According to Theopedia, “Premillennialism was the most widely held view of the earliest centuries of the church.” It mostly died out beginning in the 4th century and was little seen until after the Reformation when, in the late 1800s, early 1900s, it was revived in the British Isles and spread to American Fundamentalism and Dispensationalism.
The article continues that,
Premillennialists fall into two primary categories: historic premillennialism and dispensational premillennialism. Historic premillennialism is so called because it is the classic form which may be found in writings of some of the early church fathers, although in an undeveloped form. Dispensational premillennialism is that form which derives from John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) and dispensational theology. It is dispensational premillennialism that first taught the notion of a pre-tribulation rapture. … (On the other hand,) historic premillennialists reject the idea of a pre-tribulation rapture … . (Premillennialism)
The dispensationalist’s pre-tribulation rapture does not stand alone. It is the first side of a two-sided coin. The other side is that the moment the rapture occurs and the seven-year reign of the Antichrist begins, is the moment the Christian dispensation ends and a new dispensation centered on the conversion of natural Jews begins.
Classic dispensationalists (ala C. I. Scofield and Lewis Sperry Chafer) are pre-tribulationists and believe that the second coming will be in two stages separated by a 7-year period of tribulation. At the first he will return in the air to rescue those who are Christians at that time (the rapture). Then (7 years later, after the reign of the Antichrist,) Christ will return to the earth. He will defeat the Antichrist, and rescue the Jews and those who have converted to Christianity during the tribulation period1.
By contrast, historic premillennialists would be generally categorized as “Post-tribulationists” because … they hold that Christ will not return until the end of the Great tribulation and that Christians will suffer for the faith as they bring forth the final witness associated with the 5th seal of the book of Revelation.” (Premillennialism)
Dispensational premillennialism is sometimes called “Darbyism”2, after John Nelson Darby who popularized it in England and began its spread abroad as part of a charismatic revivalist group he was instrumental in promoting that came to be called the Plymouth Brethren.3
By 1835 he had formulated his doctrine of the “secret” pre-tribulational rapture. According to Wikipedia, some researchers say that Darby’s source was demonic – that he picked it up from another English revivalist group (generally considered to be heretical) popularized largely by Edward Irving.
Samuel Prideaux Tregelles alleged that John Nelson Darby‘s concept of the rapture was taken from one of the charismatic utterances in Edward Irving’s church (at a prophecy conference held in 1830 at Powerscourt Castle, Ireland). Since Tregelles regarded the utterances as “pretending to be from God,” his implication is that Darby’s rapture is from a demonic source. Dave MacPherson built upon Tregelles’s accusation, and claimed the source for Darby’s rapture was from an utterance of Margaret MacDonald.
Others say that Darby would not have accepted this source, saying that Darby himself regarded MacDonald’s utterances as demonic, that Darby first wrote his views down in 1827, three years prior to the Powerscourt prophecy conference, and that the MacDonald statement was actually post-tribulationist anyway (describing the tribulation as “being the fiery trial which is to try us” and “for the purging and purifying of the real members of the body of Jesus”). The Wikipedia article therefore concludes, “For these and other reasons, scholars consider MacPherson’s alleged connection to dispensationalism as untenable.”
Margaret MacDonald was born in 1815 in Port Glasgow, Scotland and died around 1840. She lived with her two older brothers, James and George, both of whom ran a shipping business. Beginning in 1826 and through 1829, a few preachers in Scotland emphasized that the world’s problems could only be addressed through an outbreak of supernatural gifts from the Holy Spirit. In response, Isabella and Mary Campbell of the parish of Rosneath manifested charismatic experiences such as speaking in tongues. Around 1830, miraculous healings were reported through James Campbell, first of his sister Margaret MacDonald and then of Mary Campbell (through James’s letter to Mary). Shortly thereafter James and George MacDonald manifested the speaking and interpretations of tongues, and soon others followed suit in prayer meetings. These charismatic experiences garnered major national attention. Many came to see and investigate these events. Some, such as Edward Irving and Henry Drummond, regarded these events as genuine displays from the Holy Spirit. Others, including John Nelson Darby and Benjamin Wills Newton, whom the Brethren sent on their behalf to investigate, came to the conclusion that these displays were demonic. … (Wikipedia)
The Wikipedia article then offers an account of what Margaret MacDonald said. Salient points are presented here:
I was made to stop and cry out, O it is not known what the sign of the Son of Man is; … I saw it was just the Lord himself descending from Heaven … I saw the error to be, that men think that it will be something seen by the natural eye; but ’tis spiritual discernment that is needed, the eye of God in his people. … Only those who have the light of God within them (the Holy Spirit) will see the sign of his appearance. (Wikipedia)
In this opening burst she contradicts the clear word of scripture, which says in Revelation 1:7:
Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.
