Posted on 05/21/2007 1:31:42 AM PDT by bruinbirdman
Everyone I know seems to be reading the Bible these days in search of answers. That is usually a good thing but not always. In fact, too many of the Biblical discussions I get into with friends and family members relate to the “End Times” and whether they are upon us. That is a shame because reading the Bible can enrich one’s daily life provided one is not obsessed with using it as a device to decipher the future.
Because of one relatively simple error in dating one book of the New Testament, author Tim LaHaye has misled tens of millions of people into thinking that a great time of tribulation is near. He has Christians everywhere looking for signs of an emerging anti-Christ and, ultimately, in a cowardly fashion, looking forward to a time when Christ will rapture his church away from earthly troubles.
If Christians would simply study the New Testament themselves – instead of relying upon 21st Century “prophets” writing fictional books for 21st Century profits – they would arrive at a few very simple conclusions:
1. The Revelation to John was written around 65 AD, not 95 AD.
2. The anti-Christ was Nero, not some world figure yet to emerge in the 21st Century.
3. The tribulation occurred in the First Century around the time of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD.
4. The “rapture” never happened and it never will.
5. The words of Jesus in Matthew 24 plainly reveal that most of the discourse in The Revelation to John is based on events in the First Century.
Once an individual realizes he is stuck here on earth and will not be raptured away from all of his troubles, he can begin to read the Bible the way it was intended to be read. I have a word of advice for those who have never really thought about reading the Bible as an end in itself rather than as a means to some goal such as predicting the future. My advice is actually borrowed from a friend who received a moving card from his wife just a few months ago.
After receiving the cherished card from his wife, my friend would sneak into their bedroom late at night (she always fell asleep while he was finishing his last TV show). After giving her a kiss while she was sleeping, he would take the card off his dresser and go into the spare room to read it by the light of a small lamp.
There were certain lines he would read three and four times over: “It is a privilege to know you, to share myself with you,” “I never knew such a person could exist until I met you,” and “You lift my spirits to places where my troubles seem so much farther away.”
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It was wonderful to hear that a dear friend had found his “soul mate” and all of the joy that comes from lifelong companionship. But, at the same time, I could not listen to his story without thinking of all the other friends I know who have suffered through a painful divorce or, in some cases, never even met someone with whom they share a special bond of love. And some are growing older and lonelier by the day.
But, recently, I received a new insight into what seems to be an unfair distribution of soul mates among God’s children. It came as I was listening to a pastor named “Mike” whose last name I do not even know. His message was broadcast from Port City Church in Wilmington to a theater rented out to handle the overflow of his growing congregation.
He urged each member of his church to read the First Letter of John during the coming week. He also urged them to read it as if it were written just for them by someone who is madly in love with them.
I was so intrigued by this take on the proper approach to reading the New Testament epistle that I immediately bought a copy of the English Standard Version – a version I’ve been meaning to read for quite some time. Later that night I opened it and started reading by the light of a small lamp:
“…Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling… I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake … Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure… We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him…”
After reading those lines, it occurred to me that I had only been skimming through this great epistle on my last several runs through the New Testament. My zeal to get to The Revelation to John has been such that I have hardly noticed those great words in the years following the attacks of 911.
We all need to learn to read the Word as if it were written for us personally by someone who could not love us more. When we cannot get enough of it in the here and now, the future seems so much less important. And a little uncertainty is hardly the end of the world.
Amen.
None of the events in Matthew 24 have happened yet.
The Roman destruction of Jerusalam is foretold in Lk 21:20-24.
It really serves no purpose to argue or debate this issue. Sit back, relax and what will be will be. I happen to agree with your assessment and believe we will be proven right in the end (which just might be sooner than later). However, to try reasoning with those who choose to believe differently is like trying to make butter out of skim milk. You just aren’t going to get anywhere.
I agree that it does no good in arguing with those who have made up their minds.
However there are many who are not aware of the truth and are being deceived by these false teachers who twist or ignore clear scripture.
We should do what we can to let them know the scriptures really say on the issue.
Not at all...I studied at a good Conservative Christian college in Tennessee, and the professors were excellent. You just have to be objective when studying the text, which does not come easily to most good Christian folks and makes discussing scripture from a historical contextual basis extremely difficult.
How disingenuous to mention Cerinthus and then skip over all the other respected church fathers who were unapologetically Premillenialists. Irenaeus was fully aware of Cerinthus yet he was unapologetically Premillenial. The fact is that the reigning sentiment of the early church was Premillenial for the first 4 centuries, a fact acknowledged by even Edward Gibbons in his Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Ah,heck, that's easy. Just work them in to some kind of global warming theme. GW is, after all, the new religion of the left.
“The earliest most credible witness for the 96 AD date is Irenaeus whose source, among others, would have been Polycarp, bishop of the church at Smyrna that received one of the seven letters that John wrote in 96 AD.” ~ Uncle Chip
See below:
No Deposit, No Return?
