PART I, ARTICLE IX: AMILLENNIANISM NO LONGER INCONCEIVABLE, SECTION VIII

Conclusion

Samuel Hopkins, an American theologian from the 18th century, wrote this in 1792 in his Treatise on the Millennium: “If it were known when the Bishop of Rome first became what is designed to be denoted by the beast, the time of his fall, and of the end of the church of Rome, and of Satan’s kingdom in the world, when the Millennium will commence, could be ascertained to a year” (Samuel Hopkins, A Treatise on the Millennium, p. 107.) On the next page, after crunching some numbers, he hints that the millennium might commence in 2016. That year is well behind us now. Another Bible scholar named Bryce Johnston said this in 1794 in his Commentary on the Revelation of St. John, quoted by another Bible scholar called George Bush in 1832: “The Millennium must commence immediately upon the final overthrow of Papal Rome: But it was formerly shewn in its proper place that Papal Rome shall be completely overthrown in the end of the year of Christ 1999. The Millennium therefore, which both in the order of this prophecy and in the nature of the thing follows close upon the overthrow of Papal Rome, must commence in the beginning of the year of Christ 2000” (George Bush, A Treatise on the Millennium, p. 25.) Our twentieth century millenarians and their twenty-first century successors have done the same kind of thing that Mr. Hopkins did in 1792 and that Mr. Johnston did 1794. Instead of using dates associated with Papal Rome for their time-stamp, they have used 1948 (because of Israel’s victorious War of Independence), 1967 (because of Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War), Y2K (because of the number 2000 and the supposition that all the computers were going to crash), 2012 (because of the Mayan calendar), and their opinions on the mid or pre-tribulation rapture as their means to set dates again and again for the return of Christ. Readers that have read, with care, books by Hal Lindsey, Grant Jeffrey, and Jack Van Impe, have noticed this. These men have set dates so often that it is not even necessary to quote from their works to prove it; and quoting from these authors is hard to do, anyway, after their books have been indignantly cast away. Selling startling books has been more important to writers like these than the exercise of caution through the knowledge of erstwhile folly. And springing from this lucrative platform has been irresistible for writers good at rehashing the impulsive prognostications of others. Caeca invidia est. (Envy is blind.) Books on what one charismatic crier has called ‘the last of the last days’ will continue to be published, probably, until the last minute of the last day; and even then the date will be gotten wrong.    

Older books on the millennium, though, in spite of their faults, are often brilliant in their insights, arguments, and assimilation of historical knowledge. George Bush’s Treatise on the Millennium from 1832 is faulty because he interprets the book of Revelation through the lens of Edward Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. But his book is valuable for its presentation of the theological history of millenarianism. Millenarianism, also known as premillennialism, aka Chiliasm, was, he says, extensively believed by Christians during the first three centuries of the Church. This belief, however, he also says, and with convincing evidence, originates from the Jewish tradition that the world will subsist for seven thousand years, the last thousand being, as was supposed, a thousand years of rest. Chiliasm is, most probably, one of the sundry traditions of the elders, regardless of how long the world, in its present fallen form, will last. Quoting a French Protestant divine by the name of Daubuz, he relates the following: “Now that tradition was grounded upon the allegorical exposition of the creation of the world in six days, and the rest of God in the seventh; and that a thousand years are with God as one day” (George Bush’s Treatise on the Millennium, p. 26.) So the premillennial literalists who accuse amillennialists of being at fault for interpreting a thousand years allegorically, have, for their interpretation of a thousand years, an allegorical basis. They take the millennium literally; but this literal interpretation is based on the allegorical application of a ‘day.’ How far back does their tradition of a literal millennium go? On the next page of the same book, completing the quote from Daubuz, we read: “Now that the Jews had it must be plain from this, that we find it in St. Barnabas, who wrote before St. John many years. And indeed we give very good reasons in our Commentary to think that the notion is as old as the Deluge, because we find it pretty plainly to be also the tradition of the Chaldean Magi, and perhaps too of the Egyptians.” I have not read Charles Daubuz’ Perpetual Commentary on the Revelation of St. John or what St. Barnabas wrote; but I provide the information above to show the likely source of a dogma that is far less expository of the Scriptures than a dogma needs to be. 

“One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day” (2 Peter 3.8.) There is no rationale for literalizing ‘a thousand years’ on the basis of this allegorical saying. The meaning of the saying—the reason for St. Peter using the saying—lies on each side of the verse. On the one side it is used to reprove; on the other its use is to encourage. So on the one side the message is to scoffers who say that the second coming will not happen because it is taking a long time. The answer to them is: From your flippant perspective it seems that way; but from the Lord’s perspective it will arrive soon enough. On the other side the message is to saints who feel that that the promise of the Lord’s coming is slack, or delayed. The answer to them is: From your fretful perspective it seems like that; but from your Lord’s perspective it is even at the door. Plain, or literal speech, is sometimes meant allegorically; an example of this readily comes to mind. We see it in Luke 14.26 from Jesus: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” But if allegorical speech is ever meant to be taken literally, an example is not so easily thought of. Since the Revelation of St. John of the Revelation of Jesus Christ is a series of visions, the interpretation of a vision is the doorway to coming to an understanding of the ultimate book of God’s word; and visions, in the Bible, are usually symbolic, and therefore to be interpreted allegorically. 

After dashing through most of the dreams and visions that are recorded in the Bible, I see that the interpretation of visions and dreams is a minefield only to careless walkers; or, it is not so much a minefield as it is a field to glean from. First, dreams and visions are sometimes used synonymously, or nearly so. We have this in at least two instances in the book of Daniel. “Thy dream,” says the prophet to king Nebuchadnezzar, “and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these” (Daniel 2.28.) The other occurrence even more obviously shows the synonymous association. “I saw a dream which made me afraid,” says the king, “and the thoughts upon my bed and visions of my head troubled me” (Daniel 4.5.) He ‘saw’ a dream means that he had ‘visions.’ Second, a dream might be so blunt and to the point as to bear a literal interpretation. We have this in Genesis 20.3: “But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wife.” There are other examples of this kind: Genesis 31.24; 1 Kings 3.5; Matthew 1.20. Third, a dream might be allegorical, which is usually the case with dreams. This we have in Joseph’s dream of the sun, moon, and eleven stars doing obeisance to him (Genesis 37.9), for the celestial bodies bowing down to him signified his parents and siblings becoming reliant on him for sustenance in the future famine. There are other examples of this kind: Genesis 40; Judges 7.13; Daniel 7. Fourth, a vision is sometimes literal, and needs no interpretation. We have an instance of this in the life of Samuel when still a boy. In this vision the LORD spoke to him plainly of Eli: “I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house: when I begin, I will also make an end” (1 Samuel 3.12.) There are other examples of this kind: Genesis 15; Luke 1; Acts 9.12. Fifth, a vision is sometimes figurative, allegorical: what Jonathan Edwards calls ‘mystical.’ Examples of this sort are not wanting. Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones is one of the most obvious and well-known (Ezekiel 37.) Others of this kind include: Daniel 8; Acts 10; Revelation 9.17. To sum up: These dreams and visions, except for the last one cited, are either plain, needing no further explanation; or mystical, but explained to us in their respective passages. In the book of Revelation, though, verse 9.17 being one example out of many in that book, we have mystical visions that require the aid of the Bible at large for their understanding. This has been shown by comparing the casting down of Satan (Revelation 20.3) to the testimony of Jesus concerning Satan falling like lightning from heaven (Luke 10.18.) So while it is true that most of the figurative dreams and visions that the Bible has recorded are interpreted for us in their immediate contexts, what St. John saw in the spirit requires, for its interpretation, the understanding of adjacent contexts and outlying texts together. Just as calculus and algebra are more difficult to learn than addition and multiplication, the Revelation of St. John is harder to figure out than the books of Ruth and Esther.     

