The Millennialist Heresy
Refutation of COGwriter.com
The Literal Millennial Heresy
The biggest issue among certain Christians is that they tend to assume that whatever the Bible states literally should be taken as a dogmatic claim to truth while being easily fathomable, except this a very presumptuous claim rooted in exegetical arrogance. The biggest issue is the appeal to simplistic naivety which avoids exegetical and philosophical diligence to actually discover the authors’ intentions and rightly discern what the Christian dogma is.
Within this article, not only will I be responding to this person’s exegesis of the Bible, but also offer valid reasons of philosophical, patristic, and exegetical grounds. Every claim of millennialism will be handled separately; I’ll also offer information from amillennial proponents as well as my own exegetical and patristic studies.
1000 Years as One Day Fallacy (Italics: COG)
Some believe that since God made/recreated the world in six days and rested on the seventh day (Genesis 2:1–3), that humans will have 6000 years to live on the earth under Satan’s influence, but will have a 1000 years to be under Christ’s reign (the original creation of the universe may have been billions of years earlier c.f. Genesis 1:2; Isaiah 45:18).
Many have noted that a thousand years seems to be as one day to God. This is a concept from both the Old and New Testaments:
“For a thousand years in Your sight Are like yesterday when it is past” (Psalm 90:4). “But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8).
Firstly, from a philosophical objection, would an infinite God perceive 1000 years as one day, or perceive it as less than a millisecond? The notion of God having to perceive time differently on the measure of 1000 years to a single day seems to suggest the finite nature of this deity. If God is infinite, then His perception of 1000 years should not be rendered to a single day, but to far less than the bypassing of a nano-second. Therefore, the claim of the exactness of a 1000 years to a single day as being the precise measure of time dilation for God would oppose His infinite nature.
Secondly, from an exegetical objection, deriving a doctrine mostly from poetic texts like the story of Adam and Eve along with the Psalms leads to fallacious assumptions in theology, especially when such poetic phrases from the Psalms and Peter could be rationalized as a way of asserting that God’s patience far exceeds our own sense of patience and temporal perception. Also, when we read 2nd Peter 3:8, this verse (9) follows “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” Hence, Peter is just rhetorically stating that God is extremely patient than any of us rather than randomly stating a literalist fact about God and then proceeding to mention His patience as being unrelated. The usage of 1000 years (since it’s a long time for us) could simply be a placeholder to eloquently and rhetorically express the notion I made above. A millennia when used in the Psalms also expresses an indefinite duration rather than an exact and precise duration. “He remembers His covenant indefinitely [olam], the word He commanded for a thousand generations” (Psalms 105:8). So then, does God command the message until the limit of 1000 generations, and stops commanding when generations proceed that since the earth will continue endlessly? Olam in Hebrew is similar to aionios in Greek which properly means an indefinite duration, which proves that when the number 1000 is mentioned in the Psalms, it is used to denote an indefinite duration rather than to denote a precise and definite duration of 1000 years. Since the Psalms is a poetic and rhetorical literature, there’s more valid support for this suggestion rather than an ad litteram (word-for-word) justification.
Lastly, from a patristic appeal, the 1000 years claim which St. Andrew of Caesarea even acknowledges, “By the number one thousand years by no means is it reasonable to understand so many years. For neither concerning such things of which David said, “the word which he commanded for a thousand generations” [Psalm 104[105]:8] are we able to count out these things as ten times one hundred; rather they are to mean many generations” (Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse). A sapient method of reading the texts should be to know that rhetorical devices are embedded in the biblical texts.
The Book of Revelation Ad Litteram Fallacy
Notice that the Book of Revelation makes it clear that God’s people will reign on the earth with Christ:
9 … “You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, 10 And have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth” (Revelation 5:9–10).
Thus, a future physical reign on the earth is clearly prophesied. And the Apostle Paul reminded Christians:
2 Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? (1 Corinthians 6:2)
Notice that the Apostle Paul told also Timothy that the true saints would reign with Jesus:
11 This is a faithful saying:
For if we died with Him,
We shall also live with Him.
12 If we endure,
We shall also reign with Him (2 Timothy 2:11–12).
Exegetically, no other apostolic text or New Testament letter teach a 1000 year reign with Christ, and no one denies that the saints will reign with Christ, but simply we disagree with the exact duration of a millennium while then being overtaken by the Devil’s armies for some odd reason.
