Millennial kingdom

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Hosanna to the Son of David
Blessed is the King of Israel.
The Kingdom of God at hand.

The Millennial kingdom

Is the Millennial kingdom coming, here now or gone? Where do we stand in the history of prophecy?

There are those who think that "We as Christians are here to wait for christ to rip down all of earth’s kingdoms and establish his millennial kingdom."

But Jesus said we were to seek the kingdom at hand, and He appointed it to the apostles who did contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king, one Jesus.[1]

The Israel as a people were not just wondering in the wilderness, but they were learning to function as a nation without kings ruling over them. Moses taught them about "one form of government" with no king, without rulers or enforced taxes. He called out the Levites to help make such a system possible, much as Jesus called out the apostles and appointed them a kingdom.

Jesus will be king of the kingdom, but He rules through the hearts and minds of those who follow His way. The early Church came into conflict with Rome, but the Modern Christian often has more in common with the Pharisees and their covetous practices than they have with the early Church.

Jesus was a bit of a beloved anarchist because He prohibited His appointed government ministers from being like the princes of other nations who exercise authority by ruling over the people they served. It was truly a different form of government. Anarchy does not mean without government, but rather "without rulers".

You can have a government without rulers if you are ruled in your heart and mind by Christ. Without Christ there would be chaos and abuse, if not neglect of what Jesus called the weightier matters. Liberty under God is only for the people of God.

Those apostles of the early Church, like the Levites before them, were to be separate from the world, holding that which was freely entrusted to them in "common", but because they were not rulers over the people, they were to return every man to his family and to his possessions.[2]

The people of the kingdom would live in a form of charitable capitalism while the separate ministers of this called out government without rulers, the Church, would live holding all things common. They were neither socialist nor communists because these living stones could not regulate, rule or hew one another either. The society they formed together, with the community of the Church holding one position and the congregations of the people coming together in free assemblies, formed a unique or peculiar people.

If God is the same as He was yesterday, and if Jesus and Moses were in agreement, then it may be us who fail to under stand the Kingdom of God and what His reign looks like. The idea of a government without rulers is hard to conceive in our present mental state.

To find the answer, we may need to ask more questions.

Can you answer some questions in the context of their use in history and the Bible?


Some Questions

More Questions

To find the answers, we must seek and strive to do what Jesus said the way He said to do it... Including attending to the Weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith which include caring for the needs of our neighbors and the widows and orphans of our society through Pure Religion in matters of health, education, and welfare. We are NOT to provide for the needy of society through the Covetous Practices and the men who call themselves benefactors but who exercise authority one over the other like the socialists do.

The Way of Christ was like neither the way of the world of Rome nor the governments of the gentiles who depend on those fathers of the earth through force, fear and fealty who deliver the people back in bondage again like they were in Egypt. Christ's ministers and true Christians do not depend upon systems of social welfare that force the contributions of the people like the corban of the Pharisees which made the word of God to none effect. Many people have been deceived to go the way of Balaam and the Nicolaitan and out of The Way of Christ and have become workers of iniquity.

The Christian conflict with Rome in the first century Church appointed by Christ was because they would not apply to the fathers of the earth for their free bread but instead relied upon a voluntary network providing a daily ministration to the needy of society through Faith, Hope, and Charity by way of freewill offerings of the people, for the people, and by the people through the perfect law of liberty in Free Assemblies according to the ancient pattern of Tuns or Tens as He commanded.

The modern Christians are in need of repentance.


"Follow me!" —Jesus the Christ.


Distorting the simplicity of the gospel of the kingdom.

Premillennialism

Premillennialism (among some Christian Protestants) the doctrine that the prophesied millennium of blessedness will begin with the imminent Second Coming of Christ.

Premillennialism, in Christian eschatology, is the belief that Jesus will physically return to the earth to gather His saints before the Millennium, a literal thousand-year golden age of peace. This return is referred to as the Second Coming. The doctrine is called "premillennialism" because it holds that Jesus' physical return to earth will occur prior to the inauguration of the Millennium. It is distinct from the other forms of Christian eschatology such as postmillennialism or amillennialism, which view the millennial rule as occurring either before the second coming, or as being figurative and non-temporal. For the last century, the belief has been common in Evangelicalism according to surveys on this topic.

Some think that this idea was promoted by Justin Martyr in the 2nd century who was one of the first Christian writers to describe the “Jewish” belief of a temporary messianic kingdom prior to the eternal state.

Justin did write in chapter 80 of his work Dialogue with Trypho, “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... For Isaiah spoke in that manner concerning this period of a thousand years.”


The truth is he conceded earlier in the same chapter that his view was not universal by saying that he “and many who belong to the pure and pious faith, and are not "true Christians”.

