Saturday, September 7, 2019

His Kingdom Shall Have no End.

In Luke chapter 1 verse 33 the Angle Gabriel tells Mary about her Son.
"And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end."
This verse is the basis for one of the additions to the Nicene Creed.
whose kingdom shall have no end.
I have recently learned that many Amillenial scholars want to use this line as evidence that the Second Ecumenical Council condemned Premillenialism.  This PDF I found refuted the notion that Premillenialism was the reason for adding that line.
http://francisgumerlock.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/Millennialism%20and%20the%20Early%20Church%20Councils.%20Gumerlock.pdf

However more important then if that was the reason for the line being added, is the matter of if this line even is in conflict with Premillenialism, because in my view it's not.

Every Premillenial agrees that Christ's Kingdom is without end.  Some may start by saying this declaration is more about the Kingdom of New Jerusalem in Revelation 21-22 then what Revelation 20 is about.

But I prefer to stress that in Revelation 20 the Kingdom doesn't end when the Thousand Years ends, the only thing that happens exactly when the Thousand years are over is Satan being let out of the Abyss.  He then deceives Gog and Magog, the nations in the four corners of the Earth, to wage war on the Camp of the Saints, but then they are defeated.  The whole point of the Narrative is that the Kingdom doesn't end.

I would argue it's interpretations of the book that make the Millennium and New Jerusalem basically the same thing that are more likely to be hindered by this deceleration.

If anything this statement of Luke 1:33 is more of a problem for a face value reading of 1 Corinthians 15:24-28 then it is Revelation 20, but even then it's just a matter of exactly what Paul means.  I think Christ is still Reigning after He gives all Authority to The Father, there's merely a nuanced difference in how exactly it looks one the Material and Spiritual are no longer separated.

As I've said before, Amillennial or Post-Millennial interpretation of Revelation were very rare before Augustine, those who didn't like the Millennium as a doctrine instead rejected Revelation altogether.

The Origenist attitude condemned at the Fifth Ecumenical Council is ironically to me exactly the same attitude that leads to Amillenialism.

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