I believe every main eschatology or millennial theory rests on one error. They all teach the Kingdom of God is physical instead of being spiritual. So all try to build a physical kingdom on earth in Christ’s name. This includes Amillennialists, Postmillennialists, and Premillennialists, who look for a physical kingdom of the future that will last 1000 years.
But scripture teaches the Kingdom is here now - spiritually. It is not of this world. And it is everlasting.
The Amillennialists say the kingdom is here now, but it is physical. And this led to the Church and State persecution of innocent people by the Catholics over the centuries, and by the Lutheran and Reformed Church States to a lesser degree.
The Postmillennialists say the same thinking the Church will finally influence and dominate civil laws and magistrates. A sort of "Christianized" world. Some Dominion Postmillennial groups plan a violent takeover of the world.
Premillennialist and Dispensationalists see a physical kingdom ruling the world by force after Jesus returns.
But the common error in all groups is the physical kingdom concept and the comingling of Church and State that Jesus keeps separate when he says his kingdom is not of this world.
Any thoughts or rebuttals appreciated.
This is a classical example of using an
interpretation of the
meanings of a
few scriptures as an excuse to deny the
explicit statements of a
literal multitude of other scriptures.
The OP, and its follow-up posts, cite parts of a few scriptures, while ingoring the other parts of the very they scriptures they cite.
The first scripture cited is from John 18:36, where Jesus said "my kingdom is not of this world." But it ignores the rest of the statement Jesus made at that time. For Jesus said "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here."
John 18:36
The posted ignored one critical word from this statement made by Jesus. And that word, which is indeed critical to its understanding, is "now." "now My kingdom is not from here." Our common English translations do not do justice to the Greek text here, for the actual Greek text is not simply "nun," which literally translates as "now," but "nun de," which literally translates as "now yet."
That is, Jesus was clearly stating that the time for his kingdom to be "of this world" had not yet come, not that it would ever be "of this world."
And the second scripture cited was from Luke 17:2-20-21, where Jesus said "The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, 'See here!' or 'See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you."
Luke 17:20-21
But immediately after saying this, Jesus went on to describe what would happen when He came to set up his physical kingdom on this earth.
The problem with the basic claims of the OP and its supporters, is that they have to pretend that about an entire fifth of the entire Bible simply does not mean what it explicitly says.
While the only place in the entire Bible that states how long the future earthly kingdom will last is Revelation 20, that is only one of a great many passages of scripture that explicitly state that there will be a future physical kingdom on this earth.
And these scriptures do not just state, and explicitly state this, but they also describe this future kingdom in great detail. To deny that this will actually happen, as the Holy Spirit has explicitly told us, is to make God out to be a liar.