What is recorded in the Apocalypse is what John the apostle saw in visions. What a seer sees in visions is not always to be taken literally as we would see the sights in three dimensional form standing before us. St. John was in the spirit when he saw the heavenly Revelation; but he was still a mortal, not glorified, man. Therefore he was shown what he was shown in the fashion that a mortal would be able to be shown it. And this Revelation had to be communicated like that too, from St. John the mortal to mortal saints. So what we have in Revelation are pictures condescended to mortal capacity. To take what is revealed in this last book of the Bible in literal form would be like interpreting the dream that Pharaoh had (Genesis 41) as seven lean kine eating seven fat kine and to put the foot down and exclaim, “It has to mean that! We have to take what the Bible says literally.” But, for examples, blood ‘even unto the horse bridles’ (Revelation 14.20) and ‘locusts’ emerging from the pit of hell (9.3) and ‘the thousand years’ (20.2-7) are about some things else, just as the lean kine eating the fat kine was about famine. If God showed to Pharaoh something as earthy as a famine in symbolic pictures, how much more likely is it that he would use symbolic pictures to show an apostle things that are heavenly?

Chiliasm appeals to our carnal lusts. Even non-Christian readers are attracted to books about a thousand epicurean years on earth. In the early days of my faith, I read many of these voluptuous books. Then, little by little and more and more, in accord with the principle that the apostle Paul communicated to disciples in Corinth (1 Corinthians 13.11), this childish pursuit was put away. The premillennial belief has a lot to do with escaping the great tribulation by the rapture, and enjoying earthly pleasures (not unlike ‘Turkish delights’) for a thousand years before these things pass away forever in the creation of the new heaven and the new earth. Proponents of premillennialism believe that there will be, near the end of their golden millennium, a final uprising by Satan and his henchmen. This is fine; a conflict like this indeed happens near the end of time. But this insurgency will be followed, they say, not only by the defeat of the devil and his evil bands, but also the destruction of that rich millennial earth that took so long to perfect. Would it make sense to burn up a paradisiacal world that has taken 1,000 years to build and beautify? It makes more sense to believe that the Lord will finish this present earth with fire (2 Peter 3.10), the same earth that is being destroyed right now by Communist and Globalist degenerates: that he ‘shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth’ (Revelation 11.18.) These two verses are well matched, especially since Revelation 11 is one of the seven chapters in this book that brings us to the end of history. Those chapters are, by the way: 3, 7, 11, 14, 16, 19, and 22. Each of these chapters ends with the closure of history, but with progressive continuance as new details and features are added until the last ‘Amen’ in the Bible. This way of dividing Revelation is an old one; I heard it first through Martyn Lloyd-Jones in an audio sermon; he seems to have gotten it from E. W. Hengstenberg, a German theologian from the 1800s. I saw hints of a division like that in Bede’s Explanation of the Apocalypse from the eighth century; and also in Victorinus’ Commentary on the Apocalypse of the Blessed John from about the turn of the fourth. This mode of interpreting the book of Revelation, along with an amillennial understanding of ‘the thousand years,’ is not something to insist on, even though it may be something that we are convinced of. The interpretation of the Apocalypse as a linear sequence of future events, though, with its ‘rubber meets the road’ millennium, is exhausted on account of having been humiliated through the long train of preposterous books that have been written by its leading advocates.                     

From the Confession of the Evangelical Free Church of Geneva, A. D. 1848: “We expect from heaven our Saviour Jesus Christ, who will change our body of humiliation and make it conform to his own body of glory; and we believe that, in that day, the dead who are in Christ, coming out from their tombs at his voice, and the faithful then living on the earth, all transformed through his power, will be taken up together into the clouds to meet him, and that thus we shall always be with our Saviour.” This Confession goes on from this to outline the truth on resurrection and judgment without touching on a millennium of whatever kind; no millennium is mentioned in the Confession at all. Christians do not have to agree about the nature or length of the millennium. It can be left out of a Confession because it is a peripheral matter, not a preeminent one. Sadly, because of their zealous adhesion to a literalistic millennium, with its numerous auxiliary teachings, many Christians, no doubt, would be perplexed at it being omitted from a summary of essential doctrine and might even have qualms about subscribing to a Confession of Faith on account of this omission. When I was first introduced to Reformed Confessions, and still a millenarian, I wrote this in the margin near the end of the Belgic Confession: “Where is the Mill?” That is what reading Charles Ryrie’s and C. I. Scofield’s notes on the Bible can do to a person. It can influence a reader to pay more attention on subsidiary matters than on matters of great moment. The great Confessions of the Christian Faith do not include articles on the millennium because the kingdom of God does not necessarily involve a matter-of-fact thousand years of peace on this present earth. There is a kingdom within, which is what the Lord focused on during his ministry; and there is an eschatological kingdom that he did not ignore. These aspects of the kingdom are complimentary; the one will follow upon the other. The kingdom of heaven is entered through regeneration, by being born again by the Spirit of God. This aspect is the essence of the kingdom; this is first; this is fundamental. This aspect is as intangible as what must be conquered by the Lord for our entry into it: Satan, Sin, and Death. The eschatological aspect, for its part, is the ultimate manifestation of God’s rule over every creature, especially his regenerated saints in the new heaven and the new earth: the everlasting kingdom of God. To focus attention on a literal millennium that hinges on one passage of Scripture from the Bible’s most allegorical book, is unwise and reckless; in so many cases among so many writers, this focus is more a monetary move or a prejudicial move than a righteous one. The subject of the millennium, though, because it is in the Bible, and because it is a subject that has been lately abused by fanatics for financial gain, deserves some attention. Working on the subject, because it is biblical work, is a blessing; but, as Bede confessed in his Explanation of the Apocalypse, it is ‘hazardous labor.’ My confidence that amillennialism is correct and that its rival views are false, notwithstanding the hazard involved in the foregoing labor, is stronger than it has ever been; I can barely restrain myself from being dogmatic about it. That the thousand years is allegorical is supported by the ‘first resurrection’ being allegorical and the binding of Satan being allegorical as well; and the interpretive apparatuses that are used to come up with this figurative point of view are exacting and forthright, not incompetent and underhanded.   

Whether there is a literal millennium to come or whether there is a figurative one right now, this gospel age will end in glory: “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11.9.) Christianity (in the face of persecution or opposition by first century Jewish Leaders, the Roman Caesars, the Roman Catholic Priesthood, Barbarians, Muslims, Communists, Evolutionists, Polytheists, Atheists, Institutionalized Religion, Religious Cults, all the Humanist Ideologues, and all the Savage Tribes of Heathendom) is the reason why there has been enough peace in the world to keep us from destroying each other and our planet these last two thousand years. When this verse runs over into a new earth, it will pour out its blessings without intermission and opposition forever. Then we will look back and understand each prophecy to perfection, whether it originates from the hardest sayings of Daniel, the last chapters of Ezekiel, or the Revelation of Jesus Christ to his servant John. 

