Jay Adams
"In fact, apart from the twentieth chapter of Revelation, they (former premillennialists) wonder how anyone could come to the premillennial viewpoint at all. They freely admit that this one chapter is the sole basis for their belief. They have begun to demand that certain assumptions be proved. They ask, for instance, where biblical warrant may be found for identifying scores of Old Testament prophecies with the 1000-year period mentioned (but not described) in Revelation 20. They no longer can agree to the exploded "postponement theory," and having rejected that pillar of the dispensational system for the first time, they are able to see that Daniel's seventieth week (Daniel 9) is not paranthetically separated from the other sixty-none by the church age, but was fulfilled in the time of Christ. They have carefully restudied Matthew 24 and the parallel passages in the other gospels and are now convinced that much of what they once referred to as a "great tribulation" immediately prior to the second coming, rightly pertains to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. With this, the entire matter of a future tribulation and Antichrist is brought in question." (The Time is at Hand, p. 3)

Christianity Today
"In City of God, Augustine (354-430) viewed the thousand years of Revelation 20 not as some special future time but "the period beginning with Christ's first coming," that is, the age of the Christian church. Throughout this age, the saints reign with Christ—not in the fullness of the coming kingdom prepared for those blessed by God the Father, but "in some other and far inferior way." This position, often called "amillennial," became the view of most Christians in the West, including the Reformers, for almost 1,500 years."

"Impressed by New England's spiritual awakening in the early 1740s, he wrote, " 'Tis not unlikely that this work of God's Spirit, that is so extraordinary and wonderful, is the dawning, or at least a prelude, of that glorious work of God, so often foretold in Scripture…. And there are many things that make it probable that this work will begin in America." After the Great Awakening, Edwards became more cautious and dated the Millennium (a term he used rarely) somewhere around the year 2000." (October 12, 2001)

"The days will come in which vines shall grow," imagined Papias of Hierapolis, "each having ten thousand branches, and in each branch ten thousand twigs, and in each true twig ten thousand shoots, and in each one of the shoots ten thousand clusters, and on every one of the clusters ten thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed will give two hundred gallons of wine. And when any of the saints shall lay hold of a cluster, another shall cry out, 'I am a better cluster, take me; bless the Lord through me.'" Papias (c.60-120) was perhaps the first post-biblical author to describe the thousand-year visible Kingdom of Christ—the Millennium." (The End: A History of the Second Coming)

G.C. Berkower
"The kingdom has already come; and the believers must see, discover, and recognize that." (The Return of Christ, 87)

Alexander Brown
"Let us not forget that once in the Church's history it was the common belief that John's 1000 years were gone. Dorner bears witness that the Church up to Constantine understood by Antichrist chiefly the heathen state, and to some extent unbelieving Judaism (System iv.,390). Victorinus, a bishop inartyred in 303, reckoned the 1000 years from the birth of Christ."

"Augustine wrote his magnum opus 'the City of God' with a sort of dim perception of the identity of the Christian Church with the new Jerusalem. Indeed we know that the 1000 years were held to be running by the generations previous to that date, and so intense was their faith that the universal Church was in a ferment of excitement about and shortly after 1000 A.D. in expectation of the outbreak of Satanic influence. Wickliff, the reformer, believed that Satan bad been unbound at the end of the 1000 years, and was intensely active in his day. That this period in Church history is past, or now runs its course, has been the belief of a roll of eminent men too long to be chronicled on our page-of Augustine, Luther, Bossuet, Cocceius, Grotius, Hammond, Hengstenberg, Keil, Moses Stuart, Philippi, Maurice." (Alexander Brown, Great Day of the Lord, p. 216.)

John Calvin (1536)
"But a little later there followed the chiliasts, who limited the reign of Christ to a thousand years. Now their fiction is too childish either to need or to be worth a refutation. And the Apocalypse, from which they undoubtedly drew a pretext for their error does not support them. For the number "one thousand" (Rev. 20:4) does not apply to the eternal blessedness of the church but only to the various disturbances that awaited the church, while still toiling on earth."

