The Gog and Magog reference made no sense, but it rhymes nice. According to the writings of the Arabs, Magog and Gog occupied the vast expanse of Russia, Mongolia, and even to the eastern border of Germany. They were nomads and were very fierce. Some call the Mongolians the Tartars. Their ancestors hated the Jews very much.Quote:
APOCALYPSE - Chapter 20
Link to Bible text
CHAPTER XX.
Ver. 2. And bound him for a thousand years. I shall give the reader an abridgment of what St. Augustine has left us on this chapter, in his 20th book de Civ. Dei[The City of God]. From the 5th to the 16th chap., (t. vii. p. 578 et seq.) he treats upon these difficulties: What is meant by the first and second resurrection; by the binding and chaining up of the devil; by the thousand years that the saints reign with Christ; by the first and second death; by Gog and Magog, &c.
The 1st resurrection is that of overcomer believers (in Rev. 2 & 3) who receive the reward to return with Christ (Jude 14,15) to reign during the 1000 years. Non-overcomers are fleshly Christians, though can't lose eternal life, will go to outer darkness outside the light of reward of reigning with Christ during the 1000 years. A second resurrection is the resurrection of the damned; the 1st resurrection is the "best" "out-resurrection" from all the saved-conglomerate-that are resurrected before the 1000 years.
All 10 virgins were saved, because they all had oil in their lamps, but the 5 unwise ones didn't fill their extra vessels with oil also to be filled with the Holy Spirit, so they don't receive the reward of the millennial marriage feast that precedes the New City.
Though the second death can't bring a person to Hell, it can burn off the dross of their false works. Some, though, may ask, Does not the Bible teach that once a person is saved he will never perish? Why then do you say here that Christians may appear as though to perish? This is due none other than to a misunderstanding of some Scripture verses such as the following: “He shall never see death” (John 8.51,52) is actually “he shall not forever see death” in the original, and “he shall never taste of death” is “he shall not forever taste death” in the original. “They shall never perish” (John 10.28) is “they shall not forever perish” in the original. “Shall never die” (John 11.25,26) is “shall not forever die” in the original.Quote:
As to the first resurrection, chap. vi., he takes notice on the 5th verse, that resurrection[1] in the Gospels, and in St. Paul, is applied not only to the body but also to the soul; and the second resurrection, which is to come, is that of the bodies: that there is also a death of the soul, which is by sin; and that the second death is that of soul and body by eternal damnation: that both bad and good shall rise again in their bodies. On those words, (ver. 6) Blessed is he that hath part in the first resurrection; in these the second death hath no power.
If this is a fable then why does Jude 14,15 among other verses say Jesus is returning with the Saints, and Zech. 14.4, Acts 1.11 and Rev. 1.7 speak directly of Jesus coming to earth just as He left. The point of the millennium on earth is the transition from the age of grace to the age of eternity. God never works in jerky fashions. It is also the time of recompense to reward those in Christ who overcometh. Otherwise there is no accountability for Christians. And justice is not given in transition. All you would need do is be once-saved-always-saved then lie on a bed of fornication, but the millennium is for discipline of believers who lose the reward and reward for spiritual Christians to reign over the nations. 1000 years is a long time to lose this reward. It seems Augustine has his own fables of non-accountability and wanted to be that reigning person of this world of a thousand years of his own making.Quote:
Such, saith he, (chap. ix.) as have risen from sin, and have remained in that resurrection of the soul, shall never be liable to the second death, which is damnation. Cap. vii. p. 580, he says that some Catholics not understanding rightly the first resurrection, have been led into ridiculous fables,[2] and this by the interpretation which they put on the thousand years; as if the first resurrection implied a resurrection of the bodies of the martyrs and saints, who should live on the earth with Christ for a thousand years before the general resurrection, in all manner of delights. This was the opinion of those called Millenarians: this, saith he, might seem tolerable in some measure,[3] if taken for spiritual delights, (for we ourselves were once in these sentiments) but if for carnal pleasures, it can only be believed by carnal men.
