There will be only one return of Christ, His second coming, that is it.
I disagree. He will return in the air for His Church just prior to the tribulation, then He will return to the Earth to establish His millenial reign.
There is honest disagreement on this one and YMMV, but I have studied this a long time and believe there is more than reasonable evidence of this.
“There will be only one return of Christ, His second coming, that is it.”
You’re right. You’re absolutely right.
Here is the Rapture:
See 1 Thessalonians 4:1-18
http://biblehub.com/drb/1_thessalonians/4.htm
And this is Christ’s Second Coming:
See Revelation 19:1-21
http://biblehub.com/drb/revelation/19.htm
These are two distinctly separate events.
That is true, but as in His first Incarnate coming, it will be in two stages. In His Entrance as the Servant, the first stage was in privacy, to His family and friends--Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, Zachariah, His angels, the shepherds they invited, Anna, Simeon, and wise men from Anatolia.
The second stage, hinted by his counsel at the bar mitzvah stage, with the men of the Sanhedrin, but fully inaugurated at His Baptism by Cousin John, that righteousness night be fulfilled, and to augment John's message who was preaching that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand, and to publicly introduce the Savior to the lost sheep of Israel. Subsequent to the death of the prophet John Baptist, the Kingdom of Heaven was no longer available to the Jewish nation. From then on, Jesus preached the Kingdom of The God only. That stage consisted of about three and a half years, a period of peace offered.
Then Jesus went back to His Heaven/Paradise, to reassume all His Eternal Royal Prerogatives as The Begotten Son of The Father. In that role He is to return as the Ruler of The Heavens and The Earth, and that Second coming will be likewise in two stages, the first of which again is private, to His Bride and Her Friends, who as well are His subjects and possession, to reclaim and retrieve all that part of which He has ransomed and which was given to him by The Father, the souls, spirits, and bodies, lock, stock, and barrel, with nothing left behind except that which was consigned to the temporal earthbound sphere. That event will be the harpadzo, the snatching-away into the spiritual dimension. The event is mentioned of all those obliged to Him, in Hebrews 9:28:
"So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation" (That is, apart from dealing with the Sin principle).
In the second stage, the Wounded and Wedded Warrior will appear, coming through the clouds, and all mankind shall see Him, publically coming to tread the wine-press of His avenging wrath, starting on earth at Basra (Is. 63:1-6) coming up through Edom and unto Jerusalem (Rev. 14:19,20). There will He judge the nations, and establish His Kingdom of Heaven on the earth, to rule it in the New Millennium.
This is the basic plan, as you most probably know well, BG. This is really just to rehearse this principle of Two comings, with two stages--first a private scenario, then a public one--in each Coming.
Thanks for your patience!