Chapter 20 of the Book of Revelation clearly teaches, as it mentions it five times, that there will be a thousand year period: 1 Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. 2 He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; 3 and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while. 4 And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. 5 But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years. (Revelation 20:1–6)
Professionally, if we intend to truly fathom the Book of Revelation, we must understand this apocalyptic literature as an allegorical genre rather than this insane ad litteram assumption. It must be fathomed by previous knowledge of other Christian documents (e.g. Pauline texts, Petrine/Johannine texts, Didache, Ignatius, Clement, Polycarp, & Mathetes), and it must be understood in its historical context with the early Church and Rome’s tension. Since there are no compelling cases for a millennial reign with Christ based on any of these literature, no brief or detailed mention of how we’ll reign with Christ in terms of duration, it further validates that such a dogma was either considered irrelevant, which is an odd since the specifics of reigning with Christ should be relevant to the Church, or such a dogma of a literal millennium is not really part of apostolic teaching; thus, it’s dogmatically false. I agree that we reign with Christ, but not for an arbitrary duration of a thousand years.
The Ad Litteram Problem with Old Testament Prophecies
The prophet Daniel was told to record this about the kingdom of God:
44 And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever (Daniel 2:44, NKJV throughout unless otherwise noted).
18 But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever.’ (Daniel 7:18).
From Daniel, we learn that the kingdom of God will destroy human kingdoms and last forever. And that the saints will have their part in receiving it.
Indeed, if we take the view that this is a reference to the kingdom of God being present on the earth, it still wouldn’t prove the literal millennium theory, because it omits the temporal duration being interrupted by satanic armies, so this prophecy from Daniel doesn’t prove any millennialist theories. This notion is simply silent on the matter, even if pre/post millennialism were true.
The biggest issue with appealing to ad litteram when it comes OT prophecies, is that it leads to nonsensical notions and contradictory claims against Christian dogmas (e.g. Christ’s Advent, Atonement). This kind of literalism implemented into OT prophecies leads to the belief of a rebuilding of a Temple where God receives sacrifices, which contradicts the notion of Christ abolishing this ancient and primitive practice. God doesn’t require or need sacrifices, because He is self-sufficient in Himself which is testified by Paul, the Prophets, and the exegesis of the Church Fathers (Psalms 51:17; Acts 17:24, 25; 1st Clement, Chapter 26; To Diognetus, Chapter 3; Plea for Christians, Chapter 13). Christ atoned sins by purging our minds from sin, and revealing to us the love of God (Titus 2:14). Christ also came to end their sacrificial system by demonstrating that God is not entitled to sacrifices but is willingly self-sacrificial for our sake since the law became a burden to them. He came to show them that God doesn’t require offerings or sacrifices. The so-called need and return for sacrifices so as to appease God insults the atoning work of Christ, and even if it such are memorial for the avoidance of sin, it’s meaningless since the saints have been entirely sanctified by God. Even this same millennialist article admits his/her own position is prone to lead to the literal reconstruction of the temple, “But Lindsey and likeminded Christians, who continue to preach the rebuilding of the Temple, are, along with some well-meaning Jews, mistaken. The great and sad irony is that these Christians undermine the biblically based, New Covenant work of Jesus, who in his one Sacrifice of Calvary fulfilled and thus made obsolete the Old Covenant sacrifices (Heb. 8:6–7, 13), which had to be offered at the Temple in Jerusalem.” This is the exegetical consequence of rendering the prophetic texts of the Old Testament as literally applicable rather than relying on patristic exegesis.
