A Short Shot– Issues of the Millennium
A Short Shot- Issues of the Millennium and Amillennialism
FYI, this post and those to follow are edited snippets based on a large book I am working on, hoping to complete in 2025, on the subject of the Millennium. Be watching for that book!
The Millennium continues to be one of the most intriguing and important of theological discussions. Many people suggest that the Millennium is the key to understanding eschatology. We have Amillennialism, Postmillennialism and Premillennialism in all of its forms, each view contending that their’s is the proper one.
What I intend to do is to share with our visitors some Short Shot articles that focus on some of the key issues surrounding the Millennium. This first article will focus on the relationship between Amillennialism, Israel, the Old Law and the Millennium.
Amillennialism, the view I was raised believing, says that there is no future Millennium. The Christian Age is the Millennium. In addition, Amillennialists, as a general rule, do not envision the Millennium as related to the fulfilling of the Old Covenant promises made to Israel. God was through with Israel and the Law at the cross, or at the very latest, Pentecost. (There is, however, a growing number of Amillennialists who admit that the Old Law continued until AD 70).
Keep in mind the following about Amillennialism and the Millennium. In this paradigm it is important to know that the Millennium:
1. Is the time of the kingdom reign of Christ.
2. Is the time of Christ ruling in the midst of his enemies (1 Corinthians 15:25f).
But, and this is what is critical, if the Millennium is the kingdom, then the Millennium is the result of the fulfillment of God’s promises to Old Covenant Israel, promises found in the OT. Not only that, but in the Amillennial world, the New Creation of Isaiah 65-66, 2 Peter 3 and Revelation is not realized– is not fulfilled – until the end of the Millennium!
But wait! Isaiah 65-66 were Old Covenant promises made to Old Covenant Israel. Not only that, but the New Creation of both of those passages would only come at the time of the judgment and destruction of Old Covenant Israel. Thus, unless one can prove that the New Creation anticipated by Peter and John was a different New Creation promise from that in Isaiah, this means that the Old Law must remain in force – unfulfilled – until the end of the Christian age! (That in turn would demand that two covenants are now both in full force, the Old Law containing those OT prophecies of the New Creation and the New Covenant).
So, what this means is that if / since / when the Amillennialist says that the Millennium is the current kingdom, and that we are waiting for the New Creation, they are involved in a massive contradiction because they claim that the Old Covenant passed away, completely fulfilled, at the cross or Pentecost.
The Amillennial view comes to light in the following. In several formal public debates with Amillennialists, I have asked them, “Are your eschatological hopes based on and taken from God’s Old Covenant promises made to Old Covenant Israel.” With only one exception, by a minister who had witnessed my other debates and realized the dangers of answering with what he actually believed, they have all emphatically stated “NO.”
Remember that Jesus said “Not one jot or one tittle of the Law shall pass until it is ALL fulfilled” (Matthew 5:17-18). It cannot be rejoined that the prophecies were not “the law” or that “the law” did not prophesy. Jesus said “the law and the prophets prophesied until John” (Matthew 11:13). And it cannot be forgotten that “the law” and specifically the laws concerning Israel’s feast days, foreshadowed the eschatological consummation. See my book Resurrection Feast Fulfilled: A Study of the Relationship Between Israel’s Final Feast Day, Succot, and the Resurrection, in which I document this extensively. That book is available on my websites.
So, since the prophecies of the resurrection and the New Creation, end of the Millennium elements, were Old Covenant, Old Law, promises, then until the fulfillment of the resurrection and the New Creation, end of the Millennium elements, were or are fulfilled, not one jot or one tittle of the entire Old Law could or has passed.
So, the truth is that you cannot posit the future coming of the New Creation, or for that matter, the coming of the Lord and the end of the Millennium judgment in the future, because:
☛ The coming of the Lord in flaming fire was an Old Covenant promise made to Israel (Isaiah 66:15f).
☛ The resurrection of the dead was an Old Covenant promise made to Old Covenant Israel and to be fulfilled “when the power of the holy people is completely shattered (Daniel 12:2-7). In fact, Paul was emphatic in stating that the resurrection was the hope of Old Covenant Israel, i.e. the hope that “all twelve tribes” hoped to attain (Acts 26:7).
☛ The New Creation, as just seen, is an end of the Millennium prophecy. The Amillennialists, who claim the OT is long fulfilled and past, nonetheless say that we are waiting for the New Creation promised in the Tanakh. That is nothing less th an saying that we are waiting for the fulfillment of the Old Testament, which supposedly passed away 2000 years ago! That is a massive contradiction.
So, the issue of the Millennium is in fact an Achilles Heel of Amillennialism, because it exposes a major contradiction in their theology concerning the passing of the Old Law.
The bottom line is that the entire eschatological narrative, every constituent element of eschatology that Amillennialism posits for our future, is grounded in and taken from God’s Old Covenant promises made to Old Covenant Israel. For proof of this, get your own copy of my book, These Are the Days When All Things Must Be Fulfilled. It is on special for the month of December 2024