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.

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

 

Like most new Christians do, I read numerous books on the end times immediately after my born again beginning. Because the popular books on eschatology all leaned in one direction, I inclined that way as well. It took many years before I discovered teachers of a different mold from sensationalist sellers of millenarian books. It took a long time before my application of certain interpretive principles led me out from the cave of misunderstanding on this topic. The propositions in this article started to come together as I became comfortably convinced of how one single subject about the end times ought to be interpreted. The article itself is the outcome of an idea that I had for a hilltop meeting on the subject of the millennium. I don’t remember how it did it (for Jonathan Edwards was postmillennial in his belief), but his book called ‘A History of the Work of Redemption’ is what first made me suspect, twenty years ago in 2004, that premillennialism might be indefensible. I never wanted premillennialism to be unfounded. Because of this, I can honestly say that this article contains the fruits of years of independent education and unbiased investigation. These results, moreover, have not been allowed to stand except after frequent periods of meditation. The acquired input, in the exercise of meditation, has been held loosely aloft to sort itself out before settling into certainty. Note that Premillennialism, Chiliasm, and Millenarianism are terms that are used interchangeably in this article.    

Introduction

As is often the case with controversial subjects or subjects that are more on the margins than mainstream, the proper belief concerning the apocalyptic millennium is, I believe, not the popular one. The popular belief about it has been, since at least WWI, dispensational premillennialism. The premillennial teaching has occupied more shelves in the twentieth century, probably, than any other one found in Christian bookstores. And doubtless it has made its authors more money in the last fifty years of that century than any teaching propounded in all of Christendom. This teaching is the belief that the one thousand years that are mentioned in Revelation 20 are literal years and that Jesus Christ will return bodily to set up a kingdom of peace lasting for that exact amount of time and that he will then rule the world for this duration from Jerusalem with a rod of iron. Christians are united in believing that his second advent will be personal, physical, visible, and sudden. But not all of us believe that he is coming back to set up a paradisiacal thousand years of peace before the final judgment takes place. 

After end times enthusiasts have shamed themselves as deeply as their piles of cash are high from selling melodramatic books, the time has come to look at how amillennialism is shamelessly conceivable. If the end times aficionados would have been correct, each one of us Christians would be under his own fig tree right now with pet lions lying down beside oxen carelessly chewing their cud. This would be our situation because that is how literally most premillennial advocates interpret symbolic language; and this would be our situation right now because they (not all of them) have predicted the time of the rapture, and, consequently, the return of Christ and the start of the millennium, albeit cleverly and not in so many words. Each reader who has read books on the end times, if he has read them critically, has noticed that. Now that these predictions have failed, and because some readers remember their being made, a subset of these readers are reduced to believing that no prophecy whatsoever awaits, which position, of course, is heretical, for the actual in-person second coming of Jesus Christ is a capital doctrine of the Christian Faith. Millenarianism, if it is false, can cause frustration in the person who discovers it to be false, resulting in a recoil and unbelief. There are negative consequences to harping on or hyping up a teaching that might happen to be imaginary. There is an alternative to premillennialism that is more sobering than sensational and that, because of this temper, does not lead to a letdown or to unbelief. This alternative may be drawn straight from the chapter that millenarians depend on the most for the kind of millennium that they espouse. 

First, I will present three inducements from Revelation 20 to disbelieve in millenarianism and to believe in amillennianism instead. Then I will present specimens of millenarian incompetence and underhandedness as two further inducements. Each one of the three inducements collapses the idea of a literal millennium of peace on earth; and the specimens of incompetence and underhandedness reinforce the likelihood that millenarianism is a falsehood.

PART I, ARTICLE VIII: THE PERILOUS FOLLY OF FULL PRETERISM, SECTION V

Conclusion         

As mentioned earlier, in order to learn what the big to-do about full preterism was, I watched several videos about it, both for and against; then I watched a few debates on the subject. David Hester calls full preterism a heresy; but he debates Don K. Preston and even treats him as a brother. As I have shown from Scripture, this is wrong. The apostle Paul did not debate heretics in a forum or manner wherein heretics were treated as brothers. David Hester is Education Director and Involvement Minister for the Eastern Meadows Church of Christ in Montgomery, Alabama. Don K. Preston had his hotel room paid for when he came to town to preach heresy in this church. David Hester complains about division in the Church; but then he invites a heretical divider into his church to preach heresy to his people. 

