Chiliasm is the original Christian eschatology at the end of the apostolic age.
I. The Weekly Sabbath Cycle (6+1=7 Days): Moses not only gave us the key to the chronology of the entire Bible in Psalm 90, but he also recorded God’s prophetic patterns and precedents. The seven-day week which has been observed by God’s people since creation is the first and primary pattern. The end has been prophesied since the very beginning in this simple formula, work for six days and rest on the seventh day. So…
Paul wrote the book of Hebrews around AD 62 at the end of his first Roman imprisonment. In it he spoke of the “Seventh Day,” God’s “Rest,” and our “Sabbath-observance” as being the Kingdom hope of Christians. About five years later, following his second imprisonment in Rome, Paul was executed under Nero in AD 66. Peter was in prison in Rome at the time awaiting his own appointment with Nero’s executioner which occurred in AD…
Hebrews was one of Paul’s last epistles, most likely recorded for him by his companion, Luke. One of the noteworthy features of Hebrews is the rabbinic teaching style in which Paul wrote. This style involved merely quoting a short phrase or sentence from an Old Testament passage in order to bring that entire familiar passage into his argument, expecting that his readers were already fully aware of the implications of that passage. In Hebrews 3-4,…
The previous post demonstrated the pervasiveness of the Millennial Week chronology among the early Christian writers close to the Apostles. The primary passage cited by these writers was Psalm 90:4, “a thousand years in Your sight are as the day,”[1] cited by Peter in 2 Peter 3:8, “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day.” The six days plus Sabbath Rest of the creation week set…
A major component of the earliest Christian eschatology – Chiliasm – is the belief in the Millennial Week. Not only is Jesus’ reign on earth exactly one millennium, but the whole time of man’s struggle under the curse has been confined to six millennial “Days.” The seventh millennium is the Seventh-Day Sabbath Rest. The term “Chiliasm” referred to the whole package, not just the “Millennium” of Christ’s reign over the nations. The Millennial Week eschatology…
Like modern dispensationalists, the early chiliasts were “futurists.” The “great tribulation” mentioned in the Olivet Discourse and in Revelation is the last “week” of years described in the Seventy-Weeks prophecy of Daniel 9. During this seven-year period just before Jesus returns, the Temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem and the two prophets of Revelation 11 will preach repentance for 3.5 years, then Antichrist will defile the Temple with the “abomination of desolation,” and then reign…
The earliest Christians following the Apostles based their hope of a future eternal inheritance squarely on the permanent inheritance of the whole earth which God promised to His only-begotten Son, and the Abrahamic Covenant in which God promised a permanent Land inheritance to Abraham’s “Seed” who is Jesus Christ. On the very day that the Son was begotten out of God, the inheritance of the whole earth and all nations was promised to Him. Psalm…
The eschatology of the earliest Christians is called “Chiliasm” (kill’-E-az-um), from the Greek word “chilia” which means a thousand. The term “Chiliasm” is nearly equivalent to our modern term, “millennialism.” However, it does not only refer to the “millennium” of Christ’s reign mentioned in Revelation 20, but also man’s time on earth living under the curse is divided into a series of six previous millennia. The seventh millennium is the “Seventh Day,” the Millennial “Sabbath,”…