Millenniallism
The Thousand Years of
Revelation 20
By TaI
Brooke
Chuck Smith and I were both leaders on
the
Now, on the plane back to
Christ was to rule the earth from
Now imagine trying to set up shop and
pick up the pieces from there to jump-start a millennium of universal
bounty!
The incongruity of Christ occupying a
third temple didn’t fit the Jesus in the pages of the Bible. His only
prediction about the temple was its certain destruction within that
generation
(which happened in A .D. 70 when Titus
destroyed the
city and the temple). Many believe that Christ, in His new role as
Messiah,
would reinstitute animal sacrifices. The very Lamb of God, who was once
foreshadowed by such temple sacrifices, had Himself annulled them by
His ransom
sacrifice on the Cross-indeed, their final fulfillment. The idea that
He would
once again oversee these same Old Covenant animal sacrifices was
unthinkable!
A Judaized
apocalyptic vision was trumping the long-accepted Christian view of the
On a practical level, if we take the
literal interpretation route, the millennial survivors would need
centuries to
clean-up the oceans and lakes and rivers (imagine filtering out the
heavy
metals and toxins in Lake Erie alone—much less the vast Pacific), and
to bury
the millions of dead, just to make the planet livable.
To me, a figurative symbol was being
forced into a literal context with a convoluted timescale along with
many
incongruous pieces. The practical problems of going from symbol to
literal are
massive, if not insurmountable.
The
only thing you can do with a world in utter ruins like that is remake
it, I
thought, and it’s exactly what the Second Epistle of Peter said and
what the
early church believed: “The elements will melt in fervent heat,” and a
new
heavens and a new earth will come (2 Peter 3:7-12). It doesn’t imply
just a
surface-cleaning of the old world during some post-Judgment Day
millennium.
After returning from
Dispensational Premillennialism
In the 1800s began the Dispensationalism
movement, based on a peculiar reading of
prophecy that the church had never quite seen before. A key point in
its system
was what it termed “premillennialism,” or
the
expectation of a future earthly millennium. When the term
“millennialism” is
used, it usually refers to the various doctrines of premillennialism,
and more specifically to Dispensational Premillennialism.
This thousand years, or “chiliad,” is applied to a single verse in the
entire
Bible, to the period of time mentioned in Rev. 20: 1-7. Specifically, premillennialists use the word to refer to a
supposed
thousand-year reign of Christ on Earth after the “rapture of the
saints.”
Literal earthly millennialism teaches that the Jews rejected Jesus in
the
middle of His earthly ministry, thus making it impossible to fulfill at
that
time the prophecy and the purposes of God. So He stopped the prophetic
clock,
and postponed the fulfillment of His promise until the Second Coming.
Thus the
Church is now seen as an interim measure. Chiliasm, or premillennialism
in its simple form foreseeing a Jewish world kingdom, originated in the
Jewish
apocalyptic writings of rabbis of the intertestamental
period during the development of the Babylonian Talmud, the “traditions
of the
elders,” which Jesus condemned. By invoking “postponement theory,” this
Dispensational appropriation of the
Jewish millennium negates Christ’s final
proclamation on the Cross that “It is finished.” No, they would say to
Christ;
“You are wrong. It is not finished.”
Dispensationalism
implies that for the 1800 years of the church’s long history, the very
Spirit
of Truth who was promised to bring believers into all truth, failed to
show the
church the truth, and that not until Darby,
But this paradox is a red flag in
itself. The late arrival of this novel teaching is the real red flag,
not the
failure of the Spirit of Truth. Later on, I discovered the early church
fathers
didn’t miss it at all; they rejected millennialism at its root from the
earliest beginnings of the church. The Rapture was not yet a teaching
at that
point.
An invaluable clue emerged in the
research of Curtis Dickinson in his paper, “Millennialism”: According
to
Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, Book III, a heretic named Cerinthus
first introduced the millennial doctrine into the early church. The result? The Apostle John, the very disciple
who recorded
the book of Revelation, refused to bathe in the same bathhouse as Cerinthus the millennialist,
calling him “that enemy of the truth.”
