Posted on 08/17/2014 10:21:22 AM PDT by wmfights
While amillennialism has its influence in all areas of theology, it is natural that it should affect eschatology more than any other. As a form of denial of a future millennial kingdom on earth, it stands in sharp contrast to premillennial eschatology.
In previous discussion of amillennialism, it has been brought out that amillennialism is by no means a unified theology, including within its bounds such diverse systems as modern liberal theology, Roman Catholic theology, and conservative Reformed theology. It is therefore impossible to generalize on amillennial eschatology without dividing it into these major divisions. Aside from various small sects who include within their tenets the premillennial concept, premillennialism for the most part presents a united front on eschatology in all major areas. Amillennialism, however, disagrees within itself on major issues. Modern Liberal Eschatology
Modern liberal eschatology almost without exception follows the amillennial idea. Modern liberalism usually disregards postmillennialism, or the idea of a golden age of righteousness on earth, as well as premillennialism which advances such an age after the second advent. For them, all promises of ultimate righteousness are relegated to the life after death.
Homrighausen has called the idea of a millennium on earth “a lot of sentimental heavenism.”1 He goes on to denounce both millennial otherworldliness and the idea that this world is heaven as well: “Millennialists are right in their basic discoveries that this world is fragmentary and needs re-creation. They are right in their insistence that this is an ‘end’ world; things here come to an end and have a limit. They are right in their insistence upon the other world, and in their emphasis upon the pull of God’s power of resurrection. But their abnormal interest in the other world, their reading of eschatology in mathematical terms of time, their otherworldliness and consequent passivity as regards this world, is wrong. But Christians need to be saved, too, from that modern dynamic materialism which romantically sentimentalizes this world into the ultimate. This identifies the time world with the eternal world. This paganism is a hybrid attempt on the part of man to make the creature into the creator. In Christian circles it makes the Kingdom of God a blueprint for a world order. We admire this vehement realism, but we absolutely reject its presumptions that this world is a self-contained and a divine heaven. We live on earth! One world at a time.”2 In other words, there will be no millennium of righteousness on earth either before or after the second advent.
In modern liberalism, there remains a form of postmillennialism which believes that the kingdom of God in the world is advancing and will be ultimately triumphant. In one sense this can be regarded as amillennial in that it denies any real fulfillment to millennial promises. It is dyed in bright hues of optimism and visionary idealism. Its doctrinal background is postmillennialism rather than amillennialism even though amillennialism often has an optimistic note as well. In modern liberal eschatology, the idea of progress and improvement is treated with some skepticism even as it is in modern philosophy. The trend is that indicated by Homrighausen—”one world at a time.” spiritual terms, rather than in bodily terms. This is not to say that there will be no judgment, and no rewards or punishments awaiting us. Indeed, we are being judged all the while, and the rewards and punishments can be seen even now. Every day is Judgment Day.”6 In other words, Harner believes there will be no future judgment and no future resurrection of the body. The principle of spiritualizing Scripture is carried by the modern liberal to its ultimate extreme unencumbered with any idea of inspiration of Scripture and need for literal interpretation. Such is the legacy of spiritualization and unbelief as they combine in modern liberal amillennialism. Roman Catholic Eschatology
It is not within the scope of this discussion to treat the large area involved in Roman Catholic eschatology. The objections of Protestant theology to Roman eschatology have been the subject of voluminous writings ever since the Reformation. In general, however, it may be said that Roman eschatology tends to take Scripture more literally than modern liberal amillennialism. A vivid doctrine of judgment for sin after death, of resurrection of the body, and ultimate bliss for the saints are central aspects. Protestant objection has been principally to the doctrine of purgatory with all its kindred teachings and to the denial of the efficacy of the work of Christ on the cross, making unnecessary any purgatory or any human works whatever to qualify the believer in Christ for immediate possession of salvation, and security, and immediate entrance into heaven upon death. As in modern liberal amillennialism, however, Roman theology would be impossible if a literal method of interpretation of Scripture was followed. Roman theology concurs with amillennialism in denying any future kingdom of righteousness on earth after the second advent, and in its essential method follows the same type of spiritualization as modern liberalism. Amillenarians group together the judgment of the nations (Matt 25:31-46), the judgment of the church (2 Cor 5:9-11), the judgment of Israel (Ezek 20:33-38), the judgment of the martyrs (Rev 20:4-6), the judgment of the wicked dead (Rev 20:11-15), and the judgment of the angels (2 Pet 2:4; Rev 20:10). It is not the purpose of the present discussion to refute the amillennial position on the judgments nor to sustain the premillennial, but the wide divergence of the two viewpoints is evident.
Of major importance in arriving at the respective doctrines characterizing the amillennial and premillennial concept of the judgments is the determining factor of spiritualizing versus literal interpretation. The amillenarian can deal lightly with the various Scripture passages involved, and with no attempt to explain them literally. The difference in character between the church being judged in heaven and the living nations being judged on earth as in Matthew 25 is glossed over and made the same event, even though there is no mention whatever of either the church or of resurrection in Matthew 25. The judgment of martyrs before the millennium and the judgment of the wicked dead after the millennium as outlined in Revelation 20 is brought together by the expedient of denying the existence of the millennium after the second advent.
