What are the different views regarding the order of events for end-times prophecy?

score:5

Accepted answer

I've found a few sources for answering this question. The one I'm choosing to use as a reference is this one from Clay Watts, as it includes some views that are largely ignored in the other sources I've found.

  1. The Figurative/Idealist view: The order of events is a non-issue because the end-times prophecies are to be taken figuratively, not literally.
  2. The Literal/Preterist view: Most of Revelation was fulfilled in the first century, and that many prophetic details relate to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.
  3. The Literal/Historicist view: End times prophecy has been in the process of being fulfilled since the time of Christ
  4. The Literal/Pre-millennial views, all hold that the end times events are still in the future. The include:

    • Pre-tribulation/Dispensationalism: Dispensationalism holds that God deals with man differently in successive covenantal eras. Once the church dispensation ends with the rapture, Daniel's seventieth week will continue with Israel as a major participant in the tribulation period, culminating in the second coming of Christ and his millennial reign with the saints
    • Mid-tribulation: The tribulation is actually the three and one-half year Great Tribulation, and that it commences with the revealing of the Antichrist midway through the seven year peace treaty he has made with Israel. At that point the church is raptured in order to escape the Great Tribulation, which is taken to be God's wrath.
    • Pre-wrath: The church will experience some of the Great Tribulation period after the mid-point of Daniel's seventieth week, when antichrist is revealed. This would include the natural and man-caused disasters, or wrath, but then the church will be taken out just prior to the wrath of God aimed at the unrepentant. In this view God's wrath includes only the trumpet and bowl judgments, which occur after the sixth seal.
    • Post-tribulation: The post-tribulation view sees a single second coming of Christ. It says that the church will be kept by God's grace through all of Daniel's seventieth week, and the saints will be given their glorified bodies in order to meet Christ as he comes to earth to defeat the antichrist at Armageddon and establish his millennial reign in Jerusalem

The article linked to at the beginning of this answer offers the arguments for each of the views.

The article does miss Postmillennialism, which teaches that the second coming will come after the 1000 year reign.

More post

Search Posts

Related post