"For when we apply to it the measure of our own understanding, what can we conceive that is not gross and earthly? So it happens that like beasts our senses attract us to what appeals to our flesh, and we grasp at what is at hand. So we see that the Chialists (i.e. those who believed that Christ would reign on earth for a thousand years) fell into a like error. Jesus intended to banish from the disciples' minds a false impression regarding the earthly kingdom: for that, as He points out in a few words, consists of the preaching of the Gospel. They have no cause therefore to dream of wealth, luxury, power in the world or any other earthly thing when they hear that Christ is reigning when He subdues the world to Himself by the preaching of the Gospel. It follows from this that His reign is spiritual and not after the pattern of this world." - Comm. on Acts 1:8 (Torrance, VI, 32).

David Chilton (1985)
"One of the antichrists who afflicted the early church was Cerinthus, the leader of a first-century Judaistic cult. Regarded by the Church Fathers as "the Arch-heretic," and identified as one of the "false apostles" who opposed Paul, Cerinthus was a Jew who joined the Church and began drawing Christians away from the orthodox faith. He taught that a lesser deity, and not the true God, had created the world (holding, with the Gnostics, that God was much too "spiritual" to be concerned with material reality). Logically, this meant also a denial of the Incarnation, since God would not take to Himself a physical body and truly human personality. And Cerinthus was consistent: he declared that Jesus had merely been an ordinary man, not born of a virgin; that "the Christ" (a heavenly spirit) had descended upon the man Jesus at His baptism (enabling Him to perform miracles), but then left Him again at the crucifixion. Cerinthus also advocated a doctrine of justification by works — in particular, the absolute necessity of observing the ceremonial ordinances of the Old Covenant in order to be saved.

Furthermore, Cerinthus was apparently the first to teach that the Second Coming would usher in a literal reign of Christ in Jerusalem for a thousand years. Although this was contrary to the apostolic teaching of the Kingdom, Cerinthus claimed that an angel had revealed this doctrine to him." (Chapter 12,Paradise Restored)

Robert G. Clouse
"the Council of Ephesus in 431, belief in the millennium was condemned as superstitious." (Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium, p. 9.)

Epiphanes (315-403)
"There is indeed a millennium mentioned by St.John; but the most, and those pious men, look upon those words as true indeed, but to be taken in a spiritual sense." (Heresies, 77:26.)

Richard Erdoes
"On the last day of the year 999, according to an ancient chronicle, the old basilica of St. Peter's at Rome was thronged with a mass of weeping and trembling worshippers awaiting the end of the world. This was the dreaded eve of the millennium, the Day of Wrath when the earth would dissolve into ashes. Many of those present had fiven away all of their possessions to the poor - lands, homes, and household goods - in order to assure for themselves forgiveness for their trespasses at the Last Judgment and a good place in heaven near the footstool of the Almighty. Many poor sinners - and who among them was not without sin? had entered the church in sackcloth and ashes, having already spent weeks and months doing penance and mortifying the flesh ... the last day of the year 999 and the first day of the year 1000 had come and gone. Yet still the earth stood still and people still lived." (A.D.2000: Living on the Brink of Apocalypse, 1,194.)

Eusebius (A.D.325)
"This same historian (Papias) also gives other accounts, which he says he adds as received by him from unwritten tradition, likewise certain strange parables of our Lord, and of His doctrine and some other matters rather too fabulous. In these he says there would be a certain millennium after the resurrection, and that there would be a corporeal reign of Christ on this very earth; which things he appears to have imagined, as if they were authorized by the apostolic narrations, not understanding correctly those matters which they propounded mystically in their representations. For he was very limited in his comprehension, as is evident from his discourses; yet he was the cause why most of the ecclesiastical writers, urging the antiquity of man, were carried away by a similar opinion; as, for instance, Irenaeus, or any other that adopted such sentiments. (Book III, Ch. 39)

Ezekiel, the Prophet/Priest (572-593 B.C.)
"Thus says the Lord GOD, "On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places will be rebuilt. And the desolate land will be cultivated instead of being a desolation in the sight of all who passed by. And they will say, 'This desolate land has become like the Garden of Eden; and the waste, desolate, and ruined cities are fortified and inhabited.' Then the nations that are left round about you will know that I, the LORD, have rebuilt the ruined places and planted that which was desolate; I, the LORD, have spoken and will do it (Ezek. 36:33-36)."

