High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Premillennialism in Christian end-times theology is the belief that Jesus will literally and physically be on the earth for his millennial reign, at his 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. Premillennialism is largely based upon a literal interpretation of Revelation 20:1-6 in the New Testament which describes Jesus’s coming to the earth and subsequent reign at the end of an apocalyptic period of tribulation. 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 the Eastern Orthodox 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 an invisible spiritual battle rather than a visible battle on earth. This mode of allegorizing Biblical prophecies is also popular among the proponents of Amillennialism, which is another millennial theory that interprets the Millennium as being a symbolic period of time, occasionally representing God`s absolute rulership 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.