There are many different opinions in the eschatological circles about the tribulation and God’s wrath. We are enlightened by John in the book of Revelation about a series of events that are going to happen at the end of time that would terrify even the bravest saint. John was imprisoned on the island of Patmos when he wrote the book of Revelation, and as a result many scholars believe that he had to write his visions in a code like form to be able to get the message through Roman soldiers to the churches in Asia. This leaves many questions about the events mentioned by John, and without comparing these events to other scriptures confusion could set in.
One of the keys to understanding the events that John has prophesied about is understanding the difference between tribulation and God’s Wrath. The popular theology today is to lump both events into the tribulation. At first this theology makes sense, but when we study the apocalyptic scriptures deeper we find that the theory loses its validity. First look at Matthew 24:37-38 and Luke 17:26-30 so that we can understand in more detail what happens when Jesus returns. Many people look at these scriptures as proof that the tribulation and God’s wrath are the same. These arguments seem valid until we take a closer look at what they are revealing.
First we must understand that Jesus was definitely talking about His return because Matthew 25:37 says, “…so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man”. Now let’s ask ourselves a simple question, “was the flood and judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah a tribulation?” Of course not, but that is what we are led to believe by modern day teachings. There is no question that these judgments were the wrath of God on mankind. One proof of this is a simple little statement that is commonly overlooked in these passages: “Then the flood came and destroyed them all”. They were all destroyed suddenly. This is a direct contradiction to the belief that the tribulation is spread out over a period of seven years and people survive to the end of the tribulation.
A good example of tribulations throughout history would be the slavery of the Hebrew children in Egypt, the Israelites’ exile to Babylon, the persecution of the church in 70 AD, and more recently the Holocaust.
We will look at more differences between tribulation and wrath in the next few post. We will also take a look at why this is so important for us to establish an accurate end time theory.
