Amillennialism vs Premillennialism

In this article, we first examined the tap root that contributed to the rejection of a literal thousand-year kingdom on earth, the dominant view for the first two centuries of the church, in favour of a spiritualized kingdom unlimited in duration (amillennialism). The single factor: the adoption of an allegorical hermeneutic, which replaced the literal or face-value hermeneutic of Jesus and the apostles. Four sub-roots fed this hermeneutical shift. First: the anti-Jewish bias of the early church developed as a result of a church dominated by gentile believers. Second: an overreaction to heresy, which included the condemnation not only of heretical doctrines, but chiliasm as well. Third: the adoption of Platonic and Gnostic teachings on the evil of the material world which led to a rejection of a material, earthly future kingdom. And fourth and finally: the adoption of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire. The church no longer looked for the coming of Christ to establish His kingdom and rescue believers from persecution, but instead saw the newly-found freedom and prominence of the church as the fulfillment of the promises of a future kingdom.

I agree with you.

I was basing my response on the fact that it was pointed out that "Christendom" included those who are not true believers in Christ. When Christ told the Pharisees, who did not believe that He was Who He said He was, that the kingdom of God was "within (them)", He certainly did not mean at that moment that the kingdom of God was "within" them like it is with those who truly know Christ as Savior.

At that point in time, because Christ was among them, the kingdom of God was, indeed, among them, but not within them.

It is absolutely true that the current kingdom of God, which is spiritual, exists within those who truly know Christ as Savior.

I was differentiating between the current spiritual kingdom and the future, literal, earthly one-thousand year kingdom with Jesus Christ ruling the nations from Jerusalem.

Well, there is the controversy between the Donatists and Augustine re the composition of the "church" -- this led to the rift maintained ever since.

Am I making it clear that the visible kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God coexist now, but the Kingdom of Heaven will continue on the earth up to, through, and a thousand years (plus a little) beyond the Great tribulation, containing those who have survived that trial?

Yes, the Devil will be kept away; but the constituents will still have a sinful nature, but will be governed by Christ and those saints reigning with Him? At least, that is the perception that I have of the progress of revelation.

Dr. Thomas Strouse mentioned that "To the Donatists, the true church was the assembly of immersed believers in a particular locale, maintaining their purity through strong preaching and church discipline." It seems to me that this may be something of the conduct of worldlings in that thousand-year reign, and to which their inner chafing will eventually rise to open rebellion when the devil is released briefly at the end of that period? (A speculation) - Hmmm.

(I believe I understand the Kingdom of The God is "in the midst of you-all" when it refers to those of His Body, individuals of whom He will never leave nor forsake.)

Here is a point of departure for us. It seems pretty clear to me that as a hierarchical system began to dominate and the the church-state model emerged that those who embraced these changes were the ones who abandoned literal interpretation. I doubt these would be the churches to trust on interpretation.

That is a briefly stated concept of what did happen, as the article indicated. The problem was that many of the politically adept leaders repressed the distinctive NT truths that to the unregenerate believers were indigestible, so these hangers-on could be kept in the circle, especially governors and kings who wanted a shared, governable religion to unify an empire. God's plan for His goverment of His people under the New Covenant was by independent local assemblies of immersed believer-disciples whose leaders grew into their roles through spiritual maturation, taught under a literal historicity and grammatical grasp of known, unchangeable Scriptural principles handed down through discipleship by teachers whose own training traced back to the original Apostles.

But clever "social engineers" grasped the tiller and gained ascendency by intellectual and political nimbleness, thus steering the "Christianized" Platonic philosophy to operate parallel to the ship of state, creating its own clerical class to rule the commoners in their religion, while the civil magistrates exercised their rule over the economy. This resulted in what is called a "sacral society" -- a state religion, entered into by all citizens (by baptism at birth), an episcopacy of priests, and persecuting all opposition. For that to happen, a literal interpretation of Scripture had to fall and be supplanted by an allegorized interpretation not interfering with the empire. Happy for Constantine at Nicea, eh? At least, that's what it seems like --

Actually I look forward to a theocracy/monarchy with Jesus as King. It will come. I lived many years as a hippy type and then many years as an objectivist, now I’m with the Lord.

Your opinion, sir; no-one has the right to take it from you. Actually, I'm glad you twitted me earlier: I learned a lot about the difference between premillenialism and postmillenialism. As it turns out, premils are truly blameless with respect to freedom. The worst damage has been done by heretical postmils. In fact, Christian communism comes from a twisted variety of postmillenialism that tends to go hand in hand with the heresy of antinomianism.

[For those who don't know, the heresy of antinominanism claims that an Elect is eternally saved, so they are incapable of sinning no matter what they do. Unsurprisingly, when that lot gets power, they act a lot like atheistic Communists.]

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