It is obvious that the amillennial viewpoint is a combination of spiritualizing and literal interpretation. While they believe in a literal second advent and a literal judgment of all men, they do not apply the form of literal interpretation to the details of the many passages involved. It is because the premillenarians insist on literal interpretation of the details as well as the event that they find the various judgments differing as to time, place, and subjects.
The extent of spiritualization being used by amillenarians in eschatology is highly significant, as has been noted in previous discussions. The spiritualizing principle has been excluded so far as robbing eschatology of any specific events such as the second advent or a literal resurrection of the dead. On the other hand the spiritualizing method has been used whenever the literal method would lead to the premillennial viewpoint. It is precisely on the points at issue between them that the spiritualizing method is used by the amillenarians. The premillennial interpretation is thus waved aside as inadequate, confused, or contradictory not by sound exegetical methods but by denial that the passages in question mean what they seem to mean if taken literally. It is for this reason that the controversy between the millennial views often has more sound and fury than facts, and in the minds of many scholars the matter is settled before it is fairly examined.
Even Louis Berkhof who is notably lucid and factual in his treatment of theological disputes writes concerning premillennialism: “In reading their description of God’s dealings with men one is lost in a bewildering maze of covenants and dispensations, without an Ariadne thread to give safe guidance. Their divisive tendency also reveals itself in their eschatological program. There will be two second comings, two or three (if not four) resurrections, and also three judgments. Moreover, there will also be two peoples of God, which according to some will be eternally separate, Israel dwelling on earth, and the Church in heaven.”7
We can hardly expect those who admittedly are bewildered and confused to be able to debate the issues, though Berkhof does much better than most amillenarians. The attitude of Berkhof, however, is significant. To him it is transparent that any doctrine other than the amillennial interpretation is simply impossible. But should amillennialism be taken for granted? Why should there not be three or four resurrections instead of one? What is wrong with there being two peoples on earth? Why on the face of it should we dispute the distinction between the rapture and the second coming? The answer is simply that it contradicts amillennialism, but it does not contradict the Bible literally interpreted. Certainly if one is to reject a doctrine because it is complicated, no theologian could for a moment accept the doctrine of the Trinity or debate the fine points of the relation of the two natures in Jesus Christ.
The doctrine of the eternal state, however, is for the most part one of agreement rather than disagreement. Those who distinguish the program of God for Israel and the church find them fulfilled in the eternal state in the respective spheres of the new earth and the new heavens. While this is rejected by the amillenarians who merge all the saints of all ages into one mass of redeemed humanity, it is not of the same importance theologically as other points of divergence. Reformed amillenarians and premillenarians unite on the important point of a literal eternity, in which both heaven and hell will be peopled.
The millennial controversy can only be dissolved by a careful analysis of the details of premillennialism. The amilliennial contention is, in brief, that premillenarians do not have a case, that their interpretations are confused, contradictory, and impossible. The answer to these charges has, of course, already been made in the abundant premillennial literature available today. It is the purpose of the discussion which will follow, however, to take up the mainsprings of the premillennial interpretation of Scripture and to establish the important and determining interpretations of Scripture which underlie premillennialism as a system of theology. Amillennialism has failed to present any unified system of theology or eschatology. Within its ranks, consistent with its main principles, are the widest divergences on every important doctrine. The purpose of the further discussion of premillennialism is to show that a consistent premillennialism can be erected with principles embedded in its system of interpretation. These at once are determining and corrective so that a premillenarian is always properly a conservative and Protestant theologian. The issues raised briefly in the survey of amillennial theology which is here concluded will be considered again seriatim as they come in conflict with tenets of premillennialism.
This article was taken from the Theological Journal Library CD and posted with permission of Galaxie Software.
1 Elmer G. Homrighausen, “One World at a Time,” Contemporary Religious Thought, Thomas S. Kepler, editor, p. 372.
2 Loc. cit.
6 Nevin C. Harner, I Believe, p. 83.
7 Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, p. 710.
"And though shalt call His name Jesus".
>>Christ is the title of the Sun God.<<
Acts 24:24 And after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ.
Romans 3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
Then please explain your thoughts on why as revealed to John we have the first resurrection happening after the wedding feast and second coming. The elect had to get to Yeshua’s marshalling area for the wedding feast somehow. By your posts you establish the first resurrection=rapture after the last trump. Revelation shows different. It clearly states the first resurrection occurs after the second coming at the beginning of the millennial Kingdom.
This is not parenthetical misunderstanding on my part. Chapters 19-22 follow chronologically.
Without breathing in theological approaches this is what we have:
The elect, the bride of Messiah with Him at the wedding feast; location heaven. The elect get there somehow and we know this to be the translation or rapture.
Messiah comes with His bride at second coming. Nations defeated Satan bound and then the first resurrection and judgment then millennial Kingdom.
So accordingly to how these events are revealed to John the rapture is not the first resurrection.
Those of Verse 4 of chapter 20 are the bride of Yeshua, and were given their new bodies way back at the last trump.
