Amillennialism (Lat
in: a- "against" + millennialism) is a view in Christian end-times theology named for its rejection of the theory thatJesus Christ will have a thousand-year long, physical reign on the earth. This is in opposition to premillennial and som
e postmillennialviews of chapter 20 of the Book of Revelation.
In contrast, the amillennial view holds that the thousand years mentioned in Revelation 20 is
Terminology
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Many proponents dislike the name amillennialism because it emphasizes their negative differences with premillennialism rather than their positive beliefs about the millennium, and although they prefer alternate terms such as nunc-millennialism (that is, now-millennialism) or realized millennialism, the acceptance and wide-spread usage of the different names has been limited.
Teaching
Amillennialism teaches that the Kingdom of God will not be physically established on earth throughout the "millennium", but rather
n that Jesus is presently reigning from heaven, seated at the right hand of God the Father,
n that Jesus also is and will remain with the church until the end of the world, as he promised at the Ascension,
n that at Pentecost, the millennium began, as is shown by Peter using the prophecies of Joel, about the coming of the kingdom, to explain what was happening,
n and that, therefore the church and its spread of the good news is Christ's kingdom.
Amillennialists cite scripture references to the kingdom not being a physical realm: Matthew 12:28, where Jesus cites his driving out of demons as evidence that the kingdom of God had come upon them; Luke 17:20-21, where Jesus warns that the coming of the kingdom of God cannot be observed, and that it is among them; and Romans 14:17, where Paul speaks of the kingdom of God being in terms of the Christians' actions.
In particular, they regard the thousand year period as a figurative expression of Christ's reign being perfectly completed, as the "thousand hills" referred to in Psalm 50:10, the hills on which God owns the cattle, are all hills, and the "thousand generations" in 1 Chronicles 16:15, the generations for which God will be faithful, refer to all generations. (Some postmillennialists and nearly all premillennialists hold that the word millennium should be taken to refer to a literal thousand-year period.)
Amillennialism also teaches that the binding of Satan described in Revelation has already occurred; he has been prevented from "deceiving the nations" by preventing the spread of the gospel. This is the only binding he will suffer in history: the forces of Satan will not be gradually pushed back by the Kingdom of God as history progresses but will remain just as active as always up until the second coming of Christ, and therefore good and evil will remain mixed in strength throughout history and even in the church, according to the Amillennial understanding of the Parable of the Wheat and Tares.
Amillennialism is sometimes associated with Idealism as both teach a symbolic interpretation of many of the prophecies of the Bible and especially the Book of Revelation. However, many Amillennialists do believe in the literal fulfillment of Biblical prophecies; they simply disagree with Millennialists about how or when these prophecies will be fulfilled.
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Modern times
Amillennialism has been widely held in the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches as well as in the Roman Catholic Church, which generally follows Augustine on this point and which has deemed that Premillennialism "cannot safely be taught."[4] Amillennialism is also common among "mainline" Protestant denominations such as the Lutheran, Reformed, Disciples of Christ, and Anglican churches, and even has a significant following amongst Evangelical Christian denominations. Partial Preterism is sometimes a component of Amillennial hermeneutics. Amillennialism declined in Protestant circles with the rise of Postmillennialism and the resurgence of Premillennialism in the 18th and 19th centuries, but it has regained prominence in the West after World War II.
Many premillennialists accuse Amillennialists of over-spiritualizing parts of the Bible. Amillennialists argue that to understand the Bible literally, one must interpret it according to its genre such that history is not read as though it were poetry, for instance. Amillennialist B. B. Warfield says that in the genre of the Book of Revelation, which he calls an "apocalyptic," everything is stated in a "symbolic medium" such that "every event, person, and thing, that appears on its pages is to be read as a symbol, and the thing symbolized understood. This is not to say one thing and mean another; it is only to say what is said through the medium of a series of symbols, and to mean nothing but the things symbolized." Since the events pictured in an apocalyptic are spoken of in a symbolic medium, the details of the symbol must not be forced onto the thing symbolized because the book itself "gives us a direct description of nothing it sets before us, but always a direct description of the symbol by which it is represented." Thus he argues that the millennium of Revelation 20 should be understood to be the intermediate state, though the book never states as much, and in fact, if Revelation actually did give a direct mention of the intermediate state, the very nature of the work would compel the reader to assume that the intermediate state was not in view at all, but rather symbolized something else entirely.
The Amillennial view that good and evil will persist has led some postmillennialists to accuse Amillennialists (and premillennialists) of being overly pessimistic. Amillennialists have countered that the Parable of the Weeds and the Parable of Drawing in the Net show that the good and evil will be sorted out only at the end of the world.
Critics also believe that caesaropapism caused millennialism to be eliminated from Christianity from the 4th century onwards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amillennialism
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