When we think of eschatology in the New Testament, our attention quickly goes to the Book of Revelation. As the lesson teaches, eschatology is on every page of the New Testament. However, this unusual book is obviously key to our understanding of New Testament eschatology.
Third Millennium Ministries has a complete course on Revelation. This mini-lesson is meant to just give a brief summary of different interpretations, as additional helpful information for this course.
Just as there were different views of the coming of the kingdom among the Jews of the first century, there are different views regarding the return of Christ among Christians today. How to interpret the Book of Revelation is probably the most important aspect of this debate. There are basically four different schools of interpetation:
1) Historicism2) Futurism3) Preterism4) Idealism
These four views differ according to how they believe the prophecies are fulfilled.
Historicists believe that the visions in the Book of Revelation symbolize a series of events that were to occur between the first century and the final eternal stage of the kingdom. They also believe that Revelation gives us the chronological order of these events. They tend to believe in a literal millennium, in which Christ will return to reign on earth for 1,000 years, before the final judgment and the establishment of the eternal state. They usually identify details of the visions with current events, people, and nations, but there is a wide variety of interpretation regarding such fulfillments.
