Page 47 - Watchman- What of the Night

Appendix A: THE SAINTS’ REST

II Thess. 1:4-9
According to the pre-tribulation rapture theory, the saints sleeping and living will
enter into their rest and reward from three and a half to seven (or even a thousand by

one commentator) years before the appearance of Christ in judgment upon the
world-system.
A careful perusal of the scripture portion cited above will dispel this idea from the

minds of any who really hold the scripture as final authority, and not the cunningly
devised fables of men. This scripture passage constitutes additional irrefutable
evidence that the saints‘ rapture, resurrection and rest synchronize with the time of the
descent of Christ from Heaven to execute judgment.
Let us remind ourselves that those things that were written to the saints of the first

century, were not written to them only but to all the saints in every time and nation,
through the whole course of the age and down to the very end, as represented by
them.

The tribulations that saints endure are declared to be a ―righteous judgment of God‖,
to the end that they may participate in the glories and the rewards of the Kingdom of
God, in behalf of which they now suffer. (vss.4-5).
The Kingdom will one day be in manifestation, though now in mystery, wrought in
the hearts of the saints.

It is not only righteous for God to allow His people to suffer in view of the eternal
reward that He has in store, but it is righteous for Him to ―recompense tribulation to
those ‗tribulating‘ you, and rest to you having been tribulated, with us, in the revealing

of our Lord Jesus from Heaven, with the mighty angels, in flaming fire taking
vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ. (vss. 6-8).
The translation in the A.V.: ―And to you who are troubled, rest with us etc.‖ makes
it sound a little as though the ―rest‖ were an imperative. Actually the word ‗rest‘ is a

noun, which with tribulation‘ of the preceding verse are the compound objects of the
verb ‗to recompense‘. So at one and the same time the Lord will recompense and
requite tribulation to them that have tribulated His own, and rest with the Apostle and

his fellow-sufferers of the first century, and the martyrs and sufferers for Christ in all
subsequent centuries, to the beloved sheep of His hand.
And when will this dual recompensing take place? The answer is as plain as words
can make it: ―At the coming of the Lord Jesus from Heaven with the angels of His
power, taking vengeance on them that know not God etc.…‖
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