Rewriting George Eldon Ladd

koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Kyungbook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

30th March 2010

A Seventh Day Adventist will read Ladd with adjustments. That is because Ladd is a Futurist and read the Bible with premillennial eyes and although he talks about a tribulation before the Second Coming of Christ, their concept of rapture is classically set in a pretribulational stage to escape from the tribulations to come before the Second Coming of Christ. Adventists also holds the biblical position of a tribulation or Time of Jacob's Trouble to come before the Second Coming. But, in the case of Adventist there is no rapture before this tribulation time. The Latin word rapto means to seize or to drag away. The New Testament teaches that at the Resurrection the saints will be taken up to meet Christ in the air. This is rapto or rescue in a time of emergency. But that occurs at the Second Coming of Christ or Advent and not before. Ladd laid down a strange principle in their classical view but which is correct: The blessed hope is the second coming of Jesus Christ and not a pretribulation rapture. Ladd outlined the differences of opinion in the Futurist school on the role of the rapture. Some in his faith believe that there must be a rapture before the Second Coming of Christ and before the Tribulation otherwise the Second Coming cannot be a blessing (G. Ladd, The Blessed Hope: A Biblical Study of the Second Advent and the Rapture [Grand Rapids, Michigan: W.M. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1956], 11). Ladd is not clear whether the Scripture really teaches a rapture before the Tribulation that precedes the Second Coming of Christ (Ladd 1956: 12) and on the next page he is pleading that people should have the freedom to believe either a rapture before the Tribulation and a rapture after the Tribulation (Ladd 1956: 13). Ladd also holds that pretribulationism "is an inference and not the explicit teaching of the Word of God" (Ladd 1956: 13).

Ladd says that everyone agrees that Christ will appear in glory at the end of Tribulation (Ladd 1956: 71). He is thinking of the differences in the Futurism school of prophetic interpretation. However, also Adventists believe in a Tribulation before the Second Coming of Christ.

Ladd denies the rapture before the Second Coming of Christ in the following statement:

"Furthermore, we have found no support in our study and vocabulary used of Christ's return for the theory that before this glorious manifestation of Christ, He will come secretly to rapture the Church" (Ladd 1956: 71). This is a standard doctrine in Adventism since their inception in 1844. Until this very day, it is unchanged and Ladd is correct since it is biblically correct.

In classical Futuristic Tribulationism it was taught that the Holy Spirit will be removed and the restraining power of that contain the evil will step aside and that is when evil will excell causing the tribulation. Ladd says that this doctrine was assumed from 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7

6a And now ye know that which restraineth

6b to the end that he may be revealed in his own season

For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work

7a Only there is one that restraineth now

7b until he come out of the midst.

Ladd interpreted it as follows and we add his interpretation:

6a And now ye know that which restraineth

(the power of God)

6b to the end that he may be revealed in his own season

(Antichrist)

For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work

7a Only there is one that restraineth now

(God)

7b until he come out of the midst.

(Antichrist)

A Seventh Day Adventist will rewrite Ladd as follows in his interpretation here:

6a And now ye know that which restraineth

(God due to His divine historic plan or historic agenda)

6b to the end that he may be revealed in his own season

(The Antichrist or Little Horn of Daniel 7:25 which was dated to start in 538 CE and continue for 1260 years until 1798 CE). The season was definitely allocated.

For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work

(Satan was already working through the agency of the Roman empire that was to cohort with the Roman Catholic Church in 538 CE switching on the period of the Antichrist or Little Horn).

7a Only there is one that restraineth now

(God in His divine Providence)

7b until he come out of the midst. (The midst refers to the sprouting of the Little Horn that comes up in the midst of three horns that it uprooted as Daniel 7 explains).

Seventh Day Adventists uses the prophetic interpretational system of Historicism which is not the same as Futurism. In reality a multi-application is done in their commentaries in which preterism is used when it is necessary and historicism when that is applicable and presentism (idealism) when that is allowed and futurism when that is called for, but not in the sense of dispensational futurism.