The Apostle John, and not a
contemporary named Cerinthus, would have
the best
understanding of the meaning of Revelation 20. John—the
great
Apostle who recorded the book of Revelation, including chapter
20—rejected
millennialism.
Professor George Fletcher, in his
lengthy paper “The Millennium: What It Is Not,” has provided another
important
clue: Millennialism never was supported by any of the great creeds, but
on the
other hand, was condemned by the Second Helvetic
Confession, the Augsburg Confession (Article 17), and the original,
articles of
the Church of England, where it says:
They
that go about to renew the fable of heretics called Millinnarii
be repugnant to Holy Scriptures, and cast themselves to a Jewish
dotage.
(Article XLI)
Fletcher notes that the Second Helvetic Confession is also very strongly worded. The article on Judgment contains this sentence:
Moreover we
reject the Jewish dreams that
there will be before the day of judgment a golden age upon the earth
and the
pious will take possession of the kingdoms of the world after their
enemies,
the ungodly, have been subdued.
The Council of Ephesus in A.D. 431 had
also condemned millennialism as superstition, and the doctrine of the
Millennium was officially discarded by the church as heresy. Of heresy,
Dr.
Donald W. Richardson, in The Revelation
of Jesus Christ, says:
If we define heresy as ‘doctrine that contradicts the historical universal Christian faith,’ or as ‘an opinion opposed to the commonly received doctrine, and tending to division or dissension,’ then Darbyism, or Dispensationalism, as it is widely taught today, is heresy.
So what is the commonly received
doctrine from the early church on that repudiates millennialism? Maybe
there is
a clue in the words of the New
Testament.
Christ distinguished His eternal
kingdom from an earthly millennial kingdom in His confession before
Pontius
Pilate, declaring, “My kingdom is not of this world” ‘(John
Wasn’t that the very reason the Jews of
Christ’s day rejected Him as Messiah?—that He was not bringing their
long-awaited earthly kingdom?
In the words of
John, Christ’s Kingdom is not
of a worldly origin or nature, nor is the world its end or object. It
is not
defended by worldly power, influence or carnal weapons; but by bearing
witness
to the truth, the preaching of the Gospel with the Holy Spirit sent
down from
Heaven. None can enter it except those who are born from above. It is
beyond this
world (John 3:3,5).
Fletcher
notes in his abovementioned paper:
Christ is silent about a
corporeal reign in a world kingdom of Jewish supremacy for a thousand
years
with headquarters in Jerusalem AFTER His Second Advent. Neither the
Gospels nor
the book of Acts speak of a thousand-year kingdom on earth in which
there will
be mingled both mortals and immortals. The Epistles give no hint of a
return to
As classic commentators
agree, the early church’s view of the “thousand years” described in
Revelation
20 was accepted as figurative of Christ’s spiritual reign in the
present Gospel
Age of the church between the First and Second Comings.
As we shall see in more detail later,
the Old Testament promises of the Messiah were fulfilled in Christ;
Satan was
“bound” at the Cross and the Resurrection of Christ; there is now only
one,
“Israel,” which is the Church made up of both Jews and Gentiles; the
Resurrection and the Second Coming are all one single simultaneous
event,
followed immediately by the one general Judgment and then the eternal
state
(the “new heavens and new earth).
“When I was a premillennialist,
I saw the millennium all over the Scriptures as I read and studied.
However, as
my eschatological views began to change, I realized that all those
passages
from the OT prophets that I took as descriptions of “the millennium”
were
arbitrarily jammed together. I had never stepped back and taken a look
at this
jigsaw puzzle that premillennialists had
put together
in my mind. Rather than presenting a clear picture, premillennialism
had put together a jumbled mess!:
Killgore
asks, “If the thousand years are literal, why is Rev. 20 the only
passage in
all of Scripture that specifically mentions a millennial kingdom?” He
adds,
“It’s not as if the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament
Apostles
simply didn’t mention the millennial kingdom, but rather in several
places
where it could have appeared, it is positively excluded from the entire
prophetic picture!”
