Mostly Wine, but a little water: the Millennium

[spauline]

Here’s my apocalyptic analogy: at the Mass, the priest puts a little water in the wine.

I think this is perfectly expressive of RCC theology. Basically, the Catholic religion is conservative in its mind. It believes in substance of truth, absolute truth, dogma! It is not liberal. It does not formally water things down to any significant extent. But it is not so bent on truth and absolute realities that cannot admit of some liberal things, like allegory. For example, the Creation. The Church has many dogmas that express bare minimum realities of what must be gotten from the Creation, but it does not turn into science. It can admit some liberal sense of evolution. Same thing with truth and salvation: it teaches there is absolute truth, but can admit that some people can be saved if they have imperfect share of this through no fault of their own.

So the Church is mostly wine, but a little water.

Then why should not the Millennium be this way? That is, pure wine is chiliasm, the Fundamentalist position. Church says this can’t be completely wine. Must be at least some water. But the problem with amillennialism is that it is MOSTLY water, which is not typical. Catholicism is not mostly water and a little wine. Catholicism is mostly wine and a little water. So then chiliasm is ALMOST correct, it just needs a LITTLE WATER. That’s the mystics’ position. It’s already estabslished by 23 years research by Birch at EWTN that this is the scenario of most fully approved Catholic prophecy. There WILL be a dress rehearsal for the end of the world. An apostasy and tribulation BEFORE the FINAL apostasy and tribulation. And in between these will be a “Millennium of Rest”, namely the Age of Peace. It’s just that it won’t be fully literal. Christ’s reign on earth will still be figurative, but not simply in the vague, allegorical sense of amill. Yes, Jesus has always “reigned” in Heaven since His Ascension, and he “reigns” on earth in the Eucharist, but His reign (up until now) has never been practical in the sense that the Church has had to “labor” in work against sin. But in the Millennium, the Church will truly “rest” even in a temporal sense, for, humanity having gotten an apocalyptic taste of the consequences of sin, will be “scared straight”, so that the world will truly rest in the grace of God for a great age before the final manifestation of sin, at the end of the world. So then chiliasm is ALMOST correct, in fact, “closer to the truth” than amill, but it just needs a “little water”.

 

[Lev23]

Spauline, I see you have a love for Jesus’ prophecy that he tells John to write down in the Book of Revelations.

But catholic prophecy? What are you referring to?

As far as the millenium, whether or not there will be a actual millenium where Jesus rules and reigns from Davids throne in Jerusalem, depends on the belief that God will or will not restore the nation of Israel.

Correct me if Im wrong, but catholic teaching says that the church is the fulfillment of Israel. But then what to do about prophecies like Zecariah 14, Joel 3, etc.?

If you look at the OT prophecies of the restoration of Israel, both the land and the people, even in their disbelief; they all match up perfectly to the prophecy of end times Jesus tells John to write down in Revelations.

Zech.14 talks abouts when the Lord will come and reign, in Jerusalem! In Revelation5:5, Jesus is called “…the Lion from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David,…” Verse 6 goes on by John seeing “a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain,…” Reading from Zechariah, he will definately come back to Jerusalem as a Lion, and all those will see him who they have pierced when he came as the Lamb the first time.(Zech12:11)

Moving on in Zech14, the prophecy says the survivors from all nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up YEAR after YEAR to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.

Joel 3 talks about the nations judged when he comes back. The prophecy in verse 2 states that God will enter judgement against those nations concerning “…my inheritence, my people Israel, for they scattered my people among the nations and divided up my land.” Now I know the church are Gods people, but Jesus sent his disciples out to be his witness in Jerusalem and to all the ends of the earth.(Acts1:8) Persecution of his church is the perfect exercise for it, for we see all throughout the book of Acts that when persecution came, the church moved on to proclaim the gospel. But we can see all throughtout history and from scripture how the Israelites were scattered. Looking at the prophecy of God in Joel , we see John wrote down in Revelations20:4 that he saw thrones and those that sat on them that had been given authority to judge at the start of the millenium.

