96 The Fundamentals However, “imminent” does not mean “im m e d i a t e Con fusion of these ideas has led some writers to assert that “Paul and the early Christians were mistaken in their views as to the Lord’s return.” But, when Paul used such a phrase as “we that are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord,” he meant simply to identify himself with his fellow Christians, and to suggest that, if he lived until Christ came, their blessed experience would also be his. He could not have said, "ye that are alive and remain;” that would have indicated tha t ' Paul was to die first. This he did not then know. He be lieved that the Lord might return in his life time; he never asserted that He would. “Imminence” as related to our Lord’s return indicates uncertainty as to time, but possibility of nearness. “Take ye heed, watch, for ye know not when the time is” (Mark 13:33). Such statements rebuke those who have brought the doctrine into disrepute by announcing dates for “the end of the world,” and by setting times for the coming of Christ. So, too, they suggest caution to those who assert that the age is now draw ing to its close; it may be, but of this there is no certainty. These Scriptural exhortations to watch seem to contradict, also, those who teach that a “Millennium,” a thousand years or a protracted period of righteousness, must intervene between the present time and the advent of Christ. Those who hold this last view are commonly called “Post- Millennialists” to distinguish them from “Pre-Millennialists,” who hold that the return of Christ will precede and usher in such an age of universal blessedness. The great objection to the Pre-Millennial position is the apparent prediction of 2 Peter 3, that at the coming of Christ, in “the day of the Lord,” the earth will be destroyed; there .could then be no place for a millennium. The difficulty in the Post-Millennial theory is the repeated description of this pres ent age as one of mingled good and evil, in which iniquity, as well as righteousness, continues to develop uninterruptedly;
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