The purpose of Melchizedek Vigilance is to promote and build the Christian "G.O.A.L." (God's Order Affirmed in Love). To do that we evaluate God's Word in light of His Covenant relationship with His people. Quoting again from Day's of Vengeance, pg 13, 15:

"God's relationship with Israel was always defined in terms of the Covenant, the marriage bond by which He joined her to Himself as His special people. This Covenant was a legal arrangement, a binding "contract" imposed on Israel by her King, stipulating mutual obligations and promises.... "

"Like many other Biblical prophecies, the Book of Revelation is a prophecy of Covenant wrath against apostate Israel, which irrevocably turned away from the Covenant in her rejection of Christ."

We may be facing an end of an age today, but that is clearly a result of our failing to understand God's prophetic warnings to his Covenant breaking people of the past and repeating their history. All parallels in today's newspaper headlines with the events described in God's Covenant lawsuits (prophecies) against Israel of old shouldn't surprise us if we are again rejecting Christ and His New Covenant "Way" today.

What sort of freedom did Christ win for us? What responsibility does that require of us who are supposed to be about seeing God's "Kingdom Come" and "His Will done" on earth as it is in heaven? What is needed today is a world and life view approach and a bold vision of Christian dominion for the coming age. We need a GOAL and we think it is about time we start figuring out how it is to work and work toward achieving it.

Christ is King NOW and Forever!
Rick Savage (rsavage@netcom.com)

Evolution of a Jewish Heresy: Millennialism
by Rick Savage

What is Millennialism, where does the term come from, and when did this theory originate? We could talk about the 3 major theories - pre-mil, a-mil, and post-mil but this has been done by many other able men. We want to focus, rather, on where and when this theory originated. I think when we do this we will understand why some refer to this theory as "Jewish Millennialism."

Most Christians believe the theory is Christian in origin. They will cite Revelations 20:1-7 and say this talks about the "millennium" but some say the theory pre-dates the Christian era. Looking at the Jewish Encyclopedia it has this to say about the millennial theory. We read that the Millennium (or Chilliasm) is actually older than the Christian church itself. In other words it isn't a Christian idea:

The reign of peace, lasting a thousand years, which will precede the last judgement and the future life. This concept has achieved a special importance in the Christian church, where it has been termed Chilliasm, designating the dominion of Jesus with the glorified and risen saints, will rule for a thousand years. Chilliasm, or the idea of the thousand years is, nevertheless, older than the Christian church. For the belief of a thousand years, at the end of time, as a preliminary to the resurrection of the dead, was held in Phariseeism. This concept is expressed in Jewish literature in Enoch, etc.

Some of the early church fathers had some strong things to say about the Millennium. Gregory (335 or 336-395), Bishop of Nyssa, asked, "Do we romance about three Resurrections? Do we promise the gluttony of the Millennium? Do we declare that the Jewish animal-sacrifices shall be restored? Do we lower men's hopes again to the Jerusalem below, imagining its rebuilding with stones of a more brilliant material? What charge like these can be brought against us?" (The Nicene and Post- Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 5, p. 544).

Again, in his commentary on Isaiah 60:1, Jerome (492) spoke negatively about "these half-Jews who look for a Jerusalem of gold and precious stones from heaven, and a future kingdom of a thousand years, in which all nations shall serve Israel."

John L. Bray in his booklet entitled, "The Millennium" summarized the history of this doctrine on page 57:

"In the last part of the 2nd century, and in the third century, those who believed in an earthly Millennium were known as "chiliasts". They believed and taught a literal 1,000 year reign of Christ at Jerusalem following His second coming. "Some people in the 3rd and 4th centuries actually rejected the book of Revelation because of this theory the chiliasts had given to Revelation 20. "By the end of the fourth century, Millennialism lost out. Then A-Millennialism became dominant under the influence of St. Augustine. The Council of Ephesus in 431 condemned belief in Millennialism as a superstition, and the doctrine of the Millennium was officially discarded by the church. Except for scattered fragments, we do not hear much more about it until the sixteenth century, when futurism was revived by Francisco Ribera, a Jesuit priest (1537-1591), and the Italian cardinal Roberto Belarmino (1542-1621). Emmanuel Lacunza (1731- 1801) also a Jesuit priest, built on to the other Jesuits' teachings, adding new ideas of his own in his book, "The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty" published first in 1812 (after Lacunza's death) in Spanish and then translated into English by Rev. Edward Irving and published in London in 1827. This book also had the first hint of a two-stage second coming of Christ separated by a stated period of time of an intervening period of judgments, with 45 days between the Rapture and the descent of Christ to the earth for the judgments on the earth to take place."

