A Tale of Two Trumpets

Trumpets are mentioned in numerous places throughout the Bible, and they have a variety of uses and meanings. In the Old Testament, while Israel was wandering through the wilderness for 40 years, trumpets were used to send signals to the people. A trumpet blast would awaken the people and tell them it was time to prepare to move, and another trumpet blast would tell them to assemble to actually move out. Trumpets were used as signals in battle, to announce victories, pronounce judgments, celebrate Israel's feast days, and many other things.

Typically, the trumpet in question is a literal trumpet—an instrument that makes a sound. One notable exception is when God gave Moses the 10 Commandments at Mount Sinai and established His covenant with Israel, and the people trembled at a sound described as "the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud" (Exod. 19:16). In some cases, however, especially in the New Testament, trumpets have an eschatological meaning and are mentioned in connection with end-time events such as the Rapture, certain Tribulation judgments, the Second Coming, etc., and various usages of trumpets in the Old Testament often provide deeper insights into the meaning of these eschatological trumpets.

There are two specific trumpets mentioned in the New Testament that have generated a great deal of discussion (read "fistfights") in relation to the end-time scenario among those with differing views of the nature and timing of end-time events. These are the two trumpets I am going to focus on in this article, and they are as follows:

• The trumpet sound mentioned in conjunction with the Rapture.
• The last of a series of seven trumpets sounded during the Tribulation.

The reason I want to focus on these two specific trumpets is because one of the most common arguments offered up in an attempt to refute the pre-trib Rapture involves the claim that these two trumpets are actually one and the same. Many people who hold to intra-trib views of the timing of the Rapture (mid-trib, pre-wrath, and post-trib) imagine this claim gives them a silver bullet with which to slay the dreaded doctrine of the pre-tribulation Rapture.

My goal in this article is simple and straightforward:

I want to show you that these two trumpets cannot be the same.

I will refer to the idea of equating the "last trump" associated with the Rapture and the seventh trumpet of Revelation simply as the "trumpet argument" for the remainder of this article. I have wanted to address this topic for a long time, primarily because it's such a widely used argument that leads believers away from what God's Word clearly teaches about end-time events. The trumpet argument has deceived legions of believers into adopting errant views of the timing of the Rapture, and is routinely used to bludgeon pre-tribbers who deign to disagree.

For example, the comment sections of many Rapture-related videos on YouTube bristle with caustic bluster that closely resembles the following:

The LAST trumpet is the LAST trumpet!! Paul said in 1 Corinthians that the Rapture happens at the LAST trumpet, and the LAST trumpet is the seventh trumpet in Revelation 11. There are seven trumpets, and that's the seventh one, so it's the L-A-S-T trumpet, at least it's the LAST trumpet for people who can count to seven! I don't see any eighth trumpet, do you?! That's because the seventh trumpet is the LAST trumpet. For heaven's sake, what part of "LAST" don't you pre-tribbers understand?! Revelation 11:15...there's your LAST trumpet and your Rapture right there, people!! LAST means LAST, and it proves your little pre-trib Rapture is a lie of Satan!!!

(What's amusing is that I didn't even have to exaggerate to write this—I literally pieced it together from memory.) If I had a dollar for every time a post-tribber blew my hair back with a comment like this, that château in the Swiss Alps would be mine all mine.

I have been familiar with most of the scriptural points that rip the trumpet argument to shreds for a good while, but what finally pushed me over the edge and motivated me to write this article was something I noticed in one of the related verses of Scripture—a phrase that provided a stunning revelation that I (along with a lot of other people, apparently) had always breezed right by without a second thought.

When this point came to my attention recently, I had one of those facepalm moments when you go "Oh, man! I can't believe I missed that!" Even though there is a laundry list of compelling reasons why these two trumpets are not the same, this one point all by itself crushes the trumpet argument out of existence once and for all. It biblically obliterates the errant notion that these two eschatological trumpets are the same thing, leaving all those with intra-trib views of the Rapture who pound on the table insisting that they are the same thing with their hats in their collective hands.

