Part 6.2

[1]Arthur T. Pierson, The Coming of the Lord, p. 53.

[2]Robert Cameron, Scriptural Truth About the Lord’s Return, pp. 21-69.

[3] Ibid., p. 21.

[4] Ibid., p. 23.

[5] Ibid., p. 29.

[6] Ibid., p. 30.

[7] Ibid., p. 41.

[8]Edmund Shackleton, Will the Church Escape the Great Tribulation?, pp. 31, 32, cited by Reese, The Approaching Advent of Christ, p. 231.

[9]Oswald Smith, God’s Future Program: Will the Church Escape the Tribulation? cited by John J. Scruby, The Great Tribulation: The Church’s Supreme Test, p. 75.

[10]Henry C. Thiessen, “Will the Church Pass Through the Tribulation?” Bibliotheca Sacra, XCII (July-September, 1935), 310.

[11]Cameron, op. cit., pp. 28, 29.

[12]The hope of Christ’s coming in the first three centuries will be discussed in chapter 10.

[13]Thiessen, op. cit., p. 310.

[14]Cameron, op. cit., p. 29.

[15]Cameron, loc. cit.

[16] Ibid., p. 34.

[17]Thiessen, Will the Church Pass Through the Tribulation?, p. 52.

[18]Reese, op. cit., writes a chapter entitled “The Great Missionary Commission and Its Fulfillment,” pp. 108-19. The entire effort is an attack on Darby and some of his followers who applied the Great Commission to the evangelistic zeal of the Jewish remnant during the Tribulation period. Reese attempts to pin this admittedly ultra-dispensational interpretation to pretribulationalism as a whole, and then proceeds to refute the view with sarcasm and ridicule. While it may be a clever debater’s device to give the impression that the opponent’s position is unsound by attributing to it, and then attacking, an extreme view on a minor point, the value of such misrepresentation is questionable.

[19]Cameron, op. cit., p. 50.

[20] In addition to these major objectives to an early belief in the imminency of Christ’s appearing, one or two other trifling objections are brought forward, such as the promised destruction of Jerusalem. Luke 21:20-24 records this prediction of Christ, and it is argued that here was another known and clearly prophesied event which separated early Christians from any hope of being in the rapture. When, however, it is noted that the time of this destruction was not foretold - it might have come much earlier than 70 a.d. - and when it is realized that the destruction might have been part of the time of trouble after the rapture, this objection is robbed of all its force.

[21]Cameron, op. cit., p. 68.

[22]Jesse Forest Silver, The Lord’s Return: Seen in History and Scripture as Premillennial and Imminent, pp. 62, 63.

[23] Ibid., p. 64.

[24] A. Harnack, “Millennium,” Encyclopaedia Britannia (ninth edition), XVI, 314.

[25]Thiessen, Bibliotheca Sacra, XCII (July-September, 1935), 307.

[26]Oswald T. Allis, Prophecy and the Church, p. 167.

[27] W. E. Blackstone, Jesus Is Coming, p. 65.

[28]James H. Brookes, “Kept Out of the Hour,” Our Hope, VI (November, 1899), 154.

[29]Cameron, op. cit., p. 107.

[30]Henry W. Frost, The Second Coming of Christ, p. 202. Italics added.

[31]Charles R. Erdman, “Parousia,” The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, IV, 2521-F.

[32]Cited by I. M. Haldeman, The History of the Doctrine of Our Lord’s Return, p. 17.

[33]Blackstone, op. cit., p. 181.

[34]Brookes, op. cit., p. 157.