She appears to say in the above that only Christians – believers born by the Holy Spirit – will see Christ’s return. But she is saying more than that. Look at the following:
I saw that we must be in the Spirit, that we might see spiritual things. John was in the Spirit, when he saw a throne set in Heaven.
She is describing the apostle John caught up by God in a vision. She is saying that in order to see Christ’s return it is not enough to be a born again believer. In her view, unless you have given yourself to experiencing some special form of ecstatic knowledge beyond rational thought, the return of Christ will be invisible to you. That is partly what she is referring to when she continues with this:
… the spiritual temple must and shall be reared, and the fullness of Christ be poured into his body, and then shall we be caught up to meet him.
We need to parse her words a little. She contradicts scripture and she is wrong to say that… (oops. Sorry. The thought is unfinished.)
So, if John Darby did not get this from the Irvingites, where did he get it? Partly this represented his conversion from the Anglican postmillennialism of his day. The term “postmillennial” simply refers to the return of Christ following after a glorious “millennial reign” of a thousand years under which mankind finds peace through obedience to God’s law. Postmillennialism holds that Christ will not return until the Christian Church has evangelized the whole world.
Darby was an English/Irish aristocrat and was educated as such. As a young man (not yet aware of any calling to the ministry) he studied at the prestigious Trinity College, of Dublin, founded in the 1500s as an Anglican seminary. While Darby is famous as a futurist premillennialist, among those he studied under at Trinity was Richard Graves (1763-1829), a “postmillennialist, who ‘expected a future literal kingdom of Christ universally extended over the earth.’ (John Nelson Darby and the Rapture, Dr. Thomas Ice quoting F.S. Elmore of Dallas Theological Seminary).” This was apparently a position that the student Darby accepted at the time. Ice continues that, “Darby also adopted Graves philo-Semitic view of the Jews, their future conversion and reestablishment in their homeland (ibid.).” He then quotes Elmore as saying that there was an,
atmosphere of millennial expectancy in (Darby’s training that) certainly had its effect on his eschatology. The postmillennialism of Graves dealt very literally with unfulfilled prophecy, and spawned an attitude of anticipation for an imminent change in dispensation.’ The influence of Graves upon Darby was significant and inculcated in him ideas and subject that would later become central in Darby’s thought and writings. … The theological grist for Darby’s later synthesis was certainly present at Trinity College in his student days.