With this one widely overlooked point, the trumpet argument is D.O.A., and so it's R.I.P. for the idea of equating the last trump that accompanies the Rapture with the seventh trumpet sounded in the book of Revelation, because it is a coup de grâce that hammers home the fact that the trumpet argument is F.A.L.S.E. And once again, it's all systems go for the pre-trib Rapture.

A little background

A wee bit of explanation is in order for those who may not be intimately familiar with the details of the trumpet argument and the controversy associated with it, so let's back up for a moment and set the table.

Two of the primary passages of Scripture in the New Testament that unmistakably speak of the Rapture were both written by the apostle Paul, and the first one chronologically was written in approximately AD 50–52 to the church at Thessalonica. In that letter, Paul wrote:

Paul refers to a trumpet sound associated with the Rapture as salpingi Theou (the trump of God), and most Bible scholars believe that the word translated "trump" here simply refers to the blast of a trumpet, not the trumpet itself.

A couple of years later in approximately AD 53–55, Paul wrote his first letter to the church at Corinth, and wrote:

Here Paul is again talking about the Rapture, only this time he uses the phrase eschate salpingi (the last trump). Since this is the verse that calls the trumpet sound associated with the Rapture the "last trump," this is the Rapture-related verse we will focus more attention on in this article.

Incidentally, these two passages are the only places in the entire New Testament where the Greek phrases salpingi Theou (the trump of God) and eschate salpingi (the last trump) are used.

One trump or two: Many people believe these two phrases refer to the exact same sounding of a trumpet at the Rapture; however, some believe the "trump of God" sounds to raise the dead in Christ, while the "last trump" is simply the second and final sounding of that same trump of God to "assemble" we who are alive and remain with them. It's true that this would reflect the pattern in the Old Testament, where a first trumpet would sound to awaken the Israelites in their camp and tell them it was time to get up and prepare to move (known to the Jews as "the trump that wakes the dead") and a second and final trumpet would sound to assemble them all to actually move out. I'm not dogmatic about it either way, but I thought I'd mention it for your consideration.

Which reminds me of an old joke:

Q. Why do the dead in Christ rise first?

A. They've got six feet further to go.

Then in the book of Revelation, the apostle John is given a vision of the Tribulation period, a seven-year period which contains three series of judgments that are unleashed upon "them that dwell upon the earth." Things kick off with the seven seal judgments (Rev. 6:1–8:5), and when the seventh seal is opened, it introduces the next series, which is a series of seven trumpet judgments (Rev. 8:6–11:19). When the seventh trumpet sounds, it introduces the third and final series, which is a set of seven bowl or vial judgments (Rev. 15:5–16:21). Here is the key passage normally referred to in regard to the trumpet argument:

Based on other information in the book of Revelation, many Bible scholars believe the seventh trumpet is sounded at about the midpoint of the Tribulation, and effectively announces the beginning of the second half, or the Great Tribulation. But regardless of whatever other details are believed about this series of seven trumpet judgments, many people who hold various intra-trib views of the Rapture insist that the seventh and final trumpet of this series is the "last trump" spoken of by Paul in reference to the Rapture back in 1 Corinthians 15:52.

Of course, if this were true (which it isn't), then you would have the Rapture occurring somewhere between the midpoint and the end of the Tribulation, depending how you massage the bowl judgments. But however you tweak this, the trumpet argument clearly destroys the doctrine of the pre-trib Rapture: If the Rapture occurs at the seventh trumpet in Revelation 11:15, it's pretty obvious that it cannot happen before the Tribulation even starts, and that's the entire point:

People with intra-trib views of the Rapture sincerely believe the trumpet argument demolishes the pre-trib Rapture.

What I want to do is go over a number of scriptural arguments that will show you that the trumpet argument is devoid of any trace of biblical support. In fact, it is so utterly bereft of scriptural backing that it's difficult for me to fathom how anyone could cling to it—unless, of course, they are driven by a blind hatred of the doctrine of the pre-tribulation Rapture (which seems to be the case for the great majority of intra-tribbers I have interacted with).

