No 5

(Pre-millennialism explained)

Premillennialism, in a nut shell, means that Jesus Christ will return, with us in His trail, to earth before a period of one thousand years as described in Revelation 19 and 20. During this period, Satan will be bound and unable to seduce the nations but will be released, for a little while, towards the end of the millennium (Rev 20 :1-3). The Saints (that’s us) will reign with Him and be priests of God for the one-thousand-year period. (Rev 20 :6).

This return of Christ must not be confused with the Rapture of the Church (1 Thess 4 :16, 17) where Jesus comes, on the clouds, and takes up His Church with Him. The millennium period begins after the Seventieth week of Daniel (we will look at this, in detail, in our studies on Eschatology). The next event in God’s agenda is the rapture of the Church; this is referred to as the doctrine of imminency (about to occur).

A few words on pre or post-tribulation. This deals with when the Church will be raptured. Pre-tribulation rapturists believe that the Church will not go through the Great Tribulation as described in Rev 7 :14 and will be removed before. Scripture to support this is Rev 3 :10 where Jesus says that He will  “keep us from the hour of testing”. Post-tribulation rapturists believe that the Church will go through the Great Tribulation and that Christ will return at the end of that age.