A TEMPORAL MILLENNIUM

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 29, 1860

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 16, Nos. 1 & 2.

A TEMPORAL MILLENNIUM.

By this expression is understood a thousand years to precede the coming of Christ, in which all the world will be converted, and a season of uninterrupted peace, happiness and prosperity attend the Church. But such a view, though it has extensively obtained, so far from being taught in the Scriptures of truth, is positively contradicted by their most pointed testimony. The word of God being sole umpire on this question, we shall do little else than let it speak for itself.

1. Matt. vii, 13, 14. "Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

In this scripture we have a description of the world's condition as it is at present, and as it ever has been from the beginning. Not without the most positive evidence, therefore, have we a right to say that this scripture will ever be reversed, and the time come when broad will be the way which leadeth unto life, and all the world will go in thereat, and narrow the way that leadeth unto destruction, and none can find it.

2. The people of God are forewarned that in the world they shall be hated and have tribulation. Jno. xv, 19, xvi, 33; 1 Tim. iii, 12; 1 John iii, 13. And these declarations are unlimited, applying to saints so long as they shall be found in this world.

3. If it shall ever be the case before the Lord comes, that the world becomes all converted, and Christianity universal, a painful period of apostasy will surely succeed this time of religious triumph; for we are told that in the last days (and there can be no days later than the last—they must include the days just before the coming of the Son of man) perilous times shall come. Men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, and wicked in fifteen other dark particulars of the catalogue of sin, yet having a form of godliness. 2 Tim. iii, 1-5. Yes, the professed church itself will become thus hopelessly corrupt in the last days. But can such a scene ever succeed a temporal millennium? Will the saints enjoy their thousand years of happiness only to look forward to the dark hour when they should fall from their steadfastness, and be led captive by Satan at his will? Impossible! No; that can never be; but when once the reign of peace and righteousness shall be inaugurated, it will be that it may abide forever. Dan. vii, 18; Rev. xxi 1-5, and many other passages.

4. The "man of sin," acknowledged by all Protestants to be the papacy, is to be consumed only by the Spirit of Christ's mouth, and destroyed by the brightness of his coming. 2 Thess. ii, 8. That this coming of Christ is his personal coming in the clouds of heaven, is evident from the former epistle, and the first verse of this chapter. The papacy is not therefore to be overpowered and melted away by the power and spirit of the gospel, but is to be violently consumed and destroyed by the personal appearance of the Saviour. This may be further learned from other scriptures where the same power, its continuance and destiny, is brought to view. Dan. vii, 11; Rev. xix, 20. There is therefore no chance for a temporal millennium, while the mystery of iniquity, the mother of harlots, is seated upon her seven hills, and corrupting the earth with her abominations. And the indubitable fact that this power is to continue till the personal appearance of the Son of man, is enough to sweep the popular idea into eternal oblivion.

But will not the Father give the Son the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession, to be converted and saved? Ps. ii, 8. Not to be converted and saved, but, as the very next verse informs us, to be broken with a rod of iron, and dashed in pieces like a potter's vessel. This power Christ also grants to his people, according to Rev. ii, 26, 27. "As the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers." That this is a manifestation of wrath and not of mercy is sufficiently evident from the language itself.

Matt. xiii, 24-30, 36-43. We here have the significant parable of the tares of the field. In the interpretation of the parable, the good seed are declared to be the children of the kingdom, and the tares the children of the wicked one. Let this one point then be particularly noticed. These wheat and tares, the righteous and the wicked, are to grow together till the harvest [verse 30]; and the harvest is the end of the world.