Another problem with ad litteram exegesis is that it leads to the rejection of the Christ who came to earth. According to this amillennialist article, “But there was another problem which, when clearly exposed, had the potential of being downright scandalous. It was recognized by Origen and has been seen by non-chiliasts down to the present day. It is the realization that the “literal,” nationalistic interpretation of the prophets was the standard that Jesus, in the eyes of his opponents, did not live up to, and therefore was the basis of their rejection of his messiahship. One of the prophecies that Irenaeus had insisted will be literally fulfilled in the kingdom on earth was Is. 11:6–7, which speaks of the wolf dwelling with the lamb and the leopard with the kid, etc. Origen specifically mentions this passage as among those which the Jews misinterpret: “[And] having seen none of these events literally happening during the advent of him whom we believe to be Christ they did not accept our Lord Jesus, but crucified him on the ground that he had wrongly called himself Christ” (De Principlis, 4.2.1). Origen the Great Exegete and scholar continues to expose the flaw of somatic, ad litteram interpretations of the Old Testament prophecies: “It might be said that every one who has been instructed in the teaching according to the letter of the law is called a scribe, so that those who were unlearned and ignorant and led captive by the letter of the law are spoken of as scribes in a particular sense. And it is very specially the characteristic of ignorant men, who are unskilled in figurative interpretation and do not understand what is concerned with the mystical exposition of the Scriptures, but believe the bare letter, and, vindicate it, that they call themselves scribes. And so one will interpret the words, “Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,” (Matthew 23:13) as having been said to every one that knows nothing but the letter. Here you will inquire if the scribe of the Gospel be as the scribe of the law, and if the former deals with the Gospel, as the latter with the law, reading and hearing and telling “those things which contain an allegory,” (Galatians 4:24) so as, while preserving the historic truth of the events, to understand the unerring principle of mystic interpretation applied to things spiritual, so that the things learned may not be “spiritual things whose characteristic is wickedness,” (Ephesians 6:12) but may be entirely opposite to such, namely, spiritual things whose characteristic is goodness” (Book X, Commentary of Matt, Ch. 14). And since the Apocalypse of John implicitly reveals that the Old Testament prophecies should be understood allegorically and spiritually due to its prophetic elements and Jewish allusions along with deciphering exegesis, the Christian approach to those prophecies should be pneumatically discerned rather than a naive ad litteram. Again from the article, even Tertullian who was a chiliast/millennialist conceded to this problem: “This “Jewish” approach to the Old Testament prophecies and its role in the Jewish rejection of Jesus was recognized even by Tertullian and was no doubt one of his motivations for taking a more “spiritualized” approach to those prophecies than Irenaeus had done” (Adv. Marc. 3.6; cf. 3.21, 23). St. Irenaeus also reveals that the Old Testament only prefigures the coming of Christ by types and shadows, rather than exegetically affirming His advent, “But Jeremiah also says, In the last days they shall understand these things. (Jeremiah 23:20) For every prophecy, before its fulfillment, is to men [full of] enigmas and ambiguities. But when the time has arrived, and the prediction has come to pass, then the prophecies have a clear and certain exposition. And for this reason, indeed, when at this present time the law is read to the Jews, it is like a fable; for they do not possess the explanation of all things pertaining to the advent of the Son of God, which took place in human nature; but when it is read by the Christians, it is a treasure, hid indeed in a field, but brought to light by the cross of Christ,…” (Against Heresies: Book IV.26.1). This is the primary reason why the Jews ironically reject Christ since their texts don’t truly predict Christ from an exegetical view. I explain more on here: The Apostolic Hermeneutic Revived.
Chiliaist Patristic Fallacy
As far as the millennium and the original Christian faith, consider that Papias, who was a hearer of John and a friend of Polycarp (and is considered to be a saint by Roman Catholics), in the early second century taught about the millennial reign.
Eusebius recorded that Papias taught:
… there will be a period of a 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 … (Eusebius. The History of the Church, Book III, Chapter XXIX, Verse 12, p. 69) Here is another translation of the above: … there will be a millennium after the resurrection from the dead, when the personal reign of Christ will be established on this earth (Fragments of Papias, VI. See also Eusebius, Church History, Book 3, XXXIX, 12).
Papias taught that it would be a time of great abundance:
In like manner, [He said] that a grain of wheat would produce ten thousand ears, and that every ear would have ten thousand grains, and every grain would yield ten pounds of clear, pure, fine flour; and that apples, and seeds, and grass would produce in similar proportions; and that all animals, feeding then only on the productions of the earth, would become peaceable and harmonious, and be in perfect subjection to man.” [Testimony is borne to these things in writing by Papias, an ancient man, who was a hearer of John and a friend of Polycarp, in the fourth of his books; for five books were composed by him…] (Fragments of Papias, IV).
