THE BIBLICAL AND HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS
OF PREMILLENNIALISM
Robert Shank

As a premillenarian, I stand within the tradition of the Restoration movement. Great men of name and fame in the movement have held pre-millennial persuasions. Consider the following.

Alexander Campbell: “The angel of this everlasting gospel [Rev. 14:6,7] announces the good news that. . .the Lord is about to recompense his enemies and to commence his reign over all the kingdoms of the world. . .No kingdom of this world has yet become a kingdom of Jesus Christ. . .Till Jesus appears in the clouds of heaven, his cause and people can never gain the ascendancy. Now is the time for suffering with him, that with him we may reign. . .Christ appears as a harbinger of the millennium.” --- Millennial Harbinger, 1833, p. 119.

It is “strange how anyone well read in sacred learning could imagine that Satan has been bound for the last thousand years, and that we have had a reign of Christ for a thousand years.” --- Mil. Har., 1843, p. 231.

“God has not kept [the Jews] these many ages for nothing. He will use them again, and yet again bless all the nations of the earth by the seed of Abraham, his friend. ‘If the casting of them away has been the reconciling of the Gentile world, what shall the resumption of them be but life from the dead?’ We hear a rattling in the valley of dry bones. The Jews are intent on re-building their city and their temple, and in returning to their own land.” --- Mil. Har., 1849, p. 87.

“[The Jews today are still] a monumental people. . .in their present position the subject of special prophecy and of special promise. . . . What is yet future or unfulfilled in their history will as certainly be accomplished as that their Messiah came at the appointed time. . . . [Has. 3:4, 5] is only fully verified in their present [circumstance] and prospective future destiny.” --- Mil. Har., 1856, p. 275.

“Jerusalem’s fall is already written, and her future rise and glory occupy a large space in the visions of the future. . . Our Lord, by Luke, speaks still more plainly: ‘Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.’ This is our index to the prophecies concerning the Jewish reign. ‘The times of the Gentiles’ yet continue. . . .[But there yet] will come the fulness of the Jews. ‘For the Redeemer shall come out of Zion,’ the city of David, ‘and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob’. . . . With Paul, we rejoice in the prophetic drama, and therefore anticipate a glorious triumph of grace in the redemption of ancient Israel according to the flesh.” --- Popular Lectures and Address, pp. 525-527.

Barton W. Stone: “At the very commencement of [the Millennium] the King of Kings comes in his glory and smites all the wicked nations of the earth. . . . At the same time the old Serpent, the Devil or Satan, is bound for a thousand years.” --- Christian Messenger, 1833, p. 314.

“The second coming of Christ is at the commencement of his millennial reign on earth. Here on earth he will reign till the 1,000 years be finished.” --- Christian Messenger, 1833, p. 365.

“Now according to prophecy, according to the promise of the Lord Almighty, and the unconquerable expectation of the Jews, Jerusalem by the sons of Abraham is to be again ‘safely inhabited.’ See Zech. 14.” --- Christian Messenger, 1835, p. 31.

Walter Scott: “. . . the time will come when the saints, as Daniel says, ‘shall possess the government’ and all power, authority and rule be recovered to God by His Son and His saints.” --- Pioneer Sermons and Addresses, p. 178.

“After dinner brother Walter Scott delivered a very interesting discourse on ‘the great and notable day of the Lord,’ which is to introduce the Millennium.” --- A. Campbell, Mil. Har., p. 300.

Moses E. Lard: “The world will then be ripe for the coming of Christ, and at his coming the holy dead will be raised, the righteous living will be changed, and the millennium will have set in.” --- Commentary on Romans, p.374.

“The millennium will commence in the precise instant in which Satan is bound and locked up in prison . . . for a thousand years. . . . At that moment the millennium will be inaugurated. From that time it will stretch forward and include, in our opinion, a period of a thousand years precisely. . . Of the events which are further to characterize its commencement we shall now speak more particularly.

“1. All the living saints will be changed . . . . 2. The sleeping saints will be raised . . . . 3. The actual persona! and literal reappearance of the Saviour. . . . Christ will literally come in person at the commencement of the millennium, and literally remain here on earth during the entire thousand years.” --- Lard’s Quarterly, Vol. II, pp. I ff.

Tolbert Fanning: “Our reading has led us to the conclusion that [the Church] is at war with the powers of earth; that the subjects of Christ’s kingdom will really subjugate, overcome and put down by the Gospel of peace all of Satan’s subjects that can be saved; and afterwards the Lord will reign with his people a thousand years. At the end of the thousand years Satan is to be loosed for a little season, just long enough to collect his forces around the Saints, when the Lord will send fire to destroy the King’s enemies, the judgment will take place, the righteous will be saved, the wicked damned, and God’s government will be approved.” --- “The Coming of the Lord,” Gospel Advocate, Sept., 1866.

