The seven dispensations then over, time shall be no more. Dispensationalism's first adherents had to overcome some serious public relations problems, especially in establishing their evangelical credentials. For decades most evangelicals did not consider dispensationalism orthodox. Eventually, however, the rise of theological liberalism forced many conservative evangelicals into a close, defensive alliance. A key example is the Bible conference movement. While Darby was planting his seeds in American soil, a group of conservatives including premillennialists founded the Believers' Meeting for Bible Study.
Eventually headquartered at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, and renamed the Niagara Bible Conference, it met for two weeks each summer, aware that it was standing firm for beliefs others were starting to deny. Premillennialists quickly assumed leadership of the Niagara Conferences. James Brookes presided for more than 20 years and was primarily responsible for drawing up the "Niagara Creed. Meanwhile, some dispensationalists wanted to focus attention on prophetic themes.
Those convening the conferences noted that "when from any cause some vital doctrine of God's Word has fallen into neglect or suffered contradiction and reproach, it becomes the serious duty of those who hold it … to bring back the Lord's people to its apprehension and acceptance.
Growing more daring because of their increasing visibility and respectability in evangelical circles, dispensationalists frequently made rather extraordinary claims for their distinctive doctrines. Reuben A. Torrey, successor to D. Moody on the revival circuit, claimed that premillennial belief in the Second Coming was the ultimate cure for theological infidelity and an impregnable bulwark against liberalism and false cults:.
William Bell Riley, who eventually led the fundamentalist movement in Minnesota, called pre- millennialism "the sufficient if not solitary antidote to the present apostasy.
Naturally, when premillennialists said such things, they annoyed many of their conservative evangelical allies who thought they could get along just fine without dispensationalism. Hodge, the Princeton Seminary professor whose doctrine of biblical inerrancy most premillennialists espoused, called the pretribulational rapture of the church "an unscriptural and unprofitable theory.
Gresham Machen, the leader of conservative Presbyterians during the s, demonstrated the ambivalent attitude of many evangelicals: He wrote that the rebirth of " premillennialism in the modern church causes us serious concern; it is coupled, we think, with a false method in interpreting Scripture which in the long run will be productive of harm.
Yet how great is our agreement with those who hold the premillennial view. Such criticism always stung premillennialists, who prided themselves on a straightforward, common-sense reading of the Bible.
Though they participated in the conservative evangelical alliance, at times premillennialists felt lonely, isolated, and unappreciated. Like it or not, in an age when the truth of a doctrine was often judged by the company it kept, dispensationalists had to defend their doctrine by showing who believed in it. Premillennialists could point to a number of respected and prominent evangelical leaders within their movement.
Revivalist D. Moody, "Mr. Evangelical" to nearly everyone at the end of the century, was an early convert to premillennialism though not a very doctrinaire dispensationalist. Nearly every major revivalist from his time to World War I adopted his eschatology. Premillennialists could also point to a few leaders in the evangelical world missions movement.
But by far the most important symbols of dispensationalist respectability were the prominent pastors who gave their congregations steady doses of the new premillennialism. Early on, dispensationalists devised a way to produce a steady stream of new leadership through the Bible institute movement, which they helped to establish at the end of the nineteenth century as a hedge against liberal theology. Almost without exception, the scores of Bible institutes founded between and taught the new premillennialism.
Through the ministries of these schools' graduates—pastors, evangelists, Bible teachers, missionaries, youth workers—dispensationalism spread. These seven years will see tremendous tribulation on earth. Then Christ will return with the saints for a year reign from his Kingdom throne in Jerusalem. During this time Satan will be bound and all the Jews will be gathered to Jerusalem.
At the end of this years period the second resurrection resurrection of the wicked will occur. Then judgment is pronounced and the righteous go on to heaven and the wicked to hell. This, essentially, is a description of the doctrine of premillennialism. In order to support the theory of premillennialism several false teachings must be upheld.
We will study the major errors. The first error is that the premillennialists argue that God did not know that the Jews would reject Christ. This is false. And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? John It was recognized by Origen and has been seen by non-chiliasts down to the present day.
One of the prophecies that Irenaeus had insisted will be literally fulfilled in the kingdom on earth was Is. Origen specifically mentions this passage as among those which the Jews misinterpret: "and having seen none of these events literally happening during the advent of him whom we believe to be Christ they did not accept our Lord Jesus, but crucified him on the ground that he had wrongly called himself Christ.
Why did the Church reject chiliasm? Essentially because chiliasm was judged not to be a fully Christian phenomenon. We have organized three faults of chiliasm around the theme of its so-called "Jewish" character. These faults include its sources; holding out an attenuated hope of blessing for the Christian after death, for it was based in a pre-Christian system which as yet lacked a Savior who had raised humanity to heaven; and clinging to an interpretation of Old Testament prophecies which did not comport with the Christian approach but which could be used to justify the crucifixion.
Instead the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus the Messiah had effected a momentous change which Jewish chiliasm was not well-adapted to accommodate.
But it was not these "faults" alone that fatally injured chiliasm. It might have lasted longer if there had not always existed in the Church another, more fully "Christian," eschatology sustaining the Church throughout the whole period. That eschatology, revealed in the New Testament writings, proclaimed Jesus Christ's present reign over all things from heaven, where his saints were "with him" Luke ; John ; ; Phil. It saw the culmination of that reign not in a future, limited, and provisional kingdom on earth where perfection mingled once again with imperfection, but rather in the full arrival of the perfect Rom.
Modern premillennialism, in its several forms, has indeed undergone certain transmutations from its ancient ancestor, some of which are improvements, some arguably not. It may be possible to develop a premillennialism which obviates the worst of chiliasm's pitfalls in antiquity.
But the more challenging question will always be whether any form of chiliasm can ever be shown to be the view of the New Testament writers. Advanced Search Go. Search Term Type any of these words all of these words exact phrase. Results should display: full details author names only. More search tips. Hill Chiliasm is the ancient name for what today is known as premillennialism, the belief that when Jesus Christ returns he will not execute the last judgment at once, but will first set up on earth a temporary kingdom, where resurrected saints will rule with him over non-resurrected subjects for a thousand years of peace and righteousness.
But are these the real factors? Its Sources Were Non-Christian Jewish Sources First, critics of chiliasm point out that Christian chiliasts got their chiliasm not so much from the apostles as from non-Christian Jewish sources. Chiliasm Was "Jewish" in its View of the Saints' Afterlife Second, we now know that early chiliast and non-chiliast Christian eschatologies had to do with more than an expectation of a temporary, earthly kingdom, or lack thereof.
Chiliasm's Old Testament Hermeneutic Led to the Crucifixion Finally, the chiliastic alternative on the intermediate state of the Christian soul between death and the resurrection was a problem which in itself could have led to chiliasm's demise. See C. Livingstone, ed. Powell, "Tertullianists and Cataphrygians," Vigiliae Christianea 29 , Origen, de Princ.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5. Against Heresies 5. Dialogue with Trypho See also S. Heid, "Chiliasmus und AntiChrist-Mythos. For more on views of the saints' afterlife, see C. See e. As Dionysius of Alexandria said, chiliasm persuades the simple Christian "to hope for what is petty and mortal and like the present in the kingdom of God" Eusebius, HE 7.
Denials that the kingdom would be "earthly" are found in the testimony of Jude's grandsons according to Hegesippus Eusebius, HE 3. See adv. Cyprian, de Mortalitate 2, 18, Lactantius, Divine Institutes 7. Tertullian, adv.
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