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THE UNSCRIPTURAL THEOLOGIES OF AMILLENNIALISM AND POSTMILLENNIALISM

sovereigngrace

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An elementary study of the early Church fathers’ teachings over the first 100 years after the cross shows that they generally saw the second coming of Jesus Christ as “the end” or “the end of the world.” They believed all the righteous would be rescued to inherit a new perfected earth. The wicked would be destroyed with this current corrupt earth. This is standard Amillennial teaching! There is a notable silence from the early writers, apart from Papias. Nowhere does he quote any of the early Church fathers (apart from Papias) mention, or describe conditions on a future millennial earth or articulate any of the main tenets of the Premillennial belief. All we have is complete silence.

There is complete silence on a millennial existence in the first 100 years after the cross apart from Papias. Remember, Revelation was a later manuscript that was not believed to have gained wide influence outside of Asia Minor for quite a while. So, the absence of these early writers exegeting it is not strange.

Contrary to what many modern Dispensationalist apologists argue, the early church writers were not mainly Premillennialist. In fact, the doctrine, which seems to have had its origin in Asia Minor, was mainly limited to that area for many yrs.
 
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Timtofly

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Why is this current age right for the Day of the Lord, but the actual Day of the Lord is so "wrong" in your view?
 
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Timtofly

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It does not add up because it is private opinion and not Scripture.
 
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Timtofly

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The problem is that you are turning the pre-mill view into the post mill view. Any pre-mill who thinks the way you paint the millennium is not using Scripture to define the millennium.
 
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RandyPNW

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Well yea, the Apostle John wrote letters to 7 churches in Asia Minor, and it would be expected that they heard the message regarding the future Millennium! John may have gotten his Revelation about half a century after the Cross, so I don't know why you'd be surprised that for 100 years after the Cross you don't hear much about the Millennium.

In fact, if I'm not mistaken the Millennial Day theory may have existed at that time, and Jews, who were the first Christians, may have just assumed that the 7th thousand year period in human history would provide the occasion for Israel's final salvation? Why should anybody but the worldly spend time detailing what the Millennium would be like? Men like Cerinthus would surely make use of it to explain how human lusts can be satisfied in the age of God's coming Kingdom?

But genuine Christians, who believed in a future Kingdom, would surely be more focused on winning souls in preparation for that Kingdom! And so, why look for discussion of the Millennium in the 1st century of the Church.

But as controversy over that time period developed, there came to be need for the Church Fathers to defend Premillennial beliefs, or Chiliasm, including Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. Tertullian and Hippolytus were also important defenders of this belief. This does not at all indicate that the Church expected an abrupt end at the 2nd Coming!
 
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sovereigngrace

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The problem is that you are turning the pre-mill view into the post mill view. Any pre-mill who thinks the way you paint the millennium is not using Scripture to define the millennium.

I notice you never actually address what others write. You never explain their Scriptures. You just submit short dismissive evasive comments.
 
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sovereigngrace

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Victorinus was the first of the orthodox writers to teach that the wicked populate a future millennial kingdom. He is also the first to detail Satan’s release after a literal thousand years in the future, and his baleful influence on the wicked who supposedly during Satan’s little season. Victorinus wrote mainly around AD 270. It is both notable and amazing, in light of the loud noise, and constant boastings coming from the Premillennial camp re its ancient heritage, that for 240 years after the cross there is no existing Premillennial teaching pertaining to the populating of the millennium with the wicked and the release of Satan 1,000 years after the second coming. Consequently, there was nothing taught by any traditional Chiliast before this that the second coming would be followed by Satan’s deceit of billions of millennial inhabitants, who come against the righteous as the sand of the sea in allegiance to Satan and overrun the millennium. For the first 240 years of the early Church these key elements of Premillennialism were either unknown or rejected by all the orthodox early Church writers. This is not insignificant!

Victorinus concisely submits:

And the scarlet devil is imprisoned and all his fugitive angels in the Tartarus of Gehenna at the coming of the Lord; no one is ignorant of this. And after the thousand years he is released, because of the nations which will have served Antichrist (Revelation commentary: 20.1).