So, here are five of my favorite reasons why the last trump of 1 Corinthians 15:52 cannot be the same as the seventh trumpet of Revelation 11:15, and then I want to share with you what I see as a lock-down clincher that nails it shut as far as I'm concerned.

1. Where does it say "last trump"? 

First of all, note that although the trumpet sound connected to the Rapture in 1 Corinthians 15:52 is called the "last trump," the seventh trumpet sounded in Revelation 11:15 is never referred to that way (for that matter, neither is it ever called the "trump of God" as in 1 Thess. 4:16). We are told that there are seven angels who sound their trumpets, but nowhere does it actually say "last trump."

Although not a major point (some would call it nitpicking), it is worth noting because it drives home the point that we must never forget the Bible is unsurpassed in its precision: Every single word is there for a reason and not there for a reason. The notion that the seventh angel sounding his trumpet in Revelation 11:15 is Paul's "last trump" has to be read into the verse wholesale. Needless to say, when people do that bad things happen.

This style of biblical interpretation (eisegesis, or reading a preconceived meaning into the text) is at best sloppy and fails to afford God's Word the respect it richly warrants, and at worst is done intentionally to prop up a false teaching and destroy a true one that Satan desperately wants destroyed.

2. Hey Gabriel, have you seen my trumpet? 

We also need to consider who is actually blowing the trumpets in each case. At the Rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 (and so also in 1 Cor. 15:52), God is blowing the trumpet. In Revelation 11:15, an angel is blowing the trumpet.

And those who advance the trumpet argument don't see a problem here.

But this is a problem...a huge one. In fact, this alone is sufficient to confirm that the trumpet argument is clearly in error. God's trumpet...an angel's trumpet. How on earth can these be references to the same trumpet?

• At the Rapture, God blows His trumpet.
• During the Tribulation, angels blow their trumpets.

How is God's trumpet the same as the seven angels' trumpets? I have heard some pretty lame arguments from intra-trib believers to weasel around this, like posing the following gem:

Well, where do you think the angel got that trumpet? From God, right?

(And you thought we were reading things into the text in the last part!)

In other words, the seven angels all have to borrow God's trumpet to do their job, and so it's still kinda sorta "God's trumpet." Really?

No. God's trumpet is singular, and each of the seven angels has his own trumpet, for a total of seven angelic trumpets. That's what the Bible says. This is a prime example of the kind of sloppy interpretive approach to Scripture that is characteristic of the intra-trib crowd and it reeks of the desperation they exude to slay the dragon of the pre-tribulation Rapture.

3. Paul's crystal ball 

One of the biggest problems with the trumpet argument is one of historical timing. As I mentioned earlier, Paul wrote 1 Corinthians in approximately AD 53–55, where he tells us the Rapture is associated with the "last trump." But when people claim Paul was referring to the seventh trumpet sounded during the Tribulation as described in Revelation 11:15, they seem to overlook one simple fact:

John didn't write the book of Revelation until approximately AD 95.

Oops. Thus people who insist that Paul's reference to the "last trump" is somehow a reference to the seventh trumpet sounded during the Tribulation have to explain how Paul could have been referring to something that wouldn't be written for another 40-plus years!

Wow! Paul must have been psychic!

Of course, one could argue that the Holy Spirit is the Author of all Scripture, and so maybe Paul didn't fully understand what the Spirit was inspiring him to write. And now, from our future vantage point, we can look back and see the connection and understand what the Spirit wanted to reveal to us.

I get that. I understand the argument, but it just doesn't hold water.

In a broad sense, it's true that God's Word was written to all of mankind for all time. But much of it was also written to certain individuals and groups of people who were alive at the time—people who, by and large, were expected to understand what was being written to them. And that is especially true in the case of Paul's epistles, which constitute the bulk of the New Testament.

Paul wrote letters to specific churches to clarify specific points and to rectify specific problems. Yes, what he wrote would have application to the Church for the next two thousand years; but at the time of writing he was addressing certain topics for the benefit and edification of the believers to whom he was writing, and so he certainly meant for what he wrote to be clearly understood by the recipients of those letters.