Killgore lists what he found:
1. All of the OT passages
normally linked with the “thousand years” of Rev. 20 to produce “the
millennium”
are already interpreted for us under inspiration within the NT itself.
These
passages are—Isa. 2, 9:6-7, 11,25-27,49,
65; Jer. 23, 30-31; Eze.
34-37; Joel 2-3; Amos 9; Zech. 12-14; and Mal. 3-4. Also, none of the
imagery
used in these passages (“lambs w/lions,” “heating swords into
plowshares,”
etc.) is even mentioned in Rev. 20, the only passage to mention
“thousand
years”! The nation of
2. Without question, 2 Peter 3 mentions
absolutely nothing of a millennial kingdom. In fact, such a notion is
ruled out
by placing the destruction of this earth and the creation of the new
earth
within the same time frame as the Second Coming (2 Peter 3:7-12). This
reforming of the planet occurs just before the eternal state per Rev.
6-7.
3. Paul sets forth only one Second
Coming, one Resurrection, and then the end-I Cor.
15.
The only reign of Christ mentioned is the present one.
4. Scripture teaches one resurrection
of all men, both saved and unsaved, at the last day (John
5. The gathering together with Him occurs
at His coming in John 6:39,54; 1 Cor.
15:23; Col. 3:4; 1 Thes. 4:14-17; 2 Thes. 2:1; 1 Peter 1:13; 5:4. Further, there’s
nothing
“secret” about it! (cf. Matt. 24:27, Luke 17:24)
6. Both the righteous and the wicked
are separated at His coming per Matt. 13, 24:37-40, 25:31-46; Luke
17:29-35.
Note especially the word “then” in Matt. 25:31. It is at this time that
saint
and sinner alike are judged —not after 1,000 years! See Ecc.
12:14; Dan. 12:2; Matt. 16:27, 24:41-46; Rom. 2:5-6; 1 Cor.
3:13; Ccl. 3:4; 1 Thes.
5:1-10; 2 Thes. 1:1-10; 2 Tim. 2:4; 4:1;
Heb. 9:28; 1
Pet. 5:4; 1 John 2:28; 3:2. Thus the Second Coming is the same day as
“the day
of judgment” (2 Pet. 2:9}—the same day this earth is destroyed per 2
Peter
3:7-12! Where is this “thousand-year” earthly kingdom in all of this?
It is
this day that is pictured in Rev. 6: 16-17 and
7. If God’s people are reigning with
Christ on the earth during a literal 1,000-year kingdom, then how can
the
Kingdom be descending from heaven in Rev.
21:2?
Looking at Revelation 20
itself reveals more problems with the idea of a literal millennial
kingdom.
First, while earthly events are mentioned (v. 3, 9), no earthly reign
is
mentioned. Christ is not described as on a literal throne, reigning in
a
literal earthly kingdom. Furthermore, we find nothing about national
While it is obvious that the “thousand
years is mentioned in the text, the picture presented in no way matches
the
dispensational picture. Further, the Judgment occurs in v. 11-15, after
the
“thousand years”! This fact alone destroys premillennialism,
as the passages above clearly show that the Judgment occurs at His
coming with
no mention of an intervening time period, much less some 1,000-year
kingdom.
There is still the matter of the
“thousand years” in Rev. 20. Killgore
discovered what
others before him had already found: Numbers are often symbolic. The
number of
the angels in Rev. 5:11 is “ten thousand times ten thousand, and
thousands of
thousands.” Yet we know that the number of angels is actually
“innumerable”
(Heb.
We see “thousand(s)” used symbolically
all over Scripture-Gen. 24:60; Ex. 20:6, 34:7; Lev. 26:8; Deut. 1:11,
5:10;
7:9; 32:30, 33:2; Joshua 23:10; 1 Sam. 18:7-8; 1 Chron.
