End Times Study – Eschatological Definitions
HICJ holds to Historic Premillennialism (Post-Tribulational Premillennialism) (This was the early church fathers belief, such as Irenaeus, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, and Papias, and it was the early church belief).
Eschatological Definitions:
Christians hold to these different views and differ from each other on the subject of Eschatology (Theological Study of the End Times)
Tribulation Period – (last 7 year period of the World as we know it and the reign of the Antichrist (The First Beast, Revelation 13) and the False Prophet (The Second Beast, Revelation 13), Consisting of 3.5 years of false peace then followed by 3.5 years of tribulation (Referred to as the Great Tribulation)). In this period Christians will be persecuted. This 7 Year period is thought to be the 70th Week (7 Years) as prophesied in the Book of Daniel (Daniel 7:25, 9:24-27, 12:11) and Mentioned in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 11:2-3, 12:6-14, 13:5)
Pre-tribulation – Christians will be raptured before the 7 year tribulation period. This view is typically seen in Dispensationalism.
Mid-tribulation – Christians will be raptured in the middle of the 7 year tribulation period to gather His Children, Before the last 3.5 years of the Great tribulation. This view is typically seen in Dispensationalism.
Post-tribulation – Christ will come again for the 2nd time after the tribulation period to gather His Children and Punish the Wicked. (This was the early church fathers belief, such as Ireneaus, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, and Papias, and it was the early church belief). This is not commonly known as a Rapture but rather as referred to as The 2nd Coming of Jesus Christ, The Day of the Lord or The End of the Age. This view is typically seen in Historic Premillennialism.
Millennium – the 1000 year reign of Christians with Christ after the 7 year tribulation.
The Millennium Thousand Years as referred to in the Bible:
Revelation 20:1-6 – 1 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven with the key to the bottomless pit[a] and a heavy chain in his hand. 2 He seized the dragon—that old serpent, who is the devil, Satan—and bound him in chains for a thousand years. 3 The angel threw him into the bottomless pit, which he then shut and locked so Satan could not deceive the nations anymore until the thousand years were finished. Afterward he must be released for a little while. 4 Then I saw thrones, and the people sitting on them had been given the authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony about Jesus and for proclaiming the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his statue, nor accepted his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They all came to life again, and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years. 5 This is the first resurrection. (The rest of the dead did not come back to life until the thousand years had ended.) 6 Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. For them the second death holds no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him a thousand years.
Premillennialism – Christ will come again for the 2nd time before the 1000 year Millennium period and reign on earth with Christians . (This was the early church fathers belief, such as Ireneaus, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, and Papias, and it was the early church belief). This view is typically seen in Historic Premillennialism.
Postmillennialism – Christ will come again for the 2nd time after the 1000 year Millennium period. This view is typically seen in Dispensationalism, NAR (New Apostolic Reformation Movement), The kingdom dominionism, reconstructionism and kingdom now movements who believe the Christian church must take over the world and reign for a 1000 years before Christ will come. This is not what the early church fathers or the early church believed, this is a fairly new interpretation by some churches. This view is typically seen in Dispensationalism.
Amillennialism – Affirms the millennial reign of Christ began after his ascension and will continue until Christ’s return.
Preterism – The view that the book of revelation and it’s prophecies have already happened in the past.
This school of thought interprets the Book of Daniel as referring to events that happened from the 7th century BC until the first century AD, while seeing the prophecies of Revelation as events that happened in the first century AD.
Historic Premillennialism (Post-Tribulational Premillennialism) – is the designation made by premillennialists, now also known as post-tribulational premillennialism. The doctrine is called “historic” because many early church fathers (such as Ireneaus, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, and Papias) appear to have held it.[1] Post-tribulational premillennialism is the Christian eschatological view that the second coming of Jesus Christ will occur prior to a thousand-year reign of the saints but subsequent to the great apostasy (and to any tribulation). Proponents of historic premillennialism include Baptists, Presbyterians, and several Evangelical groups. Individual proponents of historic premillennialism include: John Gill,[2] Robert Shank, Charles Spurgeon,[2][3] Benjamin Wills Newton (a contemporary and fierce theological rival of the father of dispensationalism John Nelson Darby), George Eldon Ladd,[4] Albert Mohler,[5] Clarence Bass, (theologian)|John Piper]],[6] Francis Schaeffer, D. A. Carson,[7][8][9] Gordon Clark,[2] Bryan Chapell,[10] and Carl F. H. Henry.[11]. Historic Premillennialism existed before the start of Dispensationalism.
Dispensationalism – is a religious interpretive system and metanarrative for the Bible. It considers biblical history as divided by God into dispensations, defined periods or ages to which God has allotted distinctive administrative principles. According to dispensationalism, each age of God’s plan is thus administered in a certain way, and humanity is held responsible as a steward during that time. It is difficult to define dispensationalism precisely, especially after the demise of the original Scofield Reference Bible. Generally accepted that Dispensationalism started with J. N. Darby, followed by C. I. Scofield and his Scofield Bible. Dispensationalists usually hold to Mid-tribulation or Pre-tribulation. Classic dispensationalism began with John Nelson Darby. Darby was succeeded by the theologian C. I. Scofield,[8][9] the Bible teacher Harry A. Ironside,[10] Lewis Sperry Chafer, William R. Newell, and Miles J. Stanford, each of whom identified Pentecost (Acts 2) with the start of the Church as distinct from Israel; this may be referred to as the “Acts 2” position. Other Acts 2 Pauline dispensationalists include R. B. Shiflet, Roy A. Huebner, and Carol Berubee. This view was not held by the early church fathers or the early church. Dispensationalism is a fairly new view within the Christian Church approximately only 200 years old.
Some references taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/


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