The Millennial View of Early Church Leaders
Papias
Papias
lived from approximately 60 to 130 A.D. It is believed that he was taught
directly by the Apostle John. He was a friend of Polycarp, another prominent
Church leader who was a disciple of John. Papias served as Bishop of Hierapolis
in Phrygia, Asia Minor. His writings have not been preserved to the present
day; however, Irenaeus and Eusebius, two other Church leaders, referred to his
writings.
Irenaeus,
after relating Christ’s teaching concerning the dramatic changes which the
earth will experience in the future Millennium, wrote, “And these things are
borne witness to in writing by Papias, the hearer of John, and a companion of
Polycarp, in his fourth book.
Eusebius,
Bishop of Caesarea and the “Father of Church history,” wrote concerning Papias
in his work Ecclesiastical History
(III, 39), “Among other things he says that a thousand years will elapse after
the resurrection of the dead and there will be a corporal establishment of
Christ’s Kingdom on this earth.”
The Epistle of Barnabas
Scholars
have concluded that this piece of early Christian literature was written
between 120 and 150 A.D. by a Christian in Alexandria, Egypt, not by the
Barnabas of the New Testament.
This
epistle presented a view which appears to have been rather popular among
ancient Jews and Christians. It declared that just as God labored for six days
in creation, so the present earth will labor in its turmoil for 6,000 years.
Then it asserted that just as God rested on the seventh day after His six days
of labor, so the present earth will enjoy 1,000 years of rest after its 6,000
years of labor. This thousand years of rest will begin “When His Son, coming
[again], shall destroy the time of the wicked man, and judge the ungodly, and
change the sun, and the moon, and the stars.” In other words, the thousand
years of rest will begin in conjunction with the Second Coming of Christ.
The epistle
further stated that after the earth’s seventh day (thousand years of rest),
there will be an “eighth day, that is, a beginning of another world.” It would
appear that this “eighth day” is a reference to the future eternal state with
the new eternal earth after the thousand-year Millennium.
Justin Martyr
Justin
Martyr lived from approximately 100 to 165 A.D. He was well-educated. He held
no regular church office but served as a traveling evangelist and defender of
Christianity. In his writings he argued for the superiority of Christianity to
paganism and Judaism. On his second journey to Rome he was arrested, lashed,
and beheaded because of his testimony for Christ.
In his
writing entitled Dialogue With Trypho
Justin stated, “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,
[as] the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah and others declare.” His use of the
expression right-minded Christians on all
points was his way of asserting that Premillennialism was the orthodox view
in his day.
Again
Justin said,
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.
In this
statement Justin referred to John’s declarations in Revelation 20. In that
passage John asserted that Christ and His saints will reign for 1,000 years.
Justin’s statement indicates that he understood John to be referring to 1,000 literal years.
Irenaeus
Irenaeus
received his early Christian training from Polycarp, Bishop of Symrna in
western Asia Minor. Polycarp had been a disciple of the Apostle John. Irenaeus
may have served under Polycarp for several years before being sent to Gaul
(France) as a missionary. Around 178 A.D. Irenaeus became Bishop of Lyons in
Gaul. There he continued to serve effectively during the last quarter of the
second century.
Irenaeus
wrote the following concerning the blessings of the future Kingdom of God
foretold in the Scriptures:
The
predicted blessing, therefore, belongs unquestionably to the times of the
kingdom, when the righteous shall bear rule upon their rising from the dead;
when also the creation, having been renovated and set free, shall fructify with
an abundance of all kinds of food, from the dew of heaven, and from the
fertility of the earth: as the elders who saw John, the disciple of the Lord,
related that they had heard from him how the Lord used to teach in regard to
these times.
Irenaeus
declared that in conjunction with the future Kingdom and its renovation of
nature, the Lord promised great fruitage of vines, abundance of grain, large
productivity of fruit-bearing trees, seeds and grass, “and that all animals
feeding [only] on the productions of the earth, should [in those days] become
peaceful and harmonious among each other, and be in perfect subjection to man.”
According
to Irenaeus, in Isaiah 11:6–9 Isaiah prophesied concerning this future time
when all animals will be tame and vegetarian in diet as they were before the
fall of man. Commenting on this prophecy, he said, “And it is right that when
the creation is restored, all the animals should obey and be in subjection to
man, and revert to the food originally given by God (for they had been
originally subjected in obedience to Adam), that is, the productions of the
earth.”
Irenaeus
warned against any attempts to allegorize the Kingdom prophecies: “If, however,
any shall endeavor to allegorize [prophecies] of this kind, they shall not be
found consistent with themselves in all points and shall be confuted by the
teaching of the very expression [in question].”
With regard
to prophecies concerning the resurrection of saints, Irenaeus wrote:
For all
these and other words were unquestionably spoken in reference to the
resurrection of the just, which takes place after the coming of Antichrist, and
the destruction of all nations under his rule; in [the times of] which
[resurrection] the righteous shall reign in the earth, waxing stronger by the
sight of the Lord; and through Him they shall become accustomed to partake in
the glory of God the Father, and shall enjoy in the kingdom intercourse and
communion with the holy angels.
Along the
same lines he said the following concerning John’s comments in Revelation 20:
“John,
therefore, did distinctly foresee the first ‘resurrection of the just,’ and the
inheritance in the kingdom of the earth; and what the prophets have prophesied
concerning it harmonize [with his vision].”
