Did Luther and Calvin teach about the rapture and millennium?
No. The context states there is no teaching concerning the rapture and the millennium at the time of the Reformation of Luther and Calvin. It notes, however, that the early Church’s first 250 years stood solidly on pre-millennialism, which it calls Chiliasm, from the Greek word meaning 1,000.
Les explains that a critic ridiculed his stand on the millennium and the rapture. After reading the source two or three times, he found the claim that the whole concept of the rapture, tribulation, and an earthly kingdom began with a teenage girl in Spain who dreamed it up, and that people then concocted the millennium. Several asked whether there was any basis for this, since no teaching concerning the rapture and the millennium is found at the time of the Reformation of Luther and Calvin. Les agrees that is true. But he points out what people do not understand: for the first 250 years of Church history, from about 40 or 50 A.D. to the end of 299 or into the 300s, the Church stood solidly on pre-millennialism, called Chiliasm, from the Greek Chileoi, meaning 1,000 again, just as milli means 1,000.