Sermon Cloud

Definitions

Premillennal: Christ’s return to earth with His saints will occur before His 1000 year reign on the earth.  The period before the millennium will be a terrible time period.  Christ will reign in Jerusalem exactly 1000 years.  After this there will be a falling away, a resurrection of the wicked, the final judgment and then destruction of the earth by fire.  There will then be new heavens and a new earth.

Amillennial: No millennium.  Christ is reigning now over His church and will reign until He returns for a general resurrection of all people.  All the promises of blessing are for heaven, and not for the earth.  After things get worse and worse, Christ will return.  There will be a general resurrection of the righteous and then the wicked.  All men will be judged.  We are in a realized millennium right now.

Postmillennial: Christ’s return to earth will occur after He reigns through His saints for a 1000 years, or a very long time.  The millennium will be brought in by the Holy Spirit through another reformation and a period of revivals that will sweep the globe.  After the fullness of the Gentiles come, the majority of the Jews will be saved and added to the Church (Rom. 11).  This will commence a long period of prosperity with Christians in the majority and in ruling positions.  A falling away will occur at the end of this period and the Lord Jesus will return to earth.  A general resurrection (saved & lost) and judgment will occur.

Dispensationalism: (Classic) A system that divides time up into at least 7 distinct and separate periods.  Many in this system divide Scripture up by these 7 periods.  Most see a large wall between Israel and the church that cannot be crossed. In their view, the central theme of the Bible is history. The origin of this system is from the 1830s by the Plymouth Brethren and especially John N. Darby. This view was popularized by C. I. Scofield. Now there is a group that have made modifications to the system called Traditional Dispensationalists following Charles Ryrie and a new group that has made major theological changes in their system called Progressive Dispensationalists.

Covenant Theology: A system that views redemption as the central theme of Scripture and finds Christ in every Bible book. God relates to man through covenants. The Bible reveals many covenants beginning with Adam and ending with Christ. There are two major covenant administrations, Moses’ and the Lord Jesus Christ’s. The New Covenant administration replaced the Old Covenant administration. The promise underlying every Covenant of grace is: “I will be your God and you will be My people” or a personal relationship with God.  There is a strong connection between the Old Covenant Israel and the New Covenant Church, even though they are not identical. {Covenant representatives: Adam, Noah, Abraham, (Isaac, Jacob), Moses, (Levi, Phinehas), David, (Solomon), Remnant from Persia, Jesus}
   
The Book of Revelation’s Application Views

1.  The Preterist view: All the events in the book of Revelation refer to events that occurred in the first century before and during the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D.  John was ministering to the church of his day during a time of terrible persecution.  The book does not deal with any future events.  (David Brown, J. Marcellus Kick, John J. Davis, David Chilton, Gary Demar, A.D. Stevens, Ian Murray, Kenneth Gentry)

2.  The Historicist view: The book of Revelation is an inspired description of the rest of human history after the cross.  It tells the story of the church by symbols, right up until the end.  (Henry Alford, Thomas Foster)

3.  The Futurist view: Accept for the first few chapters of Revelation, the book is concerned with what will happen at the end of the age.  It had very little to say to the church prior to our generation.  It is all about the future and the end. (John Walvoord, Dwight Pentecost)

4.  The Idealist view: The book of Revelation is not concerned with historical events, but with ideas and principles conveyed by symbols,  poetry, and pictures given to John. It is relevant to each and every generation since the cross of Christ. (William Hendriksen, Leon Morris, Sam Hamstra, William Cox)
 
5.  The Preterist-Futurist view: (Also called the Partial Preterist view and modified Futurist view) The book of Revelation was written to comfort the persecuted church in John’s day.  Many of the events in the book occurred for the first time around 70 A.D.  However, since the destruction of Jerusalem is a type of the destruction at the end of the age (Matthew 24), some of these symbolic events in the text will have several fulfillments, yet some of the biblical phrases are specifically talking about the end of the age and not the first century. Careful study is required to determine which period is specified, and some issues will not be settled until we get to heaven.  (George E. Ladd, Donald Guthrie, G.R. Beasley-Murray, Isbon Beckwith, F.F. Bruce, Leon Morris, Robert Mounce, R. C. Sproul)

     Tribulational Theories

Pre-tribulational Theory: This theory was not known to be held by anyone prior to 1830.  There is a debate over  its origins.  Some claim it came to John Nelson Darby by Margaret McDonald (who had a two-part vision of this) or others say he sat down with his Bible and discovered something everyone before him had missed (Dave McPherson’s book, The Incredible Cover-up, has documentation of a prophecy conference in 1830 that Margaret McDonald, Edward Irving, and John N. Darby attended together just before his discovery). This view teaches that God would never allow His church to suffer any tribulation, so they will be raptured out just before things get bad on earth. This view is the most popular view in the U.S.A. However, the majority of Christians in countries with persecution have rejected this theory.

Pre-wrath, Mid-tribulational theory: The Mid-trib view has been held since the late 1800's and is a modification of the Pre-trib view. It has held limited popularity. It expected Christ to return at 3 ½ years into the Tribulation, right after the wrath of Satan was finished and right before the wrath of God began. In the 1980s Marvin Rosenthal and others (Kevin Howard, Robert Van Kampen) have convinced a number of people to reconsider the Pre-trib view.  Some in this camp do not accept the 3 ½ years as being exact as it was held in the old Mid-trib position.  But they all seem to believe that the Church will remain until the wrath of God comes on the earth, which will be during the 7 year literal tribulation period (about ½ way).

Post - Tribulational theory: This is the view of the Historic Premillennial view listed above. This view was held by some strange groups in Church History and by church fathers as early as about 200 A.D. They were a small minority until the late 1800's. This view is that the Church will go through the entire tribulation and there will be only two resurrections and one return of Christ instead of the three resurrections and two returns of Christ of the pre-tribulational view.  There are many conservative Bible scholars (world wide) that now hold this view.