Charles Hodge, D.D., in his Systematic Theology, vol. 3, p.862 discusses this Jewish doctrine:

"It [premillennialism] is a JEWISH doctrine. The principles adopted by its advocates in the interpretation of prophecy, are the same as those adopted by the Jews at the time of Christ; and they, have led substantially to the same conclusions. The Jews expected that when the Messiah came He would establish a glorious earthly kingdom at Jerusalem; that those who had died in the faith should be raised from the dead to share in the blessings of the Messiah's reign; that all nations and peoples on the face of the whole earth should be subject to them; and that any nation that did not serve them should be destroyed. All the riches and honours of the world were to be at their disposal. The event disappointed these expectations; and the principles of prophetic interpretation on which those expectations were founded were proved to be incorrect."

William E. Cox in 'An Examination of Dispensationalism', p56, 1963 had this to say about Scofield and his book:

"The phenomenon of the wide influence of Scofield is heightened when one discovers that his teachings were taken almost in toto from John Nelson Darby. Darby was the outstanding leader among the Plymouth Brethren about 1830, and his 'rediscovered truths' differed radically from the cardinal teachings of historic Christianity as held by the church fathers and Reformers."

What were these "rediscovered truths" that Darby was popularizing? The following is quoted from the Christian Crusade for Truth Newsletter (March-April 1989, pg 6:

"Mr. John Darby, ...developed the concept of Dispen- sationalist Premillennialism. This theory promotes the idea that the Jewish people must return to their homeland before the second advent of Christ can occur. Darby then married the dispensationalist theory with the singular antichrist and rapture theories by stating that there would be the judging of all nations as well as the Jews during a great and terrible tribulation for three and one-half years. During this time, according to him, there would be 144,000 Jews who would be converted to Christianity and then, after the tribulation, those Christians who were "raptured" before the tribulation took place would return to earth and then Jesus and the 144,000 Jews would rule all of the nations for the millennium."

Scofield's reference Bible has been credited for popularizing this Jewish concept into Christian doctrine. In the article "The Pope of Prophecy Perversion (Cyrus I. Scofield)" by Nord Davis we read in the introduction about his character and who financed him:

"You will learn how he defrauded his mother in law out of her life savings. How he was convicted of forgery and in another case was sent off to prison... he openly carried on with other women, abandoned his wife and family, and never sent them a dime of support. When his wife finally divorced him he married the woman with whom he was living. All the time he was writing the now infamous notes to the Scofield reference Bible. As a "Christian" he was a disgrace. As a man he lacked ordinary chivalry of a gentlemen. He called himself "Dr." yet he never went to any college which could convey that degree. His life as a minister makes the recent escapades of some modern ministers pale into insignificance. "His financial support for the reference Bible came from Zionist and conspiratorial groups out of Boston Massachusetts. Chiefly known as the Secret SixI"

For a more detailed study on Scofield we recommend the book "The Incredible Scofield and His Book" by Joseph M. Canfield available from Christian Research, P.O. Box 385, Eureka Springs, Arkansas 72632, for $22.00 (postpaid).

So what did Scofield teach in his reference notes? Quoting from page 1227, (note 6):

"Upon His return, the King will restore the Davidic monarchy in His own person, regather dispersed Israel, establish His power over all the earth, and reign one thousand years." "The dispensation of the kingdom begins with the return of Christ to the earth, runs through the 'thousand years' of his earth- rule, and ends when he has delivered up the kingdom to the Father." Page 1341, (Note 1) "The gospel of the kingdom. This is the good news that God purposes to set up on the earth, in fulfillment of the Davidic covenant, a kingdom, political, spiritual, Israelitish (i.e., Jewish), universal, over which God's son, David's heir, shall be king, and which shall be for one thousand years, the manifestation of the righteousness of God in human affairs." Page 1343, "Two resurrections are yet future, which are inclusive of 'all that are in the graves.' These are distinguished as 'of life' and 'of judgment.' They are separated by a period of one thousand years." Page 1228, note (4)

All these ideas are pulled out of context from other places in Scripture and cut and pasted together into the theology called "dispensationalism" to promote a Jewish doctrine that puts the reality of Christ's victory and the power of His New Covenant into the future! The end result is an expectation for Christ to come again which is the same as not believing He ever came at all since it requires the denial of Jesus' fulfillment of the prophecies concerning the Messiah.. Today this theology is popularly known as "Judeo-Christianity" and for good reason because it is first and foremost Jewish in origin, character, and reality.

