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Amillennialism
Amillennialism owes its major
impetus to the well-known Catholic theologian Augustine. He decided that the
kingdom could not be literal, holding that there will be no physical, earthly
millennial kingdom over which Christ will rule. To Augustine, it must be a
spiritual kingdom. The kingdom of God, he declared, was "in the hearts" of
faithful men, not in an actual literal kingdom on the earth over which Christ
would one day rule.
At first, he was convinced that the thousand-year
kingdom of which the Bible spoke would be the period of time between the first
and second advents of Christ. In time, however, he became disillusioned because
the description of the kingdom in the Bible did not fit the reality of the
world in which he lived. Subsequently he developed a form of interpretation
that regards all of the Bible as subject to literal interpretation, but
allegorizes prophetic Scripture. Under this system of interpretation, the Bible
became a subjective patchwork which could be made to say whatever one wanted it
to say.
In Luke 4:16-21, Jesus declared that He was the fulfillment of
the prophecy in Isa. 61:1-2. The Messiah will bind up the brokenhearted,
release prisoners from darkness, and proclaim the year of the Lords favor.
Thus, Jesus begins the 'year of the Lords favor' or the Messianic
Age. |
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