Premillennialism (PM), or Chiliasm (chilia is the Greek number for 1,000), is an embarrasment for Partial Preterists (PP), Postmillennialists (PoM) and Amillennialists (AM). This short paper will highlight the reasons why it is an embarrassment and why scholars who are not PM must downplay its place in "historic Christianity." But, the way they downplay it actually undermines the very argument they use against Biblical Preterism (BP).

 

First, the claim that "historic Christianity" has always been united in eschatology is false. Charles Hill, professor at Reformed Theological Seminary (and who co-authored a book with Keith Mathison, When Shall These Things Be?), has tried to show that PM was not the "only" millennialism around in the second century (Regnum Caelorum: Patterns of Millennial Thought in Early Christianity, Eerdmans, 2001) and does so convincingly. However, it is evident that the earliest writings we have, and the dominant church fathers early on were Chiliasts. Hill lists 2 Baruch and 4th Ezra, two early Jewish documents, as chiliastic. I noted before that Papias (70 to mid 2nd century A.D.) drew from 2nd Baruch (Hill notes this as well). Further Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Commodianus, Victorinus, Lactantius were all "definitely chiliasts" to quote Hill, who is an AM.

The differences are noted. Some believed in an intermediate state for the dead. Some believed that the translated went to Paradise immediately. Others denied a subterranean middle state while others affirmed one. Big issues.

Now, the argument we often hear is that of "historic Christianity" and that BP overturns it on the matter of eschatology. That is, if BP is true, then God failed to guide the church. But, when one notes the confusion early on in eschatology one can equally wonder why God failed to guide the church on the question of the Millennium, or why God failed when the Pope and Medieval theology arose until Luther recovered the doctrine of God's righteousness (he simply read the Bible himself to discover this doctrine! Go figure). But, seeing that this argument is as useless as a dead cat, it does point out interesting problems.

Ireneaus, as we all know by now (those of you that have read my blogs), claims that Papias got chiliasm from the mouth of Jesus, who taught John, and John taught his elders who taught Papias who was an associate of Polycarp who taught Irenaeus. All of this, of course, is questioned by the AM, PoM and PP. But, this is the very source of the argument of "historic Christian faith"!

This is the argument: the Historic Christian Faith has always been united from the time of the Apostles onward according to the once and for all time Tradition handed down from them to the leaders of the Second Century. But, the very claim of that Tradition from Tertullian, Justin and Irenaeus is that the "elders of John" taught PM! Papias is as early as we get to the time of the Apostles! How in the world, then, can PP, AM, PoM justify their claims?

It is here that what they really mean by the Historic Christian Faith is that regardless of what millennial view one hold to, they all believe in a future Second Coming of Christ. The details don't matter. But, this undermines the very argument that God guided the church. For, in the end, what it says is that God guided the church to acknowledge a vague Second Coming, but provided the same Church with no details! In other words, we have unity in the Second Coming as future, but we all can tolerate each other on the fact that AM, PM, PP and PoM contradict each other in the details (not to mention Dispen -sationalism, Post-trib, Pre-trib, and Mid-trib, just to add a few more meaningless "details" that God forgot to tell us about).

This is an example of "unity in spite of the truth"! More dangerous is that this unity minimizes biblical eschatology and the details as unimportant. In fact, "pan-millennialism" runs in most churches probably because most Christians it seems prefer not to talk about eschatology at all. And, when you start mentioning details like 70 Weeks, Seven Headed Beast, Antichrist, 666, and hundreds of other passages (the Bible is 1/3 eschatology) then we either argue or simply leave the conversation since "nobody really knows." Hey, at least we all agree that He is coming back, and that's enough, right?

So much for God's word. Each word in the Bible is ordained and inspired by God to be there. 666 is God's holy and inspired word. "Seven heads" is inspired. "1,000 years" is inspired. God put it there, in fact, He inspired hundreds of minute details and points on eschatology – so many that very, very early on debates as to how all these details worked out occurred. Hence, PM, AM and much later on PoM and PP. What we as BP are asked to believe is that the Church, as a whole, got it wrong on the details of the Second Coming, and that we can tolerate that, but they did not get it wrong on ONE DETAIL: the he "shall come again" sometime in the future! Now do you get the picture? These views must minimize the details of God's word as unimportant, not important enough to divide over, but maximize a sentence, not in the Bible, but in a man-made Creed: "he shall come again". The Creed is an interpretation of eschatology and this single interpretation has become the standard as to whether or not one is a "Christian." Shame on us Protestants!

