He interpreted the thousand-year period of Revelation 20 symbolically, applying it to the "various disturbances that awaited the church, while still toiling on earth. The fact that Augustine was amillennial in his viewpoint is noted with pride by modern amillennialists to show that their position is historic and a part of the central teaching of the church. 6 Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, p. 708. After Augustine there was a radical split in millennial discourse. Fourth, Augustine had come to see the whole period between the first coming of Christ and his second coming as a single erauniform and uninterrupted by any special events initiating new eras in salvation-history. The present age is the millennium; Satan is bound now; when Christ returns the present millennium will close, the future millennium or eternity will begin. Thus, this must mean that extra-biblical factors account for their rise and development. Amillennialism or amillenarism is a chillegoristic eschatological position in Christianity which holds that there will be no millennial reign of the righteous on Earth. Rather, believers and unbelievers were held in some subterranean place until the resurrection and the millennium. In the first two centuries, only the disputed testimony of Barnabas can be cited. The postmillennial idea that the millennium was literal but would begin someday after the time of Christ had many adherents. Augustine had previously followed the view of most earlier Christians, which was known as chiliasm (from the Greek word for a thousand years). Kromminga infers this contradicts the usual premillennial view.13 What Kromminga himself overlooks is that Barnabas does not say that the wicked are raised from the dead. 11 Premillennialism in America (Oosterbaan & Le Cointre, Goes, Holland, 1930), p. 55. Their fiction is too puerile to require or deserve refutation. 1 Tim 1:20). As Kromminga points out, not only at the year 1000, but also in the year 1044, and again in 1065, when Good Friday happened to concide with the Day of Annunciation, there was hope that the second advent would occur on Good Friday.12 The expectation of the church based on Augustinian eschatology was not fulfilled, and it became evident that by no stretch of the imagination was the Augustinian teaching to be considered fulfilled. A Platonic idealistic philosophy could not countenance carnalistic, sensualistic conceptions of the future as that advanced by chiliasm. Apologetics! Augustine never left a problem unsolved if he could help it. These have been characterized by: (1) a fresh study of literature of the Fathers to see if it is necessary to concede that the ancient church was premillennial, as had previously been almost universally allowed by all parties; (2) a fresh study of the Scriptures by the amillennialists to defend themselves from the obvious Biblical approach of pr. Attributed to Athanasius, the Bishop of Alexandria and the champion of the Council of Nicaea, around 325 A.D., the creed ends with these words: " He shall come again to judge . In attempting to trace millennialism in the ancient church, one is faced with many difficulties if all facts are weighed impartially. With the coming of Augustine a new day and a new chapter in the history of millennialism was written. One focus of the study is the interesting observation of something common in all premillennialists (except one, Methodius of Olympus [c. 270-311]) that did not believe in the immediate entry of believers into heaven. Jamaal E. Williams and Timothy Paul Jones. For the first appearance of our Lord in the flesh took place in Bethlehem, under Augustus, in the year 5500; and He suffered in the thirty-third year. In his discussion which follows in which he depreciates everyone claimed to be premillennial, the only extra-Biblical proof is that he cites Barnabas as not being premillennial among first century writers. Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts Stitcher Megaphone RSS T he Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA) has changed its position on end times doctrine. The method used against premillennialism was unfortunately used against other major doctrines of Christianity with devastating effect. Those who have not come to new life in this era will, at the second resurrection, pass into the second death with their bodies. In their doctrines of the person of Christ, of sin, of salvation, and of eschatology the evil results of the allegorical method are easily traced. Albertus Pieters, a longtime foe of premillennialism, in his series of articles in the Calvin Forum (August-September, 1938) agrees that both Papias and Barnabas are premillennial. Revelation 20:1-6 describes a vision in which, "for a thousand years," Satan is bound "so that he might not deceive the nations any longer," and "the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark . In his discussion of Barnabas he labors for many pages to classify Barnabas as amillennial, and his entire chapter on the Extent of Ancient Chiliasm is devoted to it. Amillennialists also cite scripture passages that they believe to indicate that the kingdom of God is not a physical realm. The