PART I, ARTICLE IX: AMILLENNIANISM NO LONGER INCONCEIVABLE, SECTION VII

The last inducement has to do with the underhandedness that I have encountered while studying books by advocates of premillennialism, who are usually dispensationalists as well: those Bible teachers who are weak, to say the least, on the doctrines of grace, and who emphasize instead, a decision on the part of man to allow the grace of God to save. Exhibits of underhandedness do not prove that the parties guilty of shiftiness hold to a false view. But the exhibits are suggestive. The first man to be singled out is M. R. DeHaan again, who used to host the Radio Bible Class. In my report of his book, The Second Coming of Jesus, I had more to say about his handling of Scripture than I have already shown. What will be shown from my report of his book cannot be attributed to incompetence merely; the man is guilty of an underhanded handling of the Bible. From my report: During his dilation on the second coming of Jesus being, as he supposes, an event divided into two appearings, DeHaan tries to prove that there will be a secret appearing seven years before the great and last one. “Thus it will be at the coming of the Lord. Only those who are tuned to Station ‘Blood’ will hear that shout” (p. 30.) There is no secret ‘shout’ spoken of in Scripture concerning the second coming, though. This is why DeHaan resorts to saying that those who will hear it must be ‘tuned in’ or be on the ‘right wave length.’ Here is the second coming as predicted by the apostle John: “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen” (Revelation 1.7.) This verse is like 1 Thessalonians 4.16: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.” Mr. DeHaan seems too embarrassed to mention the whole of 1 Thessalonians 4.16 on page 30 of his book. He stops at the word ‘shout.’ The verse continues with: ‘the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God.’ With more of the verse before us, it cannot be missed how the apostles Paul and John and their verses on the same subject are in perfect harmony. According to the apostle Paul, every ear will hear, for who could be deaf to an archangel’s voice and God’s own trumpet? According to the apostle John, every eye will see, for who can remain blind to the Light of Christ descending from heaven? Even when DeHaan comes to his heading called ‘The Archangel’ on the next page, he avoids the verse that he alluded to and halfway paraphrased: 1 Thessalonians 4.16. The voice of the archangel is something for DeHaan to leave out in order to convince the unwary that the shout is only for Christians to hear. His exegesis is shifty because he is feverishly committed to a faulty eschatological system. Authors from this school of thought are often sinfully sectarian, and misleading because of it.

Nowhere in the Bible do we find the general resurrection of the dead described as more than one act. Acts 24.15: “And have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust.” It says ‘a’ resurrection there. The last resurrection is one, not two, not several, not many; it is not divided into parts.              

The second exhibit of underhandedness comes from Renald Showers in his book, There Really is a Difference. I did not review this book, but compared parts of it to Louis Berkhof’s History of Christian Doctrines and my book report of that. From that report: Note, first, what Renald Showers asserts under the head, A Description and Early History of Millennial Views in his book, There Really is a Difference: “This examination of early Church leaders indicates that they were, indeed, Premillennial by conviction” (p. 126.) Can this be the case if, as Berkhof alleges, early Church Fathers of note, like Clement of Rome, Clement of Alexandria, Ignatius, Polycarp, Tatian, Theophilus, Origen, Dionysius, and Athenagoras left no trace of pre-millennialism in their writings? (Louis Berkhof, The History of Christian Doctrines, p. 262.) Berkhof must be speaking truly here because these early Church Fathers are the very ones who are not highlighted in Showers’ discussion of ‘early history of millennial views.’ Renald Showers names the early Church leaders who advocate his pet dogma, makes no mention of early Church leaders who do not advocate it, and thus leads us to believe that all early Church leaders do. In spite of his carefulness to avoid being caught in a lie by a comprehensive statement, as in ‘the early Church leaders’ or ‘all early Church leaders,’ it can be detected by his presentation that he counts on what he says being taken that way. Why only highlight early Church leaders who were pre-millennial? Why be exclusive in a chapter called A Description and Early History of Millennial Views? It is easy to be deceived because of what an author leaves unsaid. Early Church Fathers did not universally hold to a pre-millennial position. Implying that they did is a lie. Unlike what Renald Showers does, Louis Berkhof does not hide the fact that some early Church leaders took a millennial position that he himself does not subscribe to. Mr. Showers does mention, in his next chapter, a couple of the early Church leaders who held no pre-millennial view; these he styles as Church leaders who rejected the pre-millennial position or ‘prejudiced’ the Greek Church. This is a devious way of doing business after setting the reader up in the previous chapter to believe that early Church leaders, without qualification, were pre-millennial in belief. Renald Showers’ layout inculcates prejudice against any view that is not pre-millennial, and by implication, any author who declines from endorsing that view. I have had to digress like this in order to show how an author obsesses over a peripheral doctrine like the millennium, even to the point of being underhanded in order to gain subscribers to his view of it. Louis Berkhof is better than that. Mr. Showers’ book is a comparison of covenant theology with dispensational. His book is 225 pages long. His pages on the millennium amount to 54 of these. Berkhof’s book on the history of Christian doctrines is 285 pages long. His pages on the millennium amount to 3 of these. Why the disparity of attention on the millennium between these two books? It is because almost every doctrine is more important than the millennial doctrine. The Covenant theologian knows this; the Dispensational writer does not.            

When an author treats a subject deceitfully, as Misters DeHaan and Showers do in their books, it is not proof that his position is wrong; but deceptive treatment should impress us with a strong suspicion. After two of us read Showers’ convincing but misleading book back in the year 2000, we had a casual discussion about it. Referring to the Covenant Theology that Showers skillfully attacks in his book, my friend remarked, “It’s poison.” I remember wondering about whether or not that was a perceptive remark. Now I know who the dispenser of poison is. Showers is not only deceptive, he is a divider among brethren.        

Dispensationalists are fond of asserting, as Showers does in his book, that they use the ‘historical-grammatical method’ of interpretation while Covenant theologians allegorize or at least do so too often. The truth is, if the historical-grammatical method is employed properly, it will be clear that some passages call for allegorical interpretations. When Showers cites the Bible thirty-eight times on page 48 of his book but quotes nothing and exposits nothing, what kind of interpretive method is that? It is not grammatical; it is not historical; it is not allegorical; it is nothing but the method of opining. It is an incompetent method of treating the Holy Scriptures; and it is an underhanded method of convincing readers of a teaching that needs biblical and exegetical support.

