What is "premillennialism"

n. A concept in Christian eschatology that the second coming will happen before the millennium.

Premillennialism, in Christian eschatology, is the belief that Jesus will physically return to the earth to gather His saints before the Millennium, a literal thousand-year golden age of peace. This return is referred to as the Second Coming. The doctrine is called "premillennialism" because it holds that Jesus' physical return to earth will occur prior to the inauguration of the Millennium. It is distinct from the other forms of Christian eschatology such as postmillennialism or amillennialism, which view the millennial rule as occurring either before the second coming, or as being figurative and non-temporal. For the last century, the belief has been common in Evangelicalism according to surveys on this topic.

Premillennialism is based upon a literal interpretation of in the New Testament, which describes Jesus' reign in a period of a thousand years. It views this future age as a time of fulfillment for the prophetic hope of God's people as given in the Old Testament. Others, such as many (but not all) in the Eastern Orthodox communion, claim that this passage of Revelation describes the present time, when Christ reigns in Heaven with the departed saints; such an interpretation views the symbolism of Revelation as referring to a spiritual battle rather than a physical battle on earth.

The proponents of Amillennialism interpret the millennium as being a symbolic period of time, which is consistent with the highly symbolic nature of the literary and apocalyptic genre of the book of Revelation, sometimes indicating that the thousand years represent God's rule over his creation or the Church. Premillennialism is often used to refer specifically to those who adhere to the beliefs in an earthly millennial reign of Christ as well as a rapture of the faithful coming before (dispensational) or after (historic) the tribulation preceding the millennium. Post-millennialism, for example, agrees with premillennialism about the future earthly reign of Christ, but disagrees on the concept of a rapture and tribulation before the millennium begins. Postmillennialists hold to the view that the second coming will happen after the millennium.