place to begin to evaluate the assertion that premillennialism was the only view of the early church would be to survey the writings of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, the writings of the early church prior to the drafting of the Nicene Creed in A.D. 325. [21] With the influence of Neo-Platonism and dualism, Clement of Alexandria and Origen denied premillennialism. CTWeekly delivers the best content from ChristianityToday.com to your inbox each week. The belief was widespread that the second advent would occur on this date. May 1, 2008 at 9:47 AM Amillennialism Fits Best with the Rest of the Scriptures] Finally, we will see below that the premillennial reading of Revelation 20 has some very good arguments, but the amillennial reading has remarkable strengths too. Some proponents also prefer alternate names such as nunc-millennialism (that is, now-millennialism) or realized millennialism, although these other names have achieved only limited acceptance and usage. Somehow, for all his genius, he did not see that he could abandon this false teaching without abandoning the doctrine of a literal millennium. Joseph Sickenberger (20th century) interprets the first resurrection as the ascension of the souls of martyrs into heaven. It is agreed that it is a compositional document made up of several sources, of which the earliest of the sources were . It is proposed to take his doctrine, which is considered normative amillennialism, and make it a test for the doctrine as a whole. The tension that exists on earth between the righteous and the wicked will be resolved only by Christ's return at the end of time. The influence and place of Origen is well-known and beyond question, and his hermeneutical method is repudiated at least in part by all modern scholars. Even if Kromminga is right, however, it again would indicate only a variation rather than a denial of premillennialism. Dionysius who was Bishop of Alexandria in the latter part of the third century is noted for his controversy resulting from the teachings of Nepos, an ardent premillennialist, who as bishop had taught and written with such effectiveness that whole churches were withdrawing in protest against the spiritualization of Origen. ", Even when the devil is unloosed for "a little while" at the end of the church millennium, his assault will reveal not only the depth of "his malign power" but also the marvelous endurance of Christian people: "The Omnipotent will unloose him, so that the City of God may behold how powerful a foe it has overcome, to the immense glory of its Redeemer, its Helper, its Deliverer.". This is especially true in interpretation of prophecy. No wonder Boyd told me in our phone conversation that . [2], Amilennialists reject the view that Jesus Christ will physically reign on the Earth for exactly one thousand years. Attention was soon fastened on the year 1000 A.D. Why our church emphasizes a meal where all are welcome. 2:3 Discovery stumbled upon pretrib passage in Ephraim The amillennialist perspective sees the whole . He discusses Revelation 20 in three or four pages and dismisses without any real argument the literal view. Augustines doctrine that Satan is bound in this agean essential of his system of interpretationis a notable illustration of spiritualized and strained exegesis (cf. Like the postmillenarians, however, he did not doubt that ultimately righteousness would triumph. By the same analogy it was inferred that this long period of labor and contention, which was now almost elapsed, would be succeeded by a joyful Sabbath of a thousand years, and that Christ with His triumphant band of the saints and the elect who had escaped death, or who had been miraculously revived, would reign upon the earth till the time appointed for the last and general resurrectionthe reigning sentiment of the orthodox believers.10. Copyright 1999 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History. x.18 ).. 3 Allis, ibid., p. 3, He held that the binding of Satan took place during the earthly ministry of our Lord (Lk. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of Augustine in the history of theology. The importance of Augustine to the history of amillennialism is derived from two reasons. Calvins discussion of the millennium is a fair sample of the attitude of the Reformers. 8 Cf. Its roots were in Platonic philosophy and in keeping with it the literal and plain meaning of Scripture was sacrificed for allegorical interpretations often of a most fanciful kind. It is more accurate to recognize that the world has to a large degree possessed the church. Amillennialism is sometimes associated[by whom?] Attach an asterisk (*) to the end of a word as a wildcard. In the previous study in postmillennialism, the current decline of postmillennialism was traced to certain specific factors: (1) its principle of spiritualizing the meaning of Scripture; (2) its trend toward liberalism; (3) its failure to fit the facts of history; (4) a trend toward realism in philosophy; (5) the present trend toward amillennialism. Allis, for instance, loses no time in his attack on premillennialism to point out in the second page of his volume