Admittedly, I didn’t refer to or mention Papias due to waiting for the right time to correct this patristic issue. This individual doesn’t realize that Papias despite his questionable connection to John was critiqued by Eusebius (the historian he/she is quoting). Eusebius in his writing says, “Yet Ρapias himself, according to the preface of his treatises, makes plain that he had in no way been a hearer and eyewitness of the sacred Αpostles, but teaches that he had received the articles of the faith from those who had known them, for he speaks as follows : “Αnd I shall not hesitate to append to the interpretations all that I ever learnt well from the presbyters and remember well, for of their truth I am confident. For unlike most I did not rejoice in them who say much, but in them who teach the truth, nor in. them who recount the commandments οf others, but in them who repeated those given to the faith by the Lord and derived from truth itself; but if ever anyone came who had followed the presbyters, I inquired into the words of the presbyters, what Andrew or Ρeter οr Philip or Thomas or James or John or Matthew, or any other οf the Lord’s disciples, had said, and what Aristion and the Presbyter John, the Lord’s disciples, were saying. For I did not suppose that information from books would help me so much as the word of a living and surviving voice.” It is here worth nothing that he twice counts the name of John, and reckons the first John with Ρeter and James and Matthew and the other Αpostles, clearly the the evangelist, but by changing his statement, he places the second with the others outside the number of the Αpostles, putting Αristion before him and clearly calling him a presbyter. This confirms the truth οf the story of those who have said that there were two of the same name in Αsia, and that there are two tombs at Εphesus both still called John’s. This calls for attention: for it is probable that the second (unless anyone prefer the former) saw the revelation which passes under the name οf John. Papias whom we are now treating confesses that he had received the words of the Αpostles from their followers, but says that he had actually heard Αristion and the presbyter John. Ηe often quotes them by name and gives. their traditions in his writings. Let this suffice to good purpose. But it is worth while to add to the words of Papias already given other sayings οf his, in which he tells certain marvels and other details which apparently reached him by tradition. It has already been mentioned that Philip the Αpostle lived at Ηierapolis with his daughters, but it must now be shown how Ρapias was with them and received a wonderful story from the daughters of Ρhilip; for he relates the resurrection of a corpse in his time and in another place another miracle connected with Justus surnamed Barsabas, for he drank poison but by the Lord’s grace suffered no harm. Of this Justus the Αcts relates that the sacred Apostles set him up and prayed over him together with Matthias after the ascension of the Lord for the choice of one to fill up their number in place of the traitor Judas, “and they set forth two, Joseph called Barsabas, who was called Justus, and Matthias; and they prayed and said.” The same adduees other accounts, as though they came to him from unwritten tradition, and some strange parables and teachings of the saviour, and some other more mythical accounts. Αmong them he says that there will be a millennium after the resurrection of the dead, when the kingdom of Christ will be set up in material form on this earth. I suppose that he got these notions by a perverse reading οf the apostolic accounts, not realizing that they had spoken mystically and symbolically. For he was a man of very little intelligence, as is clear from his books. But he is responsible for the fact that so many Christian writers after him held the same opinion, relying on his antiquity, for instance Irenaeus and whoever else appears to have held the same views” (Historia Ecclesiastica 3.39). The issue with millennialists is the fact that they tend to argue from antiquity as the only criteria for discovering or validating apostolic doctrines, but this criteria has its own limits since some disciples due to various restraints can fail to transmit apostolic tradition as it once was. I concur with Eusebius since the Apocalypse of John is an allegorical genre rather than to be an account that requires an insane measure of ad litteram in an exegetical usage. The article I’m critiquing tries to appeal to pseudo-Barnbas and Irenaeus as patristic evidence, yet as Eusebius has explained, Papias’ misunderstanding of genre is the strongest cause for why so many believers erroneously accepted the literal millennium doctrine. Likewise, I already refuted the common misunderstanding of the 6000 years as 6 days to God notion in a philosophical and exegetical sense. According to the same amillennialist article I used prior, they said, “First, critics of chiliasm point out that Christian chiliasts got their chiliasm not so much from the apostles as from non-Christian Jewish sources. 6 Irenaeus cites a tradition from a book written by Papias of Hierapolis about the millennial kingdom. 7 The tradition purports to reproduce Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom as related through the Apostle John to those who remembered the latter’s teaching. It is the famous report about each grapevine in the kingdom having ten thousand branches, each branch ten thousand twigs, each twig ten thousand shoots, each shoot ten thousand clusters, and each cluster ten thousand grapes, etc., with talking grapes, each one anxious that the saints would bless the Lord through it. 8 As it turns out, this account seems to be a development of a tradition recorded in the Jewish apocalypse 2 Baruch in its account of the Messiah’s earthly kingdom (Ch. 29).” The notion of a literal millennium was derived from other Jewish writings, which contradicts the Christian dogma of amillennialism.
Even though he held some odd ideas, even Justin Martyr had learned about the millennium: “But I and others, who are right-minded Christians on all points, are assured that there will be a resurrection of the dead, and a thousand years in Jerusalem, which will then be built, adorned, and enlarged, the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah and others declare.
For Isaiah spake thus concerning this space of a thousand years: ‘For there shall be the new heaven and the new earth, and the former shall not be remembered, or come into their heart; but they shall find joy and gladness in it, which things I create’…For as Adam was told that in the day he ate of the tree he would die, we know that he did not complete a thousand years. We have perceived, moreover, that the expression, ‘The day of the Lord is as a thousand years,’ is connected with this subject. And further, there was a certain man with us, whose name was John, one of the apostles of Christ, who prophesied, by a revelation that was made to him, that those who believed in our Christ would dwell a thousand years in Jerusalem; and that thereafter the general, and, in short, the eternal resurrection and judgment of all men would likewise take place” (Dialogue. Chapters 80–81).
