The Pre Rapture teaching has been around only since the start of the 19th century. It is popular to many because lets face it who wants to experience tribulation. That dosnt make it right.
What makes it right is 1) Scripture, and 2) that God has a need. Otherwise, there would only be an end-trib rapture
There is not one scripture that says Christians will avoid tribulation, just the opposite Jesus said to his Disciples that in the world they would have tribulation. There are many other places where it mentions tribulation and hardship.
To avoid The Tribulation at the end of this age, is conditional. Hence the Scripture called Luke 21:36. Likewise Rev 3:10. Likewise in Mt 24 about disciples being watchful to be taken rather than left behind. Likewise 1 Thes 4 which refers to those who remain behind.
Then there is the firstfruit harvest as compared with the end-of-summer harvest of believers, the wheat, in Rv 14.
That chapter more than clearly mentions both raptures. In Rev 12 the deceased overcomers are taken up. The manchild.
It is Catholicism's (and apparently a lot of others') mistake to assume the manchild is the individual Jesus. At least Catholicism is consistent in that inaccuracy, of interpreting the woman as the individual Mary. The others' label her a collective person:
Israel. To the contrary: both Woman and child are collective: the totality of Gods people through time.............and those
who overcome. 'Overcome' as used in Rev 2---3. Not to refer to clergy, not to refer to works of law, not to refer to better or stronger or more capable saints. But simply to those who deny their self. And who ripen. Like Paul realized he had, finished his course he referred to elsewhere---------finished it in 2 Timothy, gloriously.
In Rv 12: the pretrib resurrection and rapture of the manchild is of saints who include the Christian martyrs down through church history. (They also appear in Rv 6.) And include, as an overcomer I believe, the author of Revelation. Lol, though I don't think he saw himself. So the manchild is pretrib---but because they resurrect, they escaped no tribulation.
But the woman who flees the dragon, must refer in particular then to all the living saints left behind. And the Lord provides for her to escape. Some of 'her seed' does not---they are all the one beheaded etc during The Tribulation. Escape and protection are common themes in Scripture. Just as persecution is. Paul in one place escapes in a big basket. Peter is let out of jail miraculously. Both later die for the Lord. So it's not our place to tell the Lord who to 'escape' (as a transitive verb, lol) or when not, or who shouldn't and who should. It's up to Him. And in Lk 21:36 He commands, as part of 'watchfulness,' to beseech to escape The Tribulation and what..................just to escape to comfort? No: to stand before the Son of Man.
Exactly like those on the heavenly Mount Zion do, pretrib, in Rev 14:1-5
The main confusion regarding this is that people confuse tribulation with the wrath of God. They are not the same. Christians will experience tribulation at the hands of Satan through the Antichrist. The wrath of God will be unleashed on the unbelieving world. The rapture actually happens at the same time that the sixth seal in revelation is opened and the wrath of God on the world begins through the Trumpet and Vial judgements
That rapture, then, is pretrib. (There is also an endtrib one, 1 Thes 4, Rv 14:14-16, Rv 12 of the woman---implied because God protects and cultivates her on earth for 1260 days.) In any case, there's not a big need to 'worry' about confusing tribulation and wrath. Because both are going on simultaneously. For example, the two witnesses in Rv 11 'dish it out' also, as well as receive suffering. And God (as with the woman and those beheaded for the testimony of Jesus) is not confused. He's is well able to protect his own from wrath in the midst of Satan's tribulation, and well able to dish out wrath at the same time Satan's is wrathful too (Rv 12--13).
