Rapture?

[theseed]

That would require that you add a great deal of your own theology to the creed to make it fit. In plain language, it simply says that the Lord will come to judge BOTH the living and the dead, not to initiate a 1000 year reign.

Like it or not, all three of those creeds are Amillennial.

And, yes, I do think that many of the OT prophecies spoke of 2 different things.

BTW, hang around my Bible study for a year, and I'll be sure to give you plenty of verses which are difficult for Premills. I'm very persuasive. So far I think there are only a couple whom have not yet converted to some form of Amillennialism.

I have a similar success rate with Calvinism.

Though, not really, I, but the Lord though me.

Yes, it would require me adding to the creed. Howevever, the creed is not Scripture. Also, the part about the living and the dead does not change anything from what I see.

Also, any verse you post will have been explained by some premillenialist somewhere.

 

[Knee V]

I attend a reformed church (PCA). I myself am a partial preterist and an amillenialist (with some postmil tendencies). My pastor is an amill, but is also a futurist. The elder at my church is a partial preterist and a postmil. I haven't met any premils at my church, nor are there any dispensationalists that I know of.

 

[theseed]

but is also a futurist

What is a futurist?

 

[CCWoody]

Yes, it would require me adding to the creed. Howevever, the creed is not Scripture. Also, the part about the living and the dead does not change anything from what I see.

Also, any verse you post will have been explained by some premillenialist somewhere.

Wanna come play here?

 

[Zorobabel]

I've never met a reformed person that believes in the dispensational secret rapture.

 

[jazzbird]

What is a futurist?

The futurist view is that the events in Revelation are yet to happen, as opposed to the preterists who believes they are passed events or historicists who believe the events of Revelation are taking place throughout the course of history.

 

[Donny_B]

I think many (Reformers) were postmillennialist.

About postmillennialists and the Reformation, the Second Helvetic Confession, an early Reformed creed, condemned dreams of a golden age before the Second Coming.

We further condemn Jewish dreams that there will be a golden age on earth before the Day of Judgment, and that the pious, having subdued all their godless enemies, will possess all the kingdoms of the earth. For evangelical truth in Matt., chs. 24 and 25, and Luke, ch. 18, and apostolic teaching in II Thess., ch. 2, and II Tim., chs. 3 and 4, present something quite different.
http://www.ccel.org/creeds/helvetic.htm

I haven't studied the amillennial perspective much, but I have begun reading some of the work from amillennialist Professor David Engelsma. He writes:

The damning judgement upon postmillennialism by the Second Helvetic Confession reflected the theology of the early Reformers, Luther and Calvin, as well as Bullinger, author of the creed. More importantly, it is the stand of the confessions that bind Reformed and Presbyterian churches and Christians today.

Like premillennialists, Engelsma believes in a coming apostasy and the blessed hope of the Second Coming of Christ. He writes:

As a confessional, biblical Reformed denomination, the Protestant Reformed Churches are not open to postmillennialism. It is their solemn duty from the soon-coming Christ to expose the hopes of postmillennialism as "Jewish Dreams."

We do urgently warn our own people and all who will hear us that the kingdom of the beast will come. Indeed, it is coming now. Its features are distinct in a lawless society, an apostate church, and a uniting world of nations.

Rather then be deluded by "Jewish Dreams" Reformed Christians and their children must heed sober Christian reality.

Be prepared for the Antichrist!

Hope for the second coming of Christ! Hope only for the second coming of Christ!

http://www.mountainretreatorg.net/reading/article.cgi?id=8

 

[Knight]

I've never met a reformed person that believes in the dispensational secret rapture.

Well, John Macarthur is dispensational and Reformed. I don't know about the secret rapture though......

 

[Knee V]

I attended a PCA in Mount Pleasant, SC for about a year. There was a man there who believed in a pre-trib rapture and was reformed in his soteriology. My mother also believe(d, not sure if she does still) in a rapture. She is also reformed (however, I'm also not entirely sure if she really knows what it is to be reformed based on some conversations I've had with her). Those are the only two examples that I know of. I have never met anyone else who is reformed who holds to the doctrine of a pretrib rapture.

