Perhaps no erroneous doctrine has been more detrimental to the souls of God's children than that those who compose the Church of God will have to pass through "the great tribulation." Such a statement subverts God's revelation of the Church as the body and Bride of Christ. It reduces the heavenly people to Jewish associations and robs them of the watching and waiting attitude for Christ to come at any time. Such, more or less, merge into a political view of the Lord's coming by looking for events, instead of Himself, or for antichrist instead of Christ. Thus the affections, conscience, and hope of the soul become seriously damaged by it.
Nothing can be clearer in the Lord's farewell address to His disciples before going to the Father than that left them by giving them the blessed expectation of soon seeing Him again. Between the coming of the Holy Spirit and His return from heaven, He did not put a series of events to be fulfilled. So we are told that the early Christians waited for God's Son from heaven.
The part of Scripture that has been perverted to support the doctrine is Matt. 24. But a brief glance at it will show that the "coming" referred to by the disciples in their questions to the Lord was not His coming for us, but His coming to Jerusalem when we come with Him, and every eye shall see Him coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. (See Matt. 23:39; 24:339For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. (Matthew 23:39)
3And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? (Matthew 24:3).) Those who are mentioned there will go through the tribulation. They are "His elect," which is a term applied by Isaiah to the blest remnant of the Jews.
The reference to the following things clearly marks it out as the time of "Jacob's trouble" that he will have to pass through and out of which he will be brought.
1. “The Sabbath day”
2. “Judea”
3. “Fleeing to the mountains”
4. “Flesh saved”
5. “The abomination... spoken of by Daniel the prophet”
6. “The great tribulation, such as was not... no, nor ever shall be." It is preceded by the preaching of "the gospel of the kingdom" of God, not of the grace of God as now preached. It is "the hour of temptation" coming upon all the world, from which the Lord promises to save us. "Because thou hast kept the word of My patience, I also will keep thee from [out of] the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth." Rev. 3:1010Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. (Revelation 3:10).
It is interesting to observe that when our Lord referred to His rejection by the Jews—Judah and Benjamin, the two tribes—He said, "I am come in My Father's name, and ye receive Me not: if another shall come in his own name [the antichrist], him ye will receive." John 5:4343I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. (John 5:43). This we know from other scriptures is how the unparalleled tribulation will be brought about, and in retributive justice, the very tribes which rejected the Messiah will go through it. The ten tribes will not be gathered together till after this, when the Lord actually comes out of heaven (Matt. 24:3131And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (Matthew 24:31)).
C.H. Mackintosh