I don't know how to reconcile this with Scripture because obviously Christ is not reigning now. We are told Satan is the god of this world for the time being. And if the 1000 years is now, then it seems hard to rationalize the nations are not deceived today with so many wars and rumors of wars. Furthermore, the book of Revelation would not be a book of the future as it ought to be about end of days (Dan. 12.13). Only great learned historians could be saved by interpreting it correctly, but God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10.34). The Holy Spirit has given me strength and power to refuse Augustine in the name of the Father, the Son and the Spirit.Quote:
He then expounds what may be understood by the binding and chaining of the devil for a thousand years; (Cap. vii. & viii, p. 581) that the thousand years, meaning a long time, may signify all the time from Christ's first coming[4] to his second at the end of the world, and to the last short persecution under antichrist.
How can Satan who having tried the saints in the Tribulation is then locked in the pit have influence to deceive the nations when Revelation 20.3 says the nations are not deceived during the 1000 years because Satan is locked in the pit for the 1000 years? Augustine is doing this verse injustice; and there is an immorality to his claim a millennial peace still has the nations deceived. It doesn't feel right. It's not of the Holy Spirit. But a warring spirit, even the spirit of the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition. How is that not deceived? I tire of false teachings. They have already accessed too much of my time in responding to expose them.Quote:
The devil is said to be bound, that is, his power much lessened and restrained, in comparison of the great and extensive power he had over all nations before Christ's incarnation; not but that he still tempts many,[5] and raiseth persecutions, which always turn to their greater good; and that towards the end of the world he shall be let loose, as it were, for a short time, and permitted with his infernal spirits to exercise his malice against mankind, to try the patience of the elect, and to shew the power of God's grace, by which his faithful servants shall triumph over the devil. (N. B.[Nota Bene, Note Well?])
That's not the kind of reigning mentioned. The reigning mentioned during the 1000 years is with a "rod of iron." Overcomers in Christ are not doing this today under His kingshop, but we are beaten by the rod and thrown into prisons and killed daily. Augustine could not be more wrong, like his follower, the murderous Protestant Pope of Geneva. Regarding his caption, the Church being on earth for a short while, there are pretribber onlyists who say the Church is taken up before the Tribulation, but they fail to understand Matt. 24.42, Luke 21.36, Rev. 3.10 which is a set of conditions for the Church, to be received up at first rapture before the Tribulation (approximately 1/7th will be raptured alive at first rapture as the advanced party, as harbingers are in every sphere). Non-overcomer believers pass through the Tribulation in the time of testing. Would Augustine be arguing against pretribber onlyism? If so that is evidence there were those who believed in first rapture (Rev. 7.9) before the trumpets (8.7ff) of the Tribulation are blown. This is our blessed hope, the hope of escaping the hour of trial if we keep the word of His patience and even not see death.Quote:
What St. Augustine adds divers times in these chapters: "Let no one," says he, "imagine[6] that even during that short time, there shall be no Church of Christ on the earth: God forbid: even when the devil shall be let loose, he shall not be able to seduce the Church." Cap. ix, p. 586, he expounds those words, (ver. 4-5) I saw the souls of them that were beheaded....and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years....This is the first resurrection: i.e. the first resurrection is while the devil is chained up for the space of a thousand years. He takes notice that the present state of the Church is many times called the kingdom of God, and that the Church of Christ reigns now with Christ, both in the living saints and in those who are dead, in the souls of the martyrs, and of others, who having lived and died piously, now reign with Christ, not yet in their bodies,[7] but their souls reign with him.
Scripture addresses the false outward Christendom elsewhere such as Matthew 13 and Revelation 17. The beast is the Antichrist, for he is the number of a man, 666, Neron Kaisar in Aramaic, so the 1st beast (Antichrist) is Nero revived. Many other reasons can be given why he is a man and not a group. The Bible distinguishes antichrists and the Antichrist.Quote:
On those words of the 4th verse: who had not adored the beast, nor his image, nor received his mark, he only gives this exposition, as agreeable to the Christian faith, that by the beast may be understood the multitude of wicked sinners in general, and the image of the beast[8] those who are of the Church in outward appearance and profession only, and not by their works.