In early 1826, the same year the revivalist movements in Ireland and Scotland began, Darby was ordained a priest in the Anglican Church in Ireland. During that year and the next he was involved in an evangelistic effort in the greater Dublin area that was converting 600-800 people a week to Anglicanism. But when his archbishop began to require oaths of allegiance to the British Crown as part of conversion from Roman Catholicism the numbers dropped to nearly zero. This presented to Darby what must have seemed like the dark underside of a postmillenialist union between Church and State and was a large part of his leaving the Anglican Church and falling in with those that became known as the Plymouth Brethren. At this juncture he was rejecting the postmillennial concept he had been taught of the Church constituted as the millennial kingdom under an earthly king such as the British Crown. He was rejecting postmillennialism for an emergent premillennialist theology. Thomas Ice comments on some of his memoirs regarding these changes:
I came to understand that I was united to Christ in heaven (directly and without an earthly intermediary), and that consequently, my place before God was represented by His own.’ … Such a heavenly standing becomes the basis for much of Darby’s theology that sees the believer already positioned with Christ in heaven. ‘I was in Christ, accepted in the Beloved, and sitting in heavenly places in Him. This led me directly to the apprehension of what the true church of God was, those that were united to Christ in heaven. … At the same time, I saw that the Christian, having his place in Christ in heaven, has nothing to wait for save the coming of the Saviour, in order to be set, in fact, in the glory which is already his portion “in Christ.” (John Nelson Darby and the Rapture, Dr. Thomas Ice, quoting and commenting on Darby)
Here Darby appears to be rejecting postmillennial requirements of a Church perfected by a political and social structure that projects the kingdom of God into the world as the millennial kingdom to which Christ would return. He is replacing this with Christ coming to a Church that already has a perfected standing before him by nature of, as it would be said today, being born again. This frees Darby to see, ”the coming of Christ to take the church,” as it is, “to Himself in glory.” This could happen at any time, and Ice comments that,
Such a cluster of beliefs that were formulated at this time provides the rationale for a pretribulational rapture. Darby saw a change in dispensation. This could mean that it was at this time that shifted in his eschatology from postmillennialism to premillennialism. ‘Christ coming to receive us to Himself; and collaterally with that, the setting up of a new earthly dispensation, from Isaiah xxxii. (more particularly the end) … I saw an evident change of dispensation in that chapter, when the Spirit would be poured out on the Jewish nation, and a king reign in righteousness.’
Darby, then, closes the loop by saying that the Church is now in a king-less dispensation wherein Christ alone is its king and believers are subjects of an invisible realm. He sees this church caught up to a heavenly or spiritual kingdom at Christ’s first, pre-tribulational, return. For Darby this ushers in the dispensation of earthly kingdoms, where first Antichrist attempts to rule, but after seven years Christ comes to rule as an earthly king over an earthly kingdom – and he rules this realm for a thousand years. Through Darby, the Protestant concept of the Church of the 19th and 20th centuries, which has no earthly vicar but is ruled by Christ alone, is very tied to dispensationalism and a pre-tribulational rapture.
But while the “Irvingite” revelations did not undergird Darby’s views and did not catch on with the Brethren, they did make other inroads. You can learn part of this history by reading Henry Drummond the Hun, a chapter in the online book, PRE-TRIBULATION PLANNING FOR A POST-TRIBULATION RAPTURE, by Tribwatch.com 1997
Tribwatch.com goes deeply into the roots, as you can see by the following. Taking the reader beyond the report that the “rapture” doctrine began with a vision, it points out that, “The Irvingites were led by (19th century elite banker) Henry Drummond of England … ,” which is a family line that is or is close to the very high level Rose family.
A prayer movement that had begun around 1820 in England with (among others) James Haldane Stewart, spread through Great Britain, the United States, and Europe. In 1830 it bore fruit in Port Glasgow, Scotland (among dissenters), and Karlshuld, Bavaria, in the form of prophecy, speaking in tongues, and miraculous healings.
During this time, in 1826, Drummond had assembled a group at his mansion in Albury Park, England, who, believing they were in the end-times, agreed to re-institute the apostolic ministry by “prophesying to themselves” 12 within their midst as apostles. Henry was made their head as apostle to Scotland. This assembly was one in a series of “Albury Conferences”. They emphasized speaking in tongues and other Heaven-sent gifts and preached a form of a pre-tribulational rapture wherein the raptured put on Godhood while remaining physically present on earth.
In 1835 they formed a church, which became known as the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church. They were also called “Irvingites”, after a preacher, Edward Irving, who was thought to have been a forerunner of their ideas. Irving in his turn had been influenced by a Jesuit priest, Manuel Lacunza4, who wrote under the assumed Jewish name of Juan Josafat Ben-Ezra. Also, “James Hatley Frere, involved with Drummond long before the (Irvingites existed, was) known for his strong influence on Edward Irving: ‘James Hatley Frere… seems to have deliberately selected Irving to be the popular mouthpiece of his Apocalyptic speculations’ (http://christianbeliefs.org/books/cm/cm-irving.html)”. Irving, based in a church in England, became very popular I his turn; drawing thousands to his summer mission tours in Scotland during 1827, 28.
