Explain your version of the " end times"

[HeiressofPromise]

I am curious as to what some believe the end times, rapture, heaven, hell the millennium entails. I believe in all this and have been attempting to study it. However, I can't piece together the succession of the events. How long will we reign in Heaven with God? Do we go to Heaven prior to the millennial time or after? Where does eternity come into play. Is eternity in Heaven or in the New City/New Jeruselum? What do you know about the second resurrection?:o

 

[Tim Myers]

A flash of bright light, a big boom, and silence.......

 

[HeiressofPromise]

Oooops my bad! I just found the eschatology section?

 

[CryptoLutheran]

"I believe ... in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord ... who ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father Almighty, from whence He comes to judge the living and the dead. I believe ... in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen." - from the Apostles' Creed

That would be what I believe in a nutshell, eschatologically speaking. A more expansive explanation would be:

I believe that at a time no one but God knows the Lord Jesus will return, which we call the Second Coming, the Second Advent, or Parousia. At His coming the dead will rise, and the Lord will judge all, the Final Judgment. God will make all things new, a new heavens and a new earth, a glorified and restored creation, and ever shall we be with God who has made all things right.

Whether or not there will be a future Antichrist, I don't know. Though there very well may be one; but who he is or what he will do or how long he'll be in charge (and in charge of what exactly) is, I think, a matter of pure speculation. I don't believe in what is often called "the rapture", I confess that the dead will rise and we will greet the Lord when He comes, but we aren't being zapped up into heaven--instead we are greeting and meeting the coming and returning Lord who has come to judge the living and the dead and whose kingdom will have no end. I interpret the Millennium to be figurative in nature, rather than literal. I regard the Tribulation to be the ongoing tribulation which the Church has faced for two thousand years, especially in the pre-Constantinian Roman period. I also believe that, as per St. Peter's words in Acts 2 we've been living in the Last Days for two thousand years.

Suffice to say that I don't tend to concern myself too much with too many details. Christ is coming, the dead will rise, there will be a Final Judgment, God will set all things right and heaven and earth will be glorified and made new.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I don't know the answers to those questions.

 

[HeiressofPromise]

As I try to put the events together and study various sources. I keep getting mixed opinions on the "caught up" (rapture) and who will be raptured at what time. I have read that when the dead are resurrected, those who are alive and remain will be caught up in the air. (I Thess 4:17). I understand about the seven year tribulation period. But what happens after this is rather mysterious. Those who believed during the tribulation will still be saved. But will they be saved for Heaven or the Millenium period. The Millennium period meaning the new Heaven and or New Earth. Where we will actually reign with Jesus Christ.

Thanks to all who reply or replied.

 

[CryptoLutheran]

As I try to put the events together and study various sources. I keep getting mixed opinions on the "caught up" (rapture) and who will be raptured at what time. I have read that when the dead are resurrected, those who are alive and remain will be caught up in the air. (I Thess 4:17). I understand about the seven year tribulation period. But what happens after this is rather mysterious. Those who believed during the tribulation will still be saved. But will they be saved for Heaven or the Millenium period. The Millennium period meaning the new Heaven and or New Earth. Where we will actually reign with Jesus Christ.

Thanks to all who reply or replied.

The idea of an eternal, non-material existence is foreign from Christian thought. Resurrection means material existence, the making new of heaven and earth means a restoration of the material world; the portrait of the New Jerusalem descending onto earth offers a portrait not of us "going up" to dwell with God, but the union of the heavenly with the earthly, God's eternal reign fulfilled and final here in the material, created world restored by God and made perfect. The Christian portrait of the final state is a vision of creation fully and finally perfected, glorified, reconciled and restored.

All ideas of some eternal existence apart from the material is foreign to Christian teaching; it has no basis in Scripture nor the ancient Creeds. Consider, for a moment, that all the ancient Creeds of the Church mention resurrection and eternal life together--but no mention of "going to heaven" so to speak; consider also that Scripture consistently mentions resurrection, and God's ultimate victory here. That's the consistent emphasis of the Christian faith: God's victory in creation and for creation through Jesus Christ.

-CryptoLutheran