I told some on Puritanboard that I was not necessarily committed to premillennialism and I was ready to deal with other systems. In short, I was going to give amillennialism (nota bene: that may be the ugliest term in all of systematic theology) a chance.
So, if amillennialism were true, the following conditions had to obtain:
a) Revelation still had to be anchored in history. A denial of history is gnosticism and must be violently hated and resisted by Christians at all times.
b) Antichrist is real. Frankly, I don’t think this is up for debate. In any case, it doesn’t make any sense to speak of a darkening of culture (which the NT does) without an antichrist figure. Yes, I know it doesn’t actually say that, but you get the idea. Further, I am not committed to whether it is an individual or a system.
c) There must be a flooding of history and creation with God’s glory. On earth. Doesn’t have to be a millennial reign. But it must happen on earth. If you disagree, you are closer to Valentinius.
And I was told I was closer to Left Behind. I said “No, the church fathers.” You see, for the past seven years I have been steeped in the church fathers. Particularly the Eastern ones. Mainly Irenaeus (yeah, he ministered in France but he was still Eastern). TRs just don’t know anything about the church fathers beyond a few snippets from Augustine, so they really can’t contribute to this discussion (which is probably a summary of TRs in general).
And then to top it off, a magus then told me that “carnal views of the millennium” are not acceptable. Whenever this guy comments the discussion always reaches Monte Python levels.
So what did we learn on the internet today? You can’t just agree in general with TRs. You need to line up on the specifics. It’s a hyper-overreaction to Roman Catholicism. Medieval Catholicism said you had to have an “implicit faith” to be saved. That was because Rome had a million small doctrines that no one could keep count of, so they covered it by saying “just implicitly believe that.” I’m not attacking Rome at the moment, but hyper-Reformed have a microscopic doctrines that you better line up on.
I am the King's Man 