Essays on Eschatology
James Patrick Holding
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/eschatology.html
Eons ago I recall getting from a “turn or burn” relative one of those neat brochures that outlined an interpretation of the book of Revelation with pictures of people being “raptured” and trucks and cars and planes crashing as souls flew out of the driver’s/pilot’s places. I have of course read my Hal Lindsey, but since taking a more scholarly bent to my studies, haven’t thought much about it. I have said to others, if the parousia comes in my lifetime, it shall find me either asleep or in a library somewhere. The subject was of that little concern to me.
But it has become clear that certain questions dealing with eschatology, in particular the questions, “Did Jesus predict a soon return? Did the Apostles expect a soon return?”, have become grist for the skeptical and critical mill. Of course we know well that skeptics of the caliber of say, Farrell Till, are about as likely to understand what they are reading as they are to understand quantum physics. But I have corresponded with at least one person who has said that they were “losing their faith” over this very question, and I am sure others exist as well.
The Big Picture — what preterism is all about, basically
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/pretsum.html
Issue #1: OT Background Data:
“The Day of the Lord”: An OT Judgmental Precursor
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/dayofl.html
The Book of Daniel and the Son of Man Precursor
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/danman.html
The Evidence of Other OT Prophets
Zechariah 14 and the Coming of Christ [Off Site]
http://www.preteristarchive.com/PartialPreterism/demar-gary_pp_01.html
Issue #2: Does the NT teach a “soon” return of Jesus?:
Preterism and Ancient Present-Orientation — a backdoor defense of preterism based on a social orientation of the ancients
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/timepret.html
The Evidence of the Gospels — The Olivet Discourse http://www.tektonics.org/esch/olivet01.html and Miscellaneous Synoptic Passages — see also here [Off Site]
The Evidence of the Pauline literature
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/paulend.html
The Evidence of the Catholic epistles and Hebrews
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/hcesh.html
The Evidence of Revelation
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/revdate.html
The Kingdom of God in Preterist Eschatology
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/kingpret.html
On the location of Christ’s reign [Warren]
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/ddwplace.html
Raising Cain and Abel — against views on resurrection, by [Warren]
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/raisecain.html
Responses to Preterism:
From the In Depth Bible Studies site
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/eschback01.html
A debate between ...Warren and a dispensationalist
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/tolpret.html
From a very, er, peculiar website
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/dovtail.html
From (HA HA, HEE HEE HEE) Skeptic X (please control yourself)
http://www.tektonics.org/tsr/tillpfft.html
From Evangelical scholar Thomas Ice (ah — now that’s better!)
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/pretice.html
From Ice and Tim LaHaye in The End Times Controversy (wish this were better, but it isn’t). http://www.tektonics.org/esch/pretice2.html Analysis by Gary DeMar as well, here.
Responses to “Full Preterism”(Hyper Preterism):
On the error of Hymenaenism”
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/hythere.html
Stephen Smith on “Spiritual Israel”
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/smithst01.html
Dale Allison on the Use of Metaphor
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/eschall.html
Eschatology.org on resurrection
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/rezwreck.html
“Dualistic Eschatology” by Tracy VanWyngaarden
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/wyngaar01.html
“Grave” Error: Hyper-preterism and the Response of the Church by ... Warren
http://www.tektonics.org/esch/grave.html
Pre trib... post trib... mid trib... etc. I don't know... gets all confusing.
In reading II Thessalonians, it seems to be the church is all worked up because they are afraid that they missed the coming of the Lord... and Paul writes these words to soothe them.
Chapter 2:1-4 - Now we beseech you, brethern, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto Him. That ye be not so soon shaken in mind or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself about all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
If you just read the letter in its context - they were afraid they missed the coming - Paul says, there is a sequence of events that will happen first and he lists the sequence.
These events were to be observed by the church... and until they saw them unfolding, the day of the Lord had not come.
If they were to be raptured or caught away or whatever without warning... then would he not just have told them so? At least that is what I think.
I'm sure, knowing how these types of threads have worked in the past, if I am wrong... I will be straightened out forthwith... and, as in the past, not always in Christian love either. (That is for the past and not for you ftd)
“It is a sign of modern egotism to believe that the book speaks of modern events that we can only see unfold today with the help of contemporary writers who will help us pierce the mystery of the ages if we’ll only fork over some $$$ for their latest book.”
I nominate your post for the Post Of The Day.
Some of the early church fathers (Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, Irenaeus, and Victorinus) wrote that the Apostle John experienced exile on the island of Patmos during Domitian’s reign.3 They wrote that the government allowed John to return to Ephesus after this emperor died. Domitian died in A.D. 96. Consequently many conservative interpreters date the writing of this book near A.D. 95 or 96.
Tom Constable. (2003; 2003). Tom Constable's Expository Notes on the Bible (Jud 25). Galaxie Software.
http://www.pfrs.org/preterism/pret01.html
Preterist argument from internal evidence.
The clear familiarity of John with Temple worship in Revelation is alleged to indicate that both he and his readers relied on personal knowledge of Temple worship in Jerusalem. According to preterists, this implies that the Temple in Jerusalem was still standing when Revelation was written.
However, this argument is flawed at its very foundation. The Old Testament is full of the same Temple imagery. Any Gentile Christian familiar with the Old Testament (LXX) would be sufficiently familiar with the Temple imagery. Furthermore, familiarity with the New Testament book of Hebrews would also be sufficient. Even a cursory reading of Revelation reveals that John’s visions and comments reference Old Testament prophecy on every page.