16:15; Job 9:3, 33:23; Ps. 3:6, 50:10, 68:17, 84:10, 90:4, 91:7, 105:8;
Eec. 6:6,
So then, what exactly does the
“thousand years” of Rev. 20 refer to?
It
refers to the present kingdom, the reign of Jesus Christ at the right
hand of
God now, during the church age between the First and Second Advents— as
most of
the early church believed. The Apostle John certainly believed in a
present
kingdom (Rev. 1 :9). Rev. 20 has believers
reigning as
“kings and
priests” (verse
6) - a future reality? Not according to the same book! John clearly
sees this
reality coming to be in the death, Resurrection, and Ascension of
Christ (Rev.
5:10). Being “kings” and “priests” to God is something that is
comprehended in
our redemption in Jesus Christ, which is why John speaks of this very
thing as
a present reality (Rev. 1 :6). Paul clearly
taught the
same in 1 Cor. 15:24-28.
Paul teaches that Christ’s Second
Coming will signal the end, not the beginning, of His role as Messiah.
Jesus
stated that He now possesses “all power” in heaven and on earth (Matt.
28:18).
Consider this important statement carefully. What can be added to
“all”? Does
our Lord have “all power now, or doesn’t He?
Meanwhile,
adding to present-day confusion, premillennialists
have consistently given wrong dates for the Christ’s return, though
this hasn’t
given them pause to reflect on whether they might be deemed as false
teachers:
date-setting, in defiance of Scripture, and getting it wrong at that!
Curtis Dickinson, in his paper
“Millennialism,”
states:
It would take a large volume to list
all the people who have preached that Armageddon and Christ’s return
would have
already happened by the year 2000.... Salem Kirban
wrote in 1970 that Christ would come for the Rapture in approximately
1989, and
that the Millennium would begin in the year 2000.... Jack Van Impe has given various “end time” dates and
scenarios, with
judgment about to fall in 1976, the tribulation beginning by 1980,
chaos in the
Sun and the Earth in 1982, the world running out of food by 1984 and
finally an
end time date of 1996. Hal Lindsey, in his “Countdown to Armageddon,”
had the
end set in the 1990s. Pat Robertson had Armageddon pinpointed for 1982.
W.S. McBride wrote that his study indicated
that Jesus
would return before 2000. A.D. Edgar Whisenant’s
book
claimed that the Rapture would take
place on
The
truth is, for the system to work there must be a third coming. That
they define
the Second Coming as “secret” for the Rapture to take place requires a
third
public and universal coming later in the calendar.
After Cerinthus,
whom the Apostle John called “that enemy of the truth,” others
introduced
millennialism. In A.D. 255 Nepos, an
Egyptian bishop
advocated that “there would be a certain Millennium of sensual luxury
on this
earth” (History of the Christian Church, Vol. 2, Philip Schaff;
As many have noted, if such a thing as
a thousand years of Christ’s political rule on Earth were to be in the
Christian’s future, it is unthinkable that Jesus and the Apostles never
had
anything to say about it. Nowhere in the New Testament is there any
reference
to a “millennial” kingdom after the return of Jesus.
Rather, Jesus and the apostles all
taught that at His coming there would be an immediate final judgment,
leaving
only the genuine believers, who will be made immortal to live in the
new
creation of God for eternity. They allowed neither time nor place for a
“thousand-year” physical reign on this present Earth.
Christ’s Kingdom is not a natural
earthly kingdom but a spiritual one. As William Killgore observed in his quest, if we examine
the following
New Testament passages-Luke 17:20-21; John 3:3, 5-7,
1. Does not come “with
observation” (lit., ‘with outward show’).
2. Is
“within” believers.
3. Cannot be entered, nor
even seen apart from spiritual rebirth.
