My view on the millennium issue is that it is a literal one thousand year period, and that Christ will return just before the millennium. This view is known as the Premillennial view and is distinguished from Postmillennialism and Amillennialism. According to those in the Postmillennialist position, Christ will return after the thousand years and not before it. According to those in the amillennialist position, there is no literal one thousand years. It is just a symbol for the present long period of time between Christ’s first and second coming.
Of these three views, the one that is held by the Bible-Presbyterian church is the premillennial view, as stated in the B-P Constitution: “We believe in the personal, visible and premillennial return of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to judge this world and bring peace to the nations;” (article 4.2.7) There are five reasons why I hold to this view and reject the other views.
I. Premillennialism is based on a literal interpretation of Scripture
1. We firmly believe that God had given the Scriptures to us in a clear, simple and straightforward manner, in order that our finite minds may be able to understand it. The message is meant to be accessible to the rank and file who belong to God. No special class of people such as prophets, teachers, theologians or scholars stand between the people and the message. All of this argues for a principle of interpretation that brings the meaning of the Bible within the grasp of the rank and file of the people of God. This principle clearly stated is that of taking the Scriptures in their literal and normal sense, and understanding that this applies to the whole Bible, including passages on eschatology. If the plain sense of such a passage makes good sense, there is no need for us to seek some hidden or symbolic meaning.
2. Any other method of interpretation (e.g. spiritualising or allegorising the text) takes away partially, if not completely, the message which was intended for God’s people. For example, the text of Revelation 20 is interpreted by others as follows: The angel mentioned in v.1 is Christ Himself. His coming down from heaven is interpreted as His incarnation into this world. His act of binding Satan and casting him into the bottomless pit mentioned in vv.2,3, is interpreted as His death on the cross which removed Satan’s power over believers. Those who reign with Christ for a thousand years in v.4 is interpreted to mean the present church age, where Christ is reigning in the hearts of believers. Those who have a part in the first resurrection, mentioned in vv.5,6 is interpreted as those who are born again, and so the resurrection here is not a physical but spiritual one. And the defeat of Satan’s final rebellion in vv.7-9 is interpreted as Christ’s Second Coming, and thus it is the same event as Chapter 19 which gives the details of how Christ will defeat Satan. The whole book of Revelation consist of 7 visions which relate the same events over and over again.
3. Anyone can see that those who do not interpret this passage literally, take quite a lot of liberties with the text, making it mean things that are not natural to the plain sense of the text. The plain meaning of the text is therefore ignored in favour of a hidden, cryptic message, which only those who are qualified can understand. The text, in its plain sense, would tell us that the events in chapter 20 are not the same in chapter 19 and come after them, and that after Christ returns, Satan will be bound for a thousand years while the resurrected saints reign with Christ over the nations of the world until he is loosed again to be defeated and destroyed forever.
4. The premillennial view is the view that one would arrive at quite naturally, without having to twist the word of God and make it mean things it does not mean. This is the strongest point in favour of the Premillennialist position, but it is not the only point in favour of the this view.
II. Premillennialism is the view that has stood the test of time
1. During the first three centuries of church history, this view appears to have been the dominant one. Among its adherents were Papias, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Methodius, Commodianus and Lactantius. Papias wrote: “There will be a millennium after the resurrection of the dead when the personal reign of Christ will be established on this earth.” Irenaeus, in the last five chapters of his great work, Against Heresies, indicated that he was not living in the time of the millennium yet.
2. It was only in the fourth century, when the church was given a favoured status under the Roman emperor Constantine, that the amillennial position was accepted. The famous church father, Augustine was the one who developed this position and it has remained as the position of the Roman Catholic church until today. He believed that the millennium was the present church age.
3. But though the Council of Ephesus condemned premillennialism as heretical in A.D. 431, and official church doctrine remained amillennial during the Middle ages, it continued among certain groups of faithful believers who were against the Roman Catholic Church. But unfortunately there were some extreme groups that were also premillennialists. They revolted, took over cities, and one false teacher by the name of Jan Matthys took control of the city of Munster, called it the New Jerusalem and declared that he was Enoch, preparing the way for the return of Christ. And so, by the time of the Protestant Reformation, these extreme groups had given the premillennial position a very bad name. This helps us to understand why the Reformers did not favour the Premillennial view, although they firmly advocated the literal interpretation of Scriptures, which set the stage for Protestants to return to premillennialism.
4. In the 17th century, a Calvinist theologian named Johann Heinrich Alsted revived the premillennial view and he wrote a book about it called “The Beloved City.” And it was this renewed desire for the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth that accompanied the outbreak of the Puritan revolution in England. The premillennial position of the 17th century English Puritans may be represented by Joseph Mede (1586-1638) who was influenced by Alsted’s book. But once again this view fell into disfavour because certain extremist groups such as the Fifth Monarchy Men were connected with it.