that Augustinian amillennialism was the norm for the church of the middle ages.2 While the significance of much of the material relating to the millennium in writers before Augustine is hotly debated, Augustine is perfectly clear in his positionthe general facts of his position are not disputed. It was to this foe of proper interpretation of Scripture that premillennialism owed its decline. Other church fathers of the second century that held this view were Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and . [9] Though most writings of the time tend to favor a millennial perspective, the amillennial position may have also been present in this early period, as suggested in the Epistle of Barnabas, and it would become the ascendant view during the next two centuries. These references to the millennial doctrine are at least more than straws in the wind. It is assumed here that the New Testament is correct and the problem is not one of inspiration. Few early Christians wrote about this aspect of eschatology during the first century of Christianity, but most of the available writings from the period reflect a millenarianist perspective (sometimes referred to as chiliasm). The classification of Barnabas, as we will see, is at present hotly disputed though he has long been considered premillennial. As far as millennial teaching was concerned, they were content to follow the Roman Church in a weakened Augustinian viewpoint. Augustine wanted to cut all secular history down to size. Amillennialism or amillenarism is a chillegoristic eschatological position in Christianity which holds that there will be no millennial reign of the righteous on Earth. Second, Augustine increasingly focused on the life of heaven, both now and hereafter. This has been caused, first by the decadence of postmillennialism which seemed to demand a new search for perspective in this field; second, by the popularity of premillennialism with its claim that the early church was premillennial; and, third, by the trend toward more serious Biblical studiesa result of the decline of extreme liberalism. Leaving for later discussion the basic problem of Scriptural interpretation, the question remains as to what positive evidence there is for amillennialism in the first century. Indeed, this thesis would conclude that the eschatological beliefs of the period studied would be generally inimical to those of the modern system (perhaps, seminal amillennialism, and not nascent dispensational premillennialism ought to be seen in the eschatology of the period). Augustine is, then, the first theologian of solid influence who adopted amillennialism. and the elder John echoed his sentiments, as did other first-hand disciples and secondary followers. Early Church See also: Early Christianity The first two centuries of the church held both premillennial and amillennial opinions. While Warfields explanation is no more sensible than Augustines as far as an exegesis of the Scriptures is concerned, it at least accords with the facts of church history. John F. Walvoord, long-time president of Dallas Theological Seminary, was one of the most prominent evangelical scholars of his generation. Augustines view required also, of course, the spiritualization of the many Old Testament passages bearing on the future righteous kingdom on earth, and this he does in his treatment of the Old Testament. 643-44. The formal consideration of this question is impossible within reasonable limits. that Jesus is presently reigning from heaven, seated at the right hand of, that Jesus also is and will remain with the church until the end of the world, as he promised at the. Amillennialism is one of four views of the end times regarding the 1,000-year reign of Christ. [27], Amillennialism was the dominant view of the Protestant Reformers. D. H. Kromminga, op. It is central to Augustines theology that he regards the church as ultimately triumphant. Get the best from CT editors, delivered straight to your inbox! In spite of adopting a spiritualized interpretation of Revelation 20, Augustine hews closely to a literal interpretation of the time elementit would be a literal 1000 years. Accompanying this change in the church was the corresponding political change under Constantine which became effective more and more in the fourth century. Reformation Apocalypticism: Mnster's Monster, Historic Premillennialism: Taking the Long View, American Postmillennialism: Seeing the Glory, Dispensational Premillennialism: The Dispensationalist Era. With the close of the second century and continuing through the third, a new foe to premillennialism arose in the Alexandrian school of interpretation. The first century is a lost cause for amillennialism. He took the thrones of Revelation 20:4 as "the seats of the authorities by whom the church is now governed." There, in book 22, Augustine sets out his mature understanding of the "thousand years" of Revelation 20:3-6. This does not mean the devil is incapable of enticing Christians away from Christ, but rather that "he is not permitted to exert his whole power of temptation, either by force or by guile to seduce people. However, by the fourth century, the amillennial