Pastor V.S. Herrell summed it up in his booklet, "Christian Separatist Epiphanological and Eschatological Teachings" on page 36:

"To this day, the Jews continue to teach their Christ- hatred from their Talmud, to teach their children that Jesus Christ was an impostor and not the Son of God and not the true Christ. So the Jews began to teach the doctrine that Christ was yet to come and they began to tell the Christians that when Christ was to come to set up the materialistic, futuristic, plutocratic kingdom that they claimed the prophecies were in reference to, then they claimed that they, the Jews, were all going to repent and because they are such special God-chosen people, even though Christ described them as being living, breathing devils of their father the devil, they were all going to get to reign with Christ over the white goyim from Jerusalem for a full thousand years. Moreover, their Talmudic, Zionistic materialism of their real bible called the Talmud, which they hold to have more authority than the Pentateuch as it is supposedly based upon the traditions of the elders which is yet another Jewish lie, teaches the Jew that all that he can victimize and steal from the stupid goyim in this life will once again be his in the millennium when he is resurrected or reincarnated in his Jewish world order. They are also taught to never tell the stupid goyim as to wat they really believe or think."

If you first don't succeed, try, try again! That is exactly what the Jews, and those who find the Jewish religion profitable to use for their own ends, have done in reviving the old expectations of the Pharisees by Judaising Christianity into the mogrelized abomination known as "Judeo-Christianity."

This short article could easily have turned into a book by tracing the history of the important role the "millennium" theory has played in Judaising Christianity and paving the way for a Jewish "One World Order." We hope we have given you enough of a glimpse into this Jewish doctrine to encourage you to re- examine your views on Rev. 20 and discover the true nature of Christianity and the New Covenant Christ made with His people (Heb. 8:8).

We are not powerless:

"For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." (I Timothy 1:7)
"Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us." (Eph. 3:20)

Understand the Kingdom and the power we have received under the New Covenant:

"Having received a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us be joyful, by which we serve God acceptably with reverence and awe; for our god is a consuming fire." (Heb. 12:28,29)
"But now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love." (I Cor. 13:13).
"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe..." (Ephesians 1:18)

The Problem with Numbers

The following is an excerpt from the book "Biblical Heremeneutics - A Treatise on the Interpretation of the Old and New Testaments" by Milton S. Terry (first published late 1800s to early 1900s and reprinted by Zondervan Publishing House in 1973)

Since most people seem to approach Bible prophecy as some sort of divine jigsaw puzzle instead of a consistent self- defining revelation we seem to need a more consistent "science of interpretation." Also known as hermeneutics.

In this excerpt from pages 380-390 of Biblical Hermeneutics the discussion is on the symbolic nature of numbers in the Bible and how these understandings apply to interpreting prophecy. (e.g. The Time, Times, and a Half Time, Forty-Two Months, Prophetic Designations of Time, The Year- Day Theory, and the Thousand Years of Revelation 20.)

Symbolic Numbers

Every observant reader of the Bible has had his attention arrested at times by what seemed a mystical or symbolical use of numbers....

The only valid method of ascertaining the symbolical meaning and usage of such numbers...in the Scriptures, is by an ample collation and study of the passages where they occur. The hermeneutical process is therefore essentially the same as that by which we ascertain the usus loquendi of words, and the province of hermeneutics is, not to furnish an elaborate discussion on the subject, but to exhibit the principles and methods by which such a discussion should be carried out.

(Note: Bible verses are listed in two styles =D1 either Lev. xxvi, 2,3 (or) Lev. 26:2,3. Most are in the latter form. Whoever did so didn't feel the need to be consistent and change them all to just one style.)

The Number Three

The number three...is employed...to suggest that it is especially the number of divine fullness in unity.... ...every true unity comprises a trinity, and instances the familiar triads, beginning, middle, and end; past, present, and future; under, midst and upper...from Scripture such triads as the three men who appeared to Abraham (Gen. xviii, 2), the three forefathers of the children of Israel, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exod. iii, 6), the three sons of Noah, by whom the postdiluvian world was peopled (Gen. ix, 19), the three constituent parts of the universe, heaven, earth, and sea (Exod. 20:11: Psa. cxlvi, 6), the cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop, used in the ceremonial purification (Lev. 14:6; Num. 19:6), the threefold cord that is not quickly broken (Eccl. 4:12), and other examples. More important and conspicuous, however, as exhibiting a sacredness in the number three, are those texts which associate it immediately with the divine name. These are the thrice-repeated benediction of Num. 6:24-26, or threefold 'putting the name' of Jehovah (ver. 27) upon the children of Israel; the threefold name in the formula of baptism (Matt. 28:19), and the apostolic benediction (2 Cor. 13:14); and the 'trisagion' of Isa. 6:3, and Rev. 4:8, accompanied in the latter passage by the three divine titles, Lord, God, and Almighty, and the additional words "who was, and who is, and who is to come."

