Amillennialism
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Amillennialism (from the Latin prefix a meaning "no," mille meaning "thousand," and annum meaning "year") is a view in Christian eschatology named for its denial of a future, thousand-year, physical reign of Jesus Christ on the earth, as espoused in the premillennial and some postmillennial views of the Book of Revelation, chapter 20. By contrast, the amillennial view holds that the number of years in Revelation 20 is a symbolic number, not a literal description; that the millennium has already begun and is identical with the church age (or more rarely, that it ended with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70); and that while Christ's reign is spiritual in nature during the millennium, at the end of the church age, Christ will return in final judgement and establish permanent physical reign.
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[edit] Terminology
Many proponents dislike the name amillennialism because it emphasizes their negative differences with premillennialism rather than their positive beliefs about the millennium, and although they prefer alternate terms such as nunc-millennialism (that is, now-millennialism) or realized millennialism, the acceptance and wide-spread usage of the different names has been limited.[1]
[edit] Teaching
Amillennialism teaches that the Kingdom of God will not be physically established on earth throughout the "millennium", but rather
- that Jesus is presently reigning from heaven, seated at the right hand of God the Father,
- that Jesus also is and will remain with the church until the end of the world, as he promised at the Ascension,
- that at Pentecost, the millennium began, as is shown by Peter using the prophecies of Joel, about the coming of the kingdom, to explain what was happening,
- and that, therefore the church and its spread of the good news is Christ's kingdom.
Amillennialists cite scripture references to the kingdom not being a physical realm: Matthew 12:28, where Jesus cites his driving out of demons as evidence that the kingdom of God had come upon them; Luke 17:20-21, where Jesus warns that the coming of the kingdom of God can not be observed, and that it is among them; and Romans 14:17, where Paul speaks of the kingdom of God being in terms of the Christians' actions.
In particular, they regard the thousand year period as a figurative expression of Christ's reign being perfectly completed, as the "thousand hills" referred to in Psalm 50:10, the hills on which God owns the cattle, are all hills, and the "thousand generations" in 1 Chronicles 16:15, the generations for which God will be faithful, refer to all generations. (Some postmillennialists and nearly all premillennialists hold that the word millennium should be taken to refer to a literal thousand-year period.)
Amillennialism also teaches that the binding of Satan described in Revelation has already occurred; he has been prevented from "deceiving the nations" by preventing the spread of the gospel. This is the only binding he will suffer in history: the forces of Satan will not be gradually pushed back by the Kingdom of God as history progresses but will remain just as active as always up until the second coming of Christ, and therefore good and evil will remain mixed in strength throughout history and even in the church, according to the amillennial understanding of the Parable of the Wheat and Tares.
Amillennialism is sometimes associated with Idealism as both teach a symbolic interpretation of many of the prophecies of the Bible and especially the Book of Revelation. However, many amillennialists do believe in the literal fulfillment of Biblical prophesies; they simply disagree with Millennialists about how or when these prophesies will be fulfilled.
[edit] History
The first two centuries of the church were clearly premillennial. There is no evidence for amillennialism in the first century, although a few amillenialists such as Albertus Pieters understand Pseudo-Barnabas to be amillennial. In the second century, the Alogoi, who rejected all of John's writings, were amillennial, as was Caius in the first quarter of the third century.[2] With the influence of Neo-Platonism and dualism, Clement of Alexandria and Origen denied the "Jewish doctrines" of bodily resurrection and premillennialism.[3] Likewise, Dionysus of Alexandria argued that Revelation was not written by John and could not be interpreted literally; he was amillennial.[4]
Origen's idealizing tendency to consider only the spiritual as real (which was fundamental to his entire system) led him to combat the "rude"[5] or "crude"[6] Chiliasm of a physical and sensual beyond.