PART I, ARTICLE IX: AMILLENNIANISM NO LONGER INCONCEIVABLE, SECTION VI

The next inducement to be noticed is incompetence, which has already been demonstrated to a degree in the case of M. R. DeHaan’s treatment of ‘the thousand years’ in Revelation 20. This kind of incompetence is perennial among writers of premillennial material. Year after year, in book after book, these writers show their commitment to opinions more than exegesis, especially, or at least, respecting their pet doctrine of a thousand literal years of pleasure and plenty. The Meaning of the Millennium is a book presenting four views on the subject by four current (in the 1970s) exponents of these respective views. I first read the book in 2001. When I read the book again in 2023 I was able to spend more time with it because now it was not borrowed. After reading Herman A. Hoyt’s presentation in favor of dispensational premillennialism, I noted: “He does not actually exegete. He merely cites passages copiously, which dispensationalists commonly do.” A few pages after his presentation and my comment upon it, I found that Anthony A. Hoekema, the advocate for the amillennial view, had observed the same thing. He said: “What makes Hoyt’s essay difficult to evaluate is that he nowhere gives us a specific exegesis of any Scripture passage. Most of the time he simply gives scriptural references in parentheses; occasionally he quotes a Bible passage; but never does he give a detailed and argued interpretation of a passage” (The Meaning of the Millennium, pp. 104, 105.) Dispensational premillennialists are like kids looking at pictures in books but never gaining understanding by the words on their pages except for whatever may be gleaned by lightly glancing at the text. The frequent use of figurative language in the Bible makes it a picture book; its pictures must be interpreted by the dissection of passages and words and by comparing text with text. When this work reveals that the view we’ve been espousing is wrong, what should we do? Alia tentanda via est. (Another way must be tried.) So often, as in all aspects of life, be it occupational, romantic, or religious, what holds us back from change and progress is what we want the truth to be. The first words in Hoyt’s essay on the dispensational-premillennial view are these: “A world in turmoil yearns for a period in history when mankind can enjoy the benefits of the millennial kingdom as described in the Bible, a golden age of civilization” (The Meaning of the Millennium, p. 63.) God has better gold for us, though, than any old-earth civilization can yield. The unbelieving Jews of Jesus’ day looked for an earthly kingdom; our present-day dispensationalists look for the same thing; they have been making the same mistake. Jesus says to focus on the kingdom within; they focus on a kingdom without. “And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, the kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17.20, 21.) Dispensationalists may not be Pharisees; but they are looking with a Pharisaical eye. Their eye is not penetrating beneath the terms. Even when looking up the meaning of a word, Hoyt shows how nearsighted he is. On page 75 of The Meaning of the Millennium, he says: “In the Latin translation the word millennium renders the Greek word for a thousand, and that explains the term as used for this kingdom.” Does that settle the matter? Does the use of the number ‘thousand’ in other parts of the Bible than Revelation 20 matter at all? The evidence that amillennialism is the correct view is based on a close look at what key words and concepts that are used in Revelation 20 mean, not only in that chapter, but outside that chapter, outside the book of which the chapter is a part, and even outside the New Testament and inside the Old. 

The incompetent surfing of Scripture verses to convince readers of opinions is not Bible teaching; it is opinionated persuasion. Tacking on numerous citations at the ends of opinionated sentences might make a writer look like he knows what the Bible means on a subject; but it has something to do, maybe, with appearances. The show that is put on is rarely scrutinized by readers; and writers who put on this kind of show know that. How many readers look up the verses that are cited but not quoted or that are cited and only partially quoted? How many readers study the passages in which the verses that are quoted are found? How many readers will do this when the verses that are cited are as numerous as they are in Showers’ There Really is a Difference? On one single page of this book, Renald Showers (p. 48) cites the Bible thirty-eight times but quotes nothing from it; he does not quote one single verse, much less exegete anything. But the page is supposed to prove ‘the characteristics of the future Kingdom,’ by which kingdom he means: the coming millennium of a thousand actual years. He has seen, in these verses and passages, references to improved conditions, bumper crops, domestication, vegetarianism, the abolition of diseases and deformities, longevity, and worldwide peace on earth; and, without collating and expositing in order to see what any or all of this means, he supposes that there is a millennium coming of the kind that he wishes will come. John Bunyan tacks on numerous citations of verses at the ends of his sentences too, for example, in his Few Sighs from Hell. But he never does this in place of exposition. He quotes and explains in order to teach and convince; he turns the Bible contents over to show us what lies underneath; and he depends on mere citing sometimes, but never when trying to convince us of something from a hard subject or dark saying. There is a difference between amassing Bible citations in order to convince, and what Jonathan Edwards, in his History of the Work of Redemption, calls the ‘induction of particulars.’ Just before Showers commits one of his citation maneuvers, he says that ‘space will not permit a thorough evaluation….’ (Renald Showers, There Really is a Difference, p. 19.) How can ‘space not permit’ when you are writing a book? Was there a lack of paper in 1990? ‘Space does not permit’ is his excuse for ‘evaluating’ Covenant Theology in six measly pages. On the cover picture of my edition of his book, spectacles lie on top of an open Bible as if to show that Showers has taken a really close look at the contents of God’s word. Renald Showers needs to look a little closer at the text of Scripture and turn a blind eye to the Scofield notes at the bottom of the page while he does it.

PART I, ARTICLE IX: AMILLENNIALISM NO LONGER INCONCEIVABLE, SECTION V

These three inducements come straight out of close analyses of Scripture texts; they are not opinions based on a general look or gathering together of passages that, at first sight, seem to prognosticate blood and fire falling from the sky and the erecting of a greater temple than the one in Solomon’s day on the soil of Palestine. There is a symbolic resurrection; there is a symbolic binding of Satan; there is a symbolic duration of a thousand years. All three inducements happen to be gospel-centered: the first one being about individuals receiving new life in Christ on the basis of his merits and through the Spirit’s agency; the second one being about multitudes from the nations of the world coming into the kingdom of God through their reception of the saving work of the King of the Jews; the third being about, not a literal, material millennium, but the Age of the Gospel, or Church Age, which extends from the first coming of Christ to his glorious return. There will be no literal millennium; there will be no rebuilding of the temple for memorial sacrifices; there will be no mingling of glorified saints with impenitent sinners while lions and bears dine peaceably beside zebras and caribou.               

Proponents of premillennialism admit that when Jesus Christ comes back, he will come back in his exalted state. But for him to come back to mingle and mix with mere mortals during the millennium, he would have to come back, not in his exaltation, but in his humiliation. When Saul saw the Lord way up in heaven from somewhere along the road to Damascus, he went blind (Acts 9.) When the apostle John, undoubtedly the holiest man on earth in his day, saw the same Lord in a vision, he fell ‘as dead’ (Revelation 1.17.) This old earth, with humans in earthly bodies, cannot endure light come down from heaven brighter than the sun. The unbiblical incongruities involved in a literal millennium, as summed up by a postmillennialist, make up the best part of The Meaning of the Millennium, a book of four views on this disputed topic. From that book, Loraine Boettner: “In developing their ideas of what conditions will be like during the millennium, premillennialists fail to take into consideration the overpowering majesty of the risen and glorified Christ. They imagine that men will be in personal contact with him as he reigns from an earthly throne. Apparently they assume that he will be as he was in the days of his humiliation...When Christ returns in his own glory and that of the Father, with all the holy angels, certainly no mere man, who by comparison is but a worm of the dust, shall be able to stand before him. His period of humiliation is over, and his divine glory forbids the approach of those who are tainted with sin” (p. 50.) This observation is theologically astute.

PART I, ARTICLE IX: AMILLENNIANISM NO LONGER INCONCEIVABLE, SECTION IV

Inducement number three comes from the key passage on the millennium, which happens also to be the only passage in the whole Bible that speaks of its ‘thousand years’ duration. This passage, of course, is Revelation 20. The time period of a ‘thousand years’ occurs six times in the course of its fifteen verses. The first two mentions are about the length of time that Satan is bound; the third and fifth concern the length of time that certain souls reign with Christ in heaven; the fourth addresses a literal bodily resurrection some time after this millennial period; the sixth points to Satan being loosed when that millennial period expires. I have already shown the inducement to believe that the focal point of this millennium is heaven where saints reign with Christ until his second coming to earth; and I have already shown that this period of time is the Church age when the nations outside of Israel are permitted, because of Satan’s binding, to come to Christ unhindered. Each one of these two inducements topples, all by itself, the citadel of a literal millennium of peace on earth. The third inducement, like the first two, is strong enough on its own to show the literal millennium to be the mirage that it is. The literal millennium is merely a mirage, a tottering citadel, a castle in the air, midsummer madness—any metaphor like that will do. This third inducement is really the foundation for understanding the nature of the millennium. It concerns the interpretation of apocalyptic literature.  