Whereas Chiliasts believe the battle of the Tribulation (Rev. 7-11 major points; Rev. 8 to 19 are the details of those major points) precedes Revelation 20. Christ defeats Satan in Rev. 19. The 1000 year kingdom follows, then at the end of the 1000 years there is the final of all battles when Satan is let out for a short while. The book of Revelation is very sequential. The 6 seals of the past 20 centuries lead to the 7th seal which opens the 7 trumpets of the Tribulation and the the 7th trumpet of the Tribulation pours out the 24 months of the 3rd woe.Quote:
When it is said (ver. 5) that the rest of the dead lived not till the thousand years were finished: they lived not, says he, as to their souls, when they should have lived; and therefore not being happy in heaven, when their bodies shall rise, it shall not be to life, but to judgment and damnation, which is the second death. Cap. xi, he expounds the 7th and 8th verses, where it is said that Satan shall be loosed....and seduce the nations which are over the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog,[9] and shall gather them together to battle. This, says St. Augustine, will be the last persecution at the approach of the day of judgment, which the whole city, or the whole Church of Christ dispersed through the universe, will suffer from the whole city of the devil.
Also there is more than just the Church that would be saved at the beginning of the 1000 years, because before Christ the Saints of Old were children of God too. And during the millennium people shall be saved. The mystery age of the Church ends when the new dispensation of the millennium starts.
You might have noticed it is 2000 years since Christ, so you are a thousand years overdue. How many more millennia must go by before you realize you are wrong? The flesh though can rationalize anything.
“Magog” is mentioned in Genesis 10.2. “Gog” is seen in Numbers 24.7 where “Agag” is translated “Gog” in the Septuagint. According to the writings of the Arabs, Magog and Gog occupied the vast expanse of Russia, Mongolia, and even to the eastern border of Germany. They were nomads and were very fierce. Some call the Mongolians the Tartars. Their ancestors hated the Jews very much. At the very least this is not a people in general but a people from a region specifically. Incidentally, most people are unaware Mongolia has the highest reserves of Uranium of any country on the planet. Energy is a big thing going forward because of Hubert's peak curve has been reached for oil. It's just not in the official data yet, but it is already accepted as being such by the industry. The amazing power of the atom and speed of light. E=MC^2. Russia is an atheist country. Genghis Khan occupied the most territory of any empire in history similar to the vast lands of U.S.S.R. They are a conquering atheistic people.Quote:
Neither need Gog and Magog be taken for a particular[10] barbarous people, but such as are dispersed in a manner in every nation, and who shall then break out by the instigation of Satan into an open hatred and persecution against the faithful servants of God; as it is said, (ver. 8.) they ascended upon the breadth of the earth, and surrounded the camp of the saints, where we cannot literally understand one camp, one city, or one place, but the Church every where dispersed.
The three and a half years is far removed from the Last Battle. The 3.5 years pertains the Great Tribulation, and the Jews fleeing in the wilderness. The second half of Daniel's prophecy of the last seven of the seventy sevens. It appears those who opposed God couldn't even hurt the saints in the Last Rebellion, for the saints have already been resurrected and returned to reign with Christ in the millennium. We are appointed to die once only. How arrogant to think you can kill the saints who returned with Christ? (Jude 14,15). How can you have an image of a group; an image is that of a person? The image of the beast! The most wicked man who ever lived, Satan incarnate who leads many antichrists to rebellion against God's people. Many other reasons can be given for why the Antichrist is a person.Quote:
Cap. xii, he expounds the 9th verse, where he takes fire to signify, metaphorically, the firm resistance and constancy of the good, and the fire[11] of their zeal, which devoured as it were the wicked; or we may understand with others, the temporal fire of God's judgments in this world against the wicked, but not the last eternal fire; because the eternal fire comes not down from heaven but the wicked are cast into it below. Cap. xiii, he teacheth that the last persecution[12] of antichrist, here mentioned, shall last but three years and six months; i.e. a little while. Cap. xiv and xv, he expounds the 10th and following verse, of the devil being cast into the lake of fire, after the last persecution of antichrist.
“Books” is plural in number. “According to their works” means (1) the judgment is based on works, and (2) punishment is measured out according to the quality of their works. Of course no man can save himself nor lose his salvation given, so these works are works that bear witness that a person belongs in hell or is saved by grace through faith, because works flow from true faith. Those who perish do so because of their evil works (not because of their good works), and those who are saved are saved because their names are written in the book of life (not because of their good works). By grace through faith, not of works, lest any man should boast. Predestination is according to foreknowledge. God predestinates by foreknowing our free-choice: a conditional election, unlimited atonement, resistible grace, for preservation of the saints.Quote:
By the beast he understands, as before, the city or multitude of all the wicked; and by the false prophet, either antichrist or the outward appearance of faith in them that have none. Then follows the last judgment, where it is said that the books are opened, and also that another book was opened. By the first book, may be understood men and their consciences; and by the other book, the book of life, that[13] of eternal predestination.