position began to dominate, a tendency reinforced . The second reason for the importance of Augustinian amillennialism is that his viewpoint became the prevailing doctrine of the Roman Church, and it was adopted with variations by most of the Protestant Reformers along with many other teachings of Augustine. (Series to be continued in the January-March Number, 1950). Luke 10:18 and Revelation 20:2-3). Aristion[when?] It is significant that many present-day amillennialists have further retreated from the predictions of triumph and are content to leave a golden age to eternity future or limited to heaven. Following as he did the chronology of the LXX which is somewhat longer than Usshers chronology in the Old Testament, he found that the Christian era is the sixth millennium from creation. 9 B. The second century like the first is devoid of any testimony whatever for amillennialism except at its close. The allegorizing method of interpreting Scripture which Kromminga attempted to find in Barnabas is clearly evident in Clement. He is considered perhaps the world's foremost interpreter of biblical prophecy.John is perhaps best known for his bestselling work on Bible prophecy, Armageddon More. not . Premillennialism, in Christian eschatology, is the belief that Jesus will physically return to the Earth (the Second Coming) before the Millennium, heralding a literal thousand-year golden age of peace. Copyright 2011-2023, Third Millennium Ministries, Inc. All rights reserved. [4], There are two main variations of amillennianism, perfect amillenarism (the first resurrection has already happened) and imperfect amillenarism (the first resurrection will happen simultaneously with the second one). Earthly and historical realities were less and less important to him. He differed from the postmillennialists only in matter of the degree of that triumph. This view contrasts with both postmillennial and, especially, with premillennial interpretations of Revelation 20 and various other prophetic and eschatological passages of the Bible. At the outside, nevertheless, the second advent would certainly occur within one thousand years of the ascension.11 Augustine was positive that in any case the millennium was started no later than the ascension and would last no longer than one thousand years. Unfortunately, it is a bit difficult for us to know precisely what the early church taught about eschatology for a few reasons. Allis cites Durham as dating its beginning in 1560.13 Normal postmillennialism follows Whitby, however, in finding the entire millennium or golden age still future. '"[28] Likewise, the Swiss Reformer Heinrich Bullinger wrote up the Second Helvetic Confession, which asserts, "We also reject the Jewish dream of a millennium, or golden age on earth, before the last judgment. There are a handful of others who may have been, but the vast majority of the early church fathers were clearly amillennial. Justin Martyr (died 165), who had chiliastic tendencies in his theology,[16] mentions differing views in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, chapter 80: "I and many others are of this opinion [premillennialism], and [believe] that such will take place, as you assuredly are aware; but, on the other hand, I signified to you that many who belong to the pure and pious faith, and are true Christians, think otherwise. Emanuel First Lutheran. The exegesis of Augustine on Revelation 20 as a whole fares no better. "[29] John Calvin wrote in Institutes of the Christian Religion that chiliasm is a "fiction" that is "too childish either to need or to be worth a refutation." Now, in City of God, Augustine viewed the thousand years of Revelation 20 not as some special future time but "the period beginning with Christ's first coming," that is, the age of the Christian church. Augustine said, "The devil is bound throughout the whole period, from the first coming of Christ to the end of the world, which will be Christ's second coming." that the millennium began with the resurrection of Jesus, the first resurrection (Colossians 1:18 [Jesus Christ] is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence; Revelation 20:4-6 [the millennium] is the first resurrection); that, therefore the Church and its spread of the gospel is Christ's Kingdom and forever will be. The question of the disciples, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? (Acts 1:6), occasioned no denial from the Lord Jesus, but merely the reminder that it was not for them to know the time. The request of the mother of James and John for preferment of her sons in the kingdom was not refused on the ground that no future earthly kingdom was in prospect, but that the places of honor were reserved for those chosen by the Father (Matt 20:20-23). As postmillennialism is suitable for a test case for the principles of the millennial issue as a whole, so Augustinian amillennialism is suitable as a test case for amillennialism. If premillennialists are wrong for building upon such evidence as has been discoveredmuch of it almost beyond dispute in support of early belief in the millennial reign of Christ, what is the case for amillennialism which has no evidence at