T. W. Brents, comment on Rev. 20:4: “This is the millennium. If this does not express a literal reign with Christ for a literal thousand years, we know not what assemblage of words would be capable of expressing that thought.” --- “The Millennium,” Gospel Sermons, 1891.

David Lipscomb, comment on Acts 3:20, 21: “Jesus had been to earth and returned to heaven. Heaven must receive him until ‘the times of restoration of all things.’ Then ‘the times of restoration of all thing’ must be when Jesus returns again to earth. . . . When Jesus comes again, the will of God will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and all things in the world will be restored to harmonious relations with God.” --- Queries and Answers, p.360.

“I do not say that fleshly Israel will be again literally restored to the land of Palestine. Yet it may be so.” --- Gospel Advocate, quoted by J. W. Shepherd.

E. G. Sewell: “But there will be such a reign [of Christ on earth], and it will be glorious to them that shall be in it. . . . It is also clear that this 1,000 years’ reign will be before the final end of this world. . . . After the 1,000 years’ reign and of the bound state of Satan, he is to be loosed for a little time, and is to go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth.” --- Gospel Advocate, April 12, 1900.

Robert Milligan, Commentary on Hebrews, 1875, comment on Heb. 2:5: “The world to come means. . .the habitable world under the reign and government of Messiah. . .the world in which we now live, and in which, when it shall have been purified from sin, the redeemed will live forever.”

Ibid., comment on Heb. 2:8: “. . .mankind will yet regain their lost dominion over the Earth. How far this will be accomplished before the Earth shall have been renovated by fire (2 Pet. 3) it may be difficult to say. When Satan shall be bound for a thousand years (Rev. 20:1-6) and the saints of the Most High possess the Kingdom (Dan. 7:14, 18, 22), the prophecy of Isaiah (11:6-9) may be more literally fulfilled than we now anticipate. But whatever may be true of this blissful era, so long and so often foretold by the Apostles and Prophets, it is not at all probable that man’s dominion over the world will be fully restored until the new heavens and the new earth appear, in which righteousness will forever dwell (Rev. 21).”

“Palestine will certainly be again restored to the dispersed Israelites for an everlasting possession.” -Mil. Har., 1856, p. 569.

J. W. McGarvey, article “Why Are the Jews Yet With Us?” in Christian Standard, 1903, comments on Jer. 30:10, 11; 31:35, 36; 16:14-16: “These utterances were and are a guarantee that so long as the sun and moon, the stars, and the sea endure, no matter what the fate of other nations, ‘the Jews shall yet be with us’. . . . But Israel is not destined to merely exist to the end of time. They are to be gathered in the land God gave them as an everlasting possession. . . . This has never yet been done; for the small remnant who returned under the decree of Cyrus and Artaxerxes were but a handful of the generation then living, and there has been no general migration of Israel back to Canaan. Isaiah, in terms and style of his own, makes the same prediction” (McGarvey cites Isa. 11:1-13).

Ibid., comment on Amos 9:11-15: “This refers undoubtedly to the reign of Christ, in which the throne of David is restored. . . . All this is yet in the future, and it is to occur under the reign of the risen and glorified Son of David.”

James A. Harding: “During this time, this thousand years, Christ and his saints reign; but the rest of the dead live not again till the thousand years have expired. This, the resurrection of the righteous, is the first resurrection; over those. .. ‘the second death has no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. . . .’ During this period Satan will be in the abyss, chained, closed up and sealed over. . . . That this millennial reign will be on the earth is clearly indicated by the fact that at the beginning of it Christ and His saints are on the earth, and so they are at the end of it.” - The Way, Oct. 15, 1903.

As premillenarians, the above men of renown in the Restoration movement (and others who could be cited) were entirely and precisely within the pale of the faith of the apostolic church. In my book Until: The Coming of Messiah and His Kingdom (Appendix F: The Church and Premillennialism, 41 pages) I have cited 21 eminent church historians (many of them amillenarians or postmillenarians, but candid and objective as historians) who affirm that premillennialism was the faith of the apostolic church and remained predominant among the churches until after the death of Augustine (A.D. 430).

In his monograph “Premillennialism” in the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia (1891) Samuel H. Kellogg writes, “It is commonly agreed by the best modern historians that, from the death of the apostles till the time of Origin, premillennialism was the general faith of those who were regarded as strictly orthodox Christians.” Sheldon writes in his Church History (Vol. I, p. 145) that “premillenarianism was the doctrine of the Christians in the first and second centuries. The fathers expected anti-Christ to arise and reign and meet his overthrow at the personal coming of the Lord, after which the Kingdom of Christ for a thousand years would be established on the earth.” Giesler says in his Church History (Vol. I, p. 166) that “Millenarianism was the general belief of the time and met with almost no other opposition than that given by the Gnostics.” Munscher writes, “How widely the doctrine of millenarianism prevailed in the first centuries of Christianity appears from this, that it was universally received by almost all teachers, and even some heretics agree with them” (History of Christian Doctrine, Vol. II, p. 415).

