Premillenarians
Premillenarians [1]
is a popular designation of a class of theologians who understand "the first resurrection," spoken of in Revelation 20:5, as predicting a separate and literal revivification of the saints previous to the millennium, and their personal reign with Christ on earth during that period, in opposition to the usual or Post-Millenarian view, which explains it in a figurative and spiritual sense. Among the advocates of the premillennial scheme have been counted, with more or less reserve, such eminent names as those of Mede, Jurieu, Daibuz, Sir Isaac Newton, archbishop Newcome, bishops Newton, Horsley, and Heber, doctors Gill, Toplady, Bengel, Dorner, Nitzsch, Delitzsch, Van Oosterzee, Hofmann, Aubelen, Ebrard, Roothe, Lange, Christlieb, Luthardt, Gaussen, Godet, Trench, Ellicott, Ryle, Hoare, Tregelles, Elliott, Allord, Bickersteth, Bonar, Tyng, Lord, and many other learned and pious divines, especially among Protestants, while the great majority of scholars and writers of Christendom, in all ages and denominations, have been ranged on the opposite, or postmillennial side, of whom we need mention only, among moderns, Whitby, Faber, Brown, Barnes, Hengstenberg, Stuart, and Worsworth. The history of the Chiliastic doctrine, both Jewish and Christian, is well summarized in the Speaker'S Commentary, excursus at the end of Revelation 20. (See The First Resurrection).