From all this it would appear, as Stuart has observed (in his Commentary on Apocalypse, vol. ii, pp. 419, 420), "that the doctrine of the Trinity in the Godhead lies much deeper than the New-Platonic philosophy, to which so many have been accustomed to refer it. An original impression of the character in question plainly over-spread all the ancient oriental world... That many philosophistic and superstitious conceits have been mixed with it, in process of time, proves nothing against the general fact as stated. And this being admitted, we cease to think it strange that such distinction and significancy have been given in the Scriptures to the number three."

Four

If its peculiar usage in connection with the divine Name gives mystical significance to the number three, and entitles it to be called "the number of God," the use of the number four in the Scriptures would in like manner entitle it to be called "the number of the world," or of the visible creation. Thus we have the four winds of heaven (Jer. xlix, 36; Ezek. xxxvii, 9; Dan. vii, 2; viii, 8; Zech. ii, 6; vi, 5; Matt. xxiv, 31; Mark xiii, 27; Rev. vii, 1), the four corners of extremities of the earth (Isa. xi, 12; Ezek. vii, 2; Rev. vii, 1; xx, 8), corresponding, doubtless, with the four points of the compass, east, west, north, and south (1 Chron. ix, 24; Psa. cvii, 3; Luke xiii, 29), and the four seasons. Noticeable also are the four living creatures in Ezek. i, 5, each with four faces, four wings, four hands, and connected with four wheels; and in Zechariah the four horns (i, 18), the four smiths (i, 20), and the four chariots (vi, 1).

Seven

The number seven, being the sum of four and three, may naturally be supposed to symbolize some mystical union of God with the world, and accordingly, may be called the sacred number of the covenant between God and his creation. The hebdomad, or period of seven days, is so essentially associated with the record of creation (Gen. 2:2, 3; Exod. 20:8-11), that from the beginning of sevenfold division of time was recognized among the ancient nations. In the Scripture it is peculiarly a ritual number. In establishing his covenant with Abraham God ordained that seven days must pass after the birth of a child, and then, upon the eighth day, he must be circumcised (Gen. 17:12; comp. Lev. 12:2,3). The passover feast continued seven days (Exod. 12:15). The feast of Pentecost was held seven weeks after the day of the wave offering (Lev. 23:15). The feast of trumpets occurred in the seventh month (Lev. 23:24), and seven times seven years brought round the year of jubilee (Lev. 25:8). The blood of the sin offering was sprinkled seven times before the Lord (Lev. 4:6). The ceremonial cleansing of the leper required that he be sprinkled seven times with blood and seven times with oil, that he tarry abroad outside of his tent seven days (Lev. 14:7,8; 16:27), and that his house also be sprinkled seven times (Lev. 14:51). Contact with a dead body and other kinds of ceremonial uncleanness required a purification of seven days (Num. 19:11; Lev. 15:13,24).

And so the idea of covenant relations and obligations seems to be associated with this sacred number. Jehovah confirmed his word to Joshua and Israel, when for seven days priests with seven trumpets compassed Jericho, and on the seventh day compassed the city seven times (Josh. 6:13-15). The golden candlestick had seven lamps (Exod. 28:23). The seven churches, seven stars, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven thunders, and seven last plaques of the Apocalypse (Revelation) are of similar mystical significance.

