The Last Word on the Last Days: Amillennialism (No-literal 1000 year Reign of Christ)

I laughed when I started this series as a personal response to the title I decided on. The title is preposterous. However unlikely, I might actually figure out which eschatology is right...not! What I can do is describe them for you and highlight their strengths and weaknesses. My research into Amillennialism is not extensive, and I'll give you my resources at the end. Let's get started.

This is a basic premillennial dispensational view of Bible history:



This is a basic amillenial view of Bible history:



Doesn't the amillenial picture look barren beside even this simplistic dispensational chart? That is deceptive. Amillennial views are complex (especially as their adherents attempt to prove them from scripture). The basic idea is not complex, but the scriptural exegesis is complex. The basic presuppositions are as follows:

1. Scripture pointed early Christians to a soon return of Christ in glory (see Matt. 10:23, 26:64; Rom. 13:11-12; I Cor. 7:31, 10:11; Phil. 4:5; James 5:8-9; 1 Peter 4:7; 1 John 2:18; Rev. 1:1,3,11, 22:6-7,10,12,20)(Sproul). This list doesn't include yet another text Sproul cites, namely Matthew 24:34, which seems to say that the generation of people standing there at Jesus' utterance would see Him return in glory (also in the other synoptic Gospels).

2. Christ did not come in that generation. Therefore, either the NT writers did not mean that His coming was soon, or they did and His coming was not the end of the world under the conditions we envision when we adopt the "Left Behind" mindset regarding the study of the end times. RC Sproul argues extensively for the latter option, that is, that many Christians have misunderstood the prophetic literature concerning Christ's Second Coming.

3. Therefore, all Scripture must be interpreted in the light of the early churches expectation of the soon return of Christ in glory, and how that coming might have been fulfilled in history, or not yet fulfilled in history.

OK, those are the basic ideas behind amillennialism--the assumptions that it starts with. People have held them since early in church history. At first, many believers where premillennial, then, when Christ did not come early in the first millennium, believers began to look for other ways to interpret the prophetic Scriptures and amillennialism was born. St. Augustine held this position, as did several of the Reformers, and many of the Puritans.

The scheme of events is as follows:

Numbers 1-4 coincide with the Dispensational View in the main.

5. The Kingdom of God was initiated with the history of Jesus Christ. The Kingdom is the "Israel of God" (Gal.6:16) encompassing Jew and Gentile.

6. The church age will last an indefinite period.
a. Some interpreters see an increase of evil at the end of this age; some don't.
b. Some interpreters see a personal anti-christ; others do not.
c. Some interpreters see Israel turn largely to God near the end; some don't.

7. Christ will return at the end of the church age, judge all, and initiate eternity.

Simple, right? Well, no...not when one begans to try to understand how this simple scheme comes from Scripture. Amillennialists are divided on their interpretations of the Olivet Discourse, the Epistles, and the Revelation. There is also significant divergence in their interpretation of the OT prophetic books. In fact, I will not address it here, but post-millennialism is an off-shoot of amillennialism! Probably the main control in their interpretation goes back to the presuppositions I told you about--the NT expected a soon coming of Christ, it didn't happen, therefore the Scriptures concerning it must be interpreted differently than in a literal historical manner. Some schemes of interpretation follow:

1. Plain amillennialism: All the scriptures on tribulation and the antichrist are fulfilled throughout church history. Revelation is a symbolic interpretation of God's judgments throughout the church age. As I mentioned before, there is much division in the amill camp over what Scriptures represent what historical trends. Therefore, most plain amillennialists view much of the prophetic Scripture through the lens of symbolism (ie the loosing of the Gospel as the binding of Satan throughout the Church Age (Matt. 12:29; Luke 10:17-20)). However, plain amillennialists get very literal when they come to interpreting scriptures concerning the final judgment and the eternal state (ie a bodily return of Christ, Christ defeats all His enemies, Christ literally raises all the bodies of the dead, unites soul and body, judges all people, and places people in eternal heaven or hell).

2. Moderate preterist amillennialism: The Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24; Mark 13; Luke 21) is not symbolic in whole...it deals with the end of the Jewish Age. Jesus prediction of His coming in power was fulfilled in the Roman sack of Jerusalem in 70AD (Sproul's view). This is proved by Luke's account of the Discourse in which invading armies are described as "desolation come near," which coincides with the "abomination of desolation" found in the other synoptic Gospels. Sproul with others also use Flavius Josephus, Tacitus, and Seutonius as historical sources to show the astronomical signs in Jesus Olivet teachings happened in or around 70AD. The NT letters and the Revelation refer to church history, but also to future events. This view gives more exact fulfillment to Jesus' words than the plain amill position.

3. Full-preterism: All the events in scriptural prophecy are already fulfilled in AD70. This view is the most problematic (with moderate preterism sharing some of these difficulties). Some problems are as follows: 1) The return of Christ as found in Matthew 24 and other texts seems not difficult to discern: "For just as the lightning, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky, so will the Son of Man be in His day." 2) The early church did not recognize 70AD as a fulfillment of the return of Christ in this way 3) Jesus resurrection being the pattern, it is hard to believe the spiritual resurrection of people in the new birth and the resurrection described in Matthew 24 and other scriptures are describing the same thing. 4) The Lord's Supper is described as an ordinance kept "until He comes."

The problems go on and on.

Some final thoughts...

1. Basic amillennialism is very appealing to many people. It has a long history, does not run into the problems of preterism, and basically gives the student of prophecy a lot of room for ignorance and wiggle room for interpretation with its highly symbolic view of Scripture. This means it also lacks precision and begs the question concerning how much credit it gives the writers of scripture when they reference seemingly literal events, time periods, etc.

2. All forms of preterism try to answer the problem of time references in the NT by relating 70AD to prophecy. We've already looked at the problems there. Enough said.

3. Compared to dispensationalism or premillennialism, which do convincingly relate prophecy to history in many ways, amillennialism seems a stretch with its resort to symbolism for most of NT prophecy. The best example is the millennium itself. It is obvious from the text of Revelation 20 that the millennium follows the defeat of Antichrist. Given that Antichrist appears to be a literal historical figure of immense proportion who has yet to arise (Paul's epistle to the Thessalonians), it seems unlikely to say that Antichrist has been defeated and the church is reigning in the millennium with Christ at the present. Furthermore, none of the world-wide phenomenon associated with Antichrist's reign appear to have been fulfilled.

That's it for amillennialism. It's a complicated system. It has its benefits, but it too suffers problems of interpretation and historical fulfillment. On to postmillenialism next time!

Soli Deo Gloria

Greg

Sources

"The Last Days According to Jesus" RC Sproul
John Stevenson Bible Study Page (http://www.angelfire.com/nt/theology/jts.html)
"Prophecy and the Church" Oswald T. Allis

PS

Amillennialists could be any denomination. From what I've read, its main adherents are Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Anglicans, and some Baptists (I'm sure I missed some).