Ezekiel saw a future Temple in his prophetic visions. [9] Yet, his visions occurred during the Babylonian captivity years after Solomon’s Temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. Many of those who returned after the seventy year captivity to rebuild the Temple had never seen Solomon’s Temple, or observed its rituals. [10] Their familiarity with the Temple was based solely on the Torah and scrolls like Ezekiel’s and Daniel’s.
The Temple destroyed by the Romans has been gone for nearly 2000 years. If preterists’ claim is correct, we should not be able to understand Revelation or write about Temple worship today because we have no personal first-hand knowledge of the Temple and its rituals. Such a position is absurd, since our knowledge of the Temple comes from the Scriptures. Neither the writing nor understanding of Revelation requires or implies first hand knowledge of the Temple. The Old Testament is sufficient. John certainly was himself familiar with the Temple, having been there with Jesus on several occasions. And his readers were well trained in the Old Testament Scriptures.
That John was told in his vision to “measure the Temple and them that worship therein,”[11] is likewise no indication that the Temple was still standing in Jerusalem. This prophetic vision clearly parallels Ezekiel’s vision. [12] Ezekiel saw his vision during the Babylonian captivity, fourteen years after Nebuchadnezzar sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple.[13] Yet, in his vision, Ezekiel was taken to Jerusalem, shown a glorious Temple far larger than Solomon’s Temple, and proceeded to record all the measurements of the Temple in great detail. John saw his prophetic Temple vision during Domitian’s reign (AD81-96). We don’t know exactly when during his reign he was exiled, nor how long prior to his release he wrote Revelation. But, the possible timespan covers anywhere from eleven to twenty six years after the destruction of the Temple by Titus. It certainly COULD have also been fourteen years following the Temple’s destruction, just like Ezekiel’s Temple vision. It is obvious that the command given John to “measure the Temple” was meant to parallel Ezekiel’s vision. Since Ezekiel saw his Temple vision fourteen years after the first Temple had been destroyed and lay in ruins, there is every reason to conclude that the same situation existed when John wrote Revelation. Ezekiel’s Temple vision and prophecy was clearly intended to indicate a future rebuilt Temple. Ezekiel did not see the former (Solomon’s) Temple that had been destroyed, or a Temple that was currently standing. Therefore, John’s vision of the Temple in Jerusalem should be seen in the same way, being an indication and prophecy that the Temple will indeed be rebuilt. Contrary to the claim that John’s Temple vision indicates that Herod’s Temple was still standing, when compared to the parallel account in Ezekiel, it seems obvious that both prophecies of measuring the Temple were given shortly after the Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed. The former in Ezekiel’s day by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, and the latter in John’s day by Titus and the Romans.
That this is how the early Christians understood Revelation, even after the destruction of the Temple, is clear from their statements to the effect that the Temple in Jerusalem will be the seat of the Antichrist in the last days. [14]
The preterist’s attempts to date Revelation before the destruction of Jerusalem fail on both internal and external evidence. This failure is indicative of their whole system, which is forced upon the Scriptures, and in this case, upon history as well. Preterist scholarship on this question is clearly agenda driven.
As people’s information about Islam increased, some people have been spotting parrells between Islam’s Cast of End Time Characters and the Bibles.
One figure is the Islamic Imam Mahdi. These are his attributes according to Islam.. doesn’t he seem sort of familiar?
The Mahdi is Islam’s primary messiah figure.
He will be a descendant of Muhammad and will bear Muhammad’s name (Muhammad bin Abdullah).
He will be a very devout Muslim.
He will be an unparalleled spiritual, political and military world leader.
He will emerge after a period of great turmoil and suffering upon the earth.
He will establish justice and righteousness throughout the world and eradicate tyranny and oppression.
He will be the Caliph and Imam (vice-regent and leader) of Muslims worldwide
He will lead a world revolution and establish a new world order.
He will lead military action against all those who oppose him.
He will invade many countries.
He will make a seven year peace treaty with a Jew of priestly lineage.
He will conquer Israel for Islam and lead the “faithful Muslims” in a final slaughter/battle against Jews.
He will establish the new Islamic world headquarters from Jerusalem.
He will rule for seven years (possibly as much as eight or nine).
He will cause Islam to be the only religion practiced on the earth.
He will appear riding a white horse (possibly symbolic).
He will discover some previously undiscovered biblical manuscripts that he will use to argue with the Jews and cause some Jews to convert to Islam.
He will also re-discover the Ark of the Covenant from the Sea of Galilee, which he will bring to Jerusalem.
He will have supernatural power from Allah over the wind and the rain and crops.
He will posses and distribute enormous amounts of wealth.
He will be loved by all the people of the earth.
The Mahdi will be joined by the Muslim Jesus. So the two of them work as a team. The Muslim Jesus will be the prophet for the Mahdi.
Bible: The Antichrist is an unparalleled political, military and religious leader that will that emerge in the last-days.