Ten

The number ten completes the list of primary numbers, and is made the basis of all further numeration. Hence, it is naturally regarded as the number of rounded fulness or completeness. The Hebrew word for ten, is believed to favour this idea. Gesenius (Lex.) traces it to a root which conveys the idea of 'conjunction,' and observes that "etymologists agree in deriving this form from the conjunction of the ten fingers." F=9Frst adopts the same fundamental idea, and defines the word as if it were expressive of "union, association; hence multitude, heap, multiplicity" (Heb. Lex). And this general idea is sustained by the usage of the number. Thus the Decalogue, the totality and substance of the whole Torah, or Law, is spoken of as the ten words Exod. 34:28; Deut. 4:13; 10:4); ten elders constitute an ancient Israelitish court (Ruth 4:2); ten princes represent the tribes of Israel (Josh. 22:14); ten virgins go forth to meet the bridegroom (Matt. 25:1). And, in a more general way, ten times is equivalent to many times (Gen. 31:7,41; Job 19:3), ten women means many women (Lev. 26:26), ten sons many sons (I Sam. 1:8), ten mighty ones are many mighty ones (Eccles. 7:19), and the ten horns of Dan. 7:7,24; Rev. 12:3; 13:1; 17:12, may fittingly symbolize many kings.

Twelve

The symbolical use of the number twelve in Scripture appears to have fundamental allusion to the twelve tribes of Israel. Thus Moses erects "twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel" (Exod. 24:4), and there were twelve stones in the breastplate of the high priest (Exod. 28:21), twelve cakes of showbread (Lev. 24:5), twelve bullocks, twelve rams, twelve lambs, and twelve kids for offerings of dedication (Num. 7:87), and many other like instances. In the New Testament we have the twelve apostles, twelve times twelve thousand are sealed out of the tribes of Israel, twelve thousand from each tribe (Rev. 7:4-8), and the New Jerusalem has twelve gates, bearing the names of the twelve tribes, and guarded by twelve angles (Rev. 21:12), and its wall has twelve foundations, bearing the twelve names of the apostles (21:14). Twelve, then, may properly be called the mystical number of God's chosen people.

Symbolical does not always exclude literal sense.

It is thus by collation and comparison of the peculiar uses of these numbers that we can arrive at any safe conclusion as to their symbolic import. But allowing that they have such import as the foregoing examples indicate, we must not suppose that they thereby necessarily lose their literal and proper meaning. The number ten, as shown above, and some few instances of the number seven (Psa. xii,6; lxxix, 12; Prov. xxvi, 16; Isa. iv, 4; Dan. iv, 16), authorize us to say that they are used sometimes indefinitely in the sense of many. But when, for example, it is written that seven priests, with seven trumpets, compassed Jericho on the seventh day seven times (Josh. vi, 13-15), we understand the statements in their literal sense.

These things were done just so many times, but the symbolism of the sevens suggests that in this signal overthrow of Jericho God was confirming his covenant and promises to give into the hand of his chosen people their enemies and the land they occupied (comp. Exod. 23:31; Josh 2:9,24; 6:2). And so the sounding of the seven trumpets of the Apocalypse completed the mystery of God as declared to his prophets (Rev. 10:7), so that when the seventh angel sounded great voices in heaven said: "The kingdom of the world is become that of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever." (Rev. 12:15).

Time, Times, and half a time

The "time and times and dividing (or half) of a time" (Dan. 7:25; 12:7; Rev. 12:13) is commonly and with reason believed to stand for three years and a half, a time denoting a year. A comparison of verses 6 and 12 of Rev. 12 shows this period to be the same as twelve hundred and sixty days, or exactly three and a half years, reckoning three hundred and sixty days to a year. But as this number is in every case used to denote a period of woe and disaster to the Church or people of God (Rev. 11:2), we may regard it as symbolical. It is a divided seven (compare Dan 9:27) as if suggesting the thought of a broken covenant, an interrupted sacrifice, a triumph of the enemy of God.

Forty-two months

The twelve hundred and sixty days are also equivalent to forty- two months (Rev. 11:2,3; 13:5), reckoning thirty days to a month, and, thus used, it is probably to be regarded, not as an exact designation of just so many days, but as a round number readily reckoned and remembered, and approximating the exact length of the period denoted with sufficient nearness. In Dan. 8:14 we have the peculiar expression "two thousand and three hundred evening mornings," which some explain as meaning so many days, in allusion to Gen. 1:5, where evening and morning constitute one day. Others, however, understand so many morning and evening sacrifices, which would require half the number of days (eleven hundred and fifty).

Perhaps, however, the word "two thousand," should be pointed "one thousand," then we would have thirteen hundred days of evening and morning. This closely approximates the twelve hundred and ninety days of Dan. 12:11, which, when compared with the thirteen hundred and thirty-five days mentioned in the next verse, seems rather to show that in the peculiarly exact designations of time here recorded we have not mystical or symbolical numbers, but literal designations of the length of important periods.

