The Millennium

AMILLENNIALISM -- This error is most extant today, and claims that there will be no literal millennium on earth following Christ's return.  It is maintained that all prophecies concerning the kingdom are being fulfilled now by the Church.  Augustine taught this theory, held to this day by Roman Catholicism.  Their very structure of church government and their program of works depend upon this erroneous use of Old Testament promises about the coming kingdom, as fulfilled in and by their church.

The [Protestant] Reformed churches and Covenant theologians, as well as the Liberals, also hue to amillennialism.  Generally it is denied that Christ will literally reign on earth.  Satan is conceived as bound at the first coming of Christ.  This present "age" is claimed to be the actual realization of the millennium.  There are some differences as to whether the millennium is being fulfilled on earth (Augustine-Catholic), or whether it is being fulfilled by the saints in heaven (Warfield-Reformed).  It is the idea that there will be no more millennium than there is now, and that the eternal state immediately follows Christ's second coming.  [Amillennialism looks more-or-less like this.  Also see Preterism.]

POSTMILLENNIALISM -- This hitherto discarded but now returning concept originated in the writings of one Daniel Whitby (1638-1726), a Unitarian controversialist of England.  He held that the present age will end with a period of great spiritual blessing corresponding to the millennial promises, and that this will be accomplished by the preaching of the Gospel.

The whole world will be Christianized and brought to submission to the Gospel before the return of Christ.  The theory is that Christ will return after the millennium, hence postmillennial.  This teaching was at its peak prior to World War I, pouring out glowing accounts of the triumphant progress of Christianity, recognition of the universal brotherhood of men, and the power of the church in world affairs.

The conflagration of the First World War brought these claims and aspirations to an abrupt halt.  It finally became obvious that man was not adequate within himself as their humanism had contended.  The day of a golden age, in which Christian principles should dominate the world after their postmillennial pattern, faded away.  But now, a generation later, there is an effort to re-establish the error.  Graphically, postmillennialism is similar to amillennialism--the difference being that Christ's reign is more outward in nature.

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