CHILIASM (CHRIST AND HIS MILLENNIAL KINGDOM)
By
David Chagall
We know from the writings of
the New Testament that the Apostolic church firmly believed in the return of
Christ for His church, in a Great Tribulation that was to judge the world, and in
a literal 1000-year reign of Christ on planet earth. Besides the Gospels, particularly Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21
which quotes Jesus Himself on the sequence of events leading to His return,
there is also Rom.8:20-23 (read)-- 1 Cor.15:51-52 (read)--1 Thess.4:15-18
(read)--2 Thess.2:1-5 (read)-- 2 Pet.3:1-14 (read)--and of course Rev.20:1-6
(read)--
This steadfast belief in the
literal return and 1000-year reign of Christ and His Church on earth prior to the Great White throne judgment
of the damned carried well into the third century. It was never embodied in any formal creed as such, but was
written about and taught by a wide range of
distinguished teachers, including Barnabas, Papias, Justin Martyr,
Ireneus, Tertullian, Methodius and Lactantius.
Only a few opposed the millenial view, namely Caius, Origen, Dionysius
and Eusebius.
Later, after Constantine and
Rome co-opted the Church, Saints Jerome and Augustine joined the dissent and
succeeded in stifling the teaching of a literal 1000-year reign of Christ from
the throne of David in Jerusalem, as prophesied. Intead, they came up with a so-called “Christian” (as opposed to
“Jewish”) version of the Millenium.
Whereas the Bible-based Church read the Scriptures literally, and saw
Christ’s resurrection as physical and the believers’ resurrection and/or
glorification as physical, as well as His reign as King of Kings and Lord of
Lords on earth as literal and physical, after the Council of Nicea a new
eschatology arose.
This taught that the millenial
reign, instead of being anxiously awaited and prayed for, was a wrong
view. It had actually begun already, dated from either the first
coming of Christ or, more popularly, from the conversion of Constantine and the
defeat of paganism. This millennial
reign of Christ in Spirit had been realized in the glory of the dominant
imperial state-church of Rome.
Augustine, who had at first held the Apostolic millenial position,
actually turned around and wrote down this new, Roman Catholic interpretation
which was widely accepted. He wrote that the apocalyptic age should be
understood as the present reign of Christ in the Catholic Church and the first
resurrection had been accomplished in the spiritual translation of the martyrs
and saints to heaven, where they now participate in Christ’s reign.
That was why at the end of
the first millennium in Europe, there was a wide belief that the final judgment
was at hand (see Rev.20:7-21:4 [read]--)
From that time forward--from Constantine and Augustine’s treatise--the
Apostolic teaching of the millenial reign of Christ was declared a heresy. It was even rejected by the Protestant
reformers as a Jewish dream, who held stubbornly to the Catholic dogma on the
subject of the non-Rapture of the Church, but from the early centuries and
later times the pre-tribulation Rapture of all true believers was kept alive
and revived by small sects of Biblical literalists like the Anabaptists and
Waldenses.
DID THE EARLY CHURCH TEACH A
PRE-TRIB RAPTURE?
Not too long ago, there was a
book published by a post-trib minister named Dave McPherson called The Incredible Rapture Coverup. In this book, he argued that the idea of
a pre-tribulation Rapture was never taught in the early church. Instead, he wrote, a man named John Darby invented
this idea in 1820, based on the supposed trance vision of a Scottish girl named
Margaret Macdonald. In fact, Darby was
preaching the pre-tribulation Rapture long before this Scottish lass ever had
her vision, which in any case was not a pre-trib
Rapture but a mid-trib Rapture.
A second debunker named John
Bray pf Lakeland, Florida wrote that a Jesuit priest named Emmanuel Laconza
came up with the pre-trib Rapture notion in his book The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty, written eight years before
John Darby first preached his view.
What is the truth?
What would really clinch the matter is if we could
find some writings of the early church that could clarify the question. Of course, we have Scripture verses like 1
Thess.4:15-18 (read)--or 1 Thess.5:9 (read)-- But did the Apostles pass along any firm
view on the pre-trib position? Well,
there are two sources I would cite--one from the early second century and
another from the fourth century--that clearly teaches the imminency of the Rapture.
The first is called The Shepherd of Hermas, which was
published at the end of the first century AD, likely written soon after John
completed his Book of Revelation in 96
AD. This book The Shepherd of Hermas was even regarded as Scripture by Ireneus in
180 AD, but didn’t make the final cut for our canonical writings. This author--who is named in the Book of
Romans 16:14 (read)--gives his End-Times teaching in the form of a vision which
he relates to the Book of Revelation.
I’ll quote here from that book--”I saw a huge beast (a la Revelation,
chapter 13). The beast has four colors
(which echoes the four horsemen of the Apocalypse in Rev. 6). It is 100 feet long, but I escaped from it,
thanks to the grace and power of God.”
