church into His likeness and catches it up to be with Him that He may judge it and present it to the Father (I Thess. 4:14-17; II Cor. 5:10; 4:14). Prophecies of the day of Christ will be found in the Epistles. They constitute part of the mystery of the church which was first made known to the Apostle Paul and other apostles. The day of the Lord, on the other hand, is a name which appears fre quently in the Old Testament and occasionally in the New Testament (Isa. 13:6; Zeph. 1:7-16; I Thess. 5:2; II Pet. 3:10; Rev. 1:10). It begins when the church is caught up to meet the Lord (I Thess. 5:1-10). It includes the tribulation, the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to earth, the first thousand years of His reign, and the events which follow until Christ delivers up the kingdom to the Father. Besides the Old Testament predictions and those of our Lord in the Gospels, the Revelation sup plies us with a comprehensive de scription of the dreadful tribulation years and, more briefly, the follow ing time. Most of the prophecies about the kingdom apply to the first thousand years. The work of Christ in His king dom is to subdue all the enemies of God (I Cor. 15:25); to reconcile all things to God (Col. 1:20); to be come head over all things and to fill all things (Eph. 1:10, 23); to bring in the new heaven and the new earth (Rev. 21:1). When Christ has fin ished this work, He will deliver to His Father the perfect kingdom (I Cor. 15:24). This marvelous act of Christ closes the day of the Lord. Ironside, “The day of God is the name given in II Peter 3:12 to the time which follows the day of the Lord. In the day of God the proph ecy will be fulfilled which declares, ‘that God may be all in all’ (I Cor. 15:28). By His spirit who then dwells in all flesh God will be the strength, the wisdom, the goodness, the love of all. The Lord Jesus Christ
R a u d , “prophecy was written as a collection of inspired visions which together form a single, breath-taking panorama of God’s program. Yet we find that the Bible points to major time periods in prophecy. Since each of these peri ods has its distinctive features, we usually can fit any particular proph ecy into its own period when we have become acquainted with the pe riods. One of the joys of reading prophecy is to recognize where a prophecy belongs. Another pleasure is to increase our knowledge of each period by the new truths presented in any specific prediction.” A vast amount of prophecy awaits fulfillment. We speak of the Lord’s coming, the tribulation, the millen nium, the new heaven and new earth. Scripture has divided the future in to three great periods: the day of Christ, the day of the Lord, and the day of God. Unfulfilled prophecy fits into one or more of these future pe riods. Now we can think about the content of each of them. The day of Christ is the time when Christ transforms the whole 31
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