4 After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”
The significance of the vision of the Throne, towering over the affairs of men, is that it underlines the message of the sovereignty of God, and is therefore a repetition, an elaboration and a variation of the message of chapter 1 which showed us the living Lord, to Whom all power is given, in the midst of the candlesticks. It speaks to precisely the same circumstances and the same people, the Church, encouraging it to keep on trusting, because God is on the Throne and no tribulation can finally harm them. It is another 'Fear not' like that in 1:17. In deed, chapter 4 may be said to be an exposition of that wonderful verse.
The question whether the Church is to pass through the tribulation or not must be an swered, it seems to us in the affirmative, for the following reasons. If we compare 1 Thessalo nians 4:16 and 1 Corinthians 15:52 and Revelation 11:15 with Matthew 24:30-1, it should become clear that, if any consistency in interpretation is to be maintained, the same event is referred to in each case, namely, the return of Christ, associated with the Last Trump. But in Matthew 24:27-29 it is clearly indicated that this takes place after the tribulation of those days - that is, having passed through it, the Church will then be called home to be with Christ forever. This seems to be a decisive answer to the question. In addition, however, we may say this: Having examined every reference in the New Testament to the word or thought of tribu lation (sometimes the word is translated 'affliction', 'anguish', 'persecution', 'trouble') we conclude that there is no real scriptural evidence for supposing that there will be any specific 'great tribulation' at the end-time involving the Jews only. All that can legitimately be ad duced from the evidence is that tribulation is the hallmark of Christian experience, that it will be the lot of Christians all through the Church age, and that it will intensify greatly at the end time prior to the Second Coming of Christ, when Satan will know that his time is short.