Joel Green
"The kingdom is God's reign, already begun." (How to Read Prophecy, 87)

"The Lord's present reign is most visible in the church. Nonetheless, it must be stated emphatically: the church in not the kingdom. The kingdom is the universal, final, eternal, perfect, transcendent and definitive reign of God." (How to Read Prophecy, 118)

John N.D. Kelly (1978)
"..in the apostolic age, as the New Testament documents reveal, the Church was pervaded with an intense conviction that hope to which Israel had looked forward yearningly had at last been fulfilled. ..history had reached its climax and the reign of God, as so many of our Lord's parables imply, had been effectively inaugurated." (Early Christian Doctrines. Revised Edition, 1978. pp. 459-461)

"About the middle of the second century Christian eschatology enters upon a new, rather more mature phase. ..Justin teaches on the basis of Old Testament prophecy that, in addition to His coming in lowliness at His incarnation, Christ will come again in glory .. new emphases and fresh lines of thought begin to appear, partly for apologetic motives and partly as the result of growing speculation. The clash with Judaism and paganism made it imperative to set out the bases of the revealed dogmas more thoroughly. ..millenarianism, or the theory that the returned Christ would reign on earth for a thousand years, came to find increasing support among Christian teachers." (Early Christian Doctrines. Revised Edition, 1978. pp. 465)

"[Justin Martyr's] argument is that, while numerous contexts no doubt predict His coming in humiliation, there are others (e.g. Is. 53:8-12; Ezek. 7f; Dan. 7:9-28; Zech. 12:10-12; Ps. 72:1-20; 110:1-7) which clearly presuppose His coming in majesty and power. The former coming was enacted at the incarnation, but the latter still lies in the future. It will take place, he suggests, at Jerusalem, where Christ will be recognized by the Jews who dishonored Him as the sacrifice which avails for all penitent sinners, and where He will eat and drink with His disciples; and He will reign there a thousand years. This millenarians, or "chialistic," doctrine was widely popular at this time. ..[But] he confesses that he knows pious, pure-minded Christians who do not share this belief.." (pp. 464-466)

J. Marcellus Kik (1971)
"The premillenialist, however, maintains as a cardinal and fundamental tenet of his system of eschatology that the throne of glory is an earthly throne set up in the material city of Jerusalem. The temporal throne of David is to be reconstructed in Jerusalem... As a matter of fact there is not one passage in the New Testament which gives definite information of a personal reign of Christ upon a temporal throne in the material city of Jerusalem! What seems to be hidden to the apostles have been revealed by uninspired men." (An Eschatology of Victory, 171)

Justin Martyr (A.D.150)
CHAP. XI.--WHAT KINGDOM CHRISTIANS LOOK FOR.
"And when you hear that we look for a kingdom, you suppose, without making any inquiry, that we speak of a human kingdom; whereas we speak of that which is with God, as appears also from the confession of their faith made by those who are charged with being Christians, though they know that death is the punishment awarded to him who so confesses. For if we looked for a human kingdom, we should also deny our Christ, that we might not be slain; and we should strive to escape detection, that we might obtain what we expect. But since our thoughts are not fixed on the present, we are not concerned when men cut us off; since also death is a debt which must at all events be paid." (First Apology of Justin Martyr, ch. 11)

"Chiliasm found no favor with the best of the Apostolic Fathers... the support from the Apologists too, is extreamly meager, only one from among their number can with reasonable fairness be claimed, (Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, v. 25 - 36 ).

