Quoted from: Why amillennialism makes a whole lot more sense than premillennialism by Kim Riddlebarger
Without a doubt, most American evangelicals are firmly committed to premillennialism–the belief that an earthly millennial age of one thousand year’s duration will begin immediately after our Lord Jesus Christ’s Second Advent. Since premillennialism is so dominant in American church circles, many who encounter Reformed theology for the first time are quite surprised when they discover that all of the Protestant Reformers, as well as virtually the entire Reformed and Lutheran traditions (along with their confessions), with a few notable exceptions, are amillennial. Amillennialism is that understanding of eschatology which sees the millennium as the present course of history between the first and second Advents of our Lord (the age of the church militant), and not as a future golden age upon the earth as is taught in premillennialism and postmillennialism. In the case of both “pre” and “post” millennialism, the millennium is thought to be the age of the church triumphant, not the age of the church militant.
I am convinced that the reason why so many people reject amillennialism is simply that they do not understand the basic end-times scenario taught throughout the New Testament. Part of the problem is that dispensational premillennial writers have completely dominated Christian media and publishing for the last fifty years. There are literally hundreds of books, churches, and parachurch ministries, all devoted to taking premillennialism, dispensationalism, and the so-called “pre-tribulation” rapture idea to the masses. Many of these teachers and ministries are very effective and compelling in their presentations. Look at the sales of Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth, which was the best-selling book in the USA in the 1980′s. And then there is the Left Behind series of novels, and the accompanying videos, journals, games, and whatever else LaHaye and Jenkins have cranked out, which have cumulatively sold well over 50 million units.
I can only lament the fact that my own tradition has done so little to produce popular books introducing and defending amillennialism. It is my guess that a number of you have never heard the case for the classical position held by Reformed Christians regarding the return of Christ and the millennial age.
Yet another problem encountered when discussing this subject is that there is often a great deal of heat without very much light. One prophecy pundit (Chuck Missler) once quipped that the people in heaven with the lowest IQ’s will be amillennial. Hal Lindsey goes so far as to label amillennialism as anti-Semitic, demonic and heretical. Jack Van Impe called A-millennialism (to use his characteristic emphasis upon the A) the greatest heresy in church history. When I was growing up, it was not uncommon to hear prophecy experts label amillennial Christians as theological liberals who were a it embarrassed by the bold supernaturalism required to believe in a sudden and secret rapture. Furthermore, amillennial Christians are often accused of not taking the Bible literally and of teaching so-called “replacement theology.”
The result of such rhetoric is that American Christians cannot help but be prejudiced by such unfortunate comments and many reject outright (without due consideration of the other side) the eschatology of the Reformers and classical Protestantism–an eschatology which is amazingly simple, Biblical, and Christ-centered.
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Jason Robertson is a husband and a father and a pastor. He is dedicated to leading and equipping his the Church with God’s word and biblical theology for life ministry, using a combination of pastoral, church planting and evangelism experience. He holds a Master of Divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He is experienced in church planting, evangelism, missions, and the training of pastors and Bible teachers.
Jason has been preaching the gospel since 1985, serving the first ten years of ministry as a Southern Baptist itinerant evangelist out of Milldale Baptist Church in Zachary, LA which ordained him in 1993. He has preached in hundreds of churches in over 30 States and 4 countries. He planted churches in Siberia, Russia in the summers of 1993 and 1994. He founded Murrieta Valley Church in California, which he planted in cooperation with the SBC NAMB in 2001. He also teaches ministry students at California Baptist University.
You can hear his sermons and read his manuscripts on sermonaudio.com. Just follow the link to "sermons" at the top of this page.
Jason, my friend…
Be careful—I’m a committed premillennialist by exegetical conviction (as you know), and would not stand with any of the silly rhetoricians you mention.
I have many Amillennialist friends whose respect for the best scholarship within premillennialism is both warranted and reciprocated. Please be sure not to imply that premillennialism is not based upon any sound hermeneutics.
Otherwise, lead on oh passionate one…
Jerry, thanks for your comment. I haven’t heard from you in a while, and I thought often about your brother and his children. I hope all is going well, according to God’s grace.
The post above as noted at the beginning is a quote of Kim Riddlebarger, so it is not my words. I posted this quote because it is thought provoking introdution to a good article written by Dr. Riddlebarger.