5. At this time, a new eschatological view gained popularity – Postmillennialism. In the latter part of the 18th century, the rise of America and the influence of Daniel Whitby led to the conception “that in America God had founded a new Israel, a people who would point the way to the millennial kingdom.” People began to believe that when the world is converted to Christ, the Jews restored to their land and the Muslims were defeated, the earth would enjoy a time of peace and righteousness for a thousand years. Then Christ would finally return for the last judgment. In fact, when the troops of France entered Rome on February 10, 1798 under General Berthier and banished the pope, many thought that the millennium had begun. But the optimism that gave rise to this view dissipated with the violent political changes that took place in the world and by the time the First and Second World Wars were over, Postmillenialism became unpopular and Premillennialism made a big comeback. In the last 2 centuries, there has been a greatly increased interest in eschatology, and books and conferences on the last days have become common. And perhaps the greatest influence and impact for Premillennialism has come from a group of believers known as Dispensationalists.
6. Now while we disagree with the Dispensationalists on their view of history as being split up into many dispensations, we do hold to the same brand of Premillennialism (which is futuristic and not historic) that they have. Unfortunately this has caused others to think that we are dispensationalists or that we have compromised on this point, with them. This has been aggravated further by the fact that most churches and institutions that are covenantal are also amillennial. In fact Bible-Presbyterians are among the few denominations that are covenantal and yet premillennial. And this makes us a queer hybrid in the sight of others.
7. This brief survey of church history has shown that the premillennial view is not a new view at all. In fact it is the oldest of the three views. And though at times it fell into disfavour because of some radical or extreme group that espoused this view, the church always seems to return again and again to premillennialism. It has therefore stood the test of time.
III. Premillennialism gives us the right perspective of our present role in promoting God’s Kingdom.
1. Some who do not hold the Premillennial view have lapsed into emphasising social reform, or reconstruction or dominion theology. Augustine himself, the first great advocate of Amillennialism, wrote a book entitled, “The City of God” in which he made little distinction between the church and the state.
2. Following this, the Roman Catholic Church has therefore become not just a religious entity but also a political one, with its capital in the Vatican city, the pope as its ruler, and ambassadors sent to other countries. And there is still much emphasis by the Roman Catholic church on its role to effect social and political reform, and the most extreme form of this is Liberation Theology.
3. Now there are others who did not hold to the Premillennial position who also fell into the same error of thinking of our role in God’s Kingdom as that of effecting social and political change. Even John Calvin the great reformer, attempted to make the whole city of Geneva a religious political entity.
4. But Premillennialists are not as likely to fall into this kind of error because, to them, it is up to Christ alone to effect these socio-political changes during the millennium. It is not our role to be involved in these things. Our role in promoting God’s kingdom now is simply to preach the gospel of eternal life, and to build up the saints with the Word of God. Our task in this present age is to be used by God to change lives, and not social and political institutions.
IV. It is confirmed by many verses of Scripture
1. The way to test any doctrine is to compare it with other verses of Scripture. And we can do this as well for the passage that we read from Rev. 19,20. It has been wrongly claimed by those who attacked Premillennialism that this doctrine rests on only this one passage of Scripture, and therefore has a flimsy basis. They say that Rev 20 is the only place in the whole Bible that mentions the thousand years, and since the book of Revelations is full of symbols, the whole case of premillennialism rests on a doubtful interpretation of this symbolic passage.
2. But this is not true at all. There are actually other significant verses that tend to support the literal interpretation of Rev. 20. One important verse is 1 Corinthians 15:23-24 – “But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming. 24 Then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. 25 For He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet. 26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”
3. Although there is no mention of a thousand years in these verses, there is clear evidence of a long time gap between Christ’s second coming and the end of the world. And this would clearly disagree with both postmillennialism and amillenialism since in both of them Christ’s second coming is also the end of the world. In these verses Paul is describing the chronological order of the various resurrections. The first resurrection was that of Christ and that took place nearly 2000 years ago. The second one will occur at the Second Coming of Christ – this is when those that are His, will be resurrected from their graves. The third one will occur at the end, when death itself will finally be defeated, resulting in all the rest of the dead being resurrected. But when will that take place? The answer is found in verse 24 which begins with the word “Then.” Now this word “then” does not mean ‘at the time of Christ’s coming,’ but ‘after that.’ It actually has the same meaning as the word ‘afterward’ used earlier on in the verse, and we have already seen that that word could mean a time span of 2,000 years!
4. Since there are clearly two time intervals in this verse, the second one, which is between Christ’s coming and the end must then refer to the millennium, by comparing this scripture with Rev 20.
5. Another important verse is Acts 1:6-7 – “When they therefore were come together, they asked of Him, saying, Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? 7 And He said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power. 8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”
6. Here, we notice that the disciples were asking Jesus when the kingdom would be restored to Israel. They wanted to know if they would they see Jesus, the Son of David, reigning now on an earthly throne over the nation of Israel. Now, if the millennial kingdom was a spiritual one and was to begin at the time of Christ’s first coming, (as Amillennialists claim) Christ would probably have said something like, “the kingdom is being restored to Israel right now, but in a spiritual, not a political way, as I reign in the hearts of men.”
