In the second century, Christian hopes were still centered upon the return of Christ and his coming millennial reign on the earth. But when a hundred years had passed and the Lord had not come, the concept of the kingdom on earth rapidly changed. It was thought to be in heaven — or it was the church itself — ideas that are still retained in Christendom.
Historians agree that the millennial hope was prevalent in the early church. Many of them also recognize pagan influence led to a diminishing of that hope. “The more modern [third century] theologians, especially at Alexandria … endeavored to set forth a Christianity relevant to the concerns of urban intellectuals…Speculative theologians employed the traditional formulas but, especially by using the allegorical method, tended to dissolve them into philosophy.” (R. M. Grant, Augustus to Constantine: The Rise of Christianity in the Roman World).
In The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. I, p. 405, the historian Gibbon observes: “The assurance of a Millennium was carefully inculcated by a succession of fathers from Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, who conversed with the immediate disciples of the apostles, down to Lactantius, who was preceptor to the son of Constantine…The doctrine of Christ’s reign upon earth was at length rejected.” This rejection fulfilled the ultimate sense of the apostle’s warning: “They shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Tim. 4:4).
The Millennium
Papias (AD 60-130), who had personal contact with those who had been taught by the apostles, asserted that “the Lord used to teach concerning those times, that there will be a period of a thousand years after the resurrection of the dead, and the kingdom of Christ will be set up in material form on this very earth” (Fragments of Papias, iv, vi).
The author of the Epistle of Barnabas (written about AD 138) teaches a seven-thousand year plan, the sabbath representing the coming millennial reign of Christ on earth (ch.iv). And he writes: “we…shall live ruling over the earth…When? When we ourselves also have been made perfect so as to become heirs of the covenant of the Lord” (ch. vi).
The Millennium and the Apocalypse
As we know, the millennial teaching in the Apocalypse is very clear. Theologians in almost every age have, for this reason, either attacked the authenticity of the book, or attempted to explain away its depiction of the 1000-year kingdom. Gibbon relates how the Revelation barely escaped being excluded by the church from the New Testament canon. “In the council of Laodicea (about the year 360) the Apocalypse was tacitly excluded from the sacred canon by the same churches of Asia to which it is addressed; and…their sentence had been ratified by the greater number of Christians” (Decline and Fall, I, 404). Providentially, the book of Revelation remained in the canon despite these subversive efforts.
The apostle John was certainly not the first inspired writer to describe a literal Messianic reign on earth. This teaching harmonizes with both the gospel of Christ and the witness of the prophets. Psalm 72, Isaiah 35, Daniel 2:44; 7:27 are but a few of many Old Testament references that can be cited.
Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr (AD 100-165) writes: “…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.” This is from his dialogue with Trypho, a Jew, where Justin further declares: “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…” (Dialogue,lxxx,lxxxi).
Irenaeus
Irenaeus (AD 120-202) writes eloquently on the subject of the millennium and also of the Abrahamic promises. These expositions appear in Against Heresies, Book V, and space will allow us just brief excerpts.
“Thus, then, the promise of God, which He gave to Abraham, remains steadfast. For thus He said: Lift up thine eyes, and look from this place where now thou art, towards the north and south, and east and west. For all the earth which thou seest, I will give to thee and to thy seed, even for ever’…and yet he did not receive an inheritance in it, not even a footstep, but was always a stranger and a pilgrim therein…Thus, then, they who are of faith shall be blessed with faithful Abraham…Now God made promise of the earth to Abraham and his seed; yet neither Abraham nor his seed, that is, those who are justified by faith, do now receive any inheritance in it; but they shall receive it at the resurrection of the just. For God is true and faithful; and on this account He said, ‘Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.’
“The predicted blessing, therefore, belongs unquestionably to the times of the kingdom, when the righteous shall bear rule upon their rising from the dead…Then, too, Isaiah himself has plainly declared that there shall be joy of this nature at the resurrection of the just…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…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” (Against Heresies, Book V, chs. xxxii to xxxvi).
Truth is Lost
Origen (AD 185-254) was one of the first writers of prominence to disavow a future kingdom of God on earth. Educated in Greek philosophy, as well as the Scriptures, he represented a new vision of the Christian hope, one that was more acceptable to the intellectuals of his day.
There were some, Origen wrote, who believed “that the earthly city of Jerusalem is to be rebuilt…they desire the fulfillment of all things looked for in the promises. Such are the views of those who, while believing in Christ, understand the divine Scriptures in a sort of Jewish sense, drawing from them nothing worthy of the divine promises” (De Principiis, Book II, ch. xi).
Origen believed like Plato
His own expectation of life after the resurrection was “to reach the highest heavens,” a conviction which he admittedly shared with Plato, who, he says, “had the same truths in view” (Against Celsus, Book VI, ch. xx). [Origen did not teach that the soul goes to heaven at death. He believed that souls of the righteous are detained in an earthly “paradise” till the resurrection. Bodily resurrection was still to his generation a teaching that could not be compromised (De Principiis, Book II, ch. x and xi)]
A bishop denies the millennium
Dionysius (200-265) was bishop of Alexandria and a disciple of Origen. The purpose of one of his writings was the refutation of millennial teaching. Nepos, an earlier bishop in Egypt, had been closer to the truth. He had written on the subject of the promises and had “taught that the promises which were given to holy men in the sacred Scriptures were to be understood according to the Jewish sense of the same: and affirmed that there would be some kind of millennial period upon the earth. And as he thought that he could establish this opinion of his by the Revelation of John, he had composed a book on this question, entitled Refutation of the Allegorists” (Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History, vii, 24 and 25).
Dionysius was concerned that these views (the truth concerning the Millennium) were still being taught by some who “insist very strongly, as if it demonstrated incontestably that there will be a (temporal) reign of Christ upon the earth” (On the Promises, I, i). He tells of convening the local presbyters and teachers for a three-day conference at which he convinced them that such beliefs had to be abandoned. His comments on the Apocalypse are revealing:
“But I, for my part, could not venture to set the book aside, for there are many brethren who value it highly…For though I cannot comprehend it, I still suspect that there is some deeper sense underlying the words.” Dionysius goes on to question the authorship of the Apocalypse, admitting “that it was the writing of a John, I do not deny…But I could not so easily admit that this was the apostle, the son of Zebedee.”
Direct denial of the kingdom age
In a commentary on the Apocalypse, written late in the third century, this comment appears: “They are not to be heard who assure themselves that there is to be an earthly reign of a thousand years…For the kingdom of Christ is now eternal in the saints, although the glory of the saints shall be manifested after the resurrection” (Victorinus: Commentary on the Apocalypse). Thus the established church set aside the sublime revelation of prophets and apostles and ceased to teach the truth on the subject of the Kingdom of God.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One