Quote: The Error Of Mid-Tribulationism

[Editor's note: For the record, mid-Tribulationism is the belief that the Rapture will occur in the middle of the 7-year Tribulation.]

Midtribulationism must either deny or at least weaken the dispensational interpretation of the Scriptures, and,

(2) deny the strict distinctions between Israel and the church. This is observed in that this position places the church in the first half of the last seven years of the period determined upon Daniel’s people and city.

(3) The position must rest on a view of the tribulation that divides the period into two separate and unrelated halves, so that the church can go through the first half, even though it has no part in the last half.

(4) The position must deny the doctrine of imminence, for all the signs of the first half of the week apply to the church.

(5) The position must deny the concept of the church as a mystery, so that the church age may overlap God’s program with Israel.

(6) The position must depend, to a certain extent, on the spiritualizing method of interpretation. This is particularly evident in the explanation of the portions of Scripture dealing with the first half of the tribulation period.

–J. Dwight Pentecost