4. Is not of this world.
5. Has nothing to do with
substances like “food and drink,” but rather is manifested in the
changed
character of individual Christians.
6. Is not simply a message,
but a demonstration of spiritual power.
7. Is an incorruptible
Kingdom that cannot be inherited by corruption-our mere “flesh and blood.”
8. Is the present reality
where we are “translated” when we are delivered from the powers of darkness.
9. Is where God has “
called” us in saving us.
10. Is not earthly, but
“heavenly.”
11. “Cannot be moved” -i.e.,
is of a spiritual nature.
12. Is
“everlasting” even in its final manifestation.
Appeals to the Old Testament
To defend their view of a future
millennial kingdom, premillennialists
resort to
citing passages of Scripture in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, which foretell
the
rebuilding of the temple and other aspects regarding the nation of
But as Bible scholars have known since
the early church, these passages are not about the millennium at all.
They are
about the ancient remnant of Jewish exiles returning to
Jeremiah prophesied before
the Babylonian captivity and foretold its 70-year duration. Ezekiel
also wrote
during that time. These great prophets were referring to the
restoration of the
temple and city immediately after the Babylonian captivity, 500 years
before
Christ, as did Daniel. They were not
writing about some distant future
millennium.
Incidentally, the very same
passages are also used to justify a third return of the Jews to the
God allowed a remnant of the ancient
Israelites to return in repentance from their Babylonian captivity to
rebuild
the temple in
1. Now in the first year of
Cyrus king of
2. Thus saith
Cyrus king of
3. Who is there among you of
all his people? His God be with him, and let him go up to
Skipping ahead to verse 5...
5. Then rose
up the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests, and
the
Levites, with all them whose spirit God had raised, to go up to build
the house
of the LORD which is in
God was answering the repentant prayers
of the Hebrews who were in Babylonian captivity. They were granted a
single
return to restore
Historians tell us the second temple
was completed between 520 and 516 B.C. It was dedicated with great
rejoicing.
The prophecy of Jeremiah 33:7-8 did come true as stated below:
7. And I will cause the
captivity of
8. And I will cleanse them
from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me; and I
will pardon
all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned, and where by they have
transgressed against me.
Jeremiah 33, having been fulfilled,
cannot be reapplied again and again. It was satisfied to the letter
after the
Babylonian captivity. God made good on His promise of the return to the
land!
The establishment of the modem nation
of
But only one return to rebuild the
temple and
The ancient prophecies cited to justify
present day
But wait! Rewind the tape to Joshua’s
time. Here is what the Bible states to refute the modem claim that not
all the
land was given by God:
Here it is: “And the LORD
gave until
“All came to pass,” and God’s promise
was fulfilled then and there! So the present charge that the full land
claim
was never fulfilled is wrong. Yet some dispute this, and the land-claim
debate
continues. Related to who might be entitled to a land claim if it still
existed, I noticed, during the visit to
The above factors would complicate the
Dispensational view of the present “return” of modern-day Jews to
My thought then was that a remnant in
today’s world might qualify as being of the pure bloodline of the
ancient
Hebrews, but it would be no more than a very small remnant; and only
the mind
of God would know who they were.
Messianic Rule
There are many variations of the premillennial
theme, but they are all overshadowed by the
Jewish apocalyptic vision of a culmination of history in an exclusively
Jewish-ruled world centered in Jerusalem in which material goods are
supplied
in abundance; all want, crime, and sickness are eliminated; and their
Messiah
will sit on David’s throne and rule over all. As has been observed,
this
doctrine is a plain denial of the claims of Jesus and the apostles that
Jesus
already reigns as Lord and King and is the present fulfillment of all
these
very messianic prophecies.
The very Old Testament prophecies that
foretold the establishment of the Messiah’s kingdom and his reign upon
the
throne of David were announced and applied at the birth of Jesus, in
Luke
1:32:33.
New Testament Scriptures
also unmistakably declare that these prophecies were fulfilled in
Christ’s
Ascension when “He sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high”
(Heb.
