There’s an old saying that says that Christians should always get their theology from the Bible and not from Christian hymns. In our day and age, we need to add that it is likewise a bad idea to get your theology from Christian novels and films. I say this because most fictional works about the Tribulation portray Paul’s gospel as the salvation message that will go forth in that day, and his gospel of salvation by grace through faith apart from water baptism is not the message that God will want preached in the Tribulation.
If you are wondering how I can be so sure of this, it is because Peter reminded his readers that “baptism doth also now save us” (1 Pet. 3:21), and he was writing to Jews who would have entered the Tribulation had the dispensation of the mystery not interrupted God’s prophetic program for Israel. This is the reason grace believers often refer to Peter’s epistles as Tribulation epistles, along with the rest of the epistles from Hebrews through Jude. We believe and teach that Tribulation Jews will look to these epistles for information that is specific to them, the way members of the Body of Christ look to Paul’s epistles for information that is specific to us in the present dispensation of grace.
An Outline for the Ages
We see this reflected in the positioning that God has chosen to give the Hebrew epistles in the Bible. You see, the books of our New Testament do not appear in chronological order. That is, Matthew was not written first, then Mark, and so on.
These books, rather, appear in a logical order that reflects the flow of the ages. If this line of thinking is new to you, consider the following.
The Four Gospels come first in the New Testament because they chronicle our Lord’s announcement to the people of Israel that their kingdom was “at hand” (Matt. 4:17). The Book of Acts comes after the four gospels because it records Peter’s offer of that kingdom to the nation (Acts 3:19,20), and her rejection of that offer with the stoning of Stephen.
Acts then goes on to document the raising up of Paul, whom God used to introduce the mystery of the Body of Christ and the dispensation of grace. This is why the Book of Acts is followed in the Bible by Paul’s epistles. The Pauline epistles provide the specific information that members of Christ’s Body need to function in the dispensation of grace, so God made sure they appear in our Bibles right after the introduction of the age of grace in the Book of Acts.
But the Hebrew epistles come after Paul’s epistles because they are written to the people who will come after us, the Jews in the Tribulation period. We know that the Epistle of Hebrews was written to Hebrews, of course, and James says that he too was writing to Jews (James 1:1).1 And we know that these Hebrew epistles were written to Jews with the Tribulation in mind because of the kinds of works that James says are required for salvation.
Tribulation Salvation
James told his readers that faith alone couldn’t “save” them (James 2:14), they had to demonstrate their faith by feeding the hungry and clothing the naked to be saved (James 2:14-17). That’s because when the beast issues his mark in the Tribulation, and people are unable to buy food or clothing without it (Rev. 13:17), many of God’s people will be hungry and naked. I believe God knew that when that day comes, people will be hesitant to share their provisions, so He made it part of the very plan of salvation that they must share their provisions to be saved.
This is how the Jews to whom James wrote demonstrated their faith back in his day (Acts 2:44,45; 4:32-37),2 and it is what Jews will have to do again to be saved in the Tribulation.
Gentiles who want to be saved in that day will also have to bless God’s people in Israel with food and clothing (cf. Gen. 12:3), for the Lord made it clear that the determination of their eternal destiny will be based on whether or not they fed and clothed His brethren in Israel (Matt. 25:31-46).
So, it is clear that the Hebrew epistles were written with the Tribulation in mind. It is true, of course, that these epistles were primarily written to Jews who were alive at the time that those epistles were penned. But remember, those Jews would have entered the Tribulation had God not interrupted His prophetic program with the dispensation of the mystery. And so when Peter reminded his readers that “baptism doth also now save us,” it is clear that the Jews to whom he wrote those words were saved by the work of water baptism (cf. Mark 1:4; 16:16; Acts 2:38), and it is just as clear that baptism will again be required for salvation when God’s prophetic clock resumes ticking after the Rapture.
Preparations for the Priesthood
Once the Tribulation begins, God will again begin to prepare the people of Israel to be the “kingdom of priests” that He means for them to be in the kingdom of heaven on earth that will follow (Ex. 19:6). This is why Peter told his readers, “ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood” (1 Pet. 2:9). The Jews to whom he wrote were destined to be “kings and priests” (Rev. 1:6; 5:10) in the kingdom, and priests had to be baptized (Ex. 29:1-4). But when the people of Israel rejected their kingdom by rejecting their King and His prophet Stephen, God put the kingdom program “on hold,” so to speak, and ushered in the dispensation of the mystery.
But once the last trump sounds and the Rapture brings a close to the present divine interregnum, God will raise up a new generation of Jewish believers to be kings and priests in the kingdom. When that happens, they too will need to be baptized with water to initiate them into the priesthood in accordance with Exodus 29:1-4. And since God likes His priests to be saved, water baptism will also be required for salvation, just as it was in time past (Ezek. 36:25,26).
Grace believers are sometimes puzzled as to why God will revert to insisting on water baptism as a condition that must be met to be saved in the Tribulation. After all, as we have seen in our answers to previous questions, the cleansing of water baptism was just a symbol of the cleansing of men’s souls by the blood of Christ (cf. Rev. 1:5). And as we have also seen, now that members of the Body of Christ already have the cleansing that His blood affords us, we stand in no further need of the symbol of that cleansing in water baptism. So why will God again require the symbol of that cleansing in the Tribulation? Why will He demand the “shadow” of something of which we now have the substance (Col. 2:12-17) when the Tribulation begins to unfold?
Symbolism with Substance
The answer is that in our program the substance of Christ replaces the symbols of Him that were found in Israel’s religion, but in Israel’s program God always required the symbol with the substance.
