If you read a word like premillennialism and you just stop reading, I understand.  Why does anyone need to use a word like that to explain or represent the Bible?  I didn’t come up with the words amillennialism, postmillennialism, and premillennialism, but they are historic words that stand for particular representations, explanations, or systems of interpretation of the Bible.

As a system, the first of the three above words, amillennialism was the first to appear, even though it wasn’t coined until the 1930s.  Every one of the previously stated terms have “millennialism” in them.  This means that each of them pivot on the meaning of “the kingdom,” because the millennium refers to the kingdom in the Bible.

Amillennialism says “a” or “no” millennium.  Instead of saying that Revelation 20 is a literal 1,000 year reign of Jesus Christ on earth, amillennialism spiritualizes 1,000, doesn’t take it literally.  In that way, it says there is no millennial reign of Jesus Christ.  Amillennialism itself is an explanation of scripture that relies on spiritualization of the text, a highly subjective approach to the Bible.

If someone can read into the words of scripture by spiritualizing them, he can become the authority for scripture.  He can make it mean what he wants it to mean.  The system of ahmillennialism began with Catholicism or Roman Catholicism, that latter the terminology for the former that arose during the Protestant Reformation.  Catholicism said the church is the kingdom of God and the true nation of Israel.  It reached that conclusion through allegorical interpretation, which arose from Catholic theologians.

Both amillennialism and postmillennialism say that the kingdom of Christ is the church and a true Israel.  However, postmillennialism claims the added feature of an optimistic view of the success of the church in bringing in the return of Christ to earth.  Amillennialism arose out of a Catholic church that ruled like a kingdom on the earth, a point of view very pragmatic and appropriate for that day.  Theologians systematized that into amillennialism, then postmillennialism.

Premillennialism as an approach takes the Bible literally, that is, grammatically and historically.  It takes an Old Testament priority, believing that plain meaning of the text understands scripture as those first hearing it in that day.  Anyone who takes the Bible literally will also be a premillennialist.  Premillennialism asks how people understood the Bible that were hearing it in the day it was written.  It is called premillennialism because Jesus comes back before He sets up a thousand year kingdom on the earth, a literal reading of Revelation 19-20.

What I see happening through history and in the world today matches up with a premillennial approach or explanation.  So much we read in the news fits right with the Bible.  The application of scripture with a literal interpretation easily corresponds with contemporary events.