The Hope of the Gospel (Future: The Millennium)

In our previous articles, we have looked at the Rapture and the Tribulation. Those two events are about all we get on eschatology out of the Thessalonian letters. However, there are a few other events that the Bible describes which are closely connected. So, in this and the following article, I want to look at them, even if this takes us away from our initial text.

Revelation 20:1-2 is one of the most controversial passages in the Bible. It describes a thousand-year period which is usually referred to as the 'Millennium' (coming from the Latin word for thousand).

The subject of the Millennium is a very controversial one. Like the Tribulation, there are three main views on the subject which have to do with its relation to the Rapture. We have premillennialism, amillennialism, and postmillennialism. However, unlike the views on the Tribulation, the timing isn't the main issue. The question isn't so much when the Millennium happens as it is what on earth is the Millennium.

Premillennialism is the belief that the Rapture happens before the Millennium. Whether the Rapture comes before or after the Tribulation, the point is that both things are finished up, and Christ has enforced His victory over the antichrist and his followers—and then the Millennium happens. 

This is definitely the way the Millennium is presented in the context of Revelation. In Revelation 19, we have the defeat of the antichrist. Here we have those who were martyred under the antichrist's power restored to life. It is presented in a sequential narrative; it is literally the next chapter in the story.

What is the Millennium, then, under this theory? It is a prolonged period of time, following the Rapture, when Jesus and some or all of His saints will be physically living on earth. During this time, Satan will be curtailed in his activity.

However, this will not be Heaven on earth. At the end of the Millennium, Satan will raise a rebellion against God from the peoples of Earth. We assume that those who have experienced the Resurrection are no longer liable to temptation or sin. John says that over these the second death has no power, meaning they could not be lost or damned. Therefore, there must be other people living on earth during this time who are not among the resurrected saints. Apparently, there will be some people who survive the judgments of the tribulation and who are not destroyed along with the antichrist at the end of Revelation 19. So these people will live on earth during the Millennium and assumably marry and have children and basically go through life like normal.

This concept of resurrected and glorified saints living on earth alongside normal, mortal people is incredibly bizarre and feels like something out of a late 20th-century fantasy novel; though it is no less likely to be true for that reason.

There are several prophecies from the Old Testament which some take to refer to this millennial period. The most famous is probably Isaiah 65 which describes a time of peace and plenty ending with the words of verse 25: “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD.”

There is something else we should note. In Isaiah 65, God seems to be speaking largely of Jerusalem and Israel. The picture is largely of some kind of blessing on Israel as a nation. Several other places in the Old Testament seem to picture a national restoration of Israel; and not merely a national restoration but a spiritual one. We talked before about Paul's prophecy of this in Romans 11:26: “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.”

Premillennialists would put all of this as happening during the Millennium; that during the Millennium, Israel will return to the true God and will be established as an important nation. Most say that Jesus will be physically reigning over the earth with Jerusalem as His capital.

This is the Millennium, then—a time when Christ and his saints rule over a still fallen but better earth inhabited by fallible, fallen humans. This period will end with a rebellion against Christ which is dispatched by supernatural power and leads the way to the final events of eschatology.

That is premillennialism, the belief that the Rapture happens before the Millennium. Postmillennialism teaches that the Rapture happens at the end of the Millennium, and amillennialism teaches that there is no Millennium. However, these two viewpoints, though different, tend to overlap. Remember I said that the debate here is not so much about when the Millennium is as what it is. Post- and amillennialism are united in the agreement that Revelation 20 does not describe a literal, physical event that takes place within time.

Some amillennialists believe that Revelation 20 describes some spiritual event that takes place on the heavenly plane. Others believe that this is a symbolic description of the church and the kingdom of God in this world. For amillennialists, the Millennium would be parallel with our present life.

Postmillennialism overlaps with this idea; postmillennialists also tend to connect the Millennium with the church and God's kingdom in this world. However, postmillennialists believe that as God's work continues in this world, there will come a period of revival and general righteousness, a time when the gospel has spread to all this world, and this specifically is what Revelation 20 describes, though still symbolically. In this case, the Millennium will occur in the future for us but before the final events of eschatology.

As I said before, premillennialism is the most obvious interpretation given the context of Revelation 20 in the flow of Revelation as a book. So why do so many people disagree with it?

First, the Bible makes it sound as if during the Tribulation, all the world will side with the antichrist except those who are in Christ. It wouldn't seem as if, by the end of the Tribulation, there would be any left who were neutral, who had not chosen one side or the other. So if at the end of the Tribulation, all Christians are resurrected and all of the antichrist's followers are destroyed, it doesn't seem as if there would be any ordinary people left to inhabit the millennial kingdom. (Unless it is peopled by those who were too young to choose a side during the Tribulation, which is entirely possible.)

Second, if there are people who come to Christ during the millennium, then we have to suppose that there is another resurrection or glorification for them; they would have to be transformed at some point since mortality cannot inherit immortality. John does speak of two resurrections in verses 5-6, but it sounds as if the second resurrection is only for the wicked; it is the second death, not a second life. As Daniel Steele asked: "How can the millennial saints escape the second death, seeing that they have no part in the first resurrection?"

Third, it could be argued that with the visible, glorified person of Christ actively reigning on earth, it would be difficult for anyone to exercise true faith or repentance. The human probationary period—with the possibility of sin or faith—seems to require God to remain somewhat veiled. (The counterargument is that this would be no different from the experience of Adam.)

Fourth, more problems arise if we assume the OT prophecies of a future kingdom are fulfilled in the Millennium. The ending section of Ezekiel is an important example of these prophecies, telling of a new temple that will be built, and it includes this statement: “Then said he unto me, This is the place where the priests shall boil the trespass offering and the sin offering, where they shall bake the meat offering; that they bear them not out into the utter court, to sanctify the people.” (Ezekiel 46:20) 

Now compare that to the words of the New Testament: “Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.” (Hebrews 10:8-9) The author of Hebrews speaks of Christ taking away sacrifices of the law to establish a new covenant based on His own work. It becomes difficult to believe, then, that during the millennial kingdom, God will require people to offer sacrifices for sin.

But whether there is or is not a literal Millennium and whenever it happens, at some point it comes to an end. In the premillennialist viewpoint, it ends with a rebellion of Satan and those living on Earth who side with him. Revelation 20:9 describes this rebellion: “And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.” This is the final judgment of God on the world. Those who do not believe in a literal Millennium would see it as ending with the events of the Tribulation and Rapture (in whatever order you place those.) And with the story of this world over, we reach the final events of eschatology.