Robert Franklin - Rediscovered Early Church PreMillennialism: Teachings of the Earliest Church Fathers on Prophecy

REDISCOVERED EARLY CHURCH

P RE M ILLENNIALISM

Teachings of the Earliest Church Fathers on Prophecy

ROBERT FRANKLIN, D.Min.

W ORD L AMP P UBLICATIONS , LLC.

ARLINGTON, TEXAS

Rediscovered Early Church Premillennialism:Teachings of the Earliest Church Fathers on Prophecy

2014 by Robert H. Franklin. All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

All Scripture quotations unless otherwise indicated are taken from the (NASB) NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, Copyright 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked (NIrV) are taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL READERS VERSION. Copyright 1996, 1998 Biblica. All rights reserved throughout the world. Used by permission of Biblica.

Scripture quotations marked (NCV) are taken from the Holy Bible the New Century Version. Copyright 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are taken from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version) copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (GNT) are from the Holy Bible, Good News Translation, Copyright 1992 American Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NKJV) are from the Holy Bible the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Franklin, Robert H.

Rediscovered Early Church Premillennialism: Teachings of the Earliest Church Fathers on Prophecy 1 st ed. p. cm.

ISBN-10:1938239059; ISBN-13: 978-1-938239-05-2 (Trade Paper Edition)

ISBN-10:1938239067; ISBN-13: 978-1-938239-06-9 (EPUB)

ISBN-10: 1938239075; ISBN-13:978-1-938239076 (Kindle/mobi)

1. Prophecy Eschatology Spirituality Christianity 2. Non-Fiction 3. Thought and Thinking Religious Aspects I. Title.

Includes bibliographical references.

Cover Design, Editing and Interior Design by Susan Franklin using Adobe Indesign; Contact Susan at: ElegantBookDesign@gmail.com

Published by: Word Lamp Publications LLC, P.O. Box 181257, Arlington, Texas 76096

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I

Introduction

L ena must have shivered as one chilled from shock. Even while the sweet aroma of Christmas baking wafted through the house and out to the snowy scene outside, a sadness filled her soul. Her wedding ring was missing.

On that Christmas in Sweden the family looked everywhere. Later, they even had their kitchen floor pulled up in hopes of finding the ring, to no avail. The ring was lost.

Sixteen summers and winters passed. Lena gave up hope of ever finding her wedding ring.

One day, while picking produce from her garden, she pulled up a small carrot and there wrapped around the head of the carrot was her wedding ring. The carrot had sprouted in the middle of the ring. It was the surprise of her life!

Perhaps the ring had slid off her fingers in vegetable peelings that became compost, she thought. However the ring was lost, its rediscovery was incredible. Sixteen years removed from the day of Christmas baking, she was holding her white gold band with its seven small diamonds. Her lost wedding ring had been rediscovered!

After the first three centuries of the Christian faith, another treasure was also lost.

This treasure was the premillennial view of prophecy taught by the earliest church fathers, who are known in theological circles as the Ante-Nicene fathers. They ministered Ante, prefix meaning before, the First Nicene Council of the Christian Church in AD 325. The majority of these earliest fathers of the church interpreted Scripture to teach that Jesus Christ will return before (pre ) the millennium, an interpretation of Bible prophecy called premillennialism. Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer, first President of Dallas Theological Seminary, confirms:

Premillennialism was the all-but-universal belief of the early church.... It has been conceded that it was lost , along with other vital truths, at the end of the third century and remained hidden until the Reformation.... The Reformers did not restore all features of [early church premillennial] doctrine.

It is generally held that historic premillennialism, compiled during the sixteenth century, restated early church premillennialism. However, religious wars during the Reformation (15171648) hindered minority Reformers from thoroughly researching early church writings archived in Catholic and even Protestant churches. Consequently, the Reformers did not restore all features of [early church premillennial] doctrine.

As a result, the earliest church fathers premillennial teachings on Scriptural prophecy remained lost.

In the nineteenth century, a new version of premillennialism, pretribulational dispensational premillennialism, was introduced by John Nelson Darby. Although many Christians today assume that this eschatological version mirrors the premillennial teachings of the early church, it does not, as a leading dispensationalist, Dr. Larry Crutchfield, remarks:

John Nelson Darby, for example, undercut the patristic precedent for his own eschatological views by summarily dismissing the mass of the primitive [early church] fathers.

With Darbys dismissal of even the earliest church fathers writings on premillennialism, the pretribulational dispensational premillennial view of prophecy widely held today is not the premillennialism of the early church. Consequently, the earliest church fathers premillennial teachings on Scriptural prophecy remained lost.

A resource available today which did not exist when modern interpretations of prophecy were documented is the exhaustive ten-volume collection entitled The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Translations of th e Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325 . First translated in English in 1867, the preface of the 1885 reprint states that no Christian scholar has ever before possessed in faithful versions of such compact form a supplement so essential to the right understanding of the New Testament itself. It is a volume indispensable to all scholars, and to every library, private or public. Now available online, this ten-volume collection of early church writings, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325 , has made possible the rediscovery of early church premillennialism.

Like the lost wedding ring rediscovered after sixteen years, the early church premillennial view of prophecy has been rediscovered after seventeen centuries.

In Rediscovered Early Church Premillennialism : Teachings of the Earliest Church Fathers on Prophecy, you will find almost a hundred quotations from Ante-Nicene fathers and a logical sequence of end time events that corresponds to biblical and early church teachings.

So, who were the early church Ante-Nicene fathers, and why should we listen to them today?

The Ante-Nicene Fathers

N ot surprisingly, a Top 100 ranking of the most influential people in history does not list even one Ante-Nicene father. So who were they?