When Paul mentioned the last trump in 1 Corinthians 15:52, if he had actually meant a trumpet that was the seventh in a series of seven to be sounded during the Tribulation (information that wouldn't be revealed for another four decades), the believers in Corinth wouldn't have had the foggiest idea what on earth Paul was talking about.

Not only that, but notice that there is nothing in his second letter to the Corinthians that indicates there was any confusion to clear up (which is something that Paul did have to do in his correspondence with the Thessalonians). The believers in Corinth apparently had no significant problems understanding what Paul wrote in his first letter to them. Nobody in Corinth fired off a message to Paul asking for clarification:

Hey Paul, this "last trump" thing...like, what are you talking about?

Even though the congregation in Corinth (Greece) was no doubt primarily Gentile in nature, it is reasonably clear from 1 Corinthians 1:22–24 that Paul was addressing a mixed group comprising both Gentiles and at least some Jews. As a result, there's no reason to believe that the thoroughly Jewish significance of the phrase "last trump" would have been lost on them.

To Jews, the "last trump" meant only one thing: the final trumpet blast that marked the end of the Feast of Trumpets (aka Rosh Hashanah). On that feast, they would blow the shofar (an instrument fashioned from a ram's horn) 100 times, and the "last trump" would be a long, loud blast which lasted as long as the trumpeter's lungs held out.

This day also marks the beginning of the Jewish civil year, and according to traditional Jewish beliefs the spirits of the deceased can rejoin their living descendants to ring in the new year, so to speak. Thus, there are undeniable resurrection overtones here, both of the dead in Christ at the Rapture and of Old Testament saints at the Second Coming.

And before anyone gets all excited...

Not now: My only goal in this article is to dismantle the trumpet argument. So, I am going to avoid the temptation to get too sidetracked with theories about the prophetic connections between various biblical trumpet blasts and specific end-time events like the Rapture, the Second Coming, etc., and the reason is simple: It's a deep subject (much deeper than most people realize). There are multiple levels of interpretive and prophetic complexity to consider, and as a result there is a lot of spurious, speculative teaching out there by sincere but excitable individuals who should probably spend more time studying the Bible and less time making sensational YouTube videos ("RAPTURE ON ROSH HASHANAH!!! IT'S A LOCK!!!"). It's something I am still studying, so there's no point in burdening you with several pages of what would amount to private speculation—something I generally try to avoid in my articles. It's possible that after more study, I might take up this topic in the future; but for now, I'm not gonna go there.

4. Two trumpets, two purposes 

As I said at the outset, trumpets in the Bible have a variety of uses, and two of them are to (a) assemble the people, and (b) to pronounce judgments. Obviously, no one single trumpet blast could simultaneously mean more than one thing, because it would cause confusion. For example, a trumpet blast couldn't be a signal for an army to attack and retreat at the same time, or for the people to both make preparations to move and to actually move out. The result would be chaos.

The trumpet that sounds in conjunction with the Rapture, however, is clearly a trumpet of assembly. The dead in Christ are raised, and we who are alive and remain are changed in the twinkling of an eye and gathered to be with the Lord in the clouds. There is no hint of any judgment of any kind. The Rapture has nothing to do with the judgments that will befall the world or the disposition of unbelievers, who are never mentioned in any Rapture passage.

On the other hand, all seven of the angelic trumpets sounded in the book of Revelation are obviously trumpets of judgment.

Hail, fire, and blood, oh my! These are the first four trumpet judgments just to give you a taste, and the last three aren't much better. And to top it off, the seventh trumpet merely introduces the final series of bowl judgments, judgments that make these sound like a rainy day in comparison. Is anyone being assembled here? Nope, not as far as I can tell. Thus these two trumpets are clearly not the same.

5. Where's Jesus? 

When the last trump sounds in conjunction with the Rapture, Jesus descends into the clouds and the Church is gathered up to meet Him in the air. Jesus is coming to catch His Bride away, and what a day it's going to be!

During the Tribulation, however, when the seven angels begin sounding their trumpets of judgment, where is Jesus? Is He descending into the clouds to gather anyone?

Uh, not exactly. Well, what is He doing?