For those who don’t know Dr. Kim Riddlebarger (Ph.D., Fuller Theological Seminary) is senior pastor of Christ Reformed Church in Anaheim, California, and visiting professor of systematic theology at Westminster Seminary California. He is also a co-host of the White Horse Inn radio program.
I have been writting a little lately about eschatology. There is much to discuss, but for now my scope of interest has been narrow. Basically, I have been trying to establish the fact that the vilification of Amillers has been erroneous slander.
I am sure that you aren’t guilty of such. I am reading Mat Waymeyer’s book (a premiller) and he is not guilty. But those mentioned by Dr. Kim are guilty. That needs to be noted, and more men like yourself need to speak up for the “hermeneutical virtue” at least in effort of Amillers.
I have stated in numerous posts that I have been a premiller for nearly 20 years. I don’t think I was a poor theologian using weak scholarship all those years. I have noted that premillennialism has been well documented and published by many respected scholars — many of whom have been my mentors in theological studies. In fact, once when preaching through Revelation, I relied heavily on Dr. Thomas.
But over time, my studies led me depart from my dispy and premil interpretations of Scripture. So in short, I believe many premillers are sound exegetes but that the hermeneutics of premillennialism less sound than amillennialism.
My change in eschatological views did not start in Revelation. They started in my studies of Romans and my studies of the elect of God. I began to strongly question the premillennial position that God will once again limit the confines of the Gospel within the ethnic, national Israel. Jesus’s statements to his disciples and the Pharisees are strikingly Amil. Paul’s theology in Romans is also stikingly Amil. And the vast majority of orthodox Christianity historically has agreed.
But, may we all be reminded — we are together for the Gospel!
Jason, as a premiller, I cannot stand any of those quacks that you mentioned. I started out as a classic dispensationalist and have moved away from that due to exegetical studies. I concur that so much of what has been put out is nothing but fuel for a good fire.
However, why do you stop with the reformers? You say that most people don’t know that they were mostly amill. They were alot of things that we as baptists are not and would not even recommend.
But as for a historical argument, why not go back to the earliest writers we have? Why not use Polycarp, Papias, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, etc? I suspect it is because they were all premill.
As for the people of God, I am sure you are aware of covenant premillenialists, posttrib/premills, prewrath/premills, etc, who all believe in a very similar manner to the elect of God with you.
As for the gospel though, that is the most important issue, as you have reminded us.
Jason I can see I’m going to have to get my Postmillenial Primer up at my blog. It appears to me that were not getting the representation we deserve here.
“I began to strongly question the premillennial position that God will once again limit the confines of the Gospel within the ethnic, national Israel.”
Perhaps your problem was that you were a bad dispensationalist.
As far as I see it, reformed dispensationalists don’t have anything to say about “confining” the gospel ethnically. We just maintain that in the millennium there will be something distinct and noteworthy about a certain people group residing in a certain geographical location, and that the OT prophecies of blessing will be fulfilled just as literally as the prophecies of curse have been. It has nothing to do with the gospel.
Thanks for the clarification Jason…Not that I ever doubted your good intentions. As to my own position, I can’t agree that the hermeneutics of Amillennialism are “more sound” because having followed the arguments, in my judgment they rely more on deductive and systematically “logical” conclusions rather than inductive and contextual ones. I believe that good arguments have been forwarded through the centuries giving weight to some aspects of the Amillennial position, but none have been compelling enough to overturn what I believe are more consistent textual conclusions. Again, exegetical theology should derive, not from an attempt to solve every systematic tension or question toward an homogenous system (most people’s understanding of “the analogy of faith”), but rather from letting every context yield its own truth so long as it is consistent and not in fact contradictory.
Regarding the NT treatment of the OT, church history is not ambiguous about the allegorical, mystical, typological, and liberal errors that arose from even the most skilled theologians. In other words, the reformers may have drawn ecclesiological and eschatological conslusions that “sounded” reasonable, logical, and systematically consistent, but such qualifications alone do not make a proper interpretation. We must not allow our system to run roughshod over grammatical and contextual clarity, even if systematic tension results. Mind you, I’m not advocating theological or exegetical contradictions, just the presence of “gaps” in our understanding when multiple passages do not yield a more precise conclusion.
By the way, “Literal” interpretation, though an abused concept by some, does not mean that every word or phrase of scripture is taken literally without respect to genre and literary device (i.e. metaphor, hyperbole, symbolism, poetry, etc.).
