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The Kingdom of Israel

John Shepard

April 8, 2002

Problems with Premillennialism

The purpose of this article is the premillennial end-time viewpoint is favored among many evangelical theologians, but it has problems. This page summarizes some of these problems.

I should note that premillennialists are not consistently literal as they claim to be.

Summary

The problems with premillennialism fall into the following general categories:

• Problems concerning the condition of life for those living in the millennium.
• Problems with reconciling the premillennial scenario with the Biblical text.
• Problems explaining God's purpose for the great tribulation.

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Problems with Premillennialism

• When reading Biblical references to the second coming of Christ there is the clear sense that He is coming for final judgment. But in the premillennial scenario these passages must be interpreted to mean that Christ is coming to establish an earthly kingdom.
• There are too many rulers in the millennium:

  (1) A king from the line of David.
  
  (2) Christ Himself ruling from Jerusalem.
  
  (3) All the resurrected believers from the church age are ruling and reigning with Christ.
  
  (4) The Levites.
  
  (5) The resurrected David (not in every premillennial scenario).

• In the millennium there is an odd blend of resurrected saints mingling with mortal humans.
• In the millennium the animals are peaceful and harmless. Former carnivores no longer eat other animals for food. But once we allow that nature is changed to this extent, then we are faced with a host of difficult questions. For example:

  (1) Are there still mosquitoes? What do they eat for food? (Certainly they don't suck animal blood in the millennium).
  
  (2) Do trees still fall on people and injure or kill them?
  
  (3) Are there parasites anymore?
  
  (4) What do buzzards eat?
  
  (5) What do carnivores eat? If they eat plants does this mean that lions (for example) now forage for food like cattle?

  These conditions in the millennium are never addressed by premillennialists.
• Humans live for centuries. This is a drastic change that would have side-effects. But again, these issues are never addressed by premillennialists.
• Ezekiel 40 - 48 is ignored or allegorized. It simply doesn't fit into the scenario. Many premillennialists sharply deny that there could be animal sacrifices in the millennium since Christ has already paid the price for our sins. But this statement has a serious side-effect -- it would mean that Ezekiel's prophecy will not be fulfilled.
• Why would there be a need for Christ in the millennium to withhold rain from entire nations as judgment of their disobedience? Premillennialism implies that the world is a paradise and that all know Christ.
• The purpose for the great tribulation is difficult to explain in the premillennial scenario because there is no reason for God to judge the world at that particular time. Certainly the world has been ripe for judgment throughout the entire church age and yet God hasn't judged the world. So what is so different about the time of the great tribulation? We should expect there to be an event which precipitates God's judgment (as there was when He judged Israel after they rejected Him).
  

  Two possibilities come to mind:

  (1) The great tribulation is God's judgment of the world for its persecution of the church. But why would God wait so long to do it since the people of the world have been persecuting the church since the time of Christ?
  
  (2) The great tribulation is God's judgment of the world for its persecution of Israel. This seems like a good candidate but would only happen after Israel had established a kingdom on the earth -- not before. Then if the world attacked Israel it would make sense that God would judge the world for this action.

• In the premillennial scenario the millennium is a time in which Christ would rule the world with a rod of iron. Then near the end of the millennium Satan would incite the nations of the world to attack Christ the King. But how is this possible? It doesn't sound like the way the King of kings would rule the world with a rod of iron.
• What possible interest would a resurrected saint have in coming back to earth to rule and reign over mortals?
• What possible interest would Christ have in coming back to earth to rule and reign over mortals?
• How could the mortals in the millennium have any interaction with the glorified Christ? They would not even be able to come into His presence. This would also be true of the rulers from the line of David. Would Christ rule from behind a curtain like the wizard of Oz? The only ones who would be able to come into Christ's presence would be the glorified saints from the church age. So the real rulers of the millennial kingdom (the kings from the house of David) would be merely puppets of the glorified saints. This scenario doesn't really fulfill the prophecies concerning the kingdom of Israel.
• The first centuries of the millennium would be spent cleaning up the damage of the great tribulation and rebuilding a civilized world. This doesn't sound like a paradise. But yet the millennium is presented as being a paradise.

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