Offense or defense?
Matthew 16:18 is an interesting verse because most Roman Catholics misunderstand the first half of the verse and many Protestants misunderstand the second half of the verse. This verse tells us, “And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Rather than being hard on others, let’s consider our own misunderstandings. Many of us see the difficulties within the church. We see a world that is hostile to the church. We see evil triumph. As a result, we often misunderstand this verse. We take comfort that while the forces of hell rage against the church, they will not overcome us. This is certainly true, but it’s not what this verse is teaching. Matthew 16:18 says, “I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Gates do not attack. Gates get attacked. The Lord Jesus Christ’s teaching is that the church will attack the very gates of hell, and the gates of hell will not prevail against us. To view this verse as if the church were on the defensive is to miss the point of the verse.
But we can misunderstand this verse further. We might think that we are about to overcome the forces of evil and establish Christ’s kingdom on earth. But this is to misunderstand our battle. Our battle is a spiritual one. Every time the gospel goes forth, every time a precious soul is delivered from death unto life, another successful attack has been made on the gates of hell.
Some suggest that the gospel message will spread over all the earth with all men eventually responding, and, in this way, Matthew 16:18 will be fulfilled. To our fellow brothers and sisters who think like this, our doctrines of pre-tribulationalism, premillennialism, and dispensationalism might seem like doctrines of defeat. After all, if the gates of hell will not prevail against the church, why would we believe in a pretribulational rapture?
By way of making an answer, let’s state that a pretribulational rapture does not represent a failure in God’s great program of the ages. Each dispensation ends in judgment, and this present dispensation of grace will be no exception: the tribulation is the concluding judgment to the dispensation of grace. We are mistaken to think that the world is necessarily going to get worse and worse until the Lord Jesus Christ takes the church to be with Himself. We know that the tribulation will be a time of great trouble, but the times immediately preceding the rapture do not necessarily need to be a time of worldwide difficulty for the church. The rapture is God’s merciful protection from the judgment at the end of this dispensation and does not represent the failure of God’s plans. God’s great dispensational program remains perfectly on track.
So, practically speaking, what does this mean? It means that we do not get excited or lose hope based on worldly conditions. Whether governments establish righteous policies or whether persecution breaks out against the church, is not a cause for hope or disappointment for us. God’s program is still on track. We need not expect the world to get sufficiently bad for the Lord Jesus to return, because His return to the air could happen at any time. Setbacks do not surprise us. At the same time, we look expectantly for revival and for great moves of the Holy Spirit in saving many souls. We expect to see the church fighting and suffering and yet taking the gates of hell, until the dispensation of grace ends in a judgment on unbelievers and the Lord Jesus Christ takes us to be with Himself.