In his History of Doctrine, p. 231, Crippen writes that the early Fathers “distinguish between a first resurrection of the saints and a second or general resurrection . . . separated by a thousand years, during which Christ should reign over the saints in Jerusalem.” In his History of the Christian Church (Vol. II, p. 614) Schaff writes that “the most striking point in the eschatology of the ante Nicene age is the prominent chiliasm, or millenarianism, that is the belief of a visible reign of Christ in glory on earth with the risen saints for a thousand years before the general resurrection and judgment.” In his monograph “Millennium” (Encyl. Brit., 1894) Harnack writes that “faith in the nearness of Christ’s second advent and the establishing of His reign of glory on the earth. . .was a prominent feature in the earliest proclamation of the gospel and materially contributed to its success. . . . These enthusiastic expectations were inseparably bound up with the Christian faith down to the middle of the 2nd century. . . . The fact that men clung to them is the clearest evidence that in the West millenarianism was still a point of orthodoxy in the 4th century.”

In his Institutes of Ecclesiastical History (Vol. I, p. 89) Mosheim writes concerning the attack against premillennialism by Origen in the third century that “before this period an opinion had prevailed that Christ was to come and reign a thousand years among men before the entire and final dissolution of this world. This opinion. . .had hitherto met with no opposition.” In his Discourse on the Millennium, p. 236, Bp. Russell writes that with respect to the faith of the early church, “in reference to the sure and certain hope entertained by the Christian world that the Redeemer would appear on earth and exercise authority during a thousand years, there is ground for the assertion of Mede, Dodwell, Burnet and other writers that down to the beginning of the fourth century the belief was virtually universal and undisputed.”

The unanimous consensus of eminent church historians concerning the virtual universality of premillennialism in the churches of Christ in the first three centuries is impressive and conclusive. (For a survey of the transition from apostolic premillenialism to Augustinian amillennialism in the first five centuries, with documentation from historical sources, see Until, Appendix F: The Church and Premillennialism, pp. 477-517.) The premillennial understandings of many great men of renown in the Restoration movement are precisely within the framework of the faith of the churches of Christ of the apostolic and early generations. I believe that my book Until demonstrates that their understandings are consonant with the total prophetic and eschatological disclosure of the Bible. In the remaining pages of this monograph, I can offer only a few facets of the vast biblical foundation of premillennialism.

ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH

It is sometimes asserted that premillennialism posits that the church was not in the original plan of God and was instituted only as an “emergency” measure because of Israel’s rejection of the Messiah in his first advent. If there have been premillenarians who so asserted, they were mistaken. Such assertion is not intrinsic in premillennialism.

The church was in the plan and redemptive purpose of God from the beginning, though it remained a “mystery” until full disclosure through the apostles, by the Spirit (Eph. 3:1-11). The church, inaugurated at Pentecost, is the spiritual body of Christ on earth (Eph. 1:22, 23, Col. 1:18, 24, 1 Cor. 12:27). It is the kingdom of Christ in the world today (Col. 1:13, Heb. 12:28, Rev. 1:9). But it is a proleptic kingdom, anticipating the coming of the Messianic kingdom, when the church will reign with Christ over the nations (Rev. 2:25-29; 5:10, 2 Tim. 2:11, 12). Let none disparage the church, eternal in the counsel and plan of God, for his eternal glory (Eph. 3:21).

Does the church appear in the OT? It does indeed, in symbol and type, analogy and implication. . .and more: the first categorical prophecy of the church appears in the great prophetic Ode of Moses (though the church remained a “mystery” until it was fully delineated by the apostles).

Any who say that the church was not in the eternal plan of God are totally mistaken. So, too, are those who say that the prophecies of the restoration of Israel as a nation and as the Davidic Kingdom under the reign of Messiah are not to be fulfilled literally, but only spiritually in the triumph of the church.

Jesus, say some, now reigns over the nations through his churches, and the “restoration of Israel” is fulfilled in the church, which has forever replaced Israel as the true “Israel” and people of God. Those who say such things have failed to observe that in the context of the first categorical prophecy of the church as a spiritual body and people of God (Deut. 32:21), Israel’s perpetual identity as a people of God and chosen nation is affirmed, whose end and destiny is not oblivion, but blessing and glory when, after a period of estrangement, God “will be merciful to his land and his people,” for which cause the nations at last “will rejoice with his people” Israel (Deut. 32:43).