Frere preceded the rapture doctrine, but seems to have promoted something similar: the doctrine of an “invisible” spiritual return of Christ that consisted of certain believers being invisibly “raptured” into a state of perfection while still living on earth. This was expected to usher in a millennial reign wherein these raptured souls, the elect of the elect, would rule the world. This thought was behind the election of the 12 apostles referred to above. Their fairly immediate expectation was to rule the world from 12 thrones, with Henry Drummond the chiefest among them as the apostle of Scotland.
Now it gets particularly interesting, for it begins to bring to view serial attempts by some clandestine group or groups to use the bible as a script to enact an end-time scenario of their own and through it to gain control of the world. Following in the wake of the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, “others besides the Irvingites latched onto pre-tribulationism (e.g. John Darby), and … even took credit for the false doctrine away from the Irvingites, unto themselves.”
Frere’s invisible rapture is echoed again in the doctrine of a “Christian astrologer” and pyramidologist named Joseph Seiss, and an American Mason, Charles Russell, founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The http://www.premier1 website cites a man name Jonsson as concluding that, “the invisible-coming doctrine ‘was picked up later by [Joseph] Seiss and (Charles Taze) Russell probably “plagiarized” the works of Seiss in his “invisible presence” doctrine.’” The Drummond invisible-coming scheme continued through Seiss to the American Christian pyramidologist and probably freemason, C. T. Russell, whose Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society led directly to the founding of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Charles Taze Russell was born in Allegheny, PA in 1852 to Irish immigrants who had left Ireland during the potato famine six years before, at, “a time when every village in Scotland and Britain had a Masonic Lodge (and) atonement heresies (were prevalent) along with some (Presbyterian) leaders adopting the Arian view of Christ. … Charles grew up zealously accepting the Presbyterian worldview and heritage of his parents. … Considering the evidence, Charles’ doubts about orthodox Christian doctrines may have been a reflection of his father’s doubts. (Springmeier, pg. 7,9).” As a teenager Russell took up the Arian view that Jesus Christ was merely a good man, and not God the Son.
Later, Springmeier says this. “Note, that a Presbyterian minister James Anderson was responsible for the creation of modern Freemasonry. Presbyterian ministers in Russell’s day played an important role in various lodges (Springmeier, pg. 13).” Concerning the town where Russell grew up, Springmeier adds that there was a, “heavy concentration of Scot-Irish immigrants in the area. … In 1851, in the Pittsburgh-Allegheny area there were 52 lodges of various kinds of Freemasons and Oddfellows, including a Scottish Rite lodge. … By 1858, Pittsburgh had its own Masonic Knights Templar Commandery. … Although the Masons are now spread throughout the world, when (and certainly where) Charles T. Russell grew up, it was still primarily a Scot-Irish/English blooded membership. … Russell rejected the Presbyterian and the Congregational Churches that he belonged to, because they believed in hell, and not because they allowed Freeemasons within their congregations (Springmeier, pg. 12,13,17).”
“Joseph Smith’s Masonic membership is proven, and Mary Baker Eddy’s close ties with the Freemasons are documented. … Mary Baker Eddy (and some Mormons) have used the same Masonic logo that Russell displayed (Springmeier, pg. 14,15).”
Springmeier believes that Russell was influenced by his father as well as by the Arian and Masonic undercurrents of his culture. He believes that after Russell left the Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches over the doctrine of eternal damnation and his Arianism, he found in one George Storrs, “someone to provide the accurate defense of those views (Springmeier, pg. 21).
Springmeier says that beginning at least in the 1730s professors at the University of Glasgow were teaching Arianism and that the preachers in Ulster, Russell’s mother’s home in Ireland had all been trained there. He concludes that,
generations of young susceptible minds were led into heresy by the staff of this university. This theological training explains why Ulster County churches were Arian in view for many years, and how the New-Light movement was able to steadily progress, and ultimately take over control of the Synod of Ulster, Ireland. … The Synod of Ulster degenerated for several generations into heretical views of salvation and Christ. … By July 30, 1829, the Arians knew they were beat, and many of them formed their own synod. The strength and numbers of the Arians continued to decline over the next years. In 1841, the Arians and the Trinitarians clashed again in the Scottish Presbyterian churches. And from this hotbed of heresy in Ulster comes Charles T. Russell’s parents. (Springmeier, pg. 22-24).
