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End Time Prophecy
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Mathetes
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This generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened (Luke 21:32)
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The Kingdom of Israel
John Shepard
April 8, 2002
Mathetes
Read it now | Early Church Fathers | Table of Contents | North Forest
The purpose of this article is to show the end-time viewpoint in the writing of Mathetes who wrote in the 1st century.
Mathetes does not teach premillennialism at all and in fact loosely implies that the kingdom of heaven is the same as eternity in heaven (the everlasting kingdom).
Mathetes
The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus
Chapter IX -- Why the Son Was Sent so Late
As long then as the former time endured, He permitted us to be borne along by unruly impulses, being drawn away by the desire of pleasure and various lusts. This was not that He at all delighted in our sins, but that He simply endured them; nor that He approved the time of working iniquity which then was, but that He sought to form a mind conscious of righteousness, so that being convinced in that time of our unworthiness of attaining life through our own works, it should now, through the kindness of God, be vouchsafed to us; and having made it manifest that in ourselves we were unable to enter into the kingdom of God, we might through the power of God be made able.
- The phrase "kingdom of God" appears to be a synonym for the blessings of salvation rather than referring specifically to a millennial kingdom.
Early Church Fathers | Table of Contents | End Time Prophecy | North Forest | Top of page
Chapter X -- The Blessings That Will Flow From Faith
If you also desire [to possess] this faith, you likewise shall receive first of all the knowledge of the Father. For God has loved mankind, on whose account He made the world, to whom He rendered subject all the things that are in it, to whom He gave reason and understanding, to whom alone He imparted the privilege of looking upwards to Himself, whom He formed after His own image, to whom He sent His only-begotten Son, to whom He has promised a kingdom in heaven, and will give it to those who have loved Him.
- Note that the kingdom is "in heaven" not "on earth." This "kingdom in heaven" is the kingdom he gives to believers.
- Implies that the kingdom of heaven is the same as eternity in heaven (everlasting kingdom).
- Thus, he does not teach premillennialism.
Early Church Fathers | Table of Contents | End Time Prophecy | North Forest | Top of page
© Copyright 2007 by John Shepard
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Please feel free to email:
js16@northforest.org
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http://www.northforest.org/Eschatology/ecfMathetes.html
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Revised:
May 14, 2001
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