FINAL WARNING: Setting the Stage for Destruction
not exist. In 1993, after years of investigation, in a well-researched,
well-articulated manner, MacPherson was able to put the whole story
together about the actual origin of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture teaching.A gentleman by the name of John Nelson Darby (1800-82), a founding
father of the Plymouth Brethren Church in England, is the guy who has
received the most attention for teaching the Pre-Trib theory. Some
researchers maintain that he was expressing this view as early as
1827, yet it was an article he wrote in 1850 which squarely places him
in the Pre-Trib corner:“It is this passage (2 Thessalonians 2:1-2) which, twenty years
ago, made me understand the rapture of the saints before–
perhaps a considerable time before– the day of the Lord (that is,
before the judgment of the living.)”By his own admission, he claims 1830 as the year he gained this
revelation. It is therefore believed that Darby heard it from Edward
Irving (1792-1834), of the Apostolic Catholic Church; and Irving
actually found out about it from Margaret Macdonald (c. 1815-40), a 15-
year old, chronically sick girl from Port Glasgow, Scotland, a member
of his church (along with her sister and brothers) who apparently
manifested the charismatic gifts of prophecy, speaking in tongues, and
visions. After being sick for a year and a half, and a Christian for only a
year, in the spring of 1830 she had a vision, which she gave copies of
to various clerical leaders, including Irving.The most unique part of her long, scripture-laden message, was the
earliest known documentation of the Pre-Tribulation theory: “Only
those who have the light of God within them will see the sign of his
appearance. No need to follow them who say, see here, or see there,
for his day shall be as the lightning to those in whom the living Christ
is. ‘Tis Christ in us that will lift us up– he is the light– ‘tis only those
that are alive in him that will be caught up to meet him in the air.”Macdonald’s vision was first published in 1840 by Dr. Robert Norton
(who heard and recorded the words in person), a long-time friend of
the family, in the book Memoirs of James & George Macdonald, of Port-
Glasgow, a biography of her older brothers. Norton quoted a May 18,
1830 letter written by Margaret’s older sister Mary that indicated that