Pratt provided the final chapter to this Festschrift for Charles Hauser, Jr. published by Central Baptist Theological Seminary. I found the arguments presented later in the chapter more persuasive than the arguments presented in the beginning of the chapter. His argument that texts like 1 Thessalonians 5 and Revelation 3:10 promise that God will spare his people from going through the period of time in which the final day of the Lord judgment is poured out on the earth is convincing. Likewise, Pratt makes a convincing case from the immanency of Christ’s return.
Pratt begins his chapter by arguing that John 14:1-3; 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7; Revelation 12:5 support a pretribulational rapture. These arguments are shakier. John 14:1-3 fits well within a pretribulation rapture scheme, but it is difficult to prove the pretribulation rapture from this text because doing so requires the having already established particular interpretations of related texts.
The argument from 2 Thessalonians 2 is even less compelling. Even granting that the restrainer is the Spirit, how does the rapture of the church remove him from earth? The Spirit is omnipresent. A further step in the argument is needed such that the Spirit working in and through the church is the restrainer. But it is not clear that such an argument could be mounted from the text. Nor do I find Darby’s interpretation of Revelation 12 plausible. I don’t find any of the proposed double referents convincing. The dragon refers to Satan, not the nations. The woman refers to Israel, not to Mary. And the male child refers to Christ, not to the church.
Pratt does mount a convincing argument for the pretribulational position in this chapter, but it is burdened, in my view, by some accompanying less-than-convincing arguments.