Page 7 - Watchman- What of the Night

Chapter Ι: What of the Millennium?

Let none dare to affirm that the doctrine of the millennium is of any recent vintage.
No teaching of scripture hath a more ancient pedigree.
If we trace back to the Epistle of Barnabas (whether written by the ―good man full

of the Holy Ghost and of faith‖ none can say) which dates back to very early times,
we find the millennium. Daubuz, said by Prof. Bush to be ―by far the ablest
commentator on the visions of John,‖ says that Barnabas wrote his epistle . ―many

years before St. John wrote. ‖ He testifies as follows:
― ‗and God made in six days the work of His hands, and He finished them on the
seventh day, and He rested on it and sanctified it.‘Consider, my children, what that
signifies: He finished them in six days. This it signifies, that the Lord God will finish
all things in six thousand years. For a day with Him is a thousand years: as He

Himself testifieth, saying, ‗Behold this day shall be as a thousand years.‘ Therefore,
children, in six days, that is, in six thousand years, shall all things be consummated.
‗And He rested the seventh day;‘ this signifies that when His Son shall come, and

shall abolish the season of the wicked one and shall change the sun and the moon and
the stars, then He shall rest gloriously in that seventh day.‖
Eusebius, the historian, quotes Papias (A. D.115) as saying in the preface to his
book that ―he did not follow various opinions, but had the apostles for his authors; and
that he considered what Andrew, what Peter, what Philip, what Tomas and other

disciples of the Lord said,‖ and among others he names the Apostle John. Papias says
of the millennium, ―There will be a certain thousand years after the resurrection of
the dead, when the kingdom of Christ will be established visibly on the earth.‖

Ireneus intimates that for this statement he claimed the sanction of John.
The erudite commentator Greswell remarks: ―Papias‘ honesty has never been
impeached; and his antiquity makes his testimony to the millennium the more
valuable.‖
Justin Martyr wrote circa A.D. 150: ―I and whatsoever Christians are orthodox in

all things do know that there will be a resurrection of the flesh, and a thousand years
in Jerusalem, which will then be built, adorned and enlarged, as the prophets Isaiah,
Ezekiel and others declare…(quotes Isa. 65:17-25 and other scriptures)…Moreover a

certain man among us, whose name was John, being one of the apostles of Christ, in
that Revelation which was shown to him, prophesied that those who believe in our
Christ, should live a thousand years in Jerusalem; and after that there would be a
general, and in a word, a universal resurrection of every individual person, when all
should arise together to an everlasting state and a future judgment.‖
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