One problem today is that many Modern Christians do not "belong to the pure and pious faith" because they do not live by faith, but by force. They have little or no daily ministration, which Justin also writes about[4], except through those men who call themselves Benefactors but who exercise authority, and who are the fathers of the earth who are the socialists of the world -- to whom Jesus did not want us to pray to at all.

Some think that Irenaeus of the late 2nd century and bishop of Lyon was a premillennialist. He wrote Against Heresies in the 2nd century, opposing the Gnostic, and he considered them a threat. Irenaeus did write, “The promise remains steadfast... God promised him (Abraham) the inheritance of the land. Yet, Abraham did not receive it during all the time of his journey there. Accordingly, it must be that Abraham, together with his seed (that is, those who fear God and believe in Him), will receive it at the resurrection of the just.”[5]

Irenaeus had lots of ideas that premillennialists might object to, but creating eschatological views by picking quotes here and there can bring big money for ministers who tell the people what they want to hear. Irenaeus also held to the idea that the end of human history will occur after the 6,000th year. (5.28.3).

Amillennialism

Origen challenged the doctrine of the few premillennialists. Some think he was a proponent of amillennialism.[6] Dionysius of Alexandria among others stood against premillennialism.

So is there a premillennial, or a postmillennial, or is amillennialism correct?

Classic Premillennialism is distinctively non-dispensational, meaning there was no theological distinction between Israel and the Church. Dispensational premillennialism generally holds that Israel and the Church are distinct entities.

Yet, thousands of Jews, including Peter himself, accepted Christ as king, and the Apostles worked daily in the government temple providing a eucharistic welfare by charity, rather than taxes, after Christ appointed them a kingdom.

Jerome clearly believed that the Church was appointed the kingdom as Jesus said he would.[7] and that the "Bishops, presbyters (Elder) and deacons occupy in the church the same positions as those which were occupied by Aaron, his sons, and the Levites in the temple."[8]

The Kingdom of God was taken away from the Jews who followed the Pharisees by the words of their own mouth recorded by John 19:15 "But they cried out, Away with [him], away with [him], crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar." The Jews who cried out "Hosanna to the Son of David" accepted Jesus as the anointed king and the Christ.[9] That Kingdom of God called Israel belonged to Jesus who was the Christ for those Jews who received the Baptism of the Apostles by the thousands on Pentecost and in the years to come, all over the world.

Dispensationalism traces its roots to the 1830s and John Nelson Darby. C.I. Scofield popularized dispensational premillennialism through the Scofield Reference Bible. The popularity of their ideas grew as the Church moved away from being the main social support for Christians, and they let governments that exercise authority become the chief source of welfare for the Modern Christians. It was also during this time that the definition of Religion changed, and Pure Religion all but disappeared from the modern Church.

People equate all these prophecies with a Second coming. The phrase "Second coming" does not appear in the Bible. Many of these references, like coming in the clouds, are specific statements to certain people, like what Jesus told Caiaphas that he would "see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven."[10].

Some of these references are possibly different events.

But more important, there is a question as to what the reign of Christ would look like.

People have lots of preconceived notions about different interpretations of books like Revelation, and these notions produce a variety of eschatological doctrines, but many people seem to have trouble with the basics like thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods.

You cannot be a socialist and Christian, from what Christ said, since socialism requires that men exercise authority over your neighbor to give you benefits at the expense of your neighbor.

All of this depends on how people think the kingdom of God looks and operates.

What would His reign look like?

Israel was not a geographical location, but rather a person in whom God prevailed. Those who let God into their hearts and minds are grafted into the kingdom of Israel.



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Footnotes

  1. Acts 17:7 Whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, [one] Jesus.
  2. Leviticus 25:10 And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout [all] the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.
  3. Matthew 20:25-26 But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;
    Mark 10:42-43 But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister:
    Luke 22:25-26 And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve.
  4. : “And the wealthy among us help the needy ... and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need.” Justin Martyr to Emperor Antoninus Pius (Ch. 65-67) explaining the Daily ministration of the Church which exemplifies the Christian conflict with Rome.
  5. Against Heresies Book 5:32
  6. Amillennialism (Greek: a- "no" + millennialism), in Christian eschatology, involves the rejection of the belief that Jesus will have a literal, thousand-year-long, physical reign on the earth. This rejection contrasts with premillennial and some postmillennial interpretations of chapter 20 of the Book of Revelation.
  7. Matthew 21:43 Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
    Luke 12:32 Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
    Luke 22:29 And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me;
  8. Jerome, Ep. 146
  9. Matthew 21:9 And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.
    Mark 11:10 Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest.
  10. Matthew 26:64 Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.