Although the church will be on earth in these final terrible days and will suffer fierce persecution and martyrdom at the hands of the beast, she will be kept from the hour of trial which is coming upon the pagan world (see Rev. 3:10).
Commentary on the Revelation of John, Eerdmans, www.eerdmans.com, 1972, p. 62.
The hour of trial [in Revelation 3:10] is directed toward the entire non-Christian world, but the believer will be kept from it, not by some previous appearance of Christ to remove the church bodily from the world, but by the spiritual protection He provides against the forces of evil.
Revelation, Eerdmans, www.eerdmans.com, 1977, p. 120.
Try as I might, I cannot find one verse that clearly teaches the rapture as it is understood by many American evangelicals. The radical separation between the people of God in the old covenant and the people of God in the new covenant is encouraged by this system of eschatology. And such teaching is foreign to the New Testament, which teaches that the Old Testament is really for new covenant believers.
The Eternal Priesthood, Tabletalk Magazine, May 2004, p. 6. Used by Permission.
