The Kingdom of God, Student Workbook, SW02

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T H E K I N G D O M O F G O D

a. The case for the premillennial view

(1) The postmillennial view seems to go against the plain teaching of Jesus that great ungodliness and apostasy would accompany his Second Coming. (2) The amillennial view struggles, in some places, with taking the prophetic words seriously, relegating all prophetic Scripture to symbolic meanings. (3) To its credit, the premillennial position tends to harmonize a large number of Scriptures, and there appear to be no biblical passages with which this view cannot cope. (4) Perhaps the strongest point is the Bible’s clues as to resurrections of a select group or stage, Luke 14.14; 20.35; 1 Cor. 15.23; 1 Thess. 4.16; Dan. 12.2, and John 5.29.

b. Understanding the bigger picture: the Kingdom will be consummated by Jesus in God’s own time.

(1) Students of Scripture differ in their views here.

(2) More important than any one view is the certainty of our Lord’s return, and the surety that he will consummate the Kingdom, in God’s time.

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B. The disputed tribulation question asks if Jesus Christ will remove his people from the world before the great tribulation (called pretribulationism), or if Jesus will return after the tribulation (posttribulationism), or if perhaps he will return in the middle of the great tribulation period (midtribulationism).

1. Pretribulationists maintain that there will be two phases of Christ’s coming.