Stop 11. The dispensational line

Follow the long-dashed blue line up and to the right. Its writers include C. I. Scofield, John Walvoord, Charles Ryrie and Thomas Ice.

In this view the prophetic clock stops after the 69th week. AD 70 was a real judgment on Jerusalem (Luke 21:20–24), but it was not the 70th week. Revelation was written about AD 95, under the emperor Domitian. The church age, from Pentecost to the rapture, is a parenthesis that the prophets did not see.

What about Jesus' words, "I tell you the truth, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place" (Matthew 24:34)? Here "this generation" is read as the generation that sees the signs. Scofield read it as the Jewish people.

The future, in order: the rapture of the church (before the tribulation, for most, with some placing it in the middle or at the end), then seven years of tribulation, which is the 70th week, when the Antichrist is revealed. Then the visible return of Christ, a literal thousand years on earth, the Great White Throne judgment, and new heavens and a new earth.

Record check (judgment). Some teachers inside this view set dates. Hal Lindsey's reading pointed to about 1988. Edgar Whisenant named 1988. Neither happened. Scofield, Walvoord and Ice, as read for this chart, set no dates.

Picture: Chart 2, the dispensational line. Layer: dispensational.