Islam: The Mahdi is an unparalleled political, military and religious leader that will emerge in the last-days.
Bible: the False Prophet is a secondary prominent figure that will emerge in the last-days who will support the Antichrist.
Islam: the Muslim Jesus is a secondary prominent figure that will emerge in the last-days to support the Mahdi.
Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet together will have a powerful army that will do great damage to the earth in an effort to subdue every nation and dominate the World.
Islam: The Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus will have a powerful army that will attempt to control every nation of the earth and dominate the World.
Bible: The False Prophet is described essentially as a dragon in lamb’s clothing.
Islam: The Muslim Jesus literally comes bearing the name of the one that the world knows as “The Lamb of God: Jesus Christ.” Yet the Muslim Jesus comes to murder all those who do not submit to Islam.
Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet establish a New World Order.
Islam: The Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus establish a New World Order.
Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet institute new laws for the whole earth.
Islam: The Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus institute Islamic law all over the earth.
Bible: The Antichrist is said to “change the times.”
Islam: It is quite certain that if the Mahdi established Islam all over the earth, he would discontinue the use of Saturday and Sunday as the weekend or days of rest but rather Friday, the holy day of Islam. Also, he would most certainly eliminate the Gregorian calendar (A.D.), and replace it with the Islamic calendar (A. H.) as is used in every Islamic country.
Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet will both be powerful religious leaders who will attempt to institute a universal world religion.
Islam: The Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus will institute Islam as the only religion in the earth.
Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet will execute anyone who does not submit to their world religion.
Islam: Likewise, the Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus will execute anyone who does not submit to Islam.
Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet will specifically use beheading as the primary means of execution for non-conformists.
Islam: The Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus will use the Islamic practice of beheading for executions.
Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet will have a specific agenda to kill as many Jews as possible.
Islam: The Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus will kill as many Jews as is possible until only a few are left hiding behind rocks and trees.
Bible: The Antichrist and the False Prophet will attack to conquer and seize Jerusalem.
Islam: The Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus will attack to re-conquer and seize Jerusalem for Islam.
Bible: The Antichrist will set himself up in the Jewish temple as his seat of authority.
Islam: The Mahdi will establish the Islamic Caliphate from Jerusalem.
Bible: The False Prophet is said to do many miracles to deceive as many as possible into supporting the Antichrist.
Islam: The Mahdi himself is said to control the weather and the crops. His face is said to glow. We can also assume that since Jesus is viewed as having been empowered by Allah to work miracles when he was here on earth the first time, he will most likely be expected to continue to do so when he returns.
Bible: The Antichrist is described as riding on a white horse in the Book of Revelation
Islam: The Mahdi is described as riding on a white horse (ironically from the same verse).
Bible: The Antichrist is said to make a peace treaty with Israel for seven years.
Islam: The Mahdi is said to make a peace treaty through a Jew (specifically a Levite) for exactly seven years.
Bible: Jesus the Jewish Messiah will return to defend the Jews in Israel from a military attack from a vast coalition of nations led by the Antichrist and the False Prophet.
Islam: The Dajjal, the Islamic Antichrist will gain a great Jewish following and claim to be Jesus Christ and fight against the Mahdi and the Muslim Jesus.
Bible: The antichrist spirit specifically denies the most unique and central doctrines of Christianity, namely the trinity, the incarnation and the substitutionary death of Jesus on the cross.
Islam: Islam doctrinally and spiritually specifically denies the most unique and central doctrines of Christianity, namely the trinity, the incarnation and the substitutionary death of Jesus on the cross.
Bible: The primary warning of Jesus and the Apostle Paul was to warn Christians of the abundance of deceit and deception in the last-days.
Islam: Islam is perhaps the only religion in the earth that practices deceit as one of its tools to assist its own ascendancy. It actually has a specific doctrine which allows and even calls for deception to be used to achieve its desired end.
Bible: The specific nations pictured in the Bible as being part of the final empire of the Antichrist are all Islamic nations.
Islam: All Muslims are commanded to give their allegiance to The Mahdi as the final Caliph and Imam (leader) of Islam.
Bible: From the Bible and History we learn that the final Antichrist empire will be a revived version of the Empire that succeeds the Roman Empire
Islam: The Empire that succeeded the Roman/Byzantine Empire was the Islamic Ottoman Empire
Bible: When Antichrist emerges, there will already be some form of system in place that will be poised to receive him as a Savior and to give allegiance to him.
Islam: is already the second largest religion and will at present growth rates become the largest religion within a few decades. Islam is awaiting the coming of the Mahdi with a universal anticipation.
http://answering-islam.org/Authors/JR/Future/ch18_a_summary_of_comparisons.htm
Also, for the rapture Jesus never touches foot on the earth but meets us in the clouds.
At the 2nd coming he stands physically on the mount of olives.
These are 2 seperate events.
Just as the Word says, he has not appointed us to wrath.
“Persecute Me Please
You would think the desire to go through the tribulation would be as popular as the desire to jump into a pit filled with vipers and broken glass. As illogical as it may seem, there appears to be a large number of Christians that fully expect to get roughed up before Christ returns.