Justin Martyr had chiliastic tendencies in his theology,[7] but in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, in Chapter 80, he discusses the differing views: "I admitted to you formerly, that I and many others are of this opinion, 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."[8]
In general, however, premillennialism held sway over the early church. Amillennialism gained ground after Christianty became a legal religion. It was systematized by St. Augustine in the fourth century, and this systematization carried amillennialism over as the dominant eschatology of the Medieval and Reformation periods. He was originally a premilennialist, but he retracted that, claiming the doctrine was carnal.[9] Although he argued that Christ's reign was spiritual and not literal and earthly and that they were currently living in the millennium, Augustine held to a literal 1,000 year millennium that could end in perhaps A.D. 650 or, at the latest, 1000.
Amillennialism has been widely held in the Eastern Orthodox Church as well as in the Roman Catholic Church, which generally follows Augustine on this point and which has deemed that premillennialism "cannot safely be taught."[8] Amillennialism is also often associated with Protestants such as those in the Lutheran, Reformed and Anglican churches. Many, but not all, partial preterists are amillennialists. Amillennialism declined in Protestant circles with the rise of Postmillennialism and the resurgence of Premillennialism, but it has regained prominance in the West after World War II.
[edit] Criticism
Many premillennialists accuse amillennialists of over-spiritualizing parts of the Bible. Amillennialists argue that to understand the Bible literally, one must interpret it according to its genre such that history is not read as though it were poetry, for instance. Amillennialist B. B. Warfield says that in the genre of the Book of Revelation, which he calls an "apocalyptic," everything is stated in a "symbolic medium" such that "every event, person, and thing, that appears on its pages is to be read as a symbol, and the thing symbolized understood. This is not to say one thing and mean another; it is only to say what is said through the medium of a series of symbols, and to mean nothing but the things symbolized."[10] Since the events pictured in an apocalyptic are spoken of in a symbolic medium, the details of the symbol mustn't be forced onto the thing symbolized because the book itself "gives us a direct description of nothing it sets before us, but always a direct description of the symbol by which it is represented." Thus he argues that the millennium of Revelation 20 should be understood to be the intermediate state, though the book never states as much, and in fact, if Revelation actually did give a direct mention of the intermediate state, the very nature of the work would compel the reader to assume that the intermediate state was not in view at all, but rather symbolized something else entirely.[11]
The amillennial view that good and evil will persist has led some postmillennialists to accuse amillennialists (and premillennialists) of being overly pessimistic.[citation needed] Amillennialists have countered that the Parable of the Weeds and the Parable of Drawing in the Net show that the good and evil will be sorted out only at the end of the world.[citation needed]
[edit] References
- ^ Anthony Hoekema, "Amillennialism"
- ^ Eusebius, 3.28.1-2
- ^ De Principiis, 2.2
- ^ Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., 7.15.3; 7.25
- ^ The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol.8, p. 273
- ^ The Anchor Bible Dictionary (1997) article "Chiliasm", The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart (Johann Amos Comenius, ed. 1998) p. 42 and Jews and Christians: The Parting of the Ways, A.D. 70 to 135 (James D. G. Dunn, 1999) p. 52.
- ^ "Always Victorious!" by Francis Nigel Lee
- ^ a b Catholic Answers on "The Rapture"
- ^ City of God 20.7
- ^ B. B. Warfield, "The Apocalypse" in Selected Shorter Writings, vol II. Presbyterian and Reformed: Phillipsburg, 1971. p. 652. ISBN 0875525318
- ^ B. B. Warfield, "The Millennium and the Apocalypse" in Biblical Doctrines, vol. II in Works. Baker Book House: Grand Rapids. n.d. p. 650
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- "A Defense of (Reformed) Amillennialism" - a series of articles by David J. Engelsma from the Standard Bearer (April 1, 1995 through December 15, 1996)
- Monergism's articles on Amillennialism
- Grace Online Library: Amillennialism - various articles on Amillennialism
- "Millennium and Millenarianism" from the Catholic Encyclopedia
- Blue Letter Bible summary (dispensational premillennialism perspective)
- On The Thousand Year Reign (Chiliasm) Elder Cleopa of Romania—Eastern Orthodox view
