Amillennial
- Thread starter CoreIssue
- Start date
Roman Catholicism says it has replaced Israel.
But that presented the problem of prophecy. So they rewrote huge chunks.
Now the woman of Revelation is Mary. The AC is now a future apostate pope.
They invented amillennialism to show Catholicism would rule during the MK on behalf of Christ.
Literal prophecy became figurative.
No one can show any other foundation for amillennialism then the Catholic Church.
But that presented the problem of prophecy. So they rewrote huge chunks.
Now the woman of Revelation is Mary. The AC is now a future apostate pope.
They invented amillennialism to show Catholicism would rule during the MK on behalf of Christ.
Literal prophecy became figurative.
No one can show any other foundation for amillennialism then the Catholic Church.
Heather Frank
restricted access
Well, you can't just "replace Israel". Israel is a country, which means nation. Currently, there is a nation of Israel, it has a government, a state church, and is located in a geographic place. In proper English, "Israeli" is a race. In terms of them being who they are, technically, Israeli is a nationality status, an Israeli is a person bearing a Passport issued by some government body in Tel Aviv. Moden English usage calls the race of people who are Israeli nationals Hebrew. Hebrew is a race, that is to say a kindred tribe or people, a genetic linage, a bloodline. To be quite blunt, they LOOK a certain way, and you're not one unless you are directly genetically descended from one of the twelve tribes described in Exodus.
Israel is a nation, Hebrew is a race, and Jew is a religion.
You can't really "replace Israel". What are you going to do, commit genocide, wipe out all the Hebrews in another Holocaust, execute the final solution? Then what? Replace Israel with what, another race, like the Arab Palestinians? Doesn't work. Not the same. There's no substituting one country for another.
What the Catholics of ancient Rome actually meant was that if you were a Christian, which was a new religion, then you weren't a Jew, which is the state religion of Israel. You are actually addressing the Edict of Milan and the Conversion of Constantine, and the comment only applies to Romans anyway. Rome has always had an official state religion, same as Israel. Rome changed over to Christianity; Israel stayed Jewish.
Even though I'm not Israeli, Hebrew or a Jew myself, literally reding "replace Israel" is false. Rome did sack Jerusalem. But they didn't then leave the region of Israel (called Palestine by Roman governors) to some other country. From their perspective, they owned it already, they had conquered and occupied it. No race replacement. Just an absorption of people who believed in the new religion of Christianity into law abiding Italian society, such people (already Roman citizens, but previously outlaws under paganism) were pardoned and their civil rights were reinstated.
Israel is a nation, Hebrew is a race, and Jew is a religion.
You can't really "replace Israel". What are you going to do, commit genocide, wipe out all the Hebrews in another Holocaust, execute the final solution? Then what? Replace Israel with what, another race, like the Arab Palestinians? Doesn't work. Not the same. There's no substituting one country for another.
What the Catholics of ancient Rome actually meant was that if you were a Christian, which was a new religion, then you weren't a Jew, which is the state religion of Israel. You are actually addressing the Edict of Milan and the Conversion of Constantine, and the comment only applies to Romans anyway. Rome has always had an official state religion, same as Israel. Rome changed over to Christianity; Israel stayed Jewish.
Even though I'm not Israeli, Hebrew or a Jew myself, literally reding "replace Israel" is false. Rome did sack Jerusalem. But they didn't then leave the region of Israel (called Palestine by Roman governors) to some other country. From their perspective, they owned it already, they had conquered and occupied it. No race replacement. Just an absorption of people who believed in the new religion of Christianity into law abiding Italian society, such people (already Roman citizens, but previously outlaws under paganism) were pardoned and their civil rights were reinstated.
Bruce-Leiter
Advanced Poster
Yup, that's how I see it.
Bruce-Leiter
Advanced Poster
I have nothing to do with the RCC, and many people in the Reformed and Christian Reformed churches hold similar views because of the Bible's passages, not because of the RCC.
Bruce-Leiter
Advanced Poster
1) Who is the "MK"?
2) A-millennials like me do deny what is commonly thought of as the Rapture, but we believe that 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 describes a Rapture-like lifting up of all resurrected believers to meet Jesus in the air and welcome him back to the new earth, which the Father, Jesus, and the Spirit will create at the same time. The final judgment will happen at the same time.
3) We believe that all the history and teachings of the Bible are literal but that certain books like Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Revelation are largely figurative in describing spiritual reality.
4) We believe that there will be a tribulation before Jesus' second coming, but that event will happen at the same time to usher in the Final Kingdom. Also, the present age is the "thousand years," a complete time between Jesus' first and second comings.
Bruce-Leiter
Advanced Poster
I think, @Heather Frank, that the worst mistake the church ever made was to align itself with the state, Rome, as its established religion. That blunder carried on into all the countries of Europe, thus resulting in the travesties of the Inquisition and the Crusades, because if you didn't believe the way the state church did, you were a traitor to the state. Armies became the church's method of evangelism, sadly. Thankfully, the American and French Revolutions, for all their faults, released us from the establishment of the church with the state.