14 Jun 2013
Revelation 4:4
Revelation 4:4: “And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold.”
The 24 elders are symbolic of the Church – the whole Church, with no one missing. (When Jesus returns for His Bride, He is not going to leave any of it behind.) Since the entire Church is in Heaven when this passage starts, that means that this passage happens after the Rapture.
This brings up a couple different points. First of all, as we’ve discussed extensively elsewhere, the Church does not go through the Tribulation. There will be believers that go through it but they will be the Tribulation saints, not the Church. The Church started on Pentecost and will end at the Rapture.
Second, we see that the Church has been given crowns of gold. These are not crowns of authority, but awards – crowns earned by finishing the race well. Since they have already been given out, that means that the Bema Seat Judgment (where the righteous are judged and rewarded) has already occurred. That gives us an outline of events:
Rapture -> Bema Seat Judgment -> Tribulation -> Millennial Kingdom -> Great White Throne Judgment -> Eternal State
What this doesn’t tell us is how much time there is between the Rapture and the Tribulation. It could be a very short amount of time or a very long time. No one knows. Enoch was “raptured” several generations before the Flood happened. That may mean that we will be raptured several generations before the Tribulation begins – or it may mean nothing. It’s impossible to say. We will just have to wait and find out.