I frequently hear post-trib believers say that 1 Thes. 5:9 doesn’t promise believers escape from the end times judgments but from eternal punishment in Hell. Can this be true?
1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 says:
For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him.
In order to support this position post-trib believers have to ignore the context of 1 Thes. 5:1-9 which is the end times judgments Paul called the Day of the Lord. From 1 Thes. 5:1 it appears that the Thessalonian believers had asked Paul if he knew the timing of these judgments. He wouldn’t have answered the way he did if they’d asked him about the eternal punishment of unbelievers, which will officially begin at the end of the Millennium, 1,000 years after the 2nd Coming.