THE "COULD-BE" BASIS FOR CHILIASM

It appears that it is an eschatological pretense, indeed, which gives rise to this challenge.

You must remember ... As problematic as you see the matter of "how shall men be saved" is to a earthly millenial period, the question of millenial soteriology is secondary. It only arises as the a result of responsive acceptance of scriptures that fortell (sic) a millenial reign. Having made the choice of not disposing with the view of the future presented by the Bible leaves another challenge, but it surely is better than avoiding the challenge by rejecting the open window of prophecy.

Everyone knows God can do what He wants. His ways are past finding out. But this whole issue of another plan of salvation -- or something other than the three steps of Acts 2:38, -- in the future for restored Israel, is all based upon an argument concerning whether or not a possible restored Israel would be part of the church. Bro William Chalfant insisted it would not make restored Israel part of the church. Others here disagree, such as Bro Bassett. I am not trying to divide Bro Bassett and Bro Chalfant in saying that, by the way.

But Bro William Chalfant (and please know he personally is not an issue with me, but since he mentioned it, I am only using him as a basis of reference to make my actual point) raised the issue of varying levels of saved saints in the kingdom of God for eternity future, when it's all said and done, with the church at the highest.

The idea of a millennium is never taught in detail in scripture. It is only found in Revelation 20 amidst a book of lengthy imagery devoid of explicit interpretation for the most part, especially for the 1000 years, and devoid of any form of actual teaching in the book.

NOWHERE ELSE DOES THE BIBLE MENTION THIS 1000 YEAR PERIOD. (How many times have I said that!?). And the prophets are called upon by millenialists (chiliasts) when they speak of prophecies such as "a child being a hundred years old", or the wolf laying down with the lamb (not "the lion and lamb"!).

And then Ezekiel's temple is referenced by chiliasts, since we read about animal sacrifices there. Since there has not yet been a natural temple built like Ezekiel foretold (who said it would be natural, though?), chiliasts feel this is the millennial temple of some sort. And so the great leap of assumption is then made concerning those animal sacrifices being memorial  sacrifices, that are not sacrificed for the sake of actually dealing with sins, since chiliasts know Christ's sacrifice was the last to deal with sins in any form.

Now, I say it is far more "apostolic" to take the idea of those sacrifices as symbols of what the apostles did explicitly teach. For example, sacrifices of praise and worship are found mentioned in Peter. And it fits! Every reference like that in the OT that is without explicit interpretation can be found to fit the teachings of the Apostles and Jesus when they are considered to symbolize the apostles' and Jesus' teachings. For example, the entire reason praise is called a "sacrifice" in the NT is based upon the thought of animal sacrifice in the Old Testament.

So what is more reasonable? To take the unexplained reference to sacrifices in Ezekiel's temple and say they are actual, or to say they symbolize what the Lord and Apostles explicitly taught about praise being a sacrifice? And yet we are mocked for saying these things are symbols, while all the while we are standing only upon what the Lord and Apostles actually taught. I think it is far more "mockable" to say there will be memorial animal sacrifices in the millennium!

Furthermore, the following makes the idea of Ezekiel's temple to be definitely spiritual: Ezekiel 47 shows the temple with a River flowing out of it with trees on either side, whose leaves heal nations and the fruit feeds them. Revelation 22 shows God and the Lamb emitting River of life with trees on both sides of the river, whose leaves heal nations and whose fruit feeds them. To top it all off, Revelation 21 says God and the Lamb are the temple! Bro Chalfant said these were two different rivers and incidents! He had to to retain his naturalization of the vision of Ezekiel, since my hypothesis clearly makes Ezekiel's vision symbolic, since the temple stands for God and the Lamb in Revelation 22. That means other elements of the same vision would be symbolic as well! So, no millennial temple!

(When I asked Bro William Chalfant to specify if he thought there were two rivers with trees of life on both sides, whose leaves and fruit heal and feed, respectively, he refused to ever answer me. So would I, in his shoes!)

All of this chiliast assuming is used to support  chiliasm. When these issues were raised amongst us all in the days when Bro Chalfant was on the forum, he raised them to support his idea of a millennium without people becoming part of the Church.

I was speaking to him about atonement. I was saying the cross of Jesus provided atonement for any soul who will ever wind up being saved, whether they are from the Old Testament or the New Testament. And Atonement, by virtue of it's very meaning, puts one into the church. The OT saints were put into the Church, not at the time they were obedient to their covenant, but at the time Christ actually made atonement. So, they died un-atoned for. But when Christ made atonement, He made it for them since their covenants depended upon Christ's then-future work of atonement to atone for their souls, and they were then atoned for after their deaths.

Unlike OT saints, we directly enter atonement benefits when we obey our plan of salvation. That makes our plan of salvation totally different than all of the other previous plans put together!

Whereas Bro Bassett proposes memorials and all of the other conjectural events and purposes of his millennium, I say the absence of explicit teaching regarding the millennium and explanation of such sacrifices in Ezekiel's temple being memorials reveals the guesswork nature of the system that chiliasm is contrived of. They use these arguments and refer to these scriptures when they argue support for chiliasm, but then they proclaim this is all guesswork, and contend with us saying these things they guess are not impossible for God to do. So, they then tell us to leave God alone to do whatever He wants to do, as though we limited God by saying He cannot do these things. And it makes the dispensational chiliast feel heightened above the preterist, or other non-chiliast, with feelings of being the more noble ones who would not dare limit God.

Meanwhile Jesus said nothing about chilaism. The apostles never explicitly taught it.

I can look at prophecies in the bible, too, and find no explicit explanation of them anywhere else, and then propose my own concoction of interpretations. And if anyone challenged them, I could respond by saying, "God can do anything! Don't dare limit Him by questioning our interpretations!"

The only difference is that this concoction "caught on" almost two centuries ago, and is presently found in the articles of faith of some fellowships. The truth is, I doubt very much any of these intelligent brethren sharing this forum with us today would ever have accepted that had it sprung up today and was presented to them, as with the gap between the 69th and 70th weeks of Daniel. I mean, this is an elaborate system found in untold numbers of books, and causing more interest and stir than explicit and plain teachings of the bible! It's all integral in the prophetic pulp-fiction money-maker books that shame Hollywood's degree of imagination!

Mob-mentality applied to doctrines and positions held by fellowships is a strong force.

Now, looking at the bare bones of this idea of chiliasm, and the memorials, and the levels of saints for eternity, why stand so strongly for a doctrine -- to the extent of disfellowshipping ministers who preach it --- when all of those things are all conjecture and guesswork and forcibly proposed to support teachings which we should be open to consider on the pure basis that God can do anything?