These
statements indicate that Irenaeus was convinced that saints will be resurrected
from the dead to reign with Christ in His Kingdom on this earth. Concerning
conditions on the earth during the Kingdom he said, “But in the times of the
kingdom, the earth has been called again by Christ [to its pristine condition],
and Jerusalem rebuilt after the pattern of the Jerusalem above.”
Irenaeus
stated that after the times of the Kingdom, the great white throne will appear,
the present heavens and earth will flee away, the unjust will be resurrected
and judged, the new heaven and earth will come into existence, and the new
Jerusalem will descend from heaven to earth.
Tertullian
Tertullian
lived from approximately 160 to 220 A.D. He was thoroughly trained for
politics, the practice of law, and public debate. After he was converted around
195 A.D. he devoted his life to the defense of Christianity against paganism,
Judaism, and heresy. He opposed infant baptism, promoted the Traducian theory
of the origin of the human soul, and developed the term trinity to describe the Godhead. In the later years of his life he
became associated with Montanism, a movement which some regarded to be a
heretical sect.
In a work
which he wrote before his association with Montanism, Tertullian stated, “But
we do confess that a kingdom is promised to us upon the earth, although before
heaven, only in another state of existence; inasmuch as it will be after the
resurrection for a thousand years.”
Then he
wrote, “After its thousand years are over, … there will ensue the destruction
of the world and the conflagration of all things at the judgments.”
Lactantius
Lactantius
lived from approximately 240 to 320 A.D. He was trained in rhetoric (the
effective use of language in literature and oratory). By 290 A.D. he had been
appointed by Emperor Diocletian to teach rhetoric at a school in Nicomedia. He
became a Christian around 300 A.D. and suffered greatly under the persecution
by Emperor Galerius. After Emperor Constantine granted freedom to the Church
and declared himself a Christian, he appointed Lactantius to be the personal
teacher of his son. Through his writings in defense of Christianity he became
known as “the Christian Cicero.” Jerome designated him the most learned man of
his time. Eusebius and Augustine honored him.
Lactantius wrote,
And as God
labored six days in building such great works, so His religion and the truth
must labor during these six thousand years, while malice prevails and
dominates. And again, since He rested on the seventh day from His completed
labors and blessed that day, so it is necessary that, at the end of the six
thousandth year, all evil be abolished from the earth, and that justice reign
for a thousand years, and that there be tranquility and rest from the labors
which the world is now enduring for so long.
Lactantius
understood that the end of this present age will be characterized by a time of
unprecedented tribulation:
As the end
of this age is drawing near, therefore, it is necessary that the state of human
affairs be changed and fall to a worse one, evil growing stronger, so that
these present times of ours, in which iniquity and malice have advanced to a
very high peak, can be judged, however, happy and almost golden in comparison
with that irremediable evil.
He followed
this statement with an amazing description of the future Tribulation period.
Although he
lived while Rome was the great world power, Lactantius was convinced from the
prophetic Scriptures that Rome would be destroyed and that then the rule of the
world would shift from the west to the east: “This will be the cause of the
destruction and confusion, that the Roman name, by which the world is now
ruled—the mind shudders to say it, but I will say it, because it is going to
be—will be taken from the earth, and power will be returned to Asia, and again
the Orient will dominate and the West will serve.”
Lactantius
believed that at His Second Coming Christ will war against and judge Antichrist
and his godless forces. Then “the dead will rise again, … so that they may
reign with God for a thousand years after being again restored to life.”
He said of
Jesus, “When He shall have destroyed injustice and made the great judgment and
restored to life those who were just from the beginning, He will stay among men
for a thousand years and will rule them with just dominion.”
Lactantius
described conditions of the future Kingdom:
Then, those
who will be living in bodies will not die, but will generate an infinite
multitude during those same thousand years, … Those who will be raised from the
dead will be in charge of the living as judges.
At this same time, also, the prince of demons who is the contriver of
all evils will be bound in chains, and he will be in custody for the thousand
years of the heavenly power whereby justice will reign on earth, lest any evil
be exerted against the people of God … the holy city will be set up in the
center of the earth in which the Founder Himself may abide with the just who
are its rulers.
Lactantius
claimed that the earth will be transformed; the sun will be more effective;
fertility will be great; crops will be abundant, and animals will be tame. In
light of these changes he said:
Men will
enjoy, therefore, the most tranquil and most abundant life, and they will reign
together with God. Kings of the nations will come from the ends of the earth
with gifts and presents to adore and honor the great King, whose name will be
famous and venerable to all peoples which will be under heaven and to the kings
who will rule on the earth.
Lactantius
asserted that at the end of the thousand years Satan will be set loose to lead
a final revolt. God will crush the revolt and judge Satan forever. The unjust
will be resurrected to everlasting sufferings. Heaven and earth will change
drastically.
This
examination of early Church leaders indicates that they were, indeed,
Premillennial by conviction. (Renald E. Showers, There Really Is
a Difference!: A Comparison of Covenant and Dispensational Theology
[Bellmawr, N.J.: The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, Inc., 1990], 119–126)
Further
Reading:
Brian
Collins, "Were
the Fathers Amillennial? An Evaluation of Charles Hill's Regnum Caelorum,"
Bibliotheca Sacra 177 (April-June 2020): 207-20