Sonseeahray,
Thank you very much for the detailed response. Your explanation helps a lot. Off topic but I have to ask, what is an Amillennalist?
God bless.
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Hi again James,
I have to totally agree with David – he is right on the money.
Amillennalists tend to interpret scripture more figuratively. To us the book of Revelation was written to the Christians who lived in Asia in the first century – and not directly to us today. So we have to first understand what the book meant to them before we can apply its message to us today. Numbers in Revelation are not arithmetic (with one exception where we are told to “calculate” the number of the beast – 666) The 1,000 years is a symbol for the unknown length of time of the Church age. The earliest record that I can find in history for the appearance of Millennialism or Chiliasm is in the writings of Eusebius who wrote around 290 AD. He comments on one Papius…
Historian Eusebius wrote of Papias (130 AD)
“The same writer [Papius] gives also other accounts which he says came to him through unwritten tradition, certain strange parables and teachings of the master, and some other more mythical things. To these belong his statement that there will be a period of some thousand years after the resurrection of the dead, and that the kingdom of Christ will be set up in material form on this very earth. I suppose he got these ideas through a misunderstanding of the apostolic accounts, not perceiving that the things said by them were spoken mystically in figures. For he appears to have been of very limited understanding, as one can see from his discourses. But it was due to him that so many of the Church Fathers after him adopted a like opinion, urging in their own support the antiquity of the man; as for instance Irenaeus and any one else that may have proclaimed similar views.”
Of course his doctrine was first labeled Chiliasm, which later became known as Historical Premillennialism. Dispensationalism was added to Historical Premillennialism in the 1800’s and now it is called Dispensational Premillennialism.
And so Dispensationalists or Futurists (as I prefer to call this school of thought) move every scripture that hasn’t been fulfilled literally to our future as unfulfilled. They even have moved practically all of Matt 24 to the future. This chapter is all about the coming destruction of Israel, the city of Jerusalem, and the Temple. And this happened just 40 years from when Jesus spoke those words just a few days before the crucifixion.
Let me give you the best example of literal vs figurative interpretation that I can think of. One of the major proof texts of the Futurists for the third coming of Christ to set up his 1,000 year reign is a literal interpretation of Zechariah 14:4 which reads…
Zech. 14:4-5 (NASB)
And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south. [5] And you will flee by the valley of My mountains, for the valley of the mountains will reach to Azel; yes, you will flee just as you fled before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord, my God, will come, and all the holy ones with Him!
So the Futurist’s literal interpretation of this passage, written about 2,500 years ago, is that Jesus will descend from heaven in our future; and when his feet touch the Mount of Olives the mountain will physically split etc. Unfortunately, they don’t bother to study the whole book, but rather cherry pick the scriptures for proof texts that support their chosen system of belief. There is a term for this thought process – eisegesis. Of course Zechariah is a highly symbolic book which is written in Apocalyptic language - just like Revelation.
No Zechariah 14:4 is not about the third coming of Christ like Futurists claim. The second half of Zechariah is about the coming days of the Messiah: Chap 9 thru 14. All these chapters are tied together chronologically by the phrase "In (or on) that day. This phrase is used about 20 times. In every place where it says “In that day,” it means the day of the crucifixion. The book is written in apocalyptic figurative language and cannot be interpreted literally.
All it says that his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives it says nothing about him coming from heaven. Zechariah was prophesying the crucifixion some 500 years in his future. Jesus was crucified on top of the Mount of Olives. He was crucified “without the camp” as it says in Hebrews. The camp was defined by Joshua as a 3,000 foot radius from before the curtain of the Holy of Holies in the Temple. This takes up most of the western side of the Mount of Olives. When he was crucified the mountain splits (not literally) the mountain split makes a valley, which is a way of escape from sin and uncleanness. This is a simile compared to the time in the past several hundred years in Zechariah’s time when the mountain literally did split in the days of Uzziah. It was a huge landslide on the south west side of the Mount of Olives due to an earthquake. Then the people literally escaped through this mountain valley. Probably a valley made where the rubble separated from the mountain. Josephus gives an account of this in antiquities – search for eroge. In Uzziahs day the people escaped via the valley of the landslide. The simile is that when Jesus was crucified on the Mount of Olives the people will escape sin and uncleanness - he made a way of escape for all of us. It is all about the advent of the New Covenant that happened “in that day.”
Larry