Then Hermas meets a virgin
dressed in white, who tells him, “Thou hast escaped a great tribulation because
thou hast believed and at the sight of such a huge beast, have not
doubted. Go therefore, and declare to
the elect of the Lord His mighty deeds and say to them that this beast is a
type of the Great Tribulation which is to come. If you therefore prepare yourself and with your whole heart turn
to the Lord in repentence, then you shall be able to escape it.”
This book was considered
important enough to be included in the collection of New Testament writings at
the Sinai monastery of Saint Catherine, which was built in the fourth century
and where this book was found in an excavation conducted in 1844.
In the fourth century, a Christian
author named Ephraim the Syrian wrote a small book titled Anti-Christ and the End of the World, published in 376 AD. His books remained in relative obscurity
until they were translated into English just a few decades ago. In his book, Ephraim wrote--”We ought to
understand thoroughly, therefore my brothers, what is imminent or
overhanging. Already there have been
hungers and plagues, violent movement of nations and sins, which have been
predicted by the Lord.
“Let us prepare ourselves for
the meeting of the Lord Christ so that He may draw us from the confusion which
overwhelms the world. Believe you me,
dearest brothers, because the coming of the Lord is nigh. Believe you me, because the end of the world
is at end. Believe me because it is the
very last time. Because all Saints and
the elect of the Lord are gathered together before the Tribulation which is
about to come and are taken to the Lord in order that they may not see at any
time the confusion that overwhelms the world because of our sins. And so brothers most dear to me, it is the
eleventh hour, and the end of this world comes to the harvest and angels armed
and prepared hold sickles in their hands awaiting the empire or kingdom of the
Lord. When therefore the end of the
world comes, that abominable, lying, and murderous one who is born from the
tribe of Dan.. he is conceived from the seed of a man and from a most vile
virgin mixed with an evil or worthless spirit.
“Therefore when he receives
the kingdom, he orders the Temple of God to be rebuilt for himself which is in
Jerusalem who, after coming into it, he shall sit as God in order that he may
be adored by all nations. Then all
people from everywhere shall flock together to him and the holy city shall be
trampled on by the nations for 42 months.
Just as the holy Apostle says in the Apocalypse which becomes 3 1/2
years--1260 days. Then when the 3 1/2
years have been completed, the time of Antichrist through which he will have
seduced the world, after the resurrection of the two prophets, in the hour
which the world does not know and on the day when the enemy or son of perdition
does not know, will come the sign of the son of man. And coming forward, the Lord shall appear with great power and
much majesty with the sign of the word of salvation going before Him.”
The only church father we
know who taught other than a pre-tribulation Rapture was the Roman Origen in
the early third century. Evidently
Origen grew dissatisfied with a literal interpretation of Scripture and turned
to widespread allegory. He first
corrupted Church theology in Rome by teaching that Gentile Christianity had
replaced the Jews as God’s Chosen People.
A literal reading, of course, teaches that Israel is heir to the
Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants, but when Jersualem was destroyed in 70 AD and
the Jews scattered, in 165 AD Origen
thought that God was finished with the Jews and had turned all His promises to
His chosen people over to the Church.
Church historian A.H. Newman
wrote this about Origen--”Origen was the first to reduce the allegorical method
of interpretation to a system. His
method of Scripture interpretation was soon adopted throughout the Church, and
prevailed throughout the Middle Ages.
In this particular, Origen’s influence was bad, and only bad.” St. Augustine adopted Origen’s replacement
theology and developed the allegorical view into a systematic
theology--promoted and enforced by the Roman Catholic Church--that has
dominated European Christianity to this very day.
From the beginning, there were believers who
continued to hold fast to the faith once delivered to the saints in
Jerusalem. Others called them
"Anabaptists" because they demanded a believer's baptism that negated
any sort of infant sprinkling taught by the pagans and later by the Catholics.
But over the centuries, the Anabaptists were slaughtered and persecuted for
their beliefs, forcing them into home churches and secrecy. One notable Anabaptist group in 16th century
Germany was led by Jan van Leyden of Munster, who fought off a Catholic army
for sixteen months before being overrun and slaughtered by the Church zealots.
With the reformation some 400 years ago, John Calvin,
Martin Luther and those Reform denominations that derived from them while
rejecting papal authority and tradition as their source of faith and practise,
continued to cling to Origen's and Augustine's allegorical interpretation of
prophetic Scriptures. They continued to
believe that the prohesies concerning apocalyptical events had all been
fulfilled in the 1st Century, and that since then Christ began His
"spiritual millennial reign" which, in their view, has been ongoing
for 1900 years.
But other theologians, including John Owen and
Charles Haddon Spurgeon in the 19th century, and Chares Ryrie, John Walvoord
and J. Vernon McGee in the 20th, applied the literalist credo in all questions
of Biblical interpretation--"If the plain sense makes good sense, then
look for no other sense." Employing that standard for prophetic Scripture,
eventually the pre-Tribulation Rapture position gained more credence and now
has been widely restored.
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