Of that day and hour knoweth no man...

What is the biblical definition of imminency? Four important elements contribute to a
pretribulational understanding of imminency. First, imminency means that the rapture could
take place at any moment. While other events may take place before the rapture, no event
must precede it. If prior events are required before the rapture, then the rapture could not
be described as imminent. Thus, if any event were required to occur before the rapture,
then the concept of imminency would be destroyed.
Second, since the rapture is imminent and could happen at any moment, then it follows
that one must be prepared for it to occur at any time, without sign or warning.
Third, imminency eliminates any attempt at date setting. Date setting is impossible
since the rapture is signless (i.e., providing no basis for date setting) and if imminency is
really true, the moment a date was fixed then Christ could not come at any moment,
destroying imminency. Fourth, “A person cannot legitimately
say that an imminent event will happen soon. The term ‘soon’ implies that an event must
take place ‘within a short time (after a particular point of time specified or implied).’ By
contrast, an imminent event may take place within a short time, but it does not have to do so
in order to be imminent. As I hope you can see by now, “imminent” is not equal to ‘soon.’