1. What Is the Unusual Characteristics of This Specific Prophecy? The prophets did not clearly perceive the two phases of Christ’s Second Coming - they did not understand there is to be seen a time gap between the coming of Christ for the church saints and His coming to set up the millennial kingdom. Revelation 20:8 makes it clear that there will be mortals and sinners who will be subjects of Christ’s reign on earth. Because the saints will be in glorified bodies and sinners will be consumed in judgment at Christ’s Second Coming (Matt. 13:30, 40-42; 2 Thess. 2:8-12; Rev. 19:15), the period of the Tribulation will be necessary for a group of mortals to be born and/or born again to enter the millennium in their mortal bodies to propagate children during the millennium. This is an example of the foreshortening of the prophets horizons, as the complete canonical revelation of Scripture has revealed, not the fulfillment of events in history. 72
2. Is There, or Will There Be Complete or Partial Fulfillment? This writer believes, based on a literal hermeneutical interpretation of Scripture on the doctrine of the Rapture, that there will be a complete fulfillment of this prophecy.
3. What Is the Time Element of the Prophecy, (i.e., its point of future fulfillment)? No signs will be given to the church. They are told to live in the light of the imminent coming of the Lord to translate them in His presence (John 14:2-3, Acts 1:11, 1 Cor. 15:51-52, Phil. 3:20, Col. 3:4, 1 Thes. 1:10, 1 Tim. 67:14, Jas. 5:8, 1 Pet. 3:3-4). The believer is warned to be watching for the Lord himself, not for signs that would precede His coming (1 Thess. 5:6, Titus 2:13, Rev. 3:3). Pentecost well observes, “It is true that the events of the seventieth week will cast an adumbration [foreshadowing] before the Rapture, but the object of the believer’s attention is always directed to Christ, never to these portents.” 73 Paul admonishes the Thessalonians to “ . . . serve a living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven . . .” (1 Thess. 1:9-10). Serving and waiting, implying looking, then becomes how we are to live in light of His “at any moment coming”.