For instance, believers in time past were saved by the blood that Christ shed “for the remission of sins that are past” (Rom. 3:25), but they still had to offer the symbol of that blood by sacrificing animals. Similarly, God required all male Hebrews to be circumcised to be saved, but this was only an outward symbol of the spiritual circumcision that God also required of them to be saved (Jer. 4:4). In other words, they had to have the substance of heart circumcision along with the symbol of physical circumcision. In the same way, Tribulation Jews will have the substance of the cleansing of the blood of Christ (1 John 1:7), but they will be required to be washed with the symbol of that cleansing in water baptism to be saved (1 Pet. 3:21), just as in time past.
Tribulation believers will, however, finally understand how water baptism saves. A fuller quotation of the verse we referenced earlier from Peter’s epistle reads,
“…baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 3:21).
In the Tribulation, they will understand that ultimately they are saved “by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” just as His resurrection saves us (Rom. 4:25). Water baptism will just be “the answer of a good conscience toward God,” just as it was when Peter wrote those words to his Jewish readers.3 That is, if God says you have to be baptized to be saved, a good conscience answers by being baptized!
But the water of water baptism cannot wash away the filth of the sins committed by the flesh of men, as Peter is careful to explain. Baptism’s power to save will lie in what happens when God takes those who believe and are washed with water and washes them in the blood of Christ in response to their faith (Rev. 1:5).
The Obedience of Faith
This is always how water baptism saved. It is what the Bible calls being “obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7). The “faith” that the priests in Acts 6:7 were obedient to was the faith that Peter had preached a few chapters earlier at Pentecost, that of “repent, and be baptized… for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38). So when Acts 6:7 tells us that these priests were obedient to the faith, that means they repented and were baptized.
Whatever God says to do to be saved, in any dispensation, men must always respond by obeying His instruction by faith. In time past, the obedience of faith always involved works like bringing an animal sacrifice to be accepted by God (Gen. 4:7). When the New Testament dawned, water baptism was added to what was required for the obedience of faith. That’s because men were still under the law, “shut up unto the faith that should afterwards be revealed” to Paul (Gal. 3:23), the faith of salvation without works like water baptism.
Even at Pentecost, Peter called upon the “men of Judaea” and the “men of Israel” and “all the house of Israel” (Acts 2:14,22,36) to repent and be baptized for the remission of sins (v. 38). In other words, he called upon the one nation of Israel to be obedient to the faith. But in speaking of the obedience of faith in the present dispensation of grace, the Apostle Paul wrote,
“…we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for His name” (Rom. 1:5).
Had the people of Israel been obedient to the faith as a nation, the kingdom gospel could have gone out to all nations for the obedience of faith. Someday it will, as Tribulation Jews carry the kingdom gospel to “all the world” (Matt. 24:14), giving all nations the opportunity to be obedient to the faith of “Repent, and be baptized…for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38). But during the present dispensation of grace, Paul was given “grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations.” And his gospel of salvation by grace through faith without water baptism (1 Cor. 1:17) is the gospel that is required to be believed for the obedience of faith today.
So today, the answer of a good conscience responds to God by choosing not to be baptized to be saved. But after the Rapture brings an end to Paul’s apostleship among the Gentiles, water baptism will again be required for the obedience of faith in the Tribulation.
The Assurance of Obedience
In submitting to water baptism, Tribulation believers will be able to have the same assurance of salvation that we have when we trust Christ without water baptism. We see this expressed in yet another Tribulation epistle, where the writer says to his Hebrew readers:
“Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb. 10:22).
When a believer submitted to water baptism under God’s program for Israel, he could have “full assurance” that God would sprinkle his heart from an evil conscience in response to the faith he expressed in having his body washed with the pure water of baptism. This was the case in time past, as we see in Hebrews 10:22, and it will be the case again in the Tribulation, when the kingdom program resumes after the Rapture.
It has always been God’s desire in every dispensation that His people be able to rest in the assurance of sins forgiven, and He has always made this possible through the obedience of faith. Today, we can have “all riches of the full assurance of understanding” (Col. 2:2) by understanding that salvation in this dispensation is by grace through faith without works (Rom. 4:5; Eph. 2:8,9; Titus 3:5). In time past, however, performing works like water baptism and feeding and clothing God’s people brought this assurance (Heb. 10:22; 1 John 3:17-19). And so it will be again in the Tribulation.
Having said that, there have probably always been believers who struggled with their assurance even after performing the work that God required for salvation, just as there are believers today who struggle with their assurance at a time when salvation is by faith without works. But this doesn’t change the fact that God has always made it possible for believers in every dispensation to enjoy the assurance of eternal security that He longs for them to have.
If you are not sure of your eternal destiny, I would encourage you to immerse yourself in a study of the Scriptures. Since “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom. 10:17), the “full assurance of faith” (Heb. 10:22) in any dispensation can only come by hearing more of the Word of God, and allowing it to sink down into your soul.
1. Here it helps to remember that James, Peter, and John, the authors of most of the books that follow Paul’s epistles, gave Paul their word that they would confine their ministry to the circumcision (Gal. 2:9). They would have had to break their word to write epistles to Gentiles.
2. Ananias and Sapphira demonstrated their lack of saving faith when they refused to obey the Lord’s command to “sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor” (Luke 18:22) “to inherit eternal life” (v. 18).
3. We know that Peter wrote to Jews, for it would have made no sense for him to tell his readers to have their “conversation honest among the Gentiles,” if he were writing to Gentiles (1 Pet. 2:12).
