The Epistle of Barnabas
There have been several other chroniclers in history as well as those who have written about time prophecies. Pastor Russell comments on the “venerable tradition” is in his second volume of Studies in the Scriptures, The Time is at Hand.
“Here we furnish the evidence that from the creation of Adam to AD 1873 was six thousand years. And though the Bible contains no direct statement that the seventh thousand will be the epoch of Christ’s reign, the great Sabbath Day of restitution to the world, yet the venerable tradition is not without a reasonable foundation” (Page 39).
In the apocryphal epistle of Barnabas, the writer, clearly not the beloved disciple,1 sheds light on the Jewish and early Christian tradition that the end of the 6000 years of time from the creation of Adam to our day would mark a momentous event in the history of the world. Below is the actual quote from the Epistle of Barnabas.
“Further, also, it is written concerning the Sabbath in the Decalogue which [the Lord] spoke, face to face, to Moses on Mount Sinai, ‘And sanctify ye the Sabbath of the Lord with clean hands and a pure heart.’ And He says in another place, ‘If my sons keep the Sabbath, then will I cause my mercy to rest upon them.’ The Sabbath is mentioned at the beginning of the creation [thus]: ‘And God made in six days the works of His hands, and made an end on the seventh day, and rested on it, and sanctified it.’ Attend, my children, to the meaning of this expression, ‘He finished in six days.’ This implieth that the Lord will finish all things in six thousand years, for a day is with Him a thousand years. And He Himself testifieth, saying, ‘Behold, today will be as a thousand years.’ Therefore, my children, in six days, that is, in six thousand years, all things will be finished. ‘And He rested on the seventh day.’ This meaneth: when His Son, coming [again], shall destroy the time of the wicked man, and judge the ungodly, and change the sun, and the moon, and the stars, then shall He truly rest on the seventh day” (Chapter XV, The False and the True Sabbath).
“Among the Apostolic Fathers Barnabas is the first and the only one who expressly teaches a pre-millennial reign of Christ on earth. He considers the Mosaic history of the creation a type of six ages of labor for the world, each lasting a thousand years, and of a millennium of rest; since with God ‘one day is as a thousand years.’ The millennial Sabbath on earth will be followed by an eighth and eternal day in a new world, of which the Lord’s Day (called by Barnabas ‘the seventh day’) is the type” (Schaff ’s History of the Christian Church).
— Jeff Mezera
(1) Editor’s note: McClintock and Strong’s article on Barnabas, Epistle, finds that scholars generally consider this epistle to be from early in the second century.