PWMI

Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, was the first great systematic theologian of the Church. He was a comprehensive defender of the faith against the inroads of heresy, especially as represented by the many varieties of Gnosticism.

His influence was probably greater than that of any other Christian leader in the first three centuries. It was not for nothing that Jerome hailed him as ‘the apostolic man’ and that Theodoret saw in him ‘the light of the West.’

Little is known about Irenaeus's early life. He was born in Smyrna and as a young man had heard Polycarp, the martyr bishop of that city, and gained a lifelong impression of his faithfulness to the truth.

He studied in Rome where he may have met Justin Martyr. As a missionary in Lyons Irenaeus providentially escaped the horrific persecution which decimated the ranks of Christians in that area. He was elected bishop shortly after this holocaust and wrote his five books Against Heresies in 185 or thereabouts. His Demonstration of Apostolic Preaching, designed as a handbook of Christian apologetics against Judaism, appeared later.

Irenaeus was primarily a biblical theologian. He laid no claim to originality. He was content to rely solely on the Word of God. Throughout his writings he appealed to the testimony of the Scriptures ‘as preserved by the elders,’ which he simply sought to hand on and apply. Hans von Campenhausen considers that the determinative factor in the theology of lrenaeus is the attitude he ‘adopts towards the Christian Bible, his declared intention of refusing to go beyond that which was revealed from the beginning, and the conviction that the final and irrevocable depositurn of apostolic teaching is once and for all sufficient for salvation.’ What is contained in the Scriptures is, according to Irenaeus, ‘the ground and pillar of our faith.’

The Clue to Prophecy

Arising from this determined biblical approach, Irenaeus was led to regard Christ as the clue to prophecy. He is the treasure hidden in the Scriptures, indicated by means of types and parables. ‘If anyone, therefore, reads the Scriptures with attention, he will find in them an account of Christ, and a foreshadowing of the new calling.’ It is only in the outcome, however, that prophecy becomes plain. Prior to its fulfilment, it remains enigmatical and ambiguous.

But, as Jeremiah has taught us, when the Lord ‘has executed and performed the thoughts of His heart,’ then ‘in the latter days’ we will ‘understand it perfectly (Jer. 23:20). ‘When the time has arrived and the prediction has come to pass,’ Irenaeus explains. ‘then the prophecies have a clear and certain exposition.’ Each will reach its realisation and thus each will receive its elucidation, ‘for with God there is nothing without purpose or due signification.’

Like Justin before him, Irenaeus presses the argument that, since the prophecies relating to Christ s First Advent have been fully vindicated, those relating to the end will also find their precise fulfilment, however puzzling some of them may appear to be now.

lrenaeus adopts an unambiguously premillennial interpretation of prophecy. He places the Return of our Lord after the emergence of the Antichrist, but before the Millennium.

At the close of the age Christ ‘shall come in glory the Saviour of those who are saved, and the Judge of those who are judged, and sending into eternal fire those who transform the truth, and despise His Father and His Advent.’ He ‘will come again in the glory of His Father, to raise up all flesh, and for the verification of salvation, and to apply the rule of just judgement to all who were made by Him.’ He will ‘come with the same flesh in which He suffered, revealing the glory of the Father.’

Antichrist

As the end approaches, Antichrist will set up his kingdom, displacing all idols as objects of worship and concentrating in himself all satanic apostasy.’ Indeed, in the Antichrist is focused the whole apostasy of the six thousand years which Irenaeus believed would elapse before the Return of Christ.

He was, of course, mistaken in setting such a specific time schedule — based on the six days of creation — but he at least knew that the end is not to be expected immediately since the dissolution of the Roman empire and the establishment of the ten kingdoms had not then taken place (Dan. 7:24).

It is clear that Irenaeus identifies the Antichrist with the man of sin, or lawlessness, of whom the apostle Paul speaks in 2 Thessalonians 2:3,4. He is ‘the Son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.’ He will be the key figure in the great apostasy which is to precede the Day of the Lord.

‘Then it will be shown that he, being an apostate and a robber, is anxious to be adored as God: and that, although a mere slave, he wishes himself to be proclaimed as king. For he being endued with all the power of the devil, shall come, not as a righteous king, nor as a legitimate king, in subjection to God, but an impious, unjust and lawless one.’

The Antichrist is also recognised as fulfilling Daniel’s prophecy concerning the little horn with ‘eyes and a mouth which spoke pompous words, whose appearance was greater than this fellows’ (Dan. 7:20, cf. v.8). Irenaeus connects this passage with 2 Thessalonians 2:8,9 — ‘then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders.’

Irenaeus further identifies the Antichrist with the Beast from the sea in Revelation 3:2-10. ‘When he is come, and of his own accord concentrates in his own person the apostasy, and accomplishes whatever he shall do according to his own will and choice, sitting also in the temple of God, so that his dupes may adore him as the Christ,’ God is nevertheless still in control throughout, for it is he who at the appointed time will send such a man so ‘that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness (2 Thess. 2:1,12).

When the Antichrist has devastated the world, reigning for three years and six months in Jerusalem, then, Irenaeus explains, ‘the Lord will come from heaven in the clouds, in the glory of the Father, sending this man and those who follow him into the lake of fire, but bringing in for the righteous the times of the Kingdom, that is, the rest, the hallowed seventh day; and restoring to Abraham the promised inheritance, in which Kingdom the Lord declared that "many coming from the east and the west should sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob"' (Matt. 8:11).