One fact that I learned early on in my faith—and it is a fact that is acknowledged by virtually every Christian believer—is that the book of Revelation is the most symbolic book in the Bible. This is saying a lot because the Bible, from beginning to end, uses symbolic language copiously, even when it comes to what the Bible is mostly about: Jesus Christ. He is called bread but he is not literally bread; he is called a shepherd even though he was never one literally; he is called a lamb, a lion, a fountain, a rock, a vine, and a branch even though he was not, and is not, any of those in any literal fashion. 

How did I ever come to the conclusion, though, in the face of popular opinion amongst Christians, that the thousand years of Revelation 20 are symbolic years? About twenty years ago I began to do critical book reports on many of the books that I read. Nothing has helped me more to judge the merit of authors and of received opinions than that firsthand exercise. To read reviews may be helpful; but to write reviews is where confidence comes from about whether books are either commendable or discreditable. While working on a book report on M. R. DeHaan’s book, The Second Coming of Jesus, I put one of his assertions to the test of the chief rule of interpretation: the use of Scripture to interpret Scripture. About the thousand years in Revelation 20, he says that ‘a thousand years means a thousand years.’ After researching the use of the number thousand in the Bible, I wrote my findings down in my report. So, gleaning from some of that: Let us turn to the figure one thousand and see if it’s true that, in Scripture, ‘a thousand years means a thousand years,’ like he says. If ‘a thousand’ is sometimes figurative, it is possible, is it not, that this number is intended figuratively in the most figurative book in the canon; that is, in the Apocalypse? Job 9.3: “If he will contend with him [God], he cannot answer him one of a thousand.” This ‘thousand’ is a figurative number used to convey the concept ‘never,’ or ‘no, not ever.’ Psalm 50.10: “The cattle on a thousand hills.” This ‘thousand’ is used figuratively to signify ‘everything.’ Psalm 84.10: “For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand.” This ‘thousand’ is a figure of speech denoting an indefinite number of days. Psalm 91.7: “A thousand shall fall at thy side.” This is not literal speech, but symbolic speech about spiritual conquest. Psalm 105.8: “He commanded to a thousand generations.” This ‘thousand’ involves a figurative way of stressing the certainty of God’s covenant promises. Ecclesiastes 7.28: “One man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found.” This is a figurative way of warning men that immoral women abound. Song of Solomon 4.4: “Thy neck is like a tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers.” This is a romantic way, a symbolic way, a figurative way (certainly not a literal way) of praising a woman for the beauty of her neck. 1 Samuel 18.7: “Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” This means that Saul was less valiant than David was; there is nothing literal there. And, “For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past” (Psalm 90.4.) This is a symbolic way of stating the eternal perspective of God. A thousand does not always mean a thousand in poetical books and even historical books. Must ‘a thousand years’ necessarily mean exactly a thousand years in the Apocalypse, then? Must a thousand mean a thousand in the most figurative book in the Bible?...If ‘thousand’ or ‘thousands’ is meant in a figurative way so many times in the Bible, then it is plausible, and even probable, that the ‘thousand’ years mentioned in the book of Revelation is to be taken figuratively as well. 

If premillennialism hinges on anything, it hinges on the literal interpretation of the number thousand in Revelation 20—the literal interpretation of the number thousand in the most symbolic book in the Bible’s compendium of sixty-six. What justification is there for taking this number literally? If we keep in mind the figurative character of the Apocalypse and at the same time apply the most basic rule in all of hermeneutics, which is to interpret Scripture by Scripture, a literal interpretation of ‘a thousand years’ in Revelation 20 is off the table. This rule does not contradict the maxim mentioned below because the use of figurative speech in the Old Testament to identify and interpret figurative speech in the New is not the same thing as a passage in the New Testament interpreting a passage in the Old. Technique is not the same thing as the decipherment of prophecy.   

Nothing gives me confidence about what the nature of the millennium is more than the figurative use of the number ‘thousand’ in the Bible. These ‘thousand years’ in Revelation 20 are no more literal than the chain that is used to bind the devil, than the horse that Jesus is said to ride upon, than the mark on peoples’ foreheads, than the camp that is compassed about, or the rod of iron that the nations are ruled with. What about apocalyptic language in the Old Testament? The same common sense rule applies there; and the examples in the New Testament for interpreting this language corroborate the allegorical meaning of the millennium and annihilate any justification for literalizing it. That the New Testament interprets the Old Testament is a well-known maxim. Here is my impromptu iteration of that maxim, in as few words as possible: The Old Testament foreshadows the New; the New casts light on the Old. Here is how T. D. Bernard says it concerning the epistle to the Hebrews: “…the ‘perfection’ of Christian doctrine was attained by the reading of the Old Testament in the light of the (elementary) knowledge of Christ; in other words, that the complete exposition of the Gospel was the result of a combination of the facts and the words of the old dispensation with the facts and the words of the new, a combination effected in the minds of the Apostles under the teaching of the Holy Ghost, who thus brought to light the meaning and the scope of his own earlier inspirations, preserved in the Law and the Prophets” (T. D. Bernard, The Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament, p. 253.) Just as the Holy Ghost ‘brought to light’ the Old Testament by ‘the light of the knowledge of Christ’ in the New for the composition of the epistle to the Hebrews, we gain understanding of the darker passages of the Old Testament through the light of New Testament inspiration. That the New Testament interprets the Old Testament is a well-known maxim; and this maxim is not without its models. 

The epistle to the Hebrews is a major model. Here are two miniature models. (1) When the disciples were filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak in tongues because of his influence, to the amazement of visiting Jews from the nations where they had been dispersed, Peter said this: “But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts 2.16.) What was spoken by the prophet Joel? Peter tells us: “And it shall come to pass in the last days…your sons and your daughters shall prophesy…I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come: and it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (verses 17-21.) What are the signs and wonders, represented by blood, fire, and vapor? Verse 43: “And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.” And the fulfillment of this passage from Joel was made possible by Jesus Christ fulfilling his mission, which involved the performing of ‘miracles and wonders and signs’ (verse 22.) This passage from the book of Acts shows us how to interpret apocalyptic literature. The uttermost idiom is used for the greatest works of divinity; no greater work has ever been done than what which has to do with Jesus Christ. We find ourselves, in the book of Joel and in the book of Acts, then, in the mysterious wheels of apocalyptic language, as if we were in the crescendo of the book of Revelation long before we get there. Finding ourselves in the midst of apocalyptic locution before we get to the Apocalypse proper helps us to understand what is coming many books later; and it is meant to make us expectant. (2) The next model that I will show of the New Testament interpreting something cryptic from the Old is found in Acts 15 where James (it is disputed which James) quotes a passage from the prophet Amos about the rebuilding and setting up of the tabernacle of David that is happening in James’ own day. What could this mean? The fulfillment: Acts 15.16, 17: “After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things.” The prophecy that was foretold: Amos 9.11, 12: “In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old: that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by my name, saith the LORD that doeth this.” So what is the fulfillment in James’ own day of this rebuilding that is alluded to, according to New Testament inspiration? It has to do with the Gentiles coming to faith and into the kingdom: “that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things” (Acts 15.17.) James is here using Amos to explain the conversions among both Jews and Gentiles that have been going on in James’ day. We see, therefore, that what in Old Testament prophecy is apocalyptic or ceremonial, has often to do, in fulfillment, not with material things like bricks and stone, but with the gospel being received; in other words, with what has come to be known, in latter days, as revival—revivals like the ones recorded in the book of Acts during the apostles’ days. Passages in Zechariah and Ezekiel, therefore, that seem to predict a golden age such as the millennium, with a reinstituted sacrificial system and a material temple to go with that, really point, either to the effects of the gospel being poured out or to the new heaven, new earth, and New Jerusalem that the book of Revelation predicts; it may be that they refer to both. 