Forty

The number forty designates in so many places the duration of a penal judgment, either forty days or forty years, that it may be regarded as symbolic of a period of judgment. The forty days of the flood (Gen. 7:4,12,17), the forty years of Israel's wandering in the wilderness (Num. 14:34), the forty stripes with which a convicted criminal was to be beaten (Deut. 25:3), the forty years of Egypt's desolation (Ezek. 29:11,12), and the forty days and nights during which Moses, Elijah, and Jesus fasted (Exod. 24:28; I Kings 19:8; Matt. 4:2), all favor this idea. But there is no reason to suppose that in all these cases the number forty is not also used in its proper and literal sense. The symbolism, if any, arises from the association of the number with a period of punishment or trial.

Seventy

The number seventy is also noticable as being that of the totality of Jacob's sons (Gen. xlvi, 27; Exod 1:5; Deut. 10:22) and of the elders of Israel (Exod. 24:1,9; Num. 21:24); the Jews were doomed to seventy years of Babylonian exile (Jer. 25:11,12; Dan. 9:2); seventy weeks distinguish one of Daniel's most important prophecies (Dan. 9:24), and our Lord appointed seventy other disciples besides the twelve (Luke 10:1). Auberlen observes: "The number seventy is ten multiplied by seven; the human is here moulded and fixed by the divine. For this reason the seventy years of exile are a symbolic sign of the time during which the power of the world would, according to God's will, triumph over Israel, during which it would execute the divine judgments on God's people."

The Prophetic Designations of Time

We have already seen (p. 370), in discussing the symbolical actions of Ezekiel, that the four hundred and thirty days of his prostration formed a symbolical period in allusion to the four hundred and thirty (390+40) years of the Egyptian bondage (Exod. 12:40). Like the number forty, as shown above, it was associated with a period of discipline and sorrow. Each day of the prophet's prostration represented a year of Israel's humiliation and judgment (Ezek. 4:6), as the forty days during which the spies searched the land of Canaan were typical of the years of Israel's wandering and wasting in the wilderness (Num. xiv, 33,34)

The Year-Day Theory

Here it is in place to examine the so-called "year-day theory" of prophetic interpretation, so prevalent among modern expositors. Upon the statement of the two passages just cited from Numbers and Ezekiel, and also upon supposed necessities of apocalyptic interpretation, a large number of modern writers on prophecy have advanced the theory that the word 'day,' or 'days,' is to be understood in prophetic designations of time as denoting years. This theory has been applied especially to the "time, times, and dividing of a time" in Dan. 7:25, 12:7 and Rev. 12:14; the twelve hundred and sixty days of Rev. 11:3; 12:6; and also by many to the two thousand three hundred days of Dan. 8:14, and the twelve hundred and ninety and thirteen hundred and thirty-five days of Dan. 12:11,12. The forty and two months of Rev. 11:2 and 8:5, are, according to this theory, to be multiplied by thirty (42x30=1260), and then the result in days is to be understood as so many years. After the like manner, the time, times, and a half, are first understood as three years and a half, and then the years are multiplied by three hundred and sixty, a round number for the days of a year, and the result (1260) is understood as designating, not so many days, but so many years.

A Theory so Far Reaching and Fundamental Should Have Most Valid Support

If this is a correct theory of interpreting the designations of prophetic time, it is obvious that it is a most important one. It is necessarily so farreaching in its practical results as fundamentally to affect one's whole plan and process of exposition. Such a theory, surely, ought to be supported by the most convincing and incontrovertible reasons. And yet, upon the most careful examination, we do not find that it has any sufficient warrant in the Scripture, and the expositions of its advocates are not of a character likely to commend it to the critical mind. Against it we urge the five following considerations.

1. Has No Support in Num. 14 and Ezek. 4. =D1 This theory derives no valid support from the passages in Numbers and Ezekiel already referred to. In Num. 14:33,34, Jehovah's word to Israel simply states that they must suffer for their iniquities forty years, "in the number of the days which ye searched the land, forty days, a day for the year, a day for the year." There is no possibility of misunderstanding this. The spies were absent forty days searching the land of Canaan (Num. 13:25), and when they returned they brought back a bad report of the country, and spread disaffection, murmuring, and rebellion through the whole congregation of Israel (14:2-4). Thereupon the divine sentence of judgment was pronounced upon that generation, and they were condemned to "graze (pasture, feed) in the wilderness forty years" (14:33).