all which is undisputed? Acts 2:16-21; 1 Corinthians 10:11; Hebrews 1:1-2; and 1 Peter 1:20). The archives maintain the records created by the Michigan Conference of the United Methodist Church (and the former Detroit and West Michigan Conferences) and its member churches. Either view requires an interpretation and harmonization of the entire volume of Scripture to sustain it completely. Augustine's many other works are online, too, and there's a great Augustine home page. The contribution of the late D. H. Kromminga to the millennial controversy is one of the curious aspects of the current argument. Question. He concludes that chiliasm found no favor! Some say that, it shall last four hundred, some five hundred, some a thousand years after the ascension. Beginning with Martin Luther's 95 Theses, the major Reformers challenged many medieval church doctrines, but with eschatology, they seemed mostly satisfied with this traditional emphasis and teaching. B. Warfield, quoting Harnack, refers to Augustine as incomparably the greatest man whom, between Paul the Apostle and Luther the Reformer, the Christian Church has possessed.1 While the contribution of Augustine is principally noted in the areas of the doctrine of the church, hamartiology, the doctrine of grace, and predestination, he is also the greatest landmark in the early history of amillennialism. . His new positionwhich is often called amillennialbecame the view of most Christians in the West, including the Reformers, for almost a millennium and a half. amillennial, as DeMar implies. 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. And He rested on the seventh day. This meaneth: when His Son, coming shall destroy the time (of wicked man) and judge the ungodly and change the sun and the moon and the stars, then shall He truly rest on the seventh day.9, Barnabas seems to teach from this passage that the present age starting from creation will be completed in six thousand yearsa common if unwarranted teaching. While the early church was concerned over many doctrinal questions, no disputes on this issue are recorded. It remains, now, to analyze this historic doctrine in its modern setting in the light of the Holy Scriptures. Augustine, as has been previously brought out, considered the coming of Christ within one thousand years after the ascension an essential of his system. Something has changed in America; a strong wind is blowing. If no earthly kingdom was in prospect, it seems strange also in view of the prevailing Jewish concept of an earthly kingdom that Christ should tell His disciples, I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father has appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Luke 22:29-30). It remains, now, to test this teaching in its principles, implications, and fulfillment. While the Christian can have victory over Satan, there is no evidence whatever that Satan is inactive or bound. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Others began the millennium in more recent times. In other words, does the viewpoint of Augustine demonstrate a proper method of interpreting Scripture? It was natural that one who opposed literal interpretation of Scripture in other realms should do the same in regard to the millennium. 1 To say . Attach a tilde (~) to the front of a word to omit results containing that word. 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. The murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, captured on video and shared worldwide, caused a shift in the collective conscience of many Americans. The Millennium Augustine held that the present age of conflict is the millennium. Kingdom, Covenants & Canon of the Old Testament, Your Kingdom Come: The Doctrine of Eschatology, He Gave Us Scripture: Foundations of Interpretation, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Partial preterism is sometimes a component of amillennial hermeneutics. One feature of Augustinian millennialism has notably failed. One of the most terrifying and poignant parts of the hit Amazon Prime documentary series "Shiny Happy People" was the story of Josh Duggar, a young man who was raised in a deeply religious . This article was taken from the Theological Journal Library CD and posted with permission of Galaxie Software. 16 G. N. H. Peters, op. The Lutheran Church formally rejected chiliasm in The Augsburg Confession"Art. He accordingly did not claim that the present age was a literal fulfillment of the promised age of righteousness, but was rather a time of conflict in which evil often seemed to have the upper hand. All sorts of starting points were suggested. 2-5. And third, they do not appear to have been in total agreement with one another. In the current discussion of the millennial question the restudy of Augustine is especially apropos. Here we have one of the first great theologians of the Roman Church recognized by both Catholic and Protestant as an original thinker and solid contributor to the doctrine of Christendom. The denomination recently voted to. A new type of amillennialism has arisen, however, of which Warfield can be taken as an example which is actually a totally new type of amillennialism.