overcome in this period, they will be “crowned with incorruption,” Exactly as Irenaeus said. – James C. Morris

This is a fanciful pretrib criterion that says, “if one applies an event to the church, then they must use the one word description: church.” So if an early church writer uses the terms the righteous or saints, then he is not referring to a member of the church but rather to post-rapture “tribulation saints” (the number of counter examples where the early church writers used these terms to describe members of the church are so many).

Morris and others use a deus ex machina, which is church-father twisting. They will say that clear statements of believers being persecuted by Antichrist is describing, not the church, but saints who come to believe on Jesus after the rapture; hence, the so-called “tribulation saints.”

Not only is this a most desperate attempt to maintain pretribulationism, it fails on a number of other levels:

This is similar to the word-concept fallacy they commit with the word church in the book of Revelation.
Not once do any early church writers mention a rapture event before any descriptions of so-called “tribulation saints.” So pretribs recklessly read this artificial theological category back into the early church.
Many of the early writers use the term “church,” not just “saints” to describe those suffering at the hands of the Antichrist’s great tribulation (e.g. Tertullian, Prescription Against Heretics, IV; On the Resurrection of the Flesh, 25). This contradicts pretrib theology that claims that the church is raptured before the Antichrist.
The early writers often included themselves in the prospects of facing the future Antichrist’s great tribulation by using the first person plural (e.g. Epistle of Barnabas, 4) or the same generation using the second person plural (e.g. Cyprian, Epistle 55,1, 7).
They spoke of a singular, blessed hope resurrection of the church that would take place after the Antichrist’s persecution (e.g. Didache, 16:3–8; Irenaeus’s Against Heresies, V, 29, 1; V, 35, 1).
Early church writers distinguished the period of the Antichrist, which occurs first, from the period of the day of the Lord’s wrath (Didache 16:3–8; Hippolytus, On Daniel, II, 7; Cyprian, Epislte 55,7).
Early church writers have linked the rapture in 1 Thess 4 as taking place after the period of Antichrist’s persecution (Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, 41).

In summary, for these reasons, the notion that the early church writers taught about “tribulation saints” is wishful thinking and out of the realm of sober handling of the early church writers. Every early church writer, who taught on the relationship between the Antichrist and the church, without exception, describes the church encountering the Antichrist before the return of Jesus.

And that is exactly what the prewrath position teaches, not because the early church writers were inspired, but because they are echoing the teachings of Jesus, Paul, and the other biblical writers, who taught that the church would face the Antichrist’s great tribulation before the tribulation of God’s wrath is poured out on the world.

In short, Irenaeus clearly identifies the “last contest of the righteous” with the great tribulation, which in turn he teaches that the church will experience that awful time.

As Christians we should not fret about this biblical truth. Rather, we should consider the teaching of another early church writer, who wrote The Shepherd of Hermas (c. 95–150):

“[Blessed are] you who endure the great tribulation that is coming on, and [blessed are] they who shall not deny their own life. . . . Those, therefore, who continue steadfast, and are put through the fire, will be purified by means of it. . . . This then is the type of the great tribulation that is to come (Vision 2:2, 4:3)

Perhaps pretribulationists should spend less time and effort explaining away the clear teachings of the early church and begin to emulate them by warning and edifying the body of Christ in order to prepare them for the terrible times that the church will face before she experiences the blessed hope.

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