Thus, Justin is condemning any who do not believe in a literal thousand year reign as not “right-minded Christians” or non-believers. The second century leaders who professed Christ, including some heretical ones, clearly believed in the teaching that Christ would return and reign for a thousand years on the earth.
First of all, Justin doesn’t regard those who deny a literal millennium as being condemned, but he also acknowledges that many in his day consider otherwise. He says, “Then I answered, “I am not so miserable a fellow, Trypho, as to say one thing and think another. I admitted to you formerly, that I and many others are of this opinion, and [believe] that such will take place, as you assuredly are aware; but, on the other hand, I signified to you that many who belong to the pure and pious faith, and are true Christians, think otherwise” (Dialogue with Trypho LXXX). Justin Martyr also held other ideas that modern Christians don’t believe or consider as true. This article next tries to appeal to Sir Issac Newton as knowing what the true patristic dogma was, but I don’t consider his opinion to be reliable. Ironically, the author of this article doesn’t realize that his/her studies are self-contradictory since he/she appeals to Sir Issac Newton who claims that Origen was a proponent for millennialism, and yet the article contradicts its “authority” by saying, “When Origen and some of the other late 2nd/early third century Greco-Roman allegorists started to do away with a literal millennium, there were protests by people who preferred to believe the Bible…” Why appeal to Issac Newton’s opinion of these matters as an authoritative figure, but later contradict his opinion of Origen and Clement? It seems unreasonable to appeal to Sir Issac Newton, and then dogmatically assert, “There is no doubt that early real Christians, as well as many others who claimed to be Christians, believed and taught the millennium.”
Thus, essentially it is admitted that the millennial view was held by many early leaders, but that finally it was discarded by what became the Roman Catholic Church, because of the views of the heretic Origen. The millennium was abandoned even though this was a view held by a variety of Greco-Roman Catholic-declared saints, including Melito of Sardis. The above writing was called Against Marcion, who was believed to be among the first to teach against the millennium.
And it is important to note that Roman Catholic scholars admit that the main teacher against it, based his arguments on Neo-Platonistic concepts, and not the Bible! It is probably because of Origen (who the Roman Church later seemed to condemn as a heretic at the synod of Constantinople of 543) that those who professed Christianity did not emphasize the kingdom of God like the Bible and the early church did.
It seems highly likely that Origen was somewhat influenced by the great heretic Marcion (also branded as a heretic/apostate by the Roman Church) who did not believe that Jesus was going to actually come again (the idea of a millennial reign is most often tied in with the idea of Jesus’ second coming). Marcion would have preceded Origen by several decades.
Out of a respect to Origen, he is not some later heretic somewhat influenced by Marcion since Origen has even argued that Marcion’s erroneous interpretations of the Old Testament were based on an ad litteram view, which ironically parallels with millennialists taking a very literal view of the Apocalypse. Millennialists and Marcionites are both heretics suffering from ad litterram as their basis for exegesis. Origen didn’t fully derive his pneumatic (allegorical) exegesis from Neo-Platonism since this kind of exegesis is replicated by the Early Church like Paul, Peter, Clement of Rome, pseudo-Barnabas, Melito of Sardis, Irenaeus of Lyons, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and even Clement of Alexandria (1st Corinthians 5:7; Galatians 4:21–31; 1st Peter 3:18–22; 1st Clement 12; Barnabas 10.1–3; On Pascha 1.32–33; AH V.8.4; Trypho XL; On Resurrection 32; Stromateis 6.15.126). There is absolutely no reason why Origen would imitate or be influenced by Marcion due to his intentions of being strictly orthodox and devoted to the true faith. Origen was known to strongly dislike the works of heretics like Marcion and the Gnostics.
The Concluding Matter
So far, this article has offered no compelling evidence for why the literal millennium should be upheld as a doctrine of the Apostles. It doesn’t resolve the exegetical matter of rhetoric in each book; it doesn’t have a strong philosophical basis concerning God’s infinite nature, or doctrinal support for Christ’s incarnated advent; it doesn’t appeal to any earlier patristic evidence other than to Papias, whom was the sole testifier but brilliantly and articulately rejected by Eusebius. This article will continue appealing to other sources like the Middle Ages and perhaps make more patristic claims, but since there’s no earlier evidence that offers a compelling case, it is best to conclude their arguments as irrelevant or faulty in reasoning.
