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What is the cause of the re-emergence of premillennialism?

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Revelation 20:1-10 speaks of Christ reigning for a thousand years, which is taken as a literal kingdom of Jesus on earth after his second coming by premillennialists. Amillennialists, on the other hand, understand the thousand-year-reign of Christ to refer to the era of the church, which will conclude with the second coming and final judgment. This debate is ancient. Justin Martyr's *Dialogue with Trypho* (composed around 160 AD) is the earliest extant work to explicitly weigh in on the issue. Justin takes a premillennialist view, prefacing the discussion with a disclaimer that faithful Christians are not in agreement on it (ch.81). Irenaeus also advocated premillennialism. Eusebius, himself amillennialist, gives an interesting report of a debate on the issue in Alexandria taking place in around 250 AD (*Ecclesial History* 7.24-25). In *City of God* (dating to the early 5th century), Augustine reports his own switch from premillennialism to amillennialism, with a brief but compelling argument for why this is correct (Book XX). As I understand it, amillennialism was far-and-away the dominant view from the time of Augustine until the Reformation. Calvin dismisses premillennialism as "too childish either to need or to be worth a refutation," (*Institutes* Book 3, XXV.5), but he seems to misunderstand it as postulating that the resurrected saints will only live for that thousand years. In the present time, the situation seems to have changed. Premillennialism is an integral part of Dispensationalism, which remains quite popular in American churches. But even outside Dispensationalism, one finds many premillennialist theologians, such as John Piper or Wayne Grudem or [reportedly] Charles Spurgeon. My question is: **Among non-Dispensationalist theologians, why has premillennialism returned?** Does the resurgence of historical premillannialism have anything to do with the advent of dispensational premillennialism?
Asked by Dark Malthorp (4704 rep)
May 27, 2024, 09:19 AM
Last activity: Jun 4, 2024, 08:32 PM