The Millennium

Hugo McCord

In the only millennium passage in the Bible (Revelation 20:1-6), some “souls” of “beheaded” martyrs for Jesus “lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years” (v. 4), but the passage does not tell where or when the joint-reign takes place. It cannot be after the Lord’s second coming, for at that time he gives up his reigning, delivering “up the kingdom to God, even the Father” (1 Corinthians 15:24). It cannot be on this earth, on “the day of the Lord” the “earth and its works will be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10).

Furthermore, the only millennium passage cannot be taken literally. It tells of “the dragon” (an imaginary animal), identifying him as “that old serpent, who is the devil and Satan” (Revelation 20:2), a character with a tail long enough to sweep or drag away (suro) “a third of the stars of heaven,” throwing “them to the earth” (Revelation 12:4). He has “seven heads and ten horns” (Revelation 12:3).

In addition, the only millennium passage pictures an angel “having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand,” and that he “bound” the dragon “for a thousand years” and “cast him into” a pit without a bottom (Revelation 20:1-3).

The only millennium passage mystifies me. There is a divine purpose in that strange passage, but its meaning has not been revealed. Long ago, 3500 years back, Moses wrote that the “secret things belong to the Lord our God” (Deuteronomy 29:29). That I know, but John’s picture of the millennium leaves me feeling like Daniel. After he had received certain heavenly visions, he wrote:

I, Daniel, was deeply troubled, … and my face turned pale; … I, Daniel, was exhausted and lay ill for several days. … I was appalled (Shamam, numbed, confounded) by the vision; it was beyond understanding (Daniel 7:28; 8:27, NIV).

But the visions of Daniel were not as mysterious and weird as the one given to John.

Notwithstanding the fact that Jesus, when he was on the earth, refused to be an earthly king (John 6:15), and told Governor Pilate that “my kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), millennium preachers today boldly assert that Jesus will go back on his word to the governor and will reign on this earth for a thousand years. Jesus, they say, will have “Jewish soldiers walking on the walls of Jerusalem as watchmen, to protect Him from His enemies” (Lawrence Rowe Thomas, A SYMPOSIUM OF PROPHECY, p. 13).

Thus the millennium preachers demote the Jesus who is now reigning in heaven and put him on God’s footstool! “Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool” (Isaiah 66:1).

Moreover, say the millennium preachers, Jesus will reinstate the Old Testament animal sacrifices:

On that day HOLY TO THE LORD will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, and the cooking pots in the LORD’s hose will be like the sacred bowls in front of the alter. Every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the LORD Almighty, and all who come to sacrifice will take some of the pots and cook in them (Zechariah 14:20-21).

Though it has never been possible “for the blood of bulls and goats to take sins away” (Hebrews 10:4), and though Jesus’ blood was “poured out” (Matthew 26:28) so that sins might actually be forgiven, the millennium preachers assert that the blood of animals will again be a part of worship services.

Further, the millennium error means that, though Jesus is now our high priest (Hebrews 10:21), when he returns to the earth he will not be a priest, for earthly priests, God said, must be of the tribe of Levi (Numbers 3:10). But Jesus was of the tribe of Judah, “of which tribe Moses said nothing about priests” (Hebrews 7:14).

If Jesus comes back as a Jew, Paul’s statement about him does not make sense:

So from now on, we do not recognize anyone according to the flesh; though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet we now know him no longer (2 Corinthians 5:16).

It was not as 33 year old dark haired, dark eyed Jewish man the last time John saw Jesus:

His head and hair were as white as wool, even as snow, and eyes were like a fiery flame. His feet were like glowing brass which had been fired in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters. He had seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp two-edged sword going out of his mouth, and his face was like the sun shining in its strength (Revelation 1:14-16).

Furthermore, the millennium preachers assert that there will be two resurrections of the dead separated by a thousand years. But Jesus taught that “the hour is coming in which all who are in their graves will hear his voice, and will come forth--those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation” (John 5:28-29).

Furthermore, the millennium preachers excite ready listeners as they misapply the poetic language of Isaiah, making it apply to the alleged thousand year reign of Christ on earth:

[T]he wolf will live with the lamb, and a leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion will feed together; and a little child will lead them, … the lion will eat straw like the ox. … The infant will play on the hole of the cobra (11:6-8).

Never again will there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth (65:20).

Furthermore, the millennium preachers dispute the inspired writer of the book of Hebrews, who wrote that we are now in the “last days” (1:1-2). They put the last days far beyond the second coming of Christ.

Furthermore, the millennium preachers show disrespect to the bridge of Christ, his church, the church that he “loved” and

Gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:25-27).

But the millennium preachers say that the church is an afterthought, a stop-gap measure, that God decided on after the Jews had rejected Jesus. On the other hand, it was God’s plan from all eternity that his wisdom be made known through the church, according to his “eternal purpose” (Ephesians 3:10-11).

But whether those coming with Christ are angels or the spirits of deceased Christians does not make their coming a special epiphaneia different from the parousia. The epiphaneia is descriptive of the parousia, and belongs to the parousia (2 Thessalonians 2:8). Actually epiphanesia can be equated with the parousia (Titus 2:13).

No, there are not two future comings of the Lord, seven years apart, one private and quiet, and one visible and audible. In the one and only second coming, “as the lightning comes out of the east and shines to the west, so will be the coming of the Son of man” (Matthew 24:27).

One can certainly describe going to be with the Lord in heaven as a rapture, but to Paul its duration was “always” (pantote, 1 Thessalonians 4:17), not for seven years.