This is the sum total of information we have on this supposed future uprising. Victorinus is markedly succinct on this matter. He doesn’t elaborate any more on his position. This is the totality of his surviving views. While Victorinus did previously make a passing comment about Satan being released, “because of the nations which will have served Antichrist,” he didn’t expand and delineate their activity, numbers, location and influence.
 
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DavidPT

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Why do you continually insist that Revelation 20:1-3 and Revelation 20:7-9 were not in anyone's Bibles for the first 240 years after the cross? Why are you even starting at the cross to begin with? Revelation wasn't already written at that time. How can anyone have already had an opinion about the millennium before John even saw the visions first?

Revelation 20:1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

Per your interpretations of some of their writings, this implies ch 20 looked like this below to the earliast chiliasts.

Revelation 20:1 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
2 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
3 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
4 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
5 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
6 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
7 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

They only saw 7 verses rather than 15, apparently. How can any reasonable person take your interpretations of some of their writings serious when you are, via your interpretations of some of their writings, having them taking away from the prophecies written in this book by having them having removed Revelation 20:1-3 and Revelation 20:7-9 altogether? What gives you the right to imply they took away from the prophecies written in this book? That's a serious charge. And they are not even here to defend themselves, that's the sad thing about it.
 
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sovereigngrace

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When have i ever said that Revelation 20:1-3 and Revelation 20:7-9 were not in anyone's Bibles for the first 240 years after the cross? Nowhere. I said, it was not until Victorinus, 240 years after the cross, that any orthodox ECF taught any of the core Premil fundamentals: including, two future resurrection and judgement days separated by 1000 years, the suspension of Christ's kingly reign, sin, death, corruption, the wicked and Satan on a millennial earth, Israel’s restoration to a place of pre-eminence above the Gentiles nations, the restoration of the whole old covenant arrangement (including the return of animal sacrifices, the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, and the return of the Old Testament priesthood), the casting down of Satan and his subsequent binding at the second coming, Satan being in the abyss for 1000 years after Christ's return, whereupon he will be released to win the affections of the countless millennial inhabitants as the sand of the sea. But the heretics taught many of these from the 1st century onward as I showed above.
 
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Christian Gedge

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I'm not sure that posting excerpts from somebody else's writings, without even explaining your own position in your own words, is a valid thread starter.
Thomas Ice leaves me cold.
 
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Christian Gedge

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Did the Church renounce the writings of Victorinus?
 
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RandyPNW

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As I said, details in the book of Revelation are sketchy, and does not leave much room for speculation. The idea of mortality in the Millennium is not a problem for me, nor is the rebellion of Satan towards the end of this period.

Latent human sin can rise up fairly quickly to capture a single generation. I've seen this here in the US in my lifetime. There has been a latent Marxist bent throughout my lifetime, but in the last 10 years the political Left has turned to Marxism in a sudden surge of interest in this kind of activism.

I've never seen such a coalition of political party, media, and wealthy elite combine to push for this kind of atheistic agenda. And it hasn't taken long.
 
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DavidPT

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When have i ever said that Revelation 20:1-3 and Revelation 20:7-9 were not in anyone's Bibles for the first 240 years after the cross?


Your interpretations of some of their writings imply that, not that you are actually saying that. What is being implied, being the point. You have Chiliasts who believed that the thousand years are after the 2nd coming, having satan cast into the LOF at the 2nd coming. That means you have these Chiliasts disregarding Revelation 20:1-3 and Revelation 20:7-9 altogether as if these verses were not even in their Bibles at the time, thus they were unable to see that satan is not cast into the LOF before the millennium, but is cast into the LOF after the millennium, yet you have them, via your interpretations of some of their writings, having satan cast into the LOF at the beginning of the millennium. Revelation 20 is crystal clear, so crystal clear that a 10 year old could not mistake that satan is cast into the LOF after the millennium, yet you have some of these early Chiliasts having reading comprehension less than a 10 year old might have.

