Will Jesus return before or after the tribulation?

Answer 1

A:

Barbara R. Rossing (The Rapture Exposed) says that the 'Tribulation' has its origins in 1830, in Port Glasgow, Scotland, when fifteen-year-old Margaret MacDonald attended a healing service. There, she was said to have seen a vision of a two-stage return of Jesus Christ. The story of her vision was adopted and amplified by John Nelson Darby, a British evangelical preacher and founder of the Plymouth Brethren.

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The belief that Jesus will come again was not new, and Christians have always taught that Jesus will return to earth and that believers should live in anticipation of his second coming. Darby's new teaching was that Christ would return twice. The first return would be in secret, to "Rapture" his church out of the world and up to heaven, before the Tribulation. Christ would return a second time after seven years of global tribulation for non-believers, to establish a Jerusalem-based kingdom on earth.

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One significant change in recednt times is that, whereas Darby opted of a pre-tribulation Rapture, some more recent proponents have opted to delay the Rapture, with Christ's first arrival occurring mid-tribulation or even after the Tribulation. Either way, there will be no Rapture and no Tribulation, which means that Christ does not return before or after the Tribulation.

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While John Nelson Darby has sunk into obscurity, many Christians, few of whom belong to the Plymouth Brethren Church, do believe in his most enduring theological creation, the Rapture.

Answer:

Premillenialists see a tribulation period immediately before the second coming of Christ. Pretribulationalist see the rapture (from the Latin word rapio-meaning caught up; see 1 Thess. 4:17) occurring prior to the tribulation with the church in heaven during the tribulation on earth. Midtribulationists place the rapture at the midpoint of a seven year tribulation period, the church on earth for only the first half of the tribulation. The views see the second coming of Christ in two phases: a secret coming in clouds to rapture the church and His return with the church to reign on earth. Postribulationists hold the church will remain on the earth during the tribulation period. The church will be protected from divine wrath although experiencing tribulation.

Answer 2

Millions of people are waiting for the tribulation and are unaware that it has already happened. The persecution of Christians and Jews by the Holy Roman Catholic Church during the middle ages was the most horrendous Holocaust in earth's history.

When Jesus comes back it will be to judge the world.

Answer 3

A:

Many Christians believe that Jesus will return before the end of time, and some even say his return is imminent. In fact, hundreds of prophecies have told us when he would return, and each one was wrong. In Mark's Gospel, Jesus assured his listeners that he would return on clouds of glory within the lifetimes of some of those listeners. Even earlier than Mark's Gospel, Paul was convinced that he would live to see the end of time, so much so that he said that Christians had little time remaining and if not already married should not do so.

This still had not happened by the time Matthew's Gospel was written in the 80s of the first century, so the wording of Mark's prophecy was changed to mean something different and it is emphasised that no one knows when he will return. Some see the Book of Revelation as contain a promise of those times, but this is for the distant future, so we will not know in our own lifetimes if Jesus will return. Perhaps it is not really important whether or not the promise of Jesus' return is ever kept.