 

[Donny_B]

J. Vernon McGee believed in a pre-trib rapture, and was also reformed in his soteriology. My pastor (PCUSA) believes pre-trib, as does my father and his brother (who are both retired PCUS-PCUSA ministers). They knew of many in their seminaries who also believed in the pre-trib rapture, but this was not the majority.

 

[Donny_B]

Here is an interesting article entitled "The Calvinistic Heritage of Dispensationalism". It was mostly spread by those with a Calvinistic theology in its first 100 years.

It may be surprising, to some, to learn that Dispensationalism was developed and spread during its first 100 years by those within a Reformed, Calvinistic tradition. It had only been in the last 75 to 50 years that Dispensationalism and some of its beliefs were disseminated in any significant way outside of the orbit of Calvinism.

The organizers of the prophetic movement in America were predominantly Calvinists. In 1876 a group led by Nathaniel West, James H. Brookes, William J. Eerdman, and Henry M. Parsons, all Presbyterians, together with Baptist A. J. Gordon, . . . These early gatherings, which became the focal points for the prophetic side of their leaders' activities, were clearly Calvinistic. Presbyterians and Calvinist Baptists predominated, while the number of Methodists was extremely small. . . . Such facts can hardly be accidental.

Proof of Marsden's point above is supplied by Samuel H. Kellogg-himself a Presbyterian and Princeton graduate-with his breakdown of the predominately dispensational Prophecy Conference in New York City in 1878. Kellogg classified the list of those that signed the call for the Conference as follows:




Presbyterians 31
Baptists 22
Congregationalists 10
United Presbyterians 10
Reformed Episcopalians 10
Episcopalians 10
Methodists 6
Adventists 5
Reformed (Dutch) 3
Lutherans 1





Kellogg concluded that "the proportion of Augustinians in the whole to be eighty-eight per cent." "The significance of this is emphasized," continues Kellogg, "by the contrasted fact that the Methodists, although one of the largest denominations of Christians in the country, were represented by only six names." Kellogg estimates that "analyses of similar gatherings since held on both sides of the Atlantic, would yield a similar result."

But in 1944, it saw a turning point, when:

In 1944, Southern Presbyterians issued a report from a committee investigating the compatibility of dispensationalism with the Westminster Confession of Faith. The committee ruled dispensationalism was not in harmony with the Church's Confession. This "report of 1944 was a crippling blow to any future that dispensational premillennialism might have within Southern Presbyterianism." This ruling effectively moved Dallas graduates away from ministry within Reformed denominations toward the independent Bible Church movement.

So, I believe that even today there are a lot more pre-trib believers among Presybterians than you would think. But the politics is such that they can't get far in seminary or in the denomination.

http://www.pre-trib.org/article-view.php?id=22

 

[frumanchu]

What are the Reformed Churches views on the end times?

Amillinial, Pre-millenial, Post-millenial?

If Pre-millenial, do you believe in a Pre, Mid or Post Tribulation Rapture?

The standard Reformed view is amillennial. Most Calvinists I know are partial-preterist, amillennialists...as am I.

I believe in a rapture, though not in the contemporary understanding of the pre-mill pre-trib subculture that's popped up of late. My understanding is that the "rapture" is similar to the practice of the Romans around the time of Christ. When the Roman army would go out to do battle and be victorious, they would come back to the city and camp outside the city. Runners would go on ahead into the city before they arrived and proclaim the victory, at which point the people of the city would hastily erect an arch (think of the Arch de Triumphe in Paris). Then all the people of the city would go outside to meet the army and then proceed to march back into the city with them, symbolically sharing in their victory and triumph.

That is my view of what the "rapture" is...that we will be "caught up in the clouds" with Him to then descend with Him in victorious march.