Many Christians argue strongly for the right to suffer persecution at the hands of the Antichrist and the one world government. These tribulation saint wannabees constantly harp, “Because Jesus and His disciples suffered persecution, we should expect no better.” It’s been my experience that people with the weakest faith are generally the ones that talk the boldest. When the slightest difficulty comes their way, they cry to high heaven.
I hate to be the bearer of good news, but the word of God clearly states that believers will escape the tribulation bloodbath. “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thes 5:9). “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth” (Rev 3:10).
In one regard, people who think the Church will go through the tribulation are somewhat correct. I believe there will be a huge number of “carnal Christians” that will find themselves left behind. By having the rapture before the tribulation, all those who find themselves facing the wrath of God will be without an excuse.”
Bump. Good to see some good data finally reappearing. I grew up believing in the Rapture, as according to pastors who would advocate the ‘Left Behind’ books.
My prediction is that Mike’s going to get a lot of correspondence from clergy to the effect of “we’ll forego pretending we’re experts on criminology if you forego pretending you’re an expert on the Bible”.
"At the risk of being a little tedious, I am going to give you the viewpoints of many men in the past to demonstrate that they were looking for Christ to return. They were not looking for the Great Tribulation, they were not even looking for the Millennium, but they were looking for Him to come. This expectation is the very heart of the premillennial viewpoint as we hold it today.
Barnabas, who was a co-worker with the apostle Paul, has been quoted as saying, “The true Sabbath is the one thousand years  when Christ comes back to reign.”
Clement (a.d. 96), Bishop of Rome, said, “Let us every hour expect the kingdom of God  we know not the day.”
Polycarp (a.d. 108), Bishop of Smyrna and finally burned at the stake there, said, “He will raise us from the dead  we shall  reign with Him.”
Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who the historian Eusebius says was the apostle Peter’s successor, commented, “Consider the times and expect Him.”
Papias (a.d. 116), Bishop of Hierapolis, who—according to Irenaeus—saw and heard the apostle John, said, “There will be one thousand years  when the reign of Christ personally will be established on earth.”
Justin Martyr (a.d. 150) said, “I and all others who are orthodox Christians, on all points, know there will be a thousand years in Jerusalem  as Isaiah and Ezekiel declared.”
Irenaeus (a.d. 175), Bishop of Lyons, commenting on Jesus’ promise to drink again of the fruit of the vine in His Father’s kingdom, argues: “That this  can only be fulfilled upon our Lord’s personal return to earth.”
Tertullian (a.d. 200) said, “We do indeed confess that a kingdom is promised on earth.”
Martin Luther said, “Let us not think that the coming of Christ is far off.”
John Calvin, in his third book of Institutes, wrote: “Scripture uniformly enjoins us to look with expectation for the advent of Christ.”
Canon A. R. Fausset said this: “The early Christian fathers, Clement, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus, looked for the Lord’s speedy return as the necessary precursor of the millennial kingdom. Not until the professing Church lost her first love, and became the harlot resting on the world power, did she cease to be the Bride going forth to meet the Bridegroom, and seek to reign already on earth without waiting for His Advent.”
Dr. Elliott wrote: “All primitive expositors, except Origen and the few who rejected Revelation, were premillennial.”
Gussler’s work on church history says of this blessed hope that “it was so distinctly and prominently mentioned that we do not hesitate in regarding it as the general belief of that age.”
Chillingworth declared: “It was the doctrine believed and taught by the most eminent fathers of the age next to the apostles and by none of that age condemned.”
McGee, J. V. (1997, c1981). Thru the Bible commentary. Based on the Thru the Bible radio program. (electronic ed.) (5:879). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
The term rapture comes from a latin word which means “to be caught up” as mention in Thessalonians. The latin word and doctrine is much older then Darby.
I understand that people have a hard time with the concept of being “caught up” as was Enoch (Genesis 5:24) and Elijah (2 Kings 2:1), but to say that it never happened or will never happen again is not taking Scripture seriously.
I certainly don’t completely understand all of the end times stuff, but when someone says that all of the Revelation stuff happened under Nero, I have to scratch my head.
When was 1/3 of the earth burned up? (Rev. 8:7)
When did 1/3 of the sea become blood and 1/3 of creatures in the sea died? (Rev. 8:8-9)
When did 1/3 of the sun, moon, and stars get deminished? (Rev. 8:12-13)
When did 1/3 of the whole earths people die? (Rev. 8:13-21)
There’s more, but the point is that all of this hasn’t happened yet.
Sincerely
Well said.
What They Didn’t Teach You in History Class
Many groups try to discredit the pre-trib rapture by saying most of the end-time events in the Bible have already taken place. A group of people called preterists claims that the Book of Revelation was mostly fulfilled by 70 AD. If the events described in the Book of Revelation took place in the past, I’m at a loss to explain some of the current situations I see around us: the rebirth of Israel, the reunification of Europe, the number of global wars that have occurred, and the development of nuclear weapons. During history class, I must have slept through the part where the teacher talked about the time when a third of the trees were burned up, 100-pound hailstones fell from the sky, and the sea turned into blood (Rev 8:7-8, 16:21).
I think several people would have to question their opposition to the pre-trib rapture doctrine if they knew that the evidence provided to them was based on the understanding that most tribulation prophecies have already occurred.
