For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night.
Some posttribulationists say the day of the Lord here refers only to the second coming of Christ. [Note: Ladd, pp. 92-94.] However in the context this day will be a time when God will pour out His wrath on unbelievers (1 Thessalonians 5:3-9). While this could refer to the judgments that will take place at Christ’s second coming, it seems more likely to refer to the judgments of the Tribulation (cf. Matthew 24:5-28; Revelation 6:16-17). [Note: Reese, pp. 172-73.] Gundry contended that the day of the Lord begins after the Tribulation but before Armageddon. [Note: Gundry, p. 95.] However this means that none of the judgments before Armageddon are judgments of the day of the Lord, a conclusion that few interpreters, posttribulational as well as pretribulational, have accepted. [Note: See Paul D. Feinberg, "Dispensational Theology and the Rapture," in Issues in Dispensationalism, pp. 225-45, for a critique of Gundry’s view, the views of posttribulationists Douglas J. Moo and William E. Bell, and the view of midtribulationist Gleason F. Archer.] 