Noting that Russell is known to have preached on the parallels between the Masonic Hiram Abiff and Jesus Christ, Springmeier says, “Masonic sources and some of their best references show that in spite of their public denials, they do view Hiram Abiff as the Messiah figure. Since Russell would not have learned that Freemasons view Hiram Abiff as the Messiah from a casual conversation with a Mason, he must have learned it from an indepth study of the Masons. The author has never heard or read in 20 years of sermons, any Christian preacher showing Christ’s Messiahship by appealing to parallels to Hiram Abiff (Springmeier, pg. 28).
The chapter continues, “Nathan Rothschild may have played a/the leadership role in the Drummond attempt at world rule,” saying they both lived in London, and, “Apparently, feigning Armageddon (with the first world war) was a part of the Rothschild hoax, for Russell had predicted the setting up of God’s Kingdom on the first year of the war (1914).”
C. T. Russell and J. F. Rutherford were foundational to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They made all the decisions of the Watchtower Society for the first 60 years. Russell was one of America’s early Christian Zionists. But after Russell’s death in 1916 his church reverted to an anti-Zionist position. At first there was a struggle over which of Russell’s hand-picked directors5 would be in charge. One of them, Joseph Rutherford, took the day and by the 1930s had the Watch Tower teaching “anti-Semitism” in its Awake! Magazine6 claiming to stand against the Jewish internationalist banking power. At that time they began publishing statements like these: “It has been the commercial Jews of the British-American empire that have built up and carried on Big Business as a means of exploiting and oppressing the peoples of many nations (Awake! July 8, 1998 pages 13-14 quoting the Watch Tower Society’s 1933 ‘Declaration of Facts’)” and “There has never been the slightest bit of money contributed to our work by Jews (Ibid. page 13)” (Watch Tower puts new Spin on its 1933 anti-Jewish Remarks).7 These statements may not mean that Rutherford’s Watch Tower Society actually stood against the banking power, but only that it wanted to be perceived as such. For example, during the 1930s the organization looked favorably upon and promoted the rise of Hitler. Hitler, however, while he appeared to be virulently antagonistic to the bankers, was actually raised to power largely through their financial support. Just as the internationalist bankers were a mainstay of Hitler’s rise financially, the Watch Tower served as a propaganda arm for the same cause.
According to Fritz Springmeier, in his 244 page book, The Watchtower and the Masons,
There is a coming New World Order planned by the secretive leaders of the Jehovah’s Witnesses that should scare the socks off anyone including the JWs themselves. However, if this New World Order were only in the hands of Jehovah’s Witnesses to initiate, we could relax, because they have only minimal political clout, few guns, and teach non- participation in war. It’s when we get the bigger picture that we realize these people are talking about something serious.
This author’s research has led him to conclude that the 1- world-government 1-world-religion that the New Age has planned for us, and the 1-world-government and 1-world-religion that the Freemasons such as the Grand Orient have planned, and the Watchtower Society’s New Order are one and the same. (And,) the Jehovah’s Witnesses are playing a big role in preparing the world for this incoming world government. (pgs. 3,4). …
The book covers the second WT President’s modus operandi in covering up the use of a demonic (Watchtower) healing device. It also shows how demons played the crucial role in channeling information to the Watchtower leaders. Each of these items is just a piece in the puzzle about who these men are, and what their objectives are.
The story becomes yet more interesting when we ask why groups like the internationalist bankers, aristocratic families, and secret societies would give any serious thought to using biblical prophecies about the end of Days as a script for world takeover.
Did Henry Drummond see his ancestry in the savage Huns? Was he, in his Histories, leaking information that Drummond elitists/Illuminatists … secrets are bound, not only in Attila, but in the Huns previous to him? The Huns are traced back to a union between a Scythian and a Sumerian (i.e. a Magogite and Nimrod)–the mortal enemies of the Biblical God…the God which the Drummonds professed to serve?