7. But Christ said nothing even close to this. Instead, the way that Jesus answered them implied that the disciples were right to expect a future restoration of a political kingdom. He said, “It is not for you to know.” We observe that Jesus did not make any correction to what they asked, and by this He confirms that the kingdom will be restored to the nation of Israel, but it is not for them to know precisely when this will happen. And until today nobody knows the exact date when Jesus will inaugurate His reign as king in Israel.
8. But while we await that glorious time, Jesus says that we are to be witnesses unto Him unto the uttermost parts of the earth, and by the Holy Spirit’s power we are to be busy extending His present spiritual kingdom. But God also has a future political kingdom of God in view – the restoration of the kingdom of Israel and the throne of David which they had about 3,000 years ago.
9. And because of this, we who are premillennial maintain a high regard for the nation of Israel. Although the Jews are presently far from God, they are still a special nation in His sight. Even the apostle Paul in Romans 11:25 tells us that their present state of blindness will end when God’s plans for the Gentiles are fulfilled. They have not been replaced or superseded by the church, because the gifts and calling of God are without repentance (Rom 11:29). God’s plans for them are not finished yet.
10. Those plans of course include their salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. They will not be saved in any way that is different from the way we are saved. But the Jews have the additional benefit of the specific promises that God made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David, promises which include the creation of a visible, political kingdom here on earth that owns a piece of prime land by divine right, that brings God’s blessing to those who help them and favour them, and God’s curses to those who harm them and seek to destroy them. Actually the amazing events that have taken place in the Middle East in the last 50 years have resoundingly vindicated the Premillennial view. God clearly continues to be faithful to the promises He had made to their forefathers. And if this is so evident now, then there are greater things yet to come for them in the Millennium.
11. Many Jews today still cherish this desire, and they look forward to the day when the Temple would be rebuilt and sacrifices offered once again and when the Son of David would reign over them. But if the amillennial or postmillennial views are correct, then all their expectation would be for nothing.
12. And if the OT saints looked forward with the same expectation to these things, how disappointed they would be to find out that they would be fulfilled only in a spiritual sense, in the church, and not in the real, physical sense that they expected. Has God misled them? Does God make promises to people and then not keep them in the way that they believed He would keep them?
13. If our answer to these questions is “no,” then we must believe that the kingdom will really be restored one day to Israel and that this will happen only when Jesus Christ returns and inaugurates the thousand years of peace.
14. Wilber B. Wallis has demonstrated that Romans 15:7-13 is another important passage that teaches about the millennium: “And again, Esaias saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and He that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; in Him shall the Gentiles trust. Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.” (vv.12-13) The apostle Paul is speaking here of a future reign of Christ over the nations of the world, and that this is the hope we must look forward to. This strongly supports the premillennial view.
V. Premillennialism is the only view that commends hope to a world that is miserably failing and seized with fear.
1. Just take a close look at what our world is today: a group of nations that are torn with constant disagreements, with strife, suspicion and pride. More wars have been fought in this century than in several thousand years of history before this. Fifty years of negotiations in the Middle east has still not brought about any lasting peace. Recently we have been hearing rumblings of distrust between China and the U.S. Countries like India and Pakistan are in a political mess. The future of Hong Kong is uncertain. Good leadership is enjoyed in some nations for a while but then comes the question of succession. What will happen to Russia when Boris Yeltsin dies? And countries that enjoyed the closest ties can become hostile to each other overnight, like in the Contemplacion case that came up between our nation and the Philippines. Suggestions of merger with Malaysia last year produced some unpleasant responses to us even from their prime minister. Even in meetings of foreign ministers there are undercurrents of unhappiness.
2. All of these are clear symptoms that things are not well in the world. The very best of human efforts will never bring forth the perfect world that people dream of. All the grand schemes and plans of men have failed. And when we look on these things, we feel sad.
3. But at this point, the Bible gives us the hope of a better world to come. One where the paradise that was lost by the first Adam will be wonderfully regained by the second Adam. One where Jesus Christ will establish His righteous rule over the whole world, and it will be truly glorious. In this second Adam, the whole world will be finally be subdued and filled according to the divine mandate God gave to Adam to have dominion over the earth and subdue it.
4. But if Christ’s reign will be absolute, why will it last only for a thousand years, and not longer? And why will Satan still be able to stir up a rebellion against God after those thousand years? Because, as wonderful as the millennium will be, it is not meant to be permanent. Once Christ has subdued every enemy, every power, rule and authority, He shall deliver His whole kingdom to God.
5. The millennium is not the final phase of history, it is only the semi-final phase. Its glory will still be far short of the glory of the eternal state with the new heaven and the new earth. For this reason some have called the millennium the Silver Age, reserving the term Golden Age for the eternal state that will exist after it. And we all who are in Christ can look forward to that! “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” (Rev 22:20)
References used:
Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium, with contributions by George Eldon Ladd, Herman A. Hoyt, Loraine Boettner and Anthony A. Hoekema, Illinois: Intervarsity press, 1977.
Wilber B. Wallis, “Reflections on the History of Premillennial Thought” article in Interpretation & History – Essays in honour of Allan A. McRae (edited by Harris, Quek and Vannoy)
