The Truth About 2012 Series

2012 STUDY NOTES 2

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In the book of Revelation or the book of Unveiling, it is divided into three sections by the prophet John. First in chapter 1, “The things which were” or the things that you have seen. Second in Chapter 2-3, “The things which are” which deals with God’s message to the seven churches of the Western Asian province under Roman rule. Finally in last section, “the things which shall be” in chapters 4-22. Today the book reads almost as a commentary on the world in which we live today.

In this sequence of events, God is discussing a timeline from the current day (around 90 AD) looking back, looking at today and looking forward to the “end of days”.

Time is very important to God. God sent His Son in the first advent at the “fulness of time”. (Gal. 4:4) and will order Him to the earth for the second advent at a very specific time.

Mayan Calendar

The Great Cycle of the Mayan Long Count calendar ends on the winter solstice of 2012 A.D. Following Mayan concepts of cyclic time and World Age transitions, this is as much about beginnings as endings. In fact, it was considered by the ancient Mayans to signify the creation of a new World Age. We are almost at the end of the fifth and final 5,125 year cycle!

Signs in heavens?

Acts 2:18: And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:

Acts 2:19: And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke:

Acts 2:20: The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord come:

If you look back at Biblical History, something significant has happened every 2000 years.

While scholars may debate and try to explain or deny it, it is a fact that biblical chronology describes about 6,000 years from Adam and Eve to the year A.D. 2000. The six creation days of Genesis were undoubtedly prophetic of a planned six "millennial days" of human history, followed by the seventh, or Sabbath, Millennium. "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years" (2 Peter 3:8). God did not require seven days to complete creation. He could have done it in a microsecond or less. The seven days were obviously prophetic, a picture of His planned 6,000-year history of man.

The right of "dominion" over the earth that God gave Adam in Genesis 1:28 was no doubt only a 6,000-year lease -- six millennial days -- the time period established for man’s rule. After the earth lease has expired and a possible transition period, Christ, the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45), will return and assume dominion of the earth as ruling King during the seventh Millennium, having legally purchased back the lease and dominion with His own blood. This would follow the 2,000 years when “God first visited the Gentiles (nations) to take out of them a people for His name" (Acts 15:14). The possible transition period would provide a cleansing of the earth, what we call the Tribulation. Solomon’s reign was a type of Millennium, and it began with a cleansing. Or, the transition might simply be a parenthetical period on God’s calendar between the sixth and seventh millennia.

Early Christian writers held that at the end of 6,000 years of history, Christ would return and reign for 1,000 years (referred to as the Millennium). These included Barnabas (c. A.D. 100), Justin Martyr and Irenaeus (c. A.D. 150), Lactantius (c. A.D. 325), and Methodius, Bishop of Tyre (c. A.D. 300).

For example, Barnabas wrote:

As there have been 2,000 years from Adam to Abraham, and

2,000 from Abraham to Christ; so there will be

2,000 years for the Christian era and then would come the Millennium."

(Some believe the 2,000 years of the Christian era are not modern 365.24-day years, but prophetic, or "God-years" of 360 days each, beginning with the year of Christ’s crucifixion, which scholars debate as from A.D. 30 to 33.

Church father Irenaeus wrote concerning a belief of the early church: "For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years; and in six days created things were completed; it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand years."

Lactantius, tutor of the son of the Roman Emperor Constantine, stated in his Book of Divine Institutes, Chapter 14: "Let the philosophers know that the six thousandth year is not yet completed; and when this number is completed, the consummation must take place."

Later, in A.D. 1552, Bishop Latimer wrote: "The world was ordained to endure, as all learned men affirm, 6,000 years. Now of that number, there be passed 5,552 years (as of A.D. 1552), so that there is no more left but 448 years (ending in A.D. 2000)."