In the great Prophetic Ode of Moses (Deut. 32) two peoples are in view --- Israel, and another people (a “not a people” people). God declares that because Israel “stirred me to jealousy with what is no god [and] provoked me with their idols, so will I stir them to jealousy with those who are no people, I will provoke them with a foolish nation” (v. 21). Because of their unfaithfulness, Israel was to be scattered among the nations and severely chastised, but the design of the chastisement was not the annihilation of Israel as a people, but rather discipline, recovery, and national restoration (cf. Deut. 4:26-31, Lev. 26, Deut. 30:1-6). A people who were as yet “not a people” (the church) would become the catalyst by which Israel, seeing their enjoyment of the favor and blessing of God as also his people, at last would be provoked to jealously and be moved to seek the mercy of God in a great renewal of penitence and faith.

Fifteen centuries after Moses, Peter wrote to the faithful of the church, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people. . . . Once you were no people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Pet. 2:9, 10). As foretold in Moses’ prophecy, the church is now “a holy nation, God’s own people” (cf. Rom. 10:19).

Let the church rejoice in her privilege as “God’s people.” Let her rejoice in the many legitimate spiritual applications of OT prophecies to herself. But let her understand that spiritual application of prophecies to the church in no way obviates their literal fulfillment in the experience of Israel. There are two peoples in view in the Prophetic Ode of Moses, and the prior people is Israel, in view in the ode from the beginning to the end, which foretells the time when God “will avenge the blood of his servants and render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful to his land and to his people” (v. 43). Israel’s prophetic prospect is here identified with the land of Israel, as throughout the Scriptures. Israel is to be a kingdom again, a nation-kingdom far more overtly defined in the world perspective than the church has been as a spiritual kingdom in the present age. In the Messianic Age, when the kingdom is restored to Israel by the authority of the Father (Acts 1:6, 7), Israel will be first among the nations in the world kingdom of Messiah, and the faithful of the churches will reign with Christ over the nations (Rev. 2:25-29).

The Prophetic Ode of Moses, which contains the first categorical prophecy of the church, affirms a cardinal thesis of Bible prophecy: the ultimate restoration of Israel to her land and her perpetual identity as a chosen people of God. Any interpretation of Bible prophecy which is contrary to the thesis of the Ode of Moses is false. Nothing could be more contrary to the scenario of the Ode of Moses than the teaching that the church has forever replaced Israel as the people of God and that Israel is not to be restored to her Land and to the favor and blessing of God.

Those who have failed to observe the full spectrum of the prophetic significance of the Ode of Moses have also failed to observe that God said that during the days of the Exile, while the people of Israel are “cast far off among the nations” and “scattered among the countries, I will be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come” until the time when “I will even gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel” (Ezek. 11:16, 17). The church, truly “God’s people” and a spiritual “Israel” and the kingdom of Christ in the world in the present age, has not supplanted God’s people Israel, and from the beginning of the Dispersion, God has been “a sanctuary” for the God-fearing of Israel in “the countries where they have been scattered,” for his purpose is to gather them again to the Land and to give them “a new spirit and heart” and to “give them the land of Israel,” where “they will be my people, and I will be their God” (Ezek. 11:17-20).

The re-gathering of Israel to “the land of Israel. . . the land that I gave to your fathers. . .the land that I have given to Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt” will involve the resurrection of the faithful and a new heart and new spirit (Ezek. 37:12-17; 36:24-38; 37:21-28). The re-gathering awaits the coming of Messiah, the great Son of David (“David, my servant”), to reign over Israel (Lk. 1:31-33, Isa. 9:6,7, Jer. 23:5-8).

Contrary to the assumptions of many, the return of a small remnant to the Land after the Babylonian Captivity did not fulfill the great promises of the restoration prophecies and was not attended by nine particular circumstances and developments which will accompany the great Restoration (see Until, pp. 81-87). Furthermore, the church is to be God’s catalyst to make Israel “jealous,” to cause her to seek God earnestly in penitence and faith in preparation for the coming of the Deliverer (Messiah) to “turn away ungodliness from Jacob” and to fulfill all the implications of Israel’s irrevocable election, “beloved for the sake of the fathers” (see Rom. 10:19; 11:11-25, 25-33). Obviously, all of this could not have happened until after the church came into existence, long after the return from Babylon.

The little nation Israel today, struggling for existence, is not the promised restoration of Israel, but rather a harbinger of the coming Restoration at the coming of Messiah. Israel’s existence as a nation sets the, stage for great prophetic events of the end of the age and the coming of Messiah and his glorious world kingdom. --- 624 King, Mt. Vernon, Mo. 65712

(The second of three installments of this article will appear in the next issue. You may purchase Until by Robert Shank directly from him at the above address for 11.95.)