   Here then is certainly no ground on which to base the universal proposition that, in prophetic designations of time, a day means a year. The passage is exceptional and explicit, and the words are used in a strictly literal sense; the days evidently mean days, and the years mean years. The same is true in every particular of the days and years mentioned in Ezek. 4:5,6. The days of his prostration were literal days, and they were typical of years, as is explicitly stated. But to derive from this symbolico-typical action of Ezekiel a hermeneutical principle or law of universal application, namely, that days in prophecy mean years, would be a most unwarrantable procedure.

2. Not Sustained by Prophetic Analogy. If the two passages now noticed were expressive of a universal law, we certainly would expect to find it sustained and capable of illustration by examples of fulfilled prophecy. But examples bearing on this point are overwhelmingly against the theory in question. God's word to Noah was: "Yet seven days, I will cause it to rain upon the land forty days and forty nights" (Gen. 7:4). Did any one ever imagine these days were symbolical of years? Or will it be pretended that the mention of nights along with days removes the prophecy from the category of those scriptures which have a mystical import?

   God's word to Abraham was that his seed should be afflicted in a foreign land four hundred years (Gen. 15:13). Must we multiply these years by three hundred and sixty to know the real time intended? Isaiah prophesied that Ephraim should be broken within threescore and five years (Isa. 7:8); but who ever dreamed that this must be resolved into days in order to find the period of Ephriam's fall? Was it ever sagely believed that the three years of Moab's glory, referred to in Isa. 16:14, must be multiplied by three hundred and sixty in order to find the import of what Jehovah had spoken concerning it? Was it by such mathematical calculation as this that Daniel "understood in the books the number of the years, which was a word of Jehovah to Jeremiah (comp. Jer. 25:12) the prophet, to complete as to the desolations of Jerusalem seventy years" (Dan. 9:2)? Or is it supposable that the seventy years of Jeremiah's prophecy were ever intended to be manipulated by such calculations? In short, this theory breaks down utterly when an appeal is taken to the analogy of prophetic scriptures.

   If the time, times, and a half of Dan. 7:25 means three and a half years multiplied by three hundred and sixty, that is, twelve hundred and sixty years, then the seven times of Dan. 4:16,32, should mean seven times three hundred and sixty, or two thousand five hundred and twenty years. Or if in one prophecy of the future, twelve hundred and sixty days must, without any accompanying qualification, or any statement to that effect in the context, be understood as denoting so many years, then the advocates of such a theory must show pertinent and valid reason why the forty days of Jonah's prophecy against Nineveh (Jon. 3:4) are not to be also understood as denoting forty years.

3. Daniel's Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks Not Parallel. The year-day theory is thought to have support in Daniel's prophecy of the 'seventy weeks' (Dan. 9:24-27). But that prophecy says not a word about days or years, but seventy 'heptads,' or 'sevens.' The position and gender of the word indicate its peculiar significance. It nowhere else occurs in the masculine except in Dan. 10:2,3, where it is expressly defined as denoting 'heptads of days.' Unaccompanied by any such limiting word, and standing in such an emphatic position at the beginning of ver. 24, we have reason to infer at once that it involves some mystical import. When, now, we observe that it is a Messianic oracle, granted to Daniel when his mind was full of meditations upon Jeremiah's prophecy of the seventy years of Jewish exile (ver. 2), and in answer to his ardent supplications, we most naturally understand the seventy heptads as heptads of years. But this admission furnishes slender support to such a sweeping theory as would logically bring all prophetic designations of time to the principle that days means years.

4. Days Nowhere Properly Mean Years. It has been argued that in such passages as Judges 17:10; 1 Sam. 2:19; 2 Chron. 21:19, and Isa. 32:10, the word 'days' is used to denote 'years,' and "if this word be sometimes thus used in Scripture in places not prophetic, why should it not be thus employed in prophetic passages?" But a critical examination of those passages will show that the word for 'days' is not really used in the sense of years. In Judges 17:10, Micah says to the Levite: "Dwell with me, and be to me for a father and a priest, and I will give thee ten (pieces) of silver for the days," that is, for the days that he should dwell with him as a priest. In 1 Sam. 2:19, it is said that Samuel's mother made him a little robe, and brought it up to him from days to days in her going up along with her husband to offer the sacrifice of the days." Here the reference is to the particular days of going up to the tabernacle to worship and sacrifice, and the exact sense is not brought out by the common version, "year by year" or "yearly." They may have gone up several times during the year at the days of the great national feasts.