Imagine having a puzzle in front of you and it is not put together. In fact, it's 8 puzzles all mixed up together. You have in front of you ONE puzzle box with a picture. So, you know what ONE puzzle is to look like, but have NO IDEA what the other 7 look like. That's the situation we have here. God, so they say, has given us 8 puzzles (AM, PoM, PP, PM, Pre-Trib Disp., Post-Trib, Mid Trib….oh, I forgot Idealism and Historicism) and mixed them all together, but gave us ONE PICTURE to work all of them out.

Let's use another example. If a person tells you eight false propositions and one right proposition is he to be trusted? Yet, this is what they say God has given to us. Since all of these eschatologies cannot be right, in fact, none of them may be right logically speaking, only one of them may be true. Logically speaking, they cannot all be true. Since, then, we have more views than the one that is right, I am to tolerate more falsehoods than I am to have the one truthful view! Unity in spite of the Truth. And, get this, the BP is not welcome to the conversation because he disagrees with the alleged one truthful proposition out all this mess! Folks, dear readers, as you can see, this argument is completely shot.

Now, there is more. The BP must account for all these views as well, and he must do so on account the framework of BP. In fact, BP is the only view that can account for all these views for they all suffer from one fatal defect. They are all attempting to apply unfulfilled prophecy to an Age of Fulfillment! Of course none of them will work! God's Word was not intended to make them work!

Secondly, since the PoM, AM, and PP must discount the earliest view of PM, then they, too, must admit that very early on something got wrong. Only the PM view will work here (and some defectors from BP have rightly seen this advocating that PM is the only biblical view).

In the view of BP, prophecy CEASED. There was no "guiding" by the Spirit in the sense of inerrant interpretation (of course, the Roman Catholic would disagree here). The Church was made Perfect by the Spirit in terms of salvation, but this was not a promise that in the ages to come she would have all her doctrinal ducks in a row from day one. God was going to teach his church the ethic of love – which is the hardest ethic to follow and the design was, according to Romans 14, to have several views which conflict with each other. In this way we would be stretched to preach a message of tolerance. We would still have to love one another in spite of differing views – in short, the perfect church in Christ had to grow up learning one thing: love one another and in this way would demonstrate fulfillment of the Law (Romans 12-13).

The BP, on the basis of its framework, can account for why error crept into the doctrinal formulations of the church very early on. We are told to tolerate each other on several views of eschatology, are we not? On what basis? For the creedolytryst, that basis is not the Bible, but the Creeds. "He shall come again" is a statement of the Creed that supposedly is the one detail the Church got right out of all the details she got wrong. We have already exposed that error. The basis for tolerance is the ethic of love as defined by Paul who was looking forward to the end of the age and the Age to Come which would be characterized by loving one another. There is no Prophet to whom we can ask, "which millennial view is correct?" We are to figure it out together, working under One God, One Lord, One Faith in One Body.

Because we have a different solution to the puzzles on the table, we are told that we are not included in that One Faith. Take our solution elsewhere. You can't play with us. But, because God has made the rules, not men, we are invited by God Himself to sit at the table and begin to put the pieces together that makes sense of all the other puzzles. Sure, the other kids won't like us at first because we seem to be putting together these pieces at a rapid pace. A picture is emerging that makes sense of it all – that explains the reason why all these puzzles are here in the first place. A puzzle that unites all these puzzles into one picture of what Christ has accomplished for us on the CROSS. A puzzle that will show us what we all have been saying since day one of the Church:

Alas! and did my Savior bleed
And did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For sinners such as I?

At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away,
It was there by faith I received my sight,
And now I am happy all the day!

Thy body slain, sweet Jesus, Thine—
And bathed in its own blood—
While the firm mark of wrath divine,
His Soul in anguish stood.

Was it for crimes that I had done
He groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity! grace unknown!
And love beyond degree!

Well might the sun in darkness hide
And shut his glories in,
When Christ, the mighty Maker died,
For man the creature’s sin.

Thus might I hide my blushing face
While His dear cross appears,
Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
And melt my eyes to tears.

But drops of grief can ne’er repay
The debt of love I owe:
Here, Lord, I give my self away
’Tis all that I can do.