Antichrist is a man. Note that Rev. 13.3 says this: “as though it had been smitten unto death”; and chapter 13 further comments on it by saying: “the stroke of the sword” (v.14). In connection with 17.7,8, it should be noted that John wrote this book of Revelation in approximately 96 A.D. Hence the word “was” must refer to the time before 96 A.D.; “is not”, to the time when John wrote this book; and “is about to come up out of the abyss, and to go into perdition”, to the time in the future. According to 17.9-11, “the five are fallen, the one is” (this latter one, at the time of John, was Domitian); “the other is not yet come” (one wonders if he is now already in the world, but only waiting to be manifested). Judging by the words in verse 11, there are seven souls, seven bodies; yet eight live, for the eighth one is also one of the original seven. He must have died and is to be reanimated in the days to come. There will arise a most powerful person who will revive the Roman Empire and become the leader of a confederacy of ten kingdoms. He will be killed, but he will also be reanimated. Thus, the whole world will consider him as god. Actually, he is not resurrected in the real sense; he is only reanimated by the entering into his body of the soul of one of the former Emperors.
No mention of man's spirit is made, but read Heb. 4.12, 1 Thess. 5.23. The Bible says not even David, a man after God's own heart, is in heaven. How can there be a resurrection of all these saints before David? How can you split of man's body from his soul? Man is not a spirit being. He always requires a body to go where his soul and spirit go. We are resurrected together at the end of this age of the Church (1 Thess. 4.15-17) spirit, soul and body.Quote:
Thus far S. Augustine, where we see that he delivers the common Catholic doctrine, that by the thousand years, so often mentioned in this chapter, he understands all that time in which the souls of the martyrs, and of all other saints, reign happy with Christ in heaven, till after the general resurrection they receive a full and complete happiness, both as to soul and body.
There is much work to be done in the millennial kingdom. It takes a thousand years to prepare the New City in the New Earth. One should read more of Papias and St. John, and less of Eusebius. Perhaps that's why most of Papias' writings are lost or destroyed by false tares trying to look like the saved wheat in Roman Church heresy of amillennialism (or, antinomianism). The Temple during the 1000 years on Earth is not the New Jerusalem in Heaven. The former gradually will lose its prominence in the millennial kingdom and the New Jerusalem will come down all the way for eternity future on the New Earth.Quote:
A false exposition of these thousand years gave occasion to the mistake, the error, and heresy of those called the Millenarians, which Mede and Dr. W. have followed. Papias, who lived soon after, or perhaps with St. John, was the chief promoter of this mistake; a man, says Eusebius, of "little judgment and capacity,"[14] who misconstrued the discourses which he heard. He was followed by divers writers in the second, third, and fourth century, who did not hold with Cerinthus and his followers, that the saints should rise before the general resurrection, and reign with Christ on earth for a thousand years in all manner of sensual pleasures; but in spiritual delights, in the city of Jerusalem, built anew after that glorious manner described in the next chapter.
You forgot to mention St. John. and Mede. That would be 10 earlier accounts.Quote:
Now though this opinion had several considerable abettors, of which I find these seven: Papias, St. Justin[St. Justin Martyr], St. Irenæus, Tertullian, Nepos, (a bishop, in Egypt; in Eusebius, lib. vii. chap. xxiv.) Victorinus Petabionensis, Lactantius, and Severus Sulpitius:
Indeed, those who claim a person goes to heaven without a body are not Christians. You can't split the body apart from man's soul and spirit. Man is a living soul with a spirit and a body; he is not a spirit. Angels are spirits. Man takes with himself his body wherever he goes.Quote:
:yet were there always other learned Catholic writers who rejected it as a fable. Of this number was Caius, a priest, at Rome, about the end of the second age[century]; Origen, in his prologue on the Canticles; St. Denys, of Alexandria, who in the third age[century] wrote to confute Nepos; (see Eusebius, lib. vii. History of the Church, chap. xxiv., who treats it as a fable ) St. Basil,[15] who calls it an old wife's tale, and a Jewish fiction, Epist. 293; St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Orat. 52; St. Epiphanius, St. Jerome, Philastrius, Theodoret, who place this opinion among the heresies and heretical fables: so that this could never be looked upon as the constant doctrine and tradition of the Church. The bishop of Meaux[Bossuet] takes notice, that Mede either mistook or falsified the text of St. Justin,[16] who, in his Dialogue with Tryphon, holds that opinion of a thousand years reign; but adds, "I also told you, that many who are Christians of pious and sound sentiments, do not own this to be true." Thus we read in the Greek, as well as in the Latin translation: but Mr. Mede quite changes the sense, by adding a negative in this manner; but many who are not of this pure and holy doctrine, &c. We may observe that St. Justin says in the next page, that they who own not the resurrection of the body, and say that souls go to heaven without any future resurrection, are not to be accounted Christians, but are to be looked upon as Sadducees and unbelievers. Which is very true.