Just to put in a word from somebody who came at all this from a blank slate position (i.e. I didn’t grow up being taught one side or the other, nor did I belong to any church that influenced me one way or another, nor was I unduly influenced by a popular writer one way or another).
As I connected with the Bible itself, and then by degree gravited towards the pure doctrine (Reformed, Calvinist) the only two areas of disagreement I could see that were legitimate – warranted by the Bible itself – were regarding the sacraments and church polity. But as for end times: amillennialism was the clear, pure truth of Scripture.
So I’m sure that settles everything.
c.h.h.,
You said, “It has nothing to do with the gospel.” Could you please clarify? I am surprised no hist. premillers (or Reformed dispys as you like to call them) have asked you to clarify.
Jason,
I re-read my comment today and realized that “it has nothing to do with the gospel” is far from clear. My apoplogies!
What I was trying to say is this: it is completely possible to affirm that there is and always has been only one way of salvation for all men regardless of ethnicity or place in history, while affirming that there will be a literal millennium in which an ethnic, geo-political Israel will enjoy a literal fulfillment of the unfulfilled OT prophecies.
C.H.H.,
Do you agree that the nation of Israel was a type in the Old Testament?
What was its typological significance?
Has the type been fulfilled? By who or what?
Why would God replace the fulfillment of a type with the type again, and would this not go against the teachings of the Book of Hebrews?
I am very interested in studying the amil position. I was raised a pre-trib dispensationalist myself, but when I became an adult I was so confused by all the conflicting scholarship on the subject. I finally decided to read the Word for myself without any commentaries or supplemental resources. As a result I realized that the pre-trib rapture didn’t seem to fit, especially when I read and reread Jesus’ words in Matthew 24. However, that is as far as I’ve gotten. The whole amil idea, frankly, scares me, though! Can you recommend a sound resource for introducing me to this perspective? I am not an academic or theologian, and I like succint writing without all the dictionary-dependent language.
) In other words, besides the Bible, what resources would you recommend for study on this subject by an average Joe, or rather, Jane? 
) Thanks!
Jason, you asked:
“Do you agree that the nation of Israel was a type in the Old Testament?
What was its typological significance?
Has the type been fulfilled? By who or what?
Why would God replace the fulfillment of a type with the type again, and would this not go against the teachings of the Book of Hebrews?”
Was the nation of Israel itself a type? I don’t think so. Were many elements in their religious observance typological? Definately, a la Hebrews.
Per bringing back the type when it has already been fulfilled, I’ll admit that I have huge problems with those who think that, for example, Ezekiel’s temple will be millennial, with “memorial” sacrifices being offered while our risen Lord is ruling the earth. (But, I think Eze. 43:10-11 solves that at a contextual level, because those verses seem clear that Ezekiel’s temple was not a definate promise to be unveiled in the distant future, but was rather a real offer to the people at that specific time conditional upon their repentance.)
Look, I’ll admit that many times I’ve leaned towards amillennialism simply because as a system it’s clean, it’s neat and tidy, and it seems to work fairly well. But the Biblical text iself keeps stopping me from going there.
So here’s a question for you: I’m curious to hear your answer to MacArthur’s “Amil conundrum.” How can we get away with applying a double hermeneutic to the OT prophecies concerning Israel’s future (a literal fulfillment of the curses on one hand, but a spiritualization of the blessings on the other)?
Chris
By “Hebrews,” I was referring to the book of Hebrews.
(a literal fulfillment of the curses on one hand, but a spiritualization of the blessings on the other)?
Law and Gospel.
Also, Israel existed to bring Jesus in a line from Adam. Jesus is Israel. Jesus’ life mirrors Israel’s history.
Crazy me, I have never learned how to do the nice and neat links in the comments section. Someone can email me and tell me how to do it please.
Pressingon, go to the following links to get started.
http://kimriddlebarger.squarespace.com/
http://kimriddlebarger.squarespace.com/links-to-helpful-essays/
Or books by O.Palmer Robertson, especially his book “The Israel of God.”
Thanks, Jason! I’ll do that.
Blessings to you.
How can Jesus be Israel? Is he to rule in himself?
But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.
(Micah 5:2 ESV)
This has never happenned…but it will. Bottom line being that God keeps His promises to Israel and us…He is no liar.
~BL
God kept his promise by making Jesus Christ, King of Israel. Spiritual King that is.