The doctrine of the millennium, because so many authors have invested so much time and reputation in it and made so much money by it, is a thorny subject to take an unpopular view on. Darts are often cast into the sides of persons who refuse, on interpretive and exegetical grounds, to fall in with the premillennial dogma. It is a subject that, because of its treatment as a sacred cow, is not usually handled by premillennialists sine ira et studio (without either anger or partiality) towards persons who will not conform. That said, my calling the premillennial dogma ‘midsummer madness’ or ‘a sacred cow,’ comes close, maybe, to crossing the line that they commonly cross. But if the authors who teach the millenarian view are not mad, their view does seem like madness once its dominion has been traversed and it is looked at from the more spiritual stance of bucolic amillennialism.

PART I, ARTICLE IX: AMILLENNIANISM NO LONGER INCONCEIVABLE, SECTION III

Inducement number two is about the binding of Satan that is spoken of in Revelation 20. The description of this binding begins at verse 2: “And he [the angel of verse 1] laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years.” When I first heard that this binding was symbolic, or figurative, and that it therefore meant that the devil was bound right now and that he had been bound since the first advent, I dismissed the assertion as impossible because of the obvious wickedness going on in the world. The idea seemed like an absurd opinion, not a biblical fact. How could the devil be bound in any sense when evil is so obviously abounding? The answer to this question is in the exposition of verse 3: “And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed for a little season.” The devil is not literally bound because the book of Revelation is emblematic; and neither is he literally cast into a bottomless pit. He is, rather, limited in some way. And verse 3 tells us about this limitation. He is limited in that he can no longer ‘deceive the nations’ like he once did—like he did in Old Testament times. Since the incarnation of the Son of God, what has happened? The use of the word ‘nations’ in other books of the Bible tells us what has happened; and what has happened has been largely fulfilled since the dawn of Christianity. It is true that Christians have been given over to be afflicted and killed and have been hated ‘of all nations’ for the sake of faith in Jesus’ name (Matthew 24.9.) But it is equally true that the gospel has been preached ‘in all the world’ (verse 14; Romans 1.8) and that ‘all nations’ have been taught the gospel and that vast multitudes of persons among the nations have been baptized into Christ (Matthew 28.19.) Outside of Israel, the saved souls that we are told about in the Old Testament are few. There are the Assyrian Ninevites; they repented at the preaching of Jonah. There is Job, the Arab; Rahab, the Canaanite; Uriah, the Hittite; Ruth, the Moabite; Naaman, the Syrian; maybe even King Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian. Others do not easily come to mind. In the time of Jesus’ ministry on earth, we have instances like the faith of a Greek woman (Mark 7) and of a Roman centurion (Matthew 8) as the gospel of the kingdom begins to spread out beyond Israel. (See also Matthew 12.15-21.) But in the book of Acts is recorded the history of the sudden explosion of the gospel to other nations. When the gospel was miraculously preached in tongues to dispersed, devout Jews who were ‘Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites,’ and others; as well as ‘strangers of Rome’ and ‘proselytes,’ the result was that thousands were saved (Acts 2.) This is the evidence of the devil being bound to deceive the nations no more. When the apostle Peter received the revelation that he ‘should not call any man common or unclean’ no matter what nation any man was of, it was because the gospel was going out to the nations and was being extensively embraced (Acts 10.) What is this but the devil, as it says in Revelation 20, not deceiving the nations as in former times? “But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him” (Acts 10.35.) The nation chosen by God to be ‘his peculiar treasure’ and ‘a special people unto himself’ (Psalm 135.4; Deuteronomy 7.6) was destined, through the loins of Abraham and the promise of God, to be the conduit to multitudes from many nations coming to faith. “As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations” (Genesis 17.4.) The Messiah is foretold by the prophet Haggai and is called by him ‘the desire of all nations’ (Haggai 2.7.) He says there that “the desire of all nations shall come.” When did ‘the desire of all nations’ come? The answer is Sunday school level theology wherein the puzzle concerning the binding of Satan is solved. When the Magi came from the east to find ‘he that is born King of the Jews’ (Matthew 2.2), what was happening on the deeper level? “The coming of these Gentiles to Christ indicated that religion was no longer to be restricted to the Holy Land. The swaddling-clothes of Judaism were to be cast aside, and religion to march forth free and unfettered to claim the whole world in the name of the new-born King. The prophetic word had already gone forth: ‘All nations shall call Him blessed.’ And now these Gentiles come from afar to put their appropriating hand on the Holy Child Jesus, and claim Him as the Saviour for the world of Gentiles as well as the world of Jews” (Richard Roberts, My Later Ministry, p. 9.) The chokehold that the devil had on the Gentile nations was about to be broken. What is that but another way of saying what Revelation 20 tells us concerning his binding ‘that he should deceive the nations no more’? The ‘light to the Gentiles,’ foretold by the prophet Isaiah, had come. Why had he come? His coming was for ‘salvation unto the end of the earth’ (Isaiah 49.6.) In other words, it was for the salvation of souls among the nations, for which work, to be effectual, the devil would have to be limited, restricted, prevented, chained, fettered, or bound. There are prophecies like the one in Psalm 22.27 about ‘all the kindreds of the nations’ worshipping before God and the one in Zechariah 2.11 about many nations being joined to the LORD. What is included in all of this but a seal being set on Satan like it says in Revelation 20 ‘that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled’? If these prophecies, and others like them from the Old Testament, are applied by premillennialists to the epoch of a literal future millennium and not before, can we not protest that this process of salvation among the nations began on a large scale two thousand years ago? Has the devil not been restricted from deceiving the nations like he once did in the olden time before the first advent? God used even Caiaphas, the high priest who delivered Jesus to Pilate to be executed, to prophesy the fulfillment of the devil being bound: “…he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad” (John 11.51, 52.) This is an unintentional prophecy of the devil being bound; this is a prophecy of his deceptive power over the nations being broken. The apostle Paul could speak, in the early days of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, of ‘obedience to the faith among all nations’ (Romans 1.5) and of heathen being justified through faith (Galatians 3.8.) He could speak like this because the devil was deceiving the nations no more like he once had done. The thousand years of Revelation 20 had begun. Some of what is related in Revelation 20 had not begun. Satan was not ‘loosed out of his prison’ (verse 7) yet; the final judgment (verses 11-15) was not in effect; and no one and nothing was being cast into the fiery lake. (Full preterism is a heresy; not all prophecies are fulfilled yet; that they are not all fulfilled yet is a negotiable article of faith only for persons willing to be damned.)

The report given by the seventy disciples upon their return from preaching substantiates this teaching of the devil’s figurative binding. They exclaimed, “Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name” (Luke 10.17.) Their Lord answered, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (verse 18.) Compare this with some of Revelation 20 to see the similarity; indeed, in order to see how what is said in Revelation 20 was fulfilled during Jesus’ ministry: “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years” (Revelation 20.1, 2.) This is why the devils were now subject to these disciples. It was because of this binding. “And cast him into the bottomless pit” (verse 3): This is the fall of the devil ‘as lightning from heaven’ during the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. In the following words of Jesus, we have this fall associated with nations coming to the Lord because of it: “Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me” (John 12.31, 32.) This goes far to show, also, that the book of Revelation does not present a simple chronological sequence of events. The fulfillment of some of Revelation 20, which is very near to the close of the book, happened way back during the ministry of our Lord. That the book of Revelation is not chronological is the answer as to why the wrath of God closes chapters 11, 14, 16, and 19. It may be progressive in a sense; but it is not strictly chronological. It recapitulates from the incarnation of our Lord (roughly) to the consummation of all things.       

