Irenaeus- Christ Is The True Knowledge

“True knowledge, then, consists in the understanding of Christ, which Paul terms the wisdom of God hidden in a mystery, which “the natural man receiveth not” (1 Cor. 2: 14), the doctrine of the Cross; of which if any man “taste” (1 Peter 2: 3), he will not accede to the disputations and quibbles of proud and puffed up men (1 Tim. 6: 4-5), who go into matters of which they have no perception (Col. 2: 18).  For the truth is unsophisticated; and “the word is nigh thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart” (Rom. 10: 8), as the same apostle declares, being easy of comprehension to those who are obedient.  For it renders us like to Christ, if we experience “the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings” (Phil. 3: 10).  For this is the affinity of the apostolical teaching and the most holy “faith delivered unto us” (Jude 3), which the unlearned receive, and those of slender knowledge have taught, not “giving heed to endless genealogies” (1 Tim. 1: 4), but studying rather to observe a straightforward course in life; lest, having been deprived of the Divine Spirit, they fail to attain to the kingdom of heaven.  For truly the first thing is to deny one’s self and to follow Christ; and those who do this are borne onward to perfection, having fulfilled all their Teacher’s will, becoming sons of God by spiritual regeneration, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven; those who seek which first shall not be forsaken.”

The Reign Of Peace And Righteousness… When?

(from The Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, Vol. 2, 1850)

“Philosophy is at a fault.  It cannot extricate itself.  All its plans of the bright future, its magnificent sketches of a reign of justice, are nothing better than fancy or fable.  This mountain-barrier of 6,000 years’ guilt stands unremoved.  Dissolve this and then talk of progression–but not till then.  Provide even for the gradual extinction of this, and the theory of a self-regenerating world will not halt so grievously.  But with this rising before us, such a theory cannot for an hour be maintained.  Before there can be a reign of righteousness upon earth there must be a vindication of God’s righteous government; there must be a public judicial demonstration of God’s unchanged purpose to carry out to the uttermost that law which has all along proclaimed: ‘Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.’

“Hence the absolute necessity for a judgment before the Millennium.  A reign of peace upon the earth, without a previous judgment in one form or other, would be a nullification of all God’s principles of holy government–an overleaping of the righteous barrier–a making light of the infinite guilt of sin.  So that a public, solemn, visible, judicial process at the commencement of the Millennial reign, instead of being an incongruity, is just what we might have expected, reasoning from the great principles of Scripture.”