   And this appears from a comparison of 1 Sam. 1:3 and 7, where, in the first place, it is said that Elkanah went up from days to days, and in ver. 7, "so he did year by year." That is, he went up three times a year according to the law (Exod. 23:14-17) "from days to days," as the well-known national feastdays came round; and his wife generally accompanied him. 2 Chron. 21:19 is literally: "And it came to pass at days from days (i.e., after several days), and about the time of the going out (expiration) of the end, at two days, his bowels went out," etc. Similarly, Isa. 32:10: "Days above a year shall ye be troubled," etc. That is, more than a year shall ye be troubled. The most that can be said of such a use of the word days, is, that it is used indefinitely in a proverbial and idiomatic way; but such a usage by no means justifies the broad proposition that a day means a year.

5. Disproved by Repeated Failures in Interpretation . The advocates of the year-day theory rest their strongest argument, however, upon the necessity of such a theory for what they regard the true explanation of certain prophecies. They affirm that the three times and a half of Dan. 7:25, and the twelve hundred and sixty days of Rev. 12:6, and their parallels, are incapable of a literal interpretation. And so, carrying the predictions both of Daniel and John down into the history of modern Europe for explanation, most of these writers understand the twelve hundred and sixty year-days as designating the period of the Roman Papacy.

   Mr. William Miller, famous in the last generation for the sensation he produced, and the large following he had, adopted a scheme of interpreting not only the twelve hundred and sixty days, but also the twelve hundred and ninety, and the thirteen hundred and thirty-five (of Dan. 12:11,12), so that he ascertained and published with great assurance that the coming of Christ would take place in October, 1843. We have lived to see his theories thoroughly exploded, and yet there have not been wanting others who have adopted his hermeneutical principles, and named A.D. 1866 and A.D. 1870 as "the time of the end."

   A theory which is so destitute of scriptural analogy and support as we have seen above, and presumes to rest on such a slender showing of divine authority, is on those grounds alone to be suspected; but when it has again and again proved to be false and misleading in its application, we may safely reject it, as furnishing no valid principle or rule in a true science of hermeneutics. Those who have supposed it to be necessary for the exposition of apocalyptic prophecies, should begin to feel that their systems of interpretation are in error.

The Thousand years of Revelation 20

The duration of the thousand years, or the millennial reign, mentioned in Rev. 20:2-7, has been variously estimated. Most of those who advocate the year-day theory have singularly agreed to understand this thousand years literally. With them days mean years, and times mean years, to be resolved into three hundred and sixty days each, but the thousand years of the Apocalypse are literally and exactly a thousand years!

Many, however, understand this number as denoting an indefinitely long period, and some have not scrupled to apply to it the theory of a day for a year, and multiplying by three hundred and sixty, estimate the length of the millennium at three hundred and sixty thousand years. But in this case we have no analogy, no real parallel, in other parts of scripture. Allen himself candidly admits that "there is nothing in the customary use of the phrase 'a thousand,' in other places, which will determine its import in the Book of Revelation. The probability of its being used there definitely or indefinitely must be determined by examining the place itself, and from the nature of the case."

This is a very safe and proper rule, and it may well be added that, as we have found the number ten to symbolize the general idea of fulness, totality, completeness, so not improbably the number one thousand may stand as the symbolic number of manifold fulness, the rounded aeon of Messianic triumph, during which he shall abolish all rule and all authority and power, and put all his enemies under his feet (1 Cor. 15:24,25) and bring in the fulness of both [Jews] and [Gentiles] (Romans 11:12,25)

Book Review

The City of the Living God by Dave Barley
America's Promise Ministries
P.O. Box 157, Sandpoint, Idaho 83864

I was originally going to write a critical review of this book but as I went through it I was encouraged with what I found agreement with. While still taking pot-shots at "Preterism" the book makes great gains in presenting the reality of the New Covenant and the nature of the New Jerusalem.

It has been described as "stealing all the thunder of the Preterist message while denying it wholesale." I on the other hand find it encouraging and see it as progress toward understanding the nature of God's New Covenant relationship with Israel. Attempting to understand the "spiritual house" described in I Peter 2:5 is what is needed in making the transition from Old to the New Covenant thinking. This book does this and more.

A better description of the book might characterize it as a "halfway house" between Premillennialism and Preterism. It may be the stepping stone people need to come out of dispensationalist premillennial thinking on their spiritual journey toward understanding God's New relationship with His Covenant people and the reality of the power, glory and dominion of His New Covenant made through Christ's advent, death, and resurrection!