Why could it be sung in heaven of sinners being redeemed to God by the blood of the Lamb ‘out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation’? (Revelation 5.9.) This message could be sung because by this time the devil could deceive the nations no longer. The inhabitants of heaven could sing of the redemption of multitudes among the nations because the thousand years had begun. They could sing in chapter 5 of what is written in chapter 20 because the book of Revelation is not chronological, but a series of parallels. This structure has been called both ‘recapitulation’ and ‘parallelism.’ My two names for it are ‘progressive recapitulation’ and ‘progressive parallelism’ because of the additional revelation that is disclosed, especially in the final chapters. So often was I confused about how the book of Revelation is wont to begin at the beginning again right after a climax. It does this over and over. This riddle is solved once progressive recapitulation is noticed. The end of the age occurs, according to that schema, at the ends of chapters 3, 7, 11, 14, 16, 19, and 22; and each ending is more climactic than the one before it. The choir singing of God’s redemption has multiplied many times since the book of Revelation was written. This has been made possible because of the limitations put upon Satan since then. The proof of this multiplication is written in books on the great revivals that have taken place since the symbolic millennium started so long ago. We have had such outpourings of grace since that spiritual watershed that some of the Gentile nations have been called ‘Christian’ nations. They have not been wholly Christian any more than every member of Israel could be said to have been circumcised in the heart. But any nation has had to have been divinely affected to a large degree for it to be classified by anyone as Christian. The binding of the devil has meant the liberation necessary to souls coming to Christ in droves throughout the centuries among the nations of the earth. The devil’s binding, then, is interpreted for us in many parts of the Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments. Even without this corroborative data, we should know that this binding is figurative because the devil is a spirit, and a spirit cannot be bound by a chain. And if the chain in Revelation 20.1 is figurative, why would the thousand years in verse 2 be literal? 

We know that the binding of Satan has happened because the purpose of his binding has been, and is still being, in some measure, fulfilled. He was bound in order to curb his power over the nations so that multitudes from these various peoples of the earth would receive the good news that salvation from sin may be accessed through faith in Jesus’ name; the devil was constrained so that the ‘fulness of the Gentiles’ could come into God’s kingdom (Romans 11.25.) This is the movement that is spoken of in words like these: ‘out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation’ (Revelation 5.9); and in words like these: ‘a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues’ (7.9); and these: ‘the everlasting gospel…unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people’ (14.6); and these: ‘all nations shall come and worship before thee’ (15.4.) I have not read the works of Tertullian (circa A. D. 160-240.) But Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) had some knowledge of these writings; and he was both a discerning and honest man. In his History of the Work of Redemption, Edwards gives this stunning summary of Tertullian’s testimony concerning the extension of God’s kingdom in his day: “in his day the Christian religion had extended itself to the utmost bounds of the then known world, in which he reckons Britain, the country of our forefathers. He thence demonstrates that the kingdom of Christ was then more extensive than any of the four great monarchies, and moreover says that, though the Christians were as strangers of no long standing, yet they had filled all places of the Roman dominions, their cities, their islands, castles, corporations, councils, armies, tribes, the palace, senate, and courts of judicature; only they had left to the heathen their temples; and that if they should all agree to retire out of the Roman Empire, the world would be amazed at the solitude and desolation that would ensue upon it, there would be so few left; and that the Christians were enough to be able easily to defend themselves, if they were disposed to rise up in arms against the heathen magistrates” (p. 305.) This is the kind of history that informs and confirms the verses quoted above, even by the early date of Tertullian’s life. We are not obliged to believe that each and every professor was more than nominal to assert that the kingdom of Christ, nevertheless, was filling the earth, as prophesied by the prophet Daniel (Daniel 2.35.) Readers of revival history will understand. The propagation of the gospel has at least partially fulfilled the prophecy of swords being beaten into plowshares (Isaiah 2.4.) Consider the startling fact that John Wesley’s (1703-1791) ministerial headquarters in London was a former cannon factory. Isaiah’s prophecy is not about literal swords and literal plowshares. Much more of the Bible has been fulfilled than we have been given, by contemporary Dispensationalists, to think. And much more could be shared about that, even concerning the final chapters of Ezekiel; but this would lead away from the point at issue about the binding of Satan in Revelation 20.              

It can be somewhat traumatizing to discover that some prophecies that we’ve been looking forward to have been fulfilled already. But there are better and greater blessings awaiting us than if we had a millennium on earth to enjoy, or even a thousand of them, before entering in upon our final rest in the eternal state. The moon has a diameter of two thousand miles; that of the earth, about eight thousand; that of Jupiter, about eighty-seven thousand; that of our sun (a yellow dwarf), just under nine hundred thousand; that of Arcturus (an orange giant), about twenty-two million; that of Rigel (a blue supergiant), over sixty-eight million; that of Pistol Star (a blue hypergiant), about two hundred and sixty-five million; that of VY Canis Majoris (a red hypergiant), well over a billion; one light day covers sixteen billion miles; our galaxy (the milky way) covers one hundred thousand light years; and the observable universe encompasses a hundred billion light years. (These numbers vary to some degree among experts in cosmology.) A literal thousand year millennium is a puny thing compared to what a God large enough to create a universe like that has in store. “He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names. Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite” (Psalm 147, 5.) The single act of redemption by ‘the Lord of glory’ being more awesome than the creation of whole worlds, it is no wonder that the word of God says that man has no idea what God has prepared for the recipients of his grace (1 Corinthians 2.8, 9.) This passage goes on to say that saints, in distinction from the ‘princes of this world’ who crucified the Lord, do know something about what God has prepared for them to enjoy. Shelves lined with materialistic ‘end times’ books make it appear as though Christians have received, not the Spirit of God that ‘searcheth all things,’ but ‘the spirit of the world.’ The literal millennium is refuted by the figurative binding of Satan. This fact lifts us up above the spirit of the world that craves the confinement of a three dimensional existence. The binding of the devil is allegorical; so is the thousand years during which he is bound; and these facts are consonant with Christians being spiritually minded. The binding of Satan is in force; the millennium is happening; both are for a thousand figurative years; and recipients of the ‘first resurrection’ become heavenly millenarians as soon as they die.