1:3). At that time, “[God] made him to sit at his right hand in the
heavenly
places, far above all rule and authority, and power, and dominion”
(Eph.
1:20,21).
On the Day of Pentecost, Peter
announced that Jesus was the one whom God raised up to sit on David’s
throne
(Acts
Just before His Ascension, Jesus
declared, “All authority has been given unto me in heaven and on earth”
(Matt.
28:19). That’s why Paul tells us in Col. 1:13, “God has delivered us
out of the
power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of His son.” He is
not
referring to some distant future millennial reign, because Christ was
reigning
in Paul’s day, and continues to reign in the midst of His foes and with
His
people in willing subjection. John wrote that Jesus “made us to be a
kingdom,
to be priests unto his God and Father” (Rev. 1:6). This is Christ’s
Kingdom of
which we are already part in the present.
According to Paul, Jesus was already
reigning and will reign until the Day of Resurrection and Judgment,
when death
will be abolished. Then comes the end.
When Christ comes again it will be in
judgment of all who have opposed and denied Him (2 Thes.
1:7-10) as well as those who believed in Him. The latter He will award
eternal
life, so that “the kingdoms of the world are become the kingdoms of our
Lord
and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev. 11: 15).
As the early church realized in leaving
Old Covenant expectation, it is time to stop looking for an earthly
physical
millennium and believe the Old Testament prophecies which have been
fulfilled in
Christ and His eternal Kingdom.
Discerning Truth
During the return flight from Israel, I
was grateful for the fact that when I first read the Bible in India it
was
without some gradient of interpretation that had been overlaid on the
text-one
that forced a pattern of belief rather than allowing the text to speak
in plain
meaning so a pattern could emerge on its own.
After
the gradient of interpretation reveals the intended schema it is like
an
optical illusion. You might see it one way briefly at first, but then
it shifts
to the dominant view, and that becomes the only way you can see it. You
are now
trapped in seeing the pattern only one way, though you may know there
is
another perspective. This can happen to doctrines. One view can take
precedent,
blinding you to other interpretations. In the realm of deception, this
is a
formidable thing. It’s also how deception works.
It made sense to me that a one-way
doctrinal “optical illusion” might deceive millions in the Christian
subculture
who have read Scripture with the same gradient of interpretation placed
over
the text-now locked in on a single paradigm. When big names push this
view in
bestsellers and in TV appearances, the system gains even more ground.
No one
dares suspect it might be flawed. On the tour I saw countless copies of
the Scofield Bible marked up by avid
readers. I noticed it
interprets the text in the printed margin notes on every page, this
great
Dispensational Bible. It was like being handed special glasses to help
you read
the Bible. The Apostle Paul warns us that ‘‘strong delusion” will come,
decimating the church by inundating believers in waves of deception.
This
delusion will grow in intensity as we approach “the end” of the age.
It. is a
process that might explain “the great falling away” predicted as the
church age
reaches its end. The terrible shape of this delusion could well be
growing
before us.
So we must each discern for ourselves.
We can’t make a critical decision based on some famous authority or
because the
great herd of believers went along with a belief because it was
popular. We
must be able to think for ourselves when being guided by the Word of
God. When
people awaken from deception, they find the answer was there in
Scripture all
along if they’d only checked.
Christ is King of Kings and Lord of
Lords in the present, “Wherefore, receiving a kingdom which cannot be
shaken,
let us have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God
with
reverence and awe” (Heb. 12:28).
From CHRISTIAN NEWS November
11.2013 Page 13
Reprinted with permission
from the SCP Journal
Volume 32:2-32:3 2008; pp
14-23
Tal Brooke is
the President & Chairman of SCP.
He has
authored nine books and his work has been recognized in Marquis Who's Who in the World and Who’s Who in America. He has won three first place
EPA awards in the nationwide contest. A
graduate of the
Spiritual Counterfeits
Project.
P. 0.
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