You're convinced that because you have studied their writings for years, this makes you an expert on what they wrote, then. I can tell you a little story about that concept, that it is not always true in every case. The kind of trade I do involves the building of houses. Carpenters frame the houses, I hang the drywall in them. Years ago there was a carpenter around here that had years and years of experience framing houses, which you would then think makes him an expert, except his framing was so rough and out of square that I refused to hang drywall in houses he framed since his sub par framing job made my work look bad. I didn't know how bad his framing was until I hung that first house I hung the drywall in that he framed. After that first one, not his first house, but the first house that I hung the drywall in that that he framed, I wasn't interested in hanging any more houses that he framed. I then got into a habit, that when a contractor called me up about a house to bid on, I would ask who framed it, then precede accordingly based on whether the carpenters were good framers or bad framers.

So just because one has years and years experience with something, that does not necessarily make them experts, especially if all of those years they weren't even doing things correctly to begin with, where in your case, you were never interpreting some of their writings correctly to begin with, since you have chiliasts that take the thousand years to be meaning after the 2nd coming, having satan cast into the LOF at the beginning of the thousand years, though the text plainly tells us that at the beginning of the thousand years, satan is not cast into the LOF at the time, he is instead bound a thousand years at the time.
 
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sovereigngrace

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That is why i believe we have entered Satan's little season at the end.
 
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sovereigngrace

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Take your frustration up with the Chiliast ECFs, not me. They wrote what they did. I am just the mail man. I understand your discomfort but I have presented the facts. No other Premil I have engaged with denies this apart from you. Even the (non-Dispy) Premil historians acknowledge this. Facts are indeed stubborn things.

By the way, the early Chiliasts identified the binding of Satan with the earthly ministry of Christ, like Amils (ancient and modern.). They saw the destruction of Satan as happening at the second coming, like Amils. These are facts! This reinforces their disagreement with the modern Premil scheme. It also highlights the similarly between ancient Chiliasm and ancient and modern Amils. Both expected the age to come to be perfect, not like the Premil age to come which is an unmitigated bust filled with sin and sinners, dying and crying, sickness and hospitals, war and terror.

Ancient Premil can only be found amongst the heretical Judaizers. I presented quotes from these questionable founding fathers of modern Premil.

The 1st orthodox adherent to Premil was Victorinus about AD270. He was opposed by the orthodox Church of his day and his writings subjugated and rewritten. They had minimal effect on the Church and all but disappeared around AD430 untill Jesuit priest Manuel Lacunza in 1818 and Dispensationalism arrived in AD1830.

There is still a massive question mark over these writings of Victorinus today.
 
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Spiritual Jew

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Say what you will author nicely exposed the pagan Greek influence in rejection of literal interpretation of scripture.
The author nicely avoided using scripture itself to support his view, which is what matters. His words are meaningless without scriptural support.

It seems to me that Thomas Ice is not able to use scripture to refute Amillennialism, so he has tried to resort to other means to do so. As far as I know he doesn't post here so we can't even address what he said directly. Because of that, this thread is pointless as far as I'm concerned.
 
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chad kincham

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Fervent

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From what I gather the crux of the argument seems to be a confusion between literal and literalistic. The fantastical imagery of Revelation and the fact that it is presented as a vision along with the type of literature it is all points to symbolic language being used throughout. To try to force a 1:1 pattern doesn't make sense of the material, as Revelation seems to fold over itself several times as if it is presenting a single truth from multiple vantage points. A literal reading demands recognizing the routine usage of symbolism, drawn on a history of symbols repeated through all of Scripture.
 
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RandyPNW

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That is why i believe we have entered Satan's little season at the end.

Both of our positions are close to agreement on this. It is an age-ending little season of Satanic interference in God's Kingdom. I just believe that in the present age, Satan's rebellion will culminate in Antichrist's 3.5 years of tyranny. But we are already in the throes of Christian apostasy, ie apostasy within the former Christian territories.
 
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