Jesus is officially taking His position as King to rule the earth during the Millennial Kingdom. And rather than waiting for Him to descend into the clouds to gather us to be with Him, we are gathered around the throne, falling on our faces to worship Him. The 24 elders represent us, the raptured Church, and we have been in heaven ever since chapter 4.

Not only do we not see Jesus descending into the clouds here, but after the seventh trumpet there is no sign of Jesus returning to earth until Revelation 19, when He returns at the Second Coming.

And we're coming with Him.

Ditto for the Olivet Discourse: Although I'm not going to take the time to get into it here, I should mention that many post-trib Rapture adherents try to pull the same stunt by equating Paul's last trump in 1 Corinthians 15:52 and the "great sound of a trumpet" mentioned in connection with the Second Coming in the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24:31. This trumpet sound signals the gathering of the Jewish remnant back into the land of Israel to be ushered into the Millennial Kingdom as prophesied in several places in the Old Testament and has nothing to do with the Rapture. This is just as invalid an argument and for many similar reasons.

The coup de grâce

There are a few other lesser points that could be mentioned, like how there is a resurrection mentioned in conjunction with the trumpet at the Rapture, but no resurrection of any kind is in view at the seventh angelic trumpet, and so on. But this should do. Taken together, the preceding items lay the trumpet argument bare and effectively expose it as the biblical absurdity that it is. But even if there were the slightest crack in any of the preceding refutation, there is one last point that I noticed recently that nails it shut with a sledge hammer.

The apostle Paul was responsible for revealing a number of mysteries in his New Testament epistles, and first let's make sure we know exactly what that means. In the New Testament, a "mystery" is the Greek word musterion, which refers to something that had never been revealed before in the Old Testament, but was now being revealed by God for the first time. For example, the mystery of being born again (Col. 1:26–28); the mystery of the Church as the Bride (Eph. 5:22–33); the mystery of God being manifested in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16); the mystery of Israel's partial hardening so the Gentiles could be grafted into the New Covenant (Rom. 11:25), and so on.

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot:

The mystery of the Rapture.

That establishes the fact that the Rapture isn't revealed anywhere in the Old Testament—not a single Old Testament prophet received the revelation of the catching away of the bride of Christ.

Rapture of the Church?! They didn't even know about the Church!

Now, the seven angels who sound their trumpets are first mentioned in Revelation 8:1, but in chapter 10 we are told a piece of information regarding the sounding of the seventh angel that finally caught my attention:

When the seventh angel begins to sound (and he sounds for a period of time—many believe for the remainder of the Tribulation), the "mystery of God" will be finished, or brought to its ultimate fulfillment.

OK, so what exactly is the "mystery of God"?

In a grand sense, it is God's overall purpose and plan in regard to the destiny of the world, culminating in the Second Coming of Christ to establish the Millennial Kingdom, after which the affairs of mankind will ultimately be concluded and God's plan of redemption will be consummated. Specifically, what will begin to be revealed when the seventh angel sounds is the purpose behind these events in God's plan, although the events themselves were progressively revealed to the prophets.

All of these things—the Second Coming of Christ, the Millennial Kingdom on earth, etc. are all prophesied in the Old Testament. Several Old Testament prophets speak of these future events; but when the seventh angel begins to sound in Revelation, these things which were revealed to God's servants the prophets will finally begin to unfold. And as they do, mankind will finally begin to understand what God was up to the whole time.

But here's the $64,000 question:

Q. Would these things by any chance include the Rapture?

A. Sure, as long as the Rapture is one of the end-time events that were revealed to God's servants the, uhm...you know, the Old Testament, uh...

Houston, we have a problem.

And that problem is spelled p-r-o-p-h-e-t-s.

This begs the follow-up question:

Q. To what Old Testament prophet was the Rapture revealed?

A. It's a mystery to me.

Now, I can just hear many of my intra-trib pals out there:

Not so fast, hoss. John wrote the book of Revelation in about AD 95. How do you know he wasn't including Paul's revelation of the Rapture in this, which was about 40 years earlier? I guess that blows your little pre-trib fib out of the water, doesn't it?

