Premillennialism .. The prefix Pre denotes before. .. at what point in relationship to the millennium that Christ will come. ie the second coming will be after the Tribulation. He will reign on the earth from Jerusalem for a period of a thousand years. God will bind Satan during this time but will release him for a short period afterwards. Satan will then wage war against Christ only to be defeated and thrown into the ‘lake of fire’. God will then establish a new heaven and a new earth for eternity. For the first two-hundred years of Christian history, the utopian millennium described by the Apostle John in The Apocalypse was understood as a literal period of a thousand years that would follow Christ's physical return to earth... [See The Millennial View of Early Church Leaders]. ...And for good reason. Neither Christ nor His apostles taught, on fair principles of interpretation, that the Millennium must come before His advent. [See The Pre-Millennium View]. A number of prophecies, both biblical and non-biblical, hint that The Seventh Millennium of history will have a special blessing of God upon it. Could this be the long-awaited sabbath millennium, the universal utopian dream of the human race? Note: Premillennialism (like the other views) is not without it’s difficulties but it is sad that it has been complicated to such an extent that preachers have to resort to extensive charts to make sure they are being followed. Some of the teachings have boiled down to a total of seven dispensations, eight covenants, two second comings, three or four resurrections, and at least four judgments. It is impossible to believe that this is Biblical. The Bible teaches that the second coming of Christ, the rapture and the resurrection of the righteous all occur on the same day. Though all Bible believers acknowledge that both the righteous and unrighteous dead will be raised, there are those who believe that everyone is resurrected at once. however a number of Biblical passages indicate a separate resurrection of believers and non-believers. (See Daniel 12:1-2 and Revelation 20:4-6).
Postmillennialism .. The prefix Post denotes after. ie. Christ will come after the millennium. Post-millenniumists believe that the Millennium is a period during which the kingdom of God is extended in the world through the preaching of the gospel and saving work of the Holy Spirit. The church progressively brings righteousness and peace to the world and that the world eventually will be Christianized. Following a brief time of tribulation, Christ will return to earth and establish a new heaven and a new earth for eternity. This view is closely tied in with Latter Rain, Kingdom Now and Joel’s Army theology and has little (if any) Scriptural support. See An Examination of Post-millennialism. Amillennialism ..The prefix, ‘A’ means ‘no’. This would suggest that those who hold this view do not believe in a millennium. However this is somewhat misleading as Amillennialism takes the stand that there will be no literal thousand year reign of Christ on earth. It teaches that Christ reigns now (for an unspecified period) and that after this present kingdom reign is over, He will return in judgment of the living and the dead and will establish a new heaven and a new earth for eternity. It holds that the millennium mentioned in Rev. 20 refers to the entire period between Christ's first and last coming, from Pentecost to just before Judgment. Those who hold this view do not speak of the millennium as a future happening. It is, to them, a present reality. See Amillennialism. Including the story of how the change in millennium beliefs came about. | 
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