Why the Early Church Finally Rejected Premillennialism
By Charles E. Hill
Chiliasm is the ancient name for what today is known as premillennialism, the belief that when Jesus Christ returns he will not execute the last judgment at once, but will first set up on earth a temporary kingdom, where resurrected saints will rule with him over non-resurrected subjects for a thousand years of peace and righteousness.1 To say that the Church “rejected chiliasm” may sound bizarre today, when premillennialism is the best known eschatology in Evangelicalism. Having attached itself to funda-mentalism, chiliasm in its dispensationalist form has been vigorously preached in pulpits, taught in Bible colleges and seminaries, and successfully promoted to the masses through study Bibles, books, pamphlets, charts, and a host of radio and television ministries. To many Christians today, premillennialism is the very mark of Christian orthodoxy. But there was a period of well over a “millennium” (over half of the Church’s history), from at least the early fifth century until the sixteenth, when chiliasm was dormant and practically non-existent. Even through the Reformation and much of the post-Refor-mation period, advocates of chiliasm were usually found among fringe groups like the Münsterites. The Augsburg Confession went out of its way to condemn chiliasm (Art. XVII, “Of Christ’s Return to Judgment”), and John Calvin criticized “the chiliasts, who limited the reign of Christ to a thousand years” (Institutes 3.25.5). It was not until the nineteenth century that chiliasm made a respectable comeback, as a favorite doctrine of Christian teachers who were promoting revival in the face of the deadening effects of encroaching liberalism.
But how are we to view the Church’s earliest period up until the first decisive rejection of chiliasm in the Church? By most accounts this was the heyday of chiliastic belief in the Church. Many modern apologists for premillennialism allege that before the time of Augustine chiliasm was the dominant, if not the “universal” eschatology of the Church, preserving the faith of the apostles.2 Some form of chiliasm was certainly defended by such notable names as Justin Martyr and Irenaeus of Lyons in the second century and Tertullian of Carthage in the third. How and why then did this view finally fall into disrepute?
The answer given by modern premillennial apologists usually suggests that premillennialism was overcome for illegitimate reasons. They cite the rise of an unbiblical and dangerous allegorical hermeneutic (by such as Clement of Alexandria and Origen) which took a sad toll on sound biblical exegesis. They explain that the prophetic excesses of the Montanists gave chiliasm a bad name. They note that the peace of Constantine led the Church to the false belief that the millennium had already arrived. And, finally, they suggest that the authoritative repudiation of chiliasm by Augustine, who formerly had held such a belief, “put the nails in the coffin” of premillennialism.
But are these the real factors?
The hermeneutical question is indeed an important one, but to put the debate in terms of literal against allegorical is overly simplistic. Both sides used literal exegesis and both used allegorical exegesis when they deemed it best. For example, despite Origen’s intentional use of the allegorical method, his essential critique of chiliasm had real theological and traditional motivations. These motivations were not his alone but belonged to large segments of the Church. The early Montanists, it turns out, were not chiliasts and were never criticized for being so.3 Tertullian, who became a Montanist, did not get his chiliasm from them, but from Irenaeus. There is no evidence that chiliasm was hurt by any association with Montanism. By the time Constantine proclaimed Christianity the state religion in the fourth century, a non-chiliastic eschatology was surely the norm in most places, and in many it had been so ever since Christianity had arrived there. Many signs thus tell us that even without the aid of Augustine, chiliasm was probably in its death-throes by the time he wrote the last books of The City of God in a.d. 42026.
So why did the Church reject chiliasm? As with most historical questions, the answers are complex and have social as well as hermeneutical and theological aspects. It would take a long time to compare and evaluate the exegesis of individual biblical passages by a number of given authors. One common criticism, however, can serve as a convenient organizer for what are probably the most important factors in chiliasm’s demise. That common criticism, known from Origen to the Augsburg Confession and beyond, is that chiliasm is a “Jewish” error.4 This criticism is open to grave misunderstanding today if one views it as part of the Church’s shameful legacy of anti-Semitism. But this is not what lay at the base of such criticism of chiliasm as “Jewish.” Jesus was a Jew, as were all of his apostles. “Salvation is of the Jews,” Jesus said, and all the Church fathers knew and agreed with this. There is no embarrassment at all in something being “Jewish” and the ancient and honorable tradition of the Jews, in monotheism, morals, and the safeguarding of Holy Scripture, is something Christian leaders always prized.
Another modern misunderstanding of this criticism must also be avoided. Certain current forms of premillennialism, particularly dispensationalism, might seem “Jewish” to some because they promise that the kingdom of God will be restored to ethnic Jews as the just fulfillment of the Old Testament promises to Abraham and his descendants. But this was not the case with ancient Christian chiliasm. The New Testament’s revelation of the Church as the true Israel and heir of all the promises of God in Christ was too well-established and too deeply ingrained in the early Christian consciousness for such a view to have been viable. Ancient Church chiliasts like Irenaeus did indeed argue that some of God’s promises to Israel had to be fulfilled literally in a kingdom on earth, but they recognized that the humble recipients of this kingdom would be spiritual Israel, all who confessed Jesus as God’s Messiah, regardless of their national or ethnic origin.5 Ancient chiliasm was not criticized because it “favored” the Jews as having a distinct, blessed future apart from Gentile Christians.
