Christians hold differing understandings of the nature and timing of the Millennial Kingdom. The biblical view known as Premillennialism sees Christ returning before the Millennium. Thus, the Millennium, the 1,000-year reign of Christ taught in Revelation 20, comes after the Second Coming described in Revelation 19. In fact, the Millennium period’s establishment requires the physical presence of the Messiah.
Currently, the principal rival to Premillennialism within Bible-believing circles in America is called Amillennialism. This is the view that believes there is no future 1,000-year reign of Christ on the earth. The 1,000 years of Revelation 20 are usually taken to mean an indefinite period of time between the First and Second Advents. The Kingdom is usually understood as the church’s spiritual rule rather than a physical rule with political boundaries centered on the nation of Israel, as in Dispensational Premillennialism.
The early church supported the biblical teaching of a literal, earthly Kingdom that Christ would usher in by His Second Coming (Zechariah 12—14). The doctrine of Irenaeus (AD 125–202), bishop of Lyon, serves as a prime example of Premillennialism, even giving us many of the elements that today we call Dispensationalism.
Greek Roots
So, where did Amillennialism come from? While its proponents will naturally deny it, Amillennialism owes more to Plato than it does the Bible. Its story begins in the 2nd century AD, during which many in the Roman Empire sought a return to the glories of Greek civilization. The zenith of those days was the time of Alexander the Great’s conquests and the spread of Greek culture far and wide. There were two aspects to this longing for former days.
While its proponents will naturally deny it, Amillennialism owes more to Plato than it does the Bible.
First, there was an attempt to replace Koine Greek language with the older classical Greek, a dialect called Attic Greek in particular. Koine Greek was the cultural language of the Roman Empire, while Latin was the official administrative language. The New Testament was written in Koine Greek. This way of talking or writing was viewed by many as a “dumbed down” or vulgar Greek. Consequently, lexicons were produced to tell people to use certain Attic words instead of Koine words. This attempt to return to the glory days through cultural revival via language did not seem to affect the rise of Amillennialism.
Second, there existed a desire to go back to the grand days of Greek philosophy. The two greatest philosophers in the 4th century BC, the century of Alexander’s victories, were Plato and Aristotle. Plato, who is sometimes viewed as the foundation of Western philosophy, was chosen as the supreme example to emulate. Consequently, Platonic thought began to be more emphasized. This development had a tremendous impact on the origin of amillennial thinking within Christianity.
Idealism, Not Literalism
Plato taught a form of idealism—that the essence of reality was actually the idea of something, not its physical manifestation. Explanations sometimes use the illustration of a chair. There are many different kinds of chairs—office chairs, classroom chairs, lawn chairs, pool chairs, recliners, etc. When we look at any one of them, we know that it is a chair, even though it might be quite different from other types of chairs. How do we know that we are perceiving a chair? Within our minds, we have the ideal concept of a chair. Idealism teaches that the idea of an object—not the real object itself—is to be understood and accepted as the essence of reality.
At about the same time as this revival of Platonic thought in the 2nd century, the movement of Gnosticism emerged. This worldview correlated well with Plato’s idealism in that true knowledge was mystical compared to a view of the world as concrete and material. Further, Gnostics believed that the physical world was morally evil. They believed they had to separate God from the world in some way to protect His holiness.
Subtle Reinterpretation
Christians on the whole did not buy into all of these Platonic and Gnostic tendencies arising in the culture. However, they were impacted because they breathed the air of these ideas. One result was the rise of Amillennialism to replace Premillennialism as the main view of the Kingdom of God. The concrete, earthly view of the Kingdom, which harmonized well with Hebrew thought and a literal interpretation of the Bible, was replaced with an allegorical view that emphasized either a kingdom in the heart or a spiritual rule of the church. Amillennialism began to grow in the church partly due to the efforts of the School of Alexandria in the 3rd century and of teachers like Augustine (AD 354–430). Although there were always Christians who believed in Premillennialism (called Chiliasm in those days), after Augustine, Amillennialism dominated throughout church history until after the Reformation.
The concrete, earthly view of the Kingdom, which harmonized well with Hebrew thought and a literal interpretation of the Bible, was replaced with an allegorical view that emphasized either a kingdom in the heart or a spiritual rule of the church.
To illustrate the significance of this change, we can look at a passage of Scripture. In Amos 9:15, God promised and predicted for Israel the following: “‘I will plant them in their land, and no longer shall they be pulled up from the land I have given them,’ says the Lᴏʀᴅ your God.” Taken literally in context, this passage suggests that one day the nation of Israel would be in the Promised Land, never to be removed again. This fits a premillennial understanding of a coming Kingdom during which the nation of Israel will be in the land. Such a view is not allowed under Amillennialism. Usually, amillennialists believe Israel has forfeited its right to the promises due to disobedience. The church continues as the “New Israel” with the promises reinterpreted to be spiritual ones (remember Plato) and not physical, concrete ones. Thus, a literal interpretation of the Bible is abandoned on these particular points in Amillennialism.
The Reformation of the 1500s was partly a movement back toward realism rather than idealism in its assessment of Scripture. The restoration of the literal, grammatical-historical understanding of the Bible eventually allowed for the resurgence of Premillennialism in the church. In other words, the dominance of Amillennialism in the church was broken up so that many Christians were comfortable going back to reading the Bible at face value when it spoke of the Messiah coming to set up an earthly Kingdom.
While many believers today still hold to an amillennial understanding, it is a good thing that this view is no longer as dominant as it once was.
Photo Credit: Vidar Nordli-Mathisen via Unsplash
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