Rapture Often in literature about the end times rapture refers specifically to the two-stage coming of Christ. In the first stage Christ returns for the church, to take believers away from the earth. In the second stage Christ returns with the church to reign on earth for a thousand years. This two-stage understanding of the rapture is attributed to Maggie MacDonald of Port Glasgow, Scotland in 1860. Millennium Refers to a period of one thousand years.
Millennium is used popularly in two related, but distinct ways.
The first meaning of millennium is a period of one thousand years on the Western calendar. The second common use of the term millennium refers to the thousand-year reign of Christ found in Revelation 20. Although they are not necessarily linked, the end of the second millennium in the year 2000 prompted many Christians to believe that the thousand year reign of Christ on earth was imminent, preceded by the second coming of Christ. When Presbyterians discuss matters surrounding the end of time and the second coming of Christ, we practice restraint that we believe is consistent with the teaching of the scriptures and our understanding of God. But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.