Why is the church age called a parenthetical period in Bible prophecy?
The church age is called a parenthetical period because it is an interruption while Israel is in dispersion. God is calling out the body of Christ, the church, and it must be removed from the way. Then God picks up where He left off with Israel, because law and grace cannot mix.
Les explains that the timeline from the cross includes the calling out of the body of Christ, the church which is His body, as Paul usually calls it. This is a parenthetical period of time now that Israel has been in dispersion, out of the land without a temple and without a sacrifice. The church has to be called out of the way because God is going to pick up where He left off with the Jew. The church cannot mix law and grace. The age of grace will be consummated, and it will be taken out at the rapture; believers meet Christ in the air and go back with Him into heaven, while the seven years of tribulation rage on the earth.