Hmm...interesting point. Gosh, Revelation 10:7 seems pretty clear, but just how can we be absolutely sure John was referring only to what was revealed to the Old Testament prophets, and not to anything revealed to a New Testament apostle like Paul? Let me put on my thinking cap.

Try this: Let me direct your attention to something Peter said not long after the Church was conceived on the day of Pentecost:

Peter's words are basically a restatement of what John would later write in Revelation 10:7 over six decades later. The "times of refreshing" and the "times of restitution (restoration) of all things" are clear references to the Second Coming followed by the Millennial Kingdom—things that were revealed to the "holy prophets."

Now, stop and think:

Q. Is there any possible way Peter's statement could include Paul's revelation of the Rapture?

A. Obviously not, because what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians was still two decades in the future, and Peter's words in Acts 3 clearly indicate the things he's referring to were already revealed to God's prophets in the past.

Peter is saying essentially the same thing in Acts 3:17–21 that John would later reiterate in Revelation 10:7, and so if Peter is referring to Old Testament prophets—and it is patently obvious that he is, then so is John. Of course, all this does is confirm what is widely acknowledged by many Bible scholars (and which is reasonably obvious to most people when they read Revelation 10:7), and that is the fact that John was referring to the Old Testament prophets: Isaiah, Ezekiel, and all the rest.

Sorry, intra-tribbers. Better luck next time.

Now, were there things revealed to New Testament prophets? Sure:

Like I said: There were revelations that God made known to Paul and other New Testament apostles and prophets, including the mystery of the Rapture in 1 Corinthians 15:51–52. But the Second Coming, Christ's rule during the Millennial Kingdom, and such things as will begin to be fulfilled when the seventh angel sounds his trumpet were all revealed to Old Testament prophets. In a nutshell:

According to Revelation 10:7, all the things that will
begin to be fulfilled when the seventh angel sounds
were all foretold by Old Testament prophets, and so
they cannot include the Rapture because it wasn't.

(And not to belabor the obvious, but this is because the Rapture occurs well before any of the seven angels even begin to warm up.)

Now, if this doesn't convince you that the trumpet argument hits a sour note, then the only thing that will convince you is the Rapture itself, which will catch those who buy into this intra-trib baloney completely by surprise.

A tale of two destinies

Although I am sure the trumpet argument will continue to be pushed by people who (a) hate the pre-trib Rapture and (b) try to refute it by hashing out clumsily crafted circular arguments, the preceding points are more than enough to convince the vast majority of people that Paul's last trump connected with the Rapture has nothing whatsoever to do with the seventh trumpet blown by an angel in the book of Revelation, and so this is yet another leg kicked out from under the various intra-trib views of the timing of the Rapture.

This tale of two trumpets, however, is really a tale of two destinies. One trumpet announces the Rapture, and will be heard by all those who have responded to the conviction of the Holy Spirit and believed the gospel in faith—that Christ died and rose from the grave to pay the penalty for their sin. And for us, that trumpet blast that will be the sweetest note anyone ever heard.

Believers who have died will be resurrected, and we who are alive and remain will be changed in the twinkling of an eye and taken very much alive to be with the Lord for eternity. We will be rewarded for our earthly works, and then most likely prepared for whatever type of service we will be involved with during the Millennial Kingdom, when we will rule and reign with Christ here on earth for a thousand years.

That's my destiny, and I sincerely hope it's your destiny as well.

The other trumpet, the seventh and final trumpet blown by an angel in the book of Revelation during the Tribulation, will announce the most horrific judgments the world has ever witnessed. Billions (with a "b") will die as God finishes pouring out His wrath on a Christ-rejecting world in preparation for His Son's physical return to establish His kingdom, and for all those who foolishly and arrogantly rejected God's offer of grace and mercy when it was freely available, it will be hell on earth. Although there will be people who seek God during the Tribulation and ultimately enter the kingdom, for most it will be a little foretaste of what awaits them in eternity.

And that's a destiny I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

Don't let it be yours.

Greg Lauer — AUG '16

Top of the page

If you like this article, share it with someone!

 AUG '16 

Site Search

Powered by:
JavaScript Kit