Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 109:435 (Jul 1952)
Article: Salvation in the Tribulation Part 1
Author: Donald W. Kopecky

BSac 109:435 (Jul 52) p. 266

Salvation in the Tribulation
Part 1

Donald W. Kopecky

The purpose of this study is to present the Scripture teaching on the subject of salvation, as God works in the tribulation period mentioned in Jeremiah 30:7; Daniel 12:1; Matthew 24:21; Mark 13:24; Revelation 3:10; 7:14, and in many other portions of the Bible.

Importance of the Problem

The reason for choosing this subject was that there did not seem to be any separate, published work on it, and yet there are many passages concerning the subject which may be correlated. It is important because a proper understanding of it will help one to know the relationship of both Jew and Gentile to God during the tribulation period. Whatever reference has been made to the subject has been only in an incidental way in studies on the tribulation or in the commentaries on the individual passages. The work of systematizing the truth on the subject seemed needful.

The purpose of the first pages is to give the background of the study by showing the essential nature of the tribulation period. The second part will present the fact of salvation in the tribulation, both as predicted in the Old Testament and as clearly stated in the New Testament. The final part is intended to clarify the truth concerning the means by which salvation in the tribulation is proclaimed and obtained.

The Nature of the Tribulation

An incomparable period of trouble on the earth. The great tribulation described in many passages of both Old Testament and New Testament, but more extensively in Matthew 24 and 25 and in Revelation 6 through 19, is a period of calamity and distress upon the earth which has never been equalled in history. It is not only a period in which God allows the natural consequences of sin to manifest themselves fully, but it is also a time when the judgments of God upon sin and its consequences are poured out

BSac 109:435 (Jul 52) p. 267

in unrelenting fury. Testimony to the incomparability of this time of trouble is found in at least three passages—Jeremiah 30:7; Daniel 12:1; and Matthew 24:21. The Greek word for “tribulation” in the last re...