Who is to say they were Christians to begin with who later denied the millennial reign of Christ; who looked for a false Christ who would not reign for a thousand years on earth (Rev. 19.11-16, 20.2-7) with His overcomer believers (Rev. 2 & 3) who receive this reward?Quote:
And he adds, that he, and others who think right with him, know that there will be a resurrection of the flesh, and a rebuilding of Jerusalem for a thousand years, which St. Justin himself judged grounded on the prophets, Isaias, Ezechiel, &c. So that not to make St. Justin contradict himself, he mentions three opinions: the first is the heresy of those who absolutely denied the future resurrection of the dead: these were not Christians, but unbelievers, Sadducees, &c. The second was of those who held that the martyrs and saints should rise, and reign for a thousand years in their bodies on the earth; this, which was his own opinion, he calls the right and true doctrine. But thirdly, he does not condemn those pious Christians who, as he had said before, disowned this thousand years reign, for this would be to contradict himself. (Witham)
When you throw someone in a pit for a 1000 years, this is not a limiting restriction but an absolutely isolation and inability to interact. When Lucifer fell from 3rd heaven to 2nd heaven and corrupted earth which is in 1st heaven, that is a limiting restriction, unable to operate from 3rd heaven anymore next to God.Quote:
--- In the above chapter, what man can reflect without trembling, that the devil has the rage of a dragon, the cunning of an old serpent, the malice of a calumniator, and that he is a most implacable enemy? On the other hand, what man is there that does not feel consolation in the reflection, that Jesus Christ has vanquished this savage fiend, and bound him in fetters, by limiting the exercise of his rage and malice?
That is silly nonsense and so utterly vague and unspecific it's embarrassing for someone considered to be the leader of the Church. 60 million died under Mao, 40 million under Stalin, and 30 million under Hitler. Satan is held at bay? As the way Augustine uses Gog and Magog (though used falsely), Augustine is Gog and Magog with his attack against the premillennial Church, his false teaching of Calvinism and Total depravity, and belonging to the great harlot of religious Rome-the Roman Church-which says you can lose salvation after being born-again, so you would have to be born-again again, even many times over. The One True God will just not save that person to begin with until they are saved once-saved always saved. Salvation is not by works, lest any man should boast. God is going to let Satan destroy the Roman Church and Satan will oblige because it is at least in name in Christ.Quote:
Some understand this chaining of the dragon of the reign of Constantine, and particularly after the defeat of Licinius; (see above, [Apocalypse] chap. xii. 18.) and the thousand years of the intermediate period between Constantine and antichrist, when the devil will again be let loose, but for a short time, only three years and a half. (Bible de Vence) --- Bound him, &c. The power of Satan has been very much abridged by the passion of Christ; for a thousand years; that is for the whole time of the new testament, but especially from the time of the destruction of Babylon or pagan Rome, till the new efforts of Gog and Magog against the Church, towards the end of the world.
The first resurrection is not referring to rapture, but to rewards for overcomer believers to reign during the 1000 years. The general resurrection takes place at the last trumpet of the Tribulation when the saints are taken up together. We who are alive and left will not precede those who are asleep; raptured spirit, soul and body, not just soul. Our soul has the functions of mind, will and emotion. How strange it would be to be resurrected without a body, to come before the High Priest naked, and without conscience, communion and intuition of our spirit. First resurrection is referring to the "best" resurrection out of the resurrections at the consummation of the Church age. The resurrection a thousand years later shall be for the damned.Quote:
During which time the souls of the martyrs and saints live and reign with Christ in heaven, in the first resurrection, which is that of the soul to the life of glory, as the second resurrection will be that of the body, at the day of general judgment. (Challoner)