Chapter 20 is in an overview covering from the last trump to the beginning of the New Heaven/New Earth. It contains both resurrections. the overview contains all the final chapters without the details given of the same events in earlier chapters.
Wow! And you accuse others of not knowing scripture. Rood has really diluded those who follow his teaching.
>> “Then please explain your thoughts on why as revealed to John we have the first resurrection happening after the wedding feast and second coming” <<
I have no idea where you get that.
Its laid out plainly in the Revelation that the first resurrection must come before the wedding supper, or the supper would have no one present. The gathering for the wedding feast is on the “sea of fire and glass” immediately after the first resurrection “at the last trump”. The elect “get there” by Yeshua and his angels gathering them from the four corners of the Earth and taking them up in the cloud. This is simultaneous with the beginning of the pouring out of the bowls of wrath on Earth. Then after the wedding we return to earth with Yeshua.
You are not grasping that chapters 20-22 are a broad general overview from beginning to end (last trump to new Heaven/new Earth) The start of chapter 20 jumps way back into earlier chapters .
Why have you no shame?
Offer something of substance rather than snide growlings and I’ll try to show you the word.
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No thanks. You and the Catholics can work on earning your sal action. I've been saved by the shed blood of Christ.
According to God’s word, nobody has been saved yet.
Only those that endure to the end will be saved. Those are the words of Yeshua.
If you had read your Bible, then you would know that the Holy Spirit is also God. Jesus Christ is the Son of God/God the Son, Almighty God incarnate, and the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity.
>> “and the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity.” <<
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And it says that in...
Oh! My! Trinity is not in God’s word.
Nowhere does the word of God discuss the Holy Spirit as a third person.
“How then do you handle Revelation 20. It specifically outlines a 1,000 year reign of Christ after the second coming”
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I don’t see your conclusion in the Chapter. Where do you find the “1,000 year reign” is AFTER the second coming?
All Scripture is true, therefore Revelation must be read to harmonize with Matthew 24, 2 Peter 3:10 and 1 Corinthians 15:23-24, which are very clear. When Jesus returns, IT IS THE END OF THE WORLD.
I would point out for those who disagree that Satan was bound at the cross, Revelation 20:7-8 is entirely consistent with 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 “what is restraining him now” and being loosed when the 1,000 years when ended. this is another proof that the 1,000 years is symbolic, not literal and was in effect when Paul wrote 2 Thessalonians.
I am constantly amazed that anyone who throws a lot of Hebrew words around and reads the OT as if the NT was never written, can develop a following. especially when Jesus specifically warned us in the latter days, false teachers would arise and fool many.
Rood’s unique teaching is not the Apostolic Faith and has no basis in the history of the Church.
Anyone who is at all remotely familiar with the NT and Apostolic Tradition can dismiss Rood immediately as a false teacher. ( no matter how many Hebrew words he may know )
I am the only one in this conversation that has not denied Christ by denying his words
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do those words include John 8:58? “truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM”
An article that I found that sheds some light on the resurrection/rapture:
http://www.truegospel.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/library.sr/CT/PW/k/428/Caught-Up-in-Rapture.htm
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Yes, our God is not bound by the limitations of his own creation.
Time is a creation of our God
Indeed.
Both Paul and John said they were living in the latter days, and the spirit of antichrist was operating even in their day - So no religion, including yours, stands without (outside of) that definition.
Nowhere does the word of God discuss the Holy Spirit as a third person
Acts 5:3 why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit.....
Acts 5:4 you have not lied to men but to God.
I guess Rood has never read these verses since they are in the NT. The Holy Spirit is a person ( you can’t lie to a force or power ) and He is God.
but the Trinity is a pagan Catholic invention by Constantine, do I have my “roodism” right?
There is nothing presented in the NT that was not first presented in the ancient scriptures.
Paul preaches this fact in Hebrews 3 and 4.
Heb.3
[1] Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;
[2] Who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house.
[3] For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house.
[4] For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God.
[5] And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after;
[6] But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.
[7] Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice,
[8] Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
[9] When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.
[10] Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.
[11] So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)
[12] Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
[13] But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
[14] For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;
[15] While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.
[16] For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.
[17] But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?
[18] And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?
[19] So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
Heb.4
[1] Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.
[2] For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
[3] For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
[4] For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.
[5] And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest.
[6] Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:
[7] Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
[8] For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day.
[9] There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.
[10] For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.
[11] Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.
[12] For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
[13] Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
[14] Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.
[15] For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
[16] Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
Show me where it says “third person” or reasonable facsimile thereof.
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Show me where it says “third person” or reasonable facsimile thereof
________
John 14:16-17 “ and I will pray the Father, and he will give you ANOTHER counselor, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom THE WORLD cannot receive, because it neither sees HIM nor knows HIM, you know HIM for HE dwells with you and will be in you.
sounds pretty personal. note “the world” receive Him, so anyone who doesn’t believe in the personhood of the Holy Spirit is still in the world and not the kingdom. ( rood, call your office )
since Rood rejects the Trinity as pagan, does He believe there are two Gods or does he teach the Father is God and Jesus is a created being? hard to pin him down on this.
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