Matthew 24
29 Immediately
after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 And 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.
II Thessalonians 2:1
1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our
gathering together unto him,
Compare the Greek words for 'gather' and 'gathering. I heard a pretrib preacher not to long ago say the 'gathering' here refers to the rapture. I would imagine that is a standard interpretation among premillineal types. Would you agree with that?
I Thessalonians 4
15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the
coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
The Greek word 'parousia', which means 'presence' and which we generally take to be the 'second coming' is found in verse 15. I hear that in the old days, when the emperor or some important official came, the people would go outside and escourt him into the city with a big procession when he arrived. In this case, the living saints meet the Lord in the air.
Here, we see in I Thessalonians 4 about 'we who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord'-- so the rapture hasn't taken place seven years before His coming. It happens at His
coming, his parousia
In I Thessalonians 2:8, we read:
8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his
coming:
So we see the rapture happens at His parousia. And we see the man of sin destroyed by the brighteness of His parousia, His coming. How does that fit with pre-trib. Assuming that the man of sin is the beast of Revelation (and is there any pre, mid, or post tribber who does not?) then how is Paul being consistent with pre or mid trib at all? In Revelation, the beast and false prophet are thrown into the lake of fire in chapter 19, after the scene of the Word of God on a white horse.
If the rapture occurs at the parousia, then wouldn't the man of sin be destroyed before the tribulation starts?
And 'parousia' is used in verses 1 and verse 8 of the very same chapter. Wouldn't it be referring to the same coming of Christ, since Paul uses the same word right here in the same passage?
II Thessalonians 2
1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our
gathering together unto him,
and
8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his
coming:
If the church is raptured/gathered at His coming and that wicked is destroyed by the brightness of the Lord's coming, then doesn't it stand to reason that the rapture occurs at the coming of the Lord at end of the tribulation when the beast is destroyed?