Arthur Cushman McGiffert (1890)
"Jewish chiliasm was very common at about the beginning of the Christian era, and is represented in the voluminous apocalyptic literature of that day. Christian chiliasm was an outgrowth of the Jewish, but spiritualized it, and fixed it upon the second, instead of the first, coming of Christ." (Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers (NPNF), eds. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1979), 2:1:172, note 19.)

J.A.W. Neander (1837)
" Among the Jews the representation was growing that the messiah would reign 1000 years upon the earth. Such products of Jewish imagination passed over into Christianity. " (History of Christian Dogmas, Vol. I, pg. 248)

"Amazingly meager indeed, are the direct and explicit statments which can by any show of reasonablness be claimed as evidence for Chiliasm. To imagine that we can distil from these rare fragments the orthodox faith of the early church is a huge assumption, and even more perpostrous is it to claim that these barren, feeble utterances represent Chiliasm in its modern premillenial manifestation. " (Ibid. pgs. 52 - 53)

Dwight Pentecost
"the prophecies regarding David’s reign in the millennium are not literally understood; they speak of Christ(Things to Come: A study Biblical Eschatology [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan/Academie, (1958) 1964], p. 498).

William H. Rutgers
"That chiliasm roots in this particularistic Judiaistic Apocalyptic mold cannot be gainsayed." (Premillenialism in America, pg. 47)

Philip Schaff (1877)
"Though millenialism was supressed by the early church, it was nevertheless from time to time revived by heretical sects." (Schaff's History, pg. 299 )

C.H. Spurgeon (1865)
"Those who wish to see the arguments upon the unpopular side of the great question at issue, will find them here; this is probably one of the ablest of the accessible treatises from that point of view. We cannot agree with Mr. Young, neither can we refute him. It might tax the ingenuity of the ablest prophetical writers to solve all the difficulties here started, and perhaps it would be unprofitable to attempt the task. . . (review of Short Arguments about the Millennium; or plain proofs for plain Christians that the coming of Christ will not be pre-millennial; that his reign will not be personal, B. C. Young. In The Sword and Trowel 1:470 (October 1867).

Daniel Whitby (1703)
"The doctrine of the Millennium was never generally received in the church of Christ “ (Daniel Whitby, “A Treatise on the True Millennium,” in Patrick, Lowth, Arnald, Whitby, and Lowman, Commentary on the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament, 4 vols. (Philadelphia, PA: Carey and Hart, 1845), vol. 4, p. 1118.)

“The doctrine of the millennium was not the general doctrine of the primitive church from the times of the apostles to the Nicene council . . . for then it could have made no schism in the church, as Dionysius of Alexandria saith it did.” (Ibid., pp. 1122-23. He cites Dionysius 5:6; Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 7:24.)

? Waddington
"This obscure doctrine was probabally known to but very few except the fathers of the church, and is very sparingly mentioned by them during the first centuries; and there is reason to believe that it scarcely attained much notoriety, even among the learned Christians, until it was made a matter of controversy by Origen, and then rejected by the greater majority. In fact, we find Origen himself saying that it was confined to those of the simpler sort. " (Waddington's History, pg. 56)

Statements Regarding the "Temporal Adverb" of I Corinthians 15:26:

"..afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. Then (eita) cometh the end.."

W.D. Davies (1948)
"('the end' in v. 24) "is a technical phrase denoting the final consummation immediately or at any rate with only a very short interval" (after the parousia). (Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, p. 295).

Max King (1987)
"We need to give further attention to the meaning of "the end" and its connection with Christ's parousia. Much has been written about an interval of time between Christ's parousia (v.23) amd "the end" (v.24) as implied in the temporal adverb "then" (eita). For those who see Christ's Messianic reign as occurring between His parousia and the end, a thousand-year interval is squeezed out of this temporal adverb." (The Cross and Parousia of Christ, p. 493)

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