In a Hungarian myth, Nimrod (the engineer of the Tower of Babel) begot two sons, Hunor and Magor, who migrated north to Caucasia/Magog and lived there. Modern Hungarians still freely claim descent from both Huns and Magyars. After Attila settled Hungary temporarily, he was followed a century later by the Avar Huns and, finally, a century after the Avar empire came to a close (in 796), the Magyar king, Arpad, became the patriarch of the modern Hungarians. Remember that name, “Arpad,” for his family line was considered gravely important.
In a Hungarian myth-like legend, a Magogite by the name of “Ugyek” had a son, “Almos,” who is destined to be a great conqueror toward the west [i.e. into Europe]…i.e. so as to finish the world-conquest job that Attila started but failed to complete. The reality (i.e. not in the legend) is that an Almos did exist in Hungarian history, and he was the father of Arpad, the founder of modern Hungary. Thus the legend was concocted after the facts to record and express some realities, while disguising others. What’s interesting is that Ugyek is said to be a descendant of “king Magog” of Ezekiel’s time, and from that tidbit we are urged into thinking that the myth’s author(s) was connecting the Hungarians to the Biblical Gog.
And finally, the story of these powerful secretive groups attempting to weave a spell over the peoples of the world to produce the illusion of the fulfillment of Christian prophecy necessitates a thorough infiltration of the Christian churches of the world: the great apostacy.
1Dispensational premillennialists hold that the nation of Israel will be saved and restored to a place of preeminence in the millennium. Thus, Israel will have a special function of service in the millennium that is different from that of the Church or saved Gentiles. … The Christians who reign with Christ (during the millennium) will all have been given eternal, glorified bodies, and will reign spiritually, while the Jews will own the world physically, and will live, marry, and die (although evincing incredible longevity), just as people have throughout the history of the world.” (http://www.gotquestions.org/dispensational-premillennialism.html)
2GotQuestions?org adds that the term, “Darbyism”, refers to the, “modern school of Bible prophecy interpretation called ‘dispensational premillennialism’. … The distinguishing and most controversial features in modern dispensational premillennialism are: (1) belief in a secret pre- seven year tribulation rapture of the Church, and (2) insistence on maintaining a careful distinction between God’s purpose for national Israel, and God’s purpose for the Church, in the divine plan of the ages … .”
3One would think that an association established outside the calcified halls of the institutionalized churches would freely follow the Holy Spirit; but apparently Darby ruled the Brethren with an iron hand. This is a conclusion drawn from Napolean Noel’s two-volume The History of the Brethren (Denver: W. F. Knapp, 1936) by http://www.hccentral.com/gkeys/darby.html
4Lacunza may have been influenced by a Jesuit predecessor, a Jesuit doctor of theology, Francisco Ribera (1537-1591) who put forward his “Futurist” interpretation of Daniel’s 70 weeks and the 1260 days of Revelation in his book, entitled In Sacrum Beati Ioannis Apostoli, & Evangelistiae Apocalypsin Commentarij. He concluded the book of Revelation had no application to the middle ages or the papacy, but applied to a future period of seven years just prior to the Second Coming of Christ.
5The directors names were J. F. Rutherford, A. N. Pierson, J. D. Wright, A. I. Ritchie, I. F. Hoskins, R. H. Hirsh.
6“It is interesting to note that Charles T. Russell (the Society’s founder) looked beyond the Bible in his quest for hidden knowledge. Although his membership as a Mason can’t been conclusively confirmed, his personal philosophy reflected Masonry, and Masonic influence can still be detected in today’s Watchtower organization. (For one example,) Masons practice a form of ritual magick they call “The Craft.” It is, therefore, no accident that the main JW periodicals are called “The Watchtower” and “Awake!” since the four Archangels summoned in Enochian magick inhabit Watchtowers and are known as the “Awake Ones” who monitor human evolution. This is ironic, since Jehovah’s Witnesses are very careful to avoid anything that has pagan origins.” Watchtower of Babel
7After a period of denial beginning in 1974, the Watch Tower has reiterated its stance against the Jewish banking power, saying that the 1933 Declaration made a “clear statement” of the position of the Watch Tower Society. (Ibid. page 12).
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