Anyways, if one doesnt believe the nation of Israel will be fully restored, then prophecy written in scripture becomes very confusing, especially when the word “church” replaces “Israel”. The nations never “scattered” the church from its “land.”

Looking at the 1000 years in Revelations and comparing it to Gods other prophecies written down, there is good evidence this will be a real reign of the King of Israel on earthfor 1000 years, and the entire world will receive a sabbath’s rest.

 

[spauline]

…Anyways, if one doesnt believe the nation of Israel will be fully restored, then prophecy written in scripture becomes very confusing, especially when the word “church” replaces “Israel”. The nations never “scattered” the church from its “land.”

Looking at the 1000 years in Revelations and comparing it to Gods other prophecies written down, there is good evidence this will be a real reign of the King of Israel on earthfor 1000 years, and the entire world will receive a sabbath’s rest.

I don’t know, that’s a whole can of worms. There are perhaps other Catholics on this board who would have the time and energy to show you the errors of the elements of Fundamentalist dispensationalism that pertain to the notion that the RCC is not the fulfillment of Israel, and that Israel is much more in the spotlight of apoc than the Church. I mean this is really cluelessness. The Catholic Church is the absolute center of attention in the primary sense of Revelation, because the Catholic Church alone represents the true People of God on earth. The Catholic Church alone possesses formal blessing from God as the very and precise means of the completion of the Redemptive Plan for Humanity. The apocalypse in its primary sense has very little to say about Israel. Basically, all we need to know in this regard is that at the time of the great apostasy, the majority of them shall finally see the Gospel and enter the Catholic Church. Beyond this, there is little that the apoc really deals with in Israel. It is rather mostly about the successive ages of the Church in terms of the spiritual sense: like pagan resistance to conversion, Islam, the Great Schism, the Protestant Rebellion, the Enlightenment, the Minor Apostasy, the Minor Tribulation, the Era of Peace, etc.

It would really be useless for the book to describe specific things that happen to Israel or any other nation. I have an article that kind of goes into this, Lev23, if you are interested.

Blessings to you!
scott

 

[Lev23]

I don’t know, that’s a whole can of worms. There are perhaps other Catholics on this board who would have the time and energy to show you the errors of the elements of Fundamentalist dispensationalism that pertain to the notion that the RCC is not the fulfillment of Israel, and that Israel is much more in the spotlight of apoc than the Church. I mean this is really cluelessness. The Catholic Church is the absolute center of attention in the primary sense of Revelation, because the Catholic Church alone represents the true People of God on earth. The Catholic Church alone possesses formal blessing from God as the very and precise means of the completion of the Redemptive Plan for Humanity. The apocalypse in its primary sense has very little to say about Israel. Basically, all we need to know in this regard is that at the time of the great apostasy, the majority of them shall finally see the Gospel and enter the Catholic Church. Beyond this, there is little that the apoc really deals with in Israel. It is rather mostly about the successive ages of the Church in terms of the spiritual sense: like pagan resistance to conversion, Islam, the Great Schism, the Protestant Rebellion, the Enlightenment, the Minor Apostasy, the Minor Tribulation, the Era of Peace, etc.

It would really be useless for the book to describe specific things that happen to Israel or any other nation. I have an article that kind of goes into this, Lev23, if you are interested.

Blessings to you!
scott

Remember though, God calls it his land, never to be sold or given away. Read Acts 1-3, and especially after the Holy Spirit fell on those in waiting for the promise. Peter is quoting prophecy from scripture left and right to the crowds, crowds he addresses as “men of Israel”. In verse 3:21 of Acts, Peter says Jesus must remain in heaven until God RESTORES everything he promised long ago by his holy prophets. Those promises are the bringing the people of Israel back to the land, even in their unbelief. In the end, when Jesus comes back, Israel will have their messiah, their King to sit on the throne of David. The 1000 years John spoke of in Revelations point to this ruling and reigning of Jesus in Jerusalem, Israel.