The First Resurrection

Irenaeus regards the resurrection of the righteous as occurring after the Antichrist has appeared and in conjunction with the Second Coming of Christ. After quoting some of the Old Testament prophecies about the desolation of the earth under the Antichrist, he proceeds to appeal to Isaiah 6:12 and 65:21. These and other passages, he claims, ‘were unquestionably spoken in reference to the resurrection of the just, which takes place after the coming of Antichrist, and the destruction of all nations under his rifle; in which the righteous shall reign in the earth, waxing stronger by the sight of the Lord.’ This is ‘the first resurrection’ of Revelation 20:6, which Irenaeus distinguishes from the resurrection of the wicked.

And the Lord have removed men far away and there be a
great forsaking in the midst of the land. Isaiah 6v12

Among those who will share in the first resurrection are the Old Testament saints. The prophets and the righteous of the former dispensation desired to see the true Messiah and to hear His words. This was denied them in their lifetime, but in he Millennium they will actually see and hear Him in the flesh.

Only so can the promises be fulfilled. It is not enough to argue that they anticipated Christ’s coming by faith, nor that their dream was realised in their descendants. In the Millennium Christ will be present ‘with all those who were from the beginning approved by God.’

The Millennium

That leads us to consider the treatment of the Millennium itself, which Irenaeus accepts as traditional orthodoxy, as Canon J. N. D. Kelly has shown. Irenaeus protests against any attempt to evade the implications of Millennial prophecies by resorting to the subterfuge of allegorisation.

This he dismisses as a Gnostic strategem. The Millennium is a literal, earthly Kingdom.

After citing a series of passages from Isaiah, Irenaeus insists that such references cannot be satisfactorily understood as applicable only to an extraterrestrial sphere. In the Millennium the earth itself is to be restored to its original condition before the fall, and the actual city of Jerusalem is to be rebuilt after the pattern of the Jerusalem above.

Christ, he claims, ‘cannot by any means be understood as drinking of the fruit of the vine. . . above in a super-celestial place; nor, again, are those who drink of it devoid of flesh’ (cf. Luke 22:18). Irenaeus’s belief in a bodily resurrection demands such a conclusion, he supposes.

The terrestrial Millennium is not, however, an end in itself, according to Irenaeus, as John Lawson explains. It is the final stage of man’s ultimate destiny. It is ‘the commencement of incorruption, by means of which Kingdom those who shall be worthy are accustomed gradually to partake of the divine nature.’ ‘The righteous shall reign in the earth, waxing strong by the sight of the Lord, and through Him they shall become accustomed to partake in the glory of God the Father, and shall enjoy.. . communion with the holy angels, and union with spiritual beings.’

The Son and the Spirit will still be mediators of God to men. ‘They ascend through the Spirit to the Son, and through the Son to the Father, and in due time the Son will yield up His work to the Father.’

The sight of the Son in the Millennium will prepare believers for the eternal and heavenly vision. ‘For God is powerful in all things, having been seen at that time indeed prophetically through the Spirit, and see, too, adaptively, through the Son, He shall also be seen paternally in the Kingdom of heaven.’

There are those who regret that Irenaeus is liable to introduce what they regard as unduly features relating to the Millennium — as, for example, the exaggerated fertility of the earth — which they think have their source in Jewish apocalyptic rather than in the Word of God. But although he may tend to confuse biblical and Judaistic ideas in his descriptions, his emphasis on the literal fulfilment of the prophecies concerning the Millennial Kingdom is noteworthy and necessary.

Judgement

According to Irenaeus, the general resurrection and the judgement will follow the descent of the New Jerusalem at the end of the Millennium. The great white throne will be set up after the times of the Kingdom.’ Irenaeus carefully expounds Revelation 20:11-15 with its account of how ‘the dead, small and great’ (v.12) will be summoned to stand before God and the books will be opened.

The Return of Christ, which is ‘for the resurrection of believers, and those who do the will of His Father in heaven’ is ‘for the ruin, certainly of those who do not belong to Him, to whom also he has threatened a greater damnation in the judgement day than that of Sodom and Gomorrah.’

Irenaeus recognises that this judgement is final. There is no hint of a possible purgatory The Lord ‘judges for eternity those whom He does judge, and lets go free for eternity those whom He does let free.’ In righteousness He will ‘judge those who, enjoying His equally distributed kindness, have led lives not corresponding to the dignity of His bounty; but who have spent their days in wantonness and luxury, in opposition to His benevolence, and have, moreover, even blasphemed Him who has conferred so great benefits upon them.’

With the Gnostics in mind, Irenaeus deplores the way in which some in his day stressed the mercy of Christ but were silent about the judgement. They even dared to suggest that only the God of love is the true God and that He must be altogether dissociated from the God of righteous wrath who cannot abide iniquity. Such unbalanced views are by no means unknown today. Irenaeus rightly reminds us from the Scriptures that ‘God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life’ (Gal. 6:7,8).

As the title would suggest this is a study on the life of Jacob and one that is well worth reading especially if you want to be challenged about your walk with God. it is a must for the serious Christian as it will enable him to focus his sights on the reality of being one with God. The author is very readable and makes the dramatic story of Jacob come alive. It is pulsating with personal experience and close encounters of a man whose lifestyle was changed by the grace of God. It is honest. It is unassuming. It is vibrant. It is preachable. it is stimulating. And, it will be an investment that is guaranteed to reap rich dividends. Buy it and allow yourself to become more like Jesus!

 

YT 06/91