What then did critics mean by calling chiliasm “Jewish”? Their use of the label meant “non-Christian Jewish,” or even, “anti-Christian Jewish.” These early critics believed that chiliasm represented an approach to biblical religion that was sub-Christian, essentially failing to reckon with the full redemptive implications of the coming of Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah. They saw it as an under-realized, a not-fully-Christian, eschatology. We can outline at least three aspects of this criticism.
Its Sources Were Non-Christian Jewish Sources
First, critics of chiliasm point out that Christian chiliasts got their chiliasm not so much from the apostles as from non-Christian Jewish sources.6 Irenaeus cites a tradition from a book written by Papias of Hierapolis about the millennial kingdom.7 The tradition purports to reproduce Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom as related through the Apostle John to those who remembered the latter’s teaching. It is the famous report about each grapevine in the kingdom having ten thousand branches, each branch ten thousand twigs, each twig ten thousand shoots, each shoot ten thousand clusters, and each cluster ten thousand grapes, etc., with talking grapes, each one anxious that the saints would bless the Lord through it.8 As it turns out, this account seems to be a development of a tradition recorded in the Jewish apocalypse 2 Baruch in its account of the Messiah’s earthly kingdom (Ch. 29).
Some scholars note that the chiliasm of Justin, though it derives the number 1,000 from Revelation 20, springs more from a certain approach to Old Testament exegesis (particularly on Is. 65:17-25) than from the eschatology of Revelation.9 And this approach is in basic agreement with that of Trypho, his Jewish interlocutor. This is in keeping with the role chiliasm plays in Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho, where it functions as part of an apologetic which sought to claim everything Jewish for Christianity. The issue of the fulfillment of the prophets’ predictions of glory for Israel was very much a part of the atmosphere of the discussion between these representatives of Christianity and Judaism, for their encounter took place not long after the failed attempt by Bar Cochba to take Jerusalem back from the Romans (a.d. 13235).
Chiliasm Was “Jewish” in its View of the Saints’ Afterlife
Second, we now know that early chiliast and non-chiliast Christian eschatologies had to do with more than an expectation of a temporary, earthly kingdom, or lack thereof. They encompassed other beliefs about eschatology. It may seem curious to us today, but the ancient Christian chiliasts defended a view of the afterlife in which the souls of the righteous did not go immediately to God’s presence in heaven at the time of death, but went instead to a subterranean Hades. Here souls, in refreshment and joyful contemplation, waited for the resurrection and the earthly kingdom before they could enter the presence of God.10 The only ones exempted from Hades were men like Enoch and Elijah who, it was thought, had not experienced death but had been translated alive to paradise. This view of the afterlife on the part of the chiliasts Papias, Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Victorinus, and Lactantius was connected directly to their chiliasm. We know this both from the coexistence of these beliefs in Jewish sources (2 Baruch, 4 Ezra, Ps. Philo’s Biblical Antiquities, and some rabbinic traditions) and from the internal connection between the doctrines drawn by Irenaeus.11
Yet most of the Church (and at times even the chiliasts themselves in spite of themselves) knew and treasured the New Testament hope of an immediate enjoyment of the presence of God in heaven with Christ at death (Luke 23:42-43; John 14:2-4; 17:24; Phil. 1:22-23; 2 Cor. 5:6-8; Heb. 12:22-24; 2 Pet. 1:11; Rev. 6:9-11; 14:1-5; 15:2; 18:20; 19:14). But this aspect of the Christian eschatology, this “hope of heaven” made possible only by the completed work of Jesus the Messiah and his own ascension to heaven, shattered the mold of Jewish chiliastic eschatology. Such a vision belonged to a non-chiliast (what we would today call amillennial) understanding of the return of Christ. This vision essentially saw the millennium of Revelation 20 as pertaining to the present age, wherein the righteous dead are alive in Christ and are now participating with their King and High Priest in the priestly kingdom in heaven (Rev. 20:4-6).12 In the new light of this fully Christian expectation, a return to an earthly existence, where sin and bodily desires still persisted and a final war (as in Rev. 20:8-10) still loomed, could only be a retrogression in redemptive history.13
We can observe then two competing patterns of Christian eschatology from the second century on: one chiliastic, which expects an intermediate kingdom on earth before the last judgment and says that the souls of the saints after death await that earthly kingdom in the refreshing underworldly vaults of Hades; the other which teaches instead that departed Christians have a blessed abode with Christ in heaven, in the presence of God, as they await the return of Christ to earth, the resurrection and judgment of all, and the new heaven and new earth.
