All Quotes from the Ante-Nicene Fathers
(Tertullian later Montanism doesn’t affect these issues. His quotes agree with the rest of early orthodox Christianity )
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HOLDEMAN DOCTRINE |
EARLY CHURCH FATHERS |
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All writers who believe in a literal kingdom of Christ on earth (as far as I know) assert that the saints will arise from their graves and those who remain shall be changed and that Christ will rule with them one thousand years upon earth. Oh what sacrilege to God’s Word!” John Holdeman (founder of the denomination) |
But I and others, who are right-minded Christians on all points, are assured that there will be a resurrection of the dead, and a thousand years in Jerusalem, which will then be built, adorned, and enlarged.” Justin Martyr Vol 1 pg 239 “A kingdom is promised to us upon the earth, although before heaven, only in another state of existence… after the resurrection for a thousand years in the divinely-built city of Jerusalem” Tertullian Vol 3 pg 342 |
| “To believe that celestial bodies, resurrected spiritual bodies, shall inherit this perishable world one thousand years is blasphemy” →
John Holdeman Mirror of Truth pg 348 |
“He promised to drink of the fruit of the vine with His disciples, thus indicating both these points: the inheritance of the earth in which the new fruit of the vine is drunk, and the resurrection of His disciples in the flesh. For the new flesh which rises again is the same which also received the new cup. And He cannot by any means be understood as drinking of the fruit of the vine when settled down with his [disciples] above in a super-celestial place; (read full chapter—he is definitely speaking of the millennium) Ireneaus Against Heresies Vol. 1 pg 562 |
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“Though we may blame human error for the propagation of such heresy, [a literal millennium] I think we can look further and recognize the hand of Satan in this” Stoppel Whether it be of God pg 33 |
“The predicted blessing, therefore, belongs unquestionably to the times of the kingdom, when the righteous shall bear rule upon their rising from the dead; when also the creation, having been renovated and set free, shall fructify” Ireneaus Against Heresies Vol 1 Pg 562 |
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“[The kingdom] will therefore never be established literally in Jerusalem as some blinded, confused people think” John Holdeman Mirror of Truth pg 344 |
“But in the times of the kingdom, the earth has been called again by Christ [to its pristine condition], and Jerusalem rebuilt after the pattern of the Jerusalem above.” Ireneaus Against Heresies Vol. 1 pg 565 |
| “We do not believe in a future millennium in which Christ will establish a literal kingdom upon the earth. Neither Christ nor the apostles taught such a doctrine” Official statement of faith,
Bible Doctrines and Practices pg 378 |
“There was a certain man among us, whose name was John, one of the apostles of Christ, who prophesied by a revelation that was made to him, that those who believed in our Christ would dwell a thousand years in Jerusalem.” Justin Martyr Vol 1 pg 240 |