PART I, ARTICLE IX: AMILLENNIANISM NO LONGER INCONCEIVABLE, SECTION II

Inducement number one concerns ‘the first resurrection’ that is mentioned in Revelation 20.5, 6. The ‘first resurrection’ is mentioned in both verses; and it is the same resurrection that is referred to in each verse. Verse 6: “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.” The generic ‘he’ that has part in this ‘first resurrection’ is the same as ‘the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God’ in verse 4. That is the topic. This is why we have the assertion in verse 5: “This is the first resurrection.” The rest of verse 5 is parenthetical. What the author is saying is: This concerns that: this ‘first resurrection’ in verse 6 has to do with these ‘souls’ in verse 4. He that is ‘beheaded’ (verse 4) is he that is disembodied; it is the author’s way of saying that we have to do with souls here, not bodies. And these beheaded souls—these souls without bodies—they ‘reign with him [Christ] a thousand years’ (verse 6.) Where do souls without their bodies reign with Christ? They reign with Christ in heaven; they reign in heaven with Christ for a thousand years, which is another way, in apocalyptic literature, of saying, a long time. Therefore this ‘first resurrection’ that grants the right of disembodied souls to reign with Christ in heaven must be a spiritual, not a bodily, resurrection. This inference is substantiated by the statement that the second death has no power on persons who have part in the first resurrection: ‘on such the second death hath no power’ (verse 6.) The second death has no power on persons who have part in the first resurrection; that is to say, on persons who have been born again. It is called the ‘first’ resurrection because it happens before the second one; the second one is the resurrection of the body. The first resurrection is of the soul; the second one is of the body. There is a figurative use in the New Testament of the concept of resurrection. This is what is referred to in Revelation 20. Resurrection is sometimes used in a figurative sense. Christians are said to be ‘raised up’ before ‘the ages to come’ (Ephesians 2.6, 7.) This is the ‘quickening’ of verse 5. God ‘hath raised us up,’ it says in verse 6. This is spoken in the past tense to Christians then living. There is a resurrection that happens to sinners to make them Christians; it is the born again experience; it is regeneration. We have the same idea in Colossians 2.12. The Colossian Christians ‘are risen with him [Christ],’ it says there. They are resurrected already; the bodily resurrection comes after. They have, as Jesus puts it in John 5.24, ‘passed from death unto life.’ The ‘second death’ is mentioned in Revelation 20 beside this ‘first resurrection,’ which resurrection is figurative to signify regeneration, something that happens before, not after, bodily death. The ‘second death’ is mentioned in association with something else (in addition to this kind of resurrection) that happens before, not after, bodily death. See the consistency of that. “He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death” (Revelation 2.11.) This is an admonition to Christians yet alive. If they persevere in faith, they will dodge the second death. This is the meaning. The same kind of admonition occurs in Revelation 21.7 to distinguish persevering Christians from varieties of impenitent sinners: ‘the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable,’ and so on (verse 8.) Therefore the teaching is that he upon whom the second death has no power is he that is regenerated before dying the first time, or physically; and he upon whom the second death has no power is he that overcomes in faith all the way to his grave.

If the concept of resurrection, therefore, is used figuratively in other parts of the New Testament, why should it be thought strange that it would be used figuratively in the most figurative book in the Bible? And the figurative use of it in Revelation 20 tells us that it is resurrected souls, not resurrected Christians with their bodies, that reign with Christ for a thousand years; and it tells us that the focal point of these thousand years is heaven, not earth; and this, in turn, tells us that from the perspective of persons on earth, the thousand years are figurative years denoting that period of time in between the first and second advents of Jesus Christ our Lord. That the thousand years has mainly to do with heaven in the present tense would be comforting to first century Christians whose spiritual brothers and sisters were being ‘beheaded,’ or killed for their faith: “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years” (Revelation 20.6.) There would be little comfort here for first century saints if these thousand years were thousands of years in the future. He that is beheaded for his faith begins immediately to reign with Christ for a thousand years. “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand” (Revelation 1.3.) The meaning, largely considered, is: Happy is he who hears the words of this prophecy and obeys what is written in it, for if he remains faithful and overcomes, even unto death, he will begin to reap the rewards shortly. This, then, is one inducement to be amillennial instead of millennial. By comparing Scripture with Scripture, and through special care to be congruent with the context, a spiritual resurrection is found in Revelation 20, and this ‘first resurrection’ is the event that guarantees the soul a thousand years with Christ in heaven until he comes back to earth to resurrect the bodies of all and to judge the world. The nearness of the millennium and its extended period of blessedness would be especially relevant for persecuted Christians to whom Jesus the Lord, through his apostle John, addressed his message.

Some writers on this passage of Scripture (Revelation 20) say that the word ‘lived’ in verses 4 and 5 must be identically interpreted. They say that ‘they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years’ must be the same kind of living as in ‘the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.’ So they contend that both these groups were resurrected physically, or else both these groups were made alive spiritually. My doctrine is that the persons who lived to reign with Christ a thousand years (verse 4) are persons made alive spiritually in their born again experiences; and that the persons who lived not again ‘until’ (verse 5) are persons not resurrected in their bodies until the close of these thousand years. My doctrine, therefore, is that the first ‘lived’ is to be taken figuratively as pertaining to souls, and that the second ‘lived’ is to be taken literally as pertaining to bodies. Technical data are supportive of this duality. Both instances of ‘lived’ are stated in Strong’s as bearing either the literal sense or the figurative sense. And for the second ‘lived,’ the Holy Spirit, through his servant John, goes out of his way to use a different word from the first. The first ‘lived’ is translated from ‘zao’; the second is translated from ‘anazao.’ There is no more trouble believing that these words bear different meanings—the first figurative and the second literal—than believing that the first and second advents of Jesus Christ are predicted in Isaiah 9.6 in the words ‘child’ and ‘son.’ The word ‘zao’ means ‘to live,’ and corresponds neatly with that life which a sinner is infused with upon regeneration. The word ‘anazao’ means ‘to recover life,’ and corresponds nicely with the recovery of life to the body upon resurrection.

C. H. Spurgeon preached a sermon in 1861 called The First Resurrection wherein he asserted that the ‘first resurrection’ in the passage being considered is a bodily one; and he says that this sermon was ‘blessed of God.’ It is fair to admit this information. A sermon by Spurgeon is so full of spirit and meat that it may be blessed in spite of a bone and fault or two.       

While the ‘first resurrection’ in verses 5 and 6 refers to regeneration, bodily resurrection is mentioned in the parenthetical part of verse 5: in the first sentence. Revelation 20.5: “But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.” So there are two kinds of resurrection here. The ‘first resurrection’ is contrasted with another resurrection in the words, ‘the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.’ The reason why it says, in verse 6, that ‘blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection’ is because this other resurrection must be a negative one. This other resurrection, then, is the one that takes place for persons who are not ‘blessed and holy,’ which must happen at the judgment for unbelievers. The dead who ‘lived not again until the thousand years were finished’ (verse 5) are the same dead mentioned in verse 12 who ‘were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works,’ the ones ‘not found written in the book of life’ (verse 15.) The message, then, is: If you are not raised to newness of life by experiencing this ‘first resurrection’ of your soul, you will not reign with Christ for a thousand years, for you will not have escaped the second death; and persons who have not escaped the second death are doomed to be raised at the last day for the negative purpose of being judged and consigned to the lake of fire for their sins. 

As if to crown my investigation on the meaning of this ‘first resurrection,’ the first part of verse 6 reads like so in Young’s Literal Translation: “Happy and holy is he who is having part in the first rising again.” In other words, the meaning is not: Happy and holy is he who is being resurrected bodily. The meaning is: Happy and holy is he who is being saved. So the sinners being born again in John the apostle’s day and who are obviously going to die before the consummation of all things, happy are they because they will get to reign with Christ in heaven for a thousand years or for however long it takes before Jesus Christ descends with them to judge the world. This is palpable encouragement for persecuted saints of the first century. New Testament letters were written for teaching, correction, and reproof, but also, maybe most of all, for encouragement. “Blessed is he that readeth” (Revelation 1.3.) Blessed is he because for him the one thousand years is near; that time is at the door. The blessing is primarily for the saints to whom the apostle wrote. The Revelation had to be written somewhat cryptically in order to veil it from the Roman government; but it also had to be understood by the persons to whom it was written, at least enough for them to derive a blessing from the disclosure.