Why did the chiliastic view of the afterlife appeal to some of the most prominent defenders of Christianity? As noted, for Justin, it functioned as a way of claiming all the Jewish inheritance for Christians. Did the prophets promise a kingdom of peace, bounty, and righteousness as the Jews insisted it did? Then these prophecies could be claimed for Christianity, for Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism. But by the time of Irenaeus (later in the second century) there was another motivation. Orthodox believers were battling Marcionism, Valentinianism, and various other gnosticisms, which were devastating portions of the Church. All these heterodoxies rejected any notion of the salvation of the physical body through resurrection and any notion of a restored creation, since they all claimed that the material creation was inherently evil (or at least destined for annihilation), because it was not the creation of the highest God. They also claimed that their adherents would mount up to the highest heaven (beyond the orthodox) at death.14 Both aspects of eschatology were designed to “do the orthodox one better.” Chiliasm provided an ideal response for Irenaeus, for it emphasized the goodness of the material creation as the good product of a benevolent God. It also refuted the inflated afterlife boasts of the heretics about direct ascension to the highest God as soon as they died. The true believer instead would follow the course of the Lord and remain in Hades until his soul was reunited with his body at the resurrection.15
But despite its usefulness in helping to claim the mantle of Judaism and in fending off matter-denying Gnosticism, chiliasm was at odds with aspects of the Church’s hope handed down from the apostles and made so clear in the New Testament writings. As such, the chiliastic eschatology could not survive intact. Tertullian, after embracing chiliasm, tried some minor modifications. Even as a chiliast he remained more open to understanding the “earthly” prophecies of the Old Testament in a more “spiritualized” way.16 He also argued that some Christians—but only those who literally suffered martyrdom—could be spared a stay in Hades and could inhabit the heavenly paradise before the resurrection.17 But even Tertullian’s admirer Cyprian could not accept this ameliorated form of chiliasm, and comforted his congregations in the face of a raging plague with the Christian hope of the heavenly kingdom when they died.18 With Lactantius in the early fourth century we see a determined attempt to revive a more “genuine” form of chiliasm.19 But by the fourth century these views could not stand long among educated clergy. The Christian hope of union and fellowship with Christ after death was too strong for the chiliastic eschatology to flourish ever again in its original form. The work of Tyconius, Jerome, and Augustine at the end of the fourth century and in the early fifth simply put the exclamation point on the inevitable.
Chiliasm’s Old Testament Hermeneutic Led to the Crucifixion
Finally, the chiliastic alternative on the intermediate state of the Christian soul between death and the resurrection was a problem which in itself could have led to chiliasm’s demise. But there was another problem which, when clearly exposed, had the potential of being downright scandalous. It was recognized by Origen and has been seen by non-chiliasts down to the present day.20 It is the realization that the “literal,” nationalistic interpretation of the prophets was the standard that Jesus, in the eyes of his opponents, did not live up to, and therefore was the basis of their rejection of his messiahship. One of the prophecies that Irenaeus had insisted will be literally fulfilled in the kingdom on earth was Is. 11:6-7, which speaks of the wolf dwelling with the lamb and the leopard with the kid, etc. Origen specifically mentions this passage as among those which the Jews misinterpret: “and having seen none of these events literally happening during the advent of him whom we believe to be Christ they did not accept our Lord Jesus, but crucified him on the ground that he had wrongly called himself Christ.”21 This “Jewish” approach to the Old Testament prophecies and its role in the Jewish rejection of Jesus was recognized even by Tertullian and was no doubt one of his motivations for taking a more “spiritualized” approach to those prophecies than Irenaeus had done.22
Conclusion
Why did the Church reject chiliasm? Essentially because chiliasm was judged not to be a fully Christian phenomenon. We have organized three faults of chiliasm around the theme of its so-called “Jewish” character. These faults include its sources; holding out an attenuated hope of blessing for the Christian after death, for it was based in a pre-Christian system which as yet lacked a Savior who had raised humanity to heaven; and clinging to an interpretation of Old Testament prophecies which did not comport with the Christian approach but which could be used to justify the crucifixion. Instead the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus the Messiah had effected a momentous change which Jewish chiliasm was not well-adapted to accommodate.
But it was not these “faults” alone that fatally injured chiliasm. It might have lasted longer if there had not always existed in the Church another, more fully “Christian,” eschatology sustaining the Church throughout the whole period. That eschatology, revealed in the New Testament writings, proclaimed Jesus Christ’s present reign over all things from heaven, where his saints were “with him” (Luke 23:42-43; John 14:2-4; 17:24; Phil. 1:22-23; 2 Cor. 5:6-8). It saw the culmination of that reign not in a future, limited, and provisional kingdom on earth where perfection mingled once again with imperfection, but rather in the full arrival of the perfect (Rom. 8:21; 1 Cor. 13:10) and the replacement of the present heaven and earth with a heaven and earth in which righteousness dwells (2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21-22). Evidence of this eschatology runs throughout the postNew Testament period, from Clement of Rome to Augustine.
Modern premillennialism, in its several forms, has indeed undergone certain transmutations from its ancient ancestor, some of which are improvements, some arguably not. It may be possible to develop a premillennialism which obviates the worst of chiliasm’s pitfalls in antiquity. But the more challenging question will always be whether any form of chiliasm can ever be shown to be the view of the New Testament writers. ~
Dr. Charles E. Hill is associate professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. He is the author of Regnum Caelorum: Patterns of Future Hope in Early Christianity (Oxford, 1992).
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