Because I had to learn about a current heresy to be opposed and refuted, I cannot be held guilty for watching debates that I don’t believe should have happened. I will now share the two most important things I learned from that minor mental exertion. I do not know if David Hester is thoroughly orthodox. I don’t know enough about his ministry in order to judge that. But when he speaks traditional orthodoxy against full preterism, I can easily understand him; I have ‘ears to hear’ what he says. Conversely, even when Don K. Preston says ‘catch the power of this!’ I cannot catch that power no matter how hard I try. I can’t follow him down his winding corridors; I can’t see what he sees; I can’t hear what he hears; I can’t catch the power that he has caught. Either he is blind to the Bible, or I am. I can catch the power of what I believe is faithful exposition; but I can’t catch the power of full preterism. This, I believe, is because full preterism is perilously unorthodox. When a Christian cannot catch light from a speaker, the speaker is likely in darkness. If what he says is as nebulous as the un-deciphered Code of Hammurabi, he, not the Christian listening, should be suspected of cloudiness and confusion. This is the most convincing indicator, I think, of full preterism being unorthodox. Because it is both dark and perilous, the sincere Christian will not be able to catch its alleged light and power. I have ears to hear when Michael Brown debates Preston as well. I even have ears to hear when Jason Wallace debates him. Wallace was so over his head in that debate that he was drowned in it; but because his arguments lined up with Scripture, my Christian spirit recognized that he was right. The most airtight argument for the full preterist being wrong, then, is the revelation in 1 Corinthians 2: “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given us of God” (verse 12.) The spirit saved by God through Christ can recognize error because the truth has been revealed to him and resides inside him. He has the mind of Christ (verse 16.) Mr. Wallace played the fool in deciding to debate Mr. Preston. “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty” (1 Corinthians 1.27.) Don Preston, the wise man, was taken in his ‘own craftiness’ (3.19) at least where I was concerned: because I noticed the ‘foolish things of the world’ (1.27) in Mr. Wallace to be the truth. When listening to these two debaters, it was evident that the heretic was whipping the man who leaned orthodox. Still, the Christian is able to judge that the man who lost is the man who was right. The heretic will call this judgment unfair. To the Christian, this doesn’t matter, for he is the spiritual man in the following verse: “But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man” (1 Corinthians 2.15.) The Christian has something akin to a spiritual nerve to distinguish truth from error. Like Spiderman with his spider sense or a woman with her intuition, the Christian’s ‘inner man’ tingles when something’s not right.   

The second most convincing indicator that full preterism is wrong is that it is based on the year A. D. 70. That is its foundation, which foundation is about as stable as the temple was at that time. The full preterist has to wrest the Scriptures in order to make them fit into this ‘time stamp,’ as he calls it. The future of full preterism is like the fate of the temple that was destroyed in A. D. 70. “There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Matthew 24.2.) It is not safe for the soul to be worshipping at the temple of full preterism.         

If full preterism is gaining ground, it may be because multitudes are finally tired of the other extreme: all the hype and false predictions over the last few decades concerning the rapture, the great tribulation, the antichrist, the mark of the beast, the two witnesses, the millennium, and all the other sensational aspects of pre-millennial faith. Tired of all the fanaticism and false predictions, the natural thing is to react all the way to the other extreme where no prophecy whatsoever has to be waited for ever again. But full preterism, because of its denial of fundamental doctrines, is more perilous by far than any brand of pre-millennialism. Full preterists assert that the second coming, the judgment, and the resurrection are all behind us. If their assertion is wrong, they might as well be denying those doctrines and events. I suppose they believe that history on earth will go on indefinitely. This is likely their belief, for full preterism is earthly. “This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish” (James 3.15.)

Is it not true that Christians who end up being babes tossed about by winds of false doctrine for years upon years are fascinated by things less than elementary—much less elementary than the fundamental doctrines of faith, repentance, baptism, laying on of hands, resurrection, and judgment? (Hebrews 6.1-2.) Are so many of these babes not obsessed with things like glossolalia, the location of Noah’s ark, and the nature of pre-diluvium giants? Speak to them on a topic like that, and their eye becomes as focused as the eye of a cat on a nearby bird. Then mention resurrection, and it is not the history or futurity of this that grips them—not the resurrection of Jesus or the general resurrection—but an alleged resurrection by a ‘faith healer.’ These babes are the ones who are most susceptible to believe an idea like ‘the resurrection is past already.’ They are not grounded in basic doctrines; the winds of heresy easily carry them off; and many babes, consequently, are destined to have it discovered at the last day that they were not ‘Fathers in Israel’ like they saw themselves as, and not even ‘newborn babes,’ but deceived unbelievers. Many babes never mature because the fundamentals that lead to childhood are never studied by them, being laid aside for things that titillate more than teach. The first concern of a babe should be to become a child at least. Baby Street, if stayed on, may lead to Heresy Avenue, which in turn opens up to a Broadway leading to Destruction. Warn the stubborn babe of this, and he will be as certain that he is safe as Don K. Preston is of obtaining salvation through his eviscerated system. It is not wrong to seek out mysteries. But there must be order and proportionality to our seeking. A carpenter doesn’t learn to build houses by making hobby horses. A hobby horse Christian is an incorrigible toddler who refuses to be taught. The first principles of religion, what are they? He knows them all. He knows everything about every single one. He must move on to find out how giants were conceived, where the Urim and the Thummim might be discovered, and where the sword of Goliath was last laid down. We don’t need the Urim and the Thummim to divine what happens next. By riding the trails on his hobby horses, without the weight of first principles to keep him grounded, he is blown about, and becomes a full preterist or something just as deadly to his soul. 

One fundamental point gotten wrong has cost many a person so much. A dissertation is lost on account of the wrong button pressed. A rifle fails to fire because the pin was left out. How fundamentally important is the resurrection of the body? Can this teaching be absent from the soul that is saved? An astronomer said that the darkest thing she ever saw was the moon as it covered the sun. The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, if covered by unbelief, will bring about its own eclipse, more dark than any natural one on record, and as stretched out in time as eternity itself. Resurrection, according to my species of synesthesia, is a fiery red word; while unbelief is a black word. This black word is now covering the red one in the lives of many, and it is driven by the impulse of full preterism. We had better die “knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus” (2 Corinthians 4.14.) We had better know this in the reasonable, traditional sense: as Jesus rose from the dead bodily, so will we. Reaching forward into chapter 5, we are reminded of what we all know by observation: that, upon death, a soul becomes absent from its body (5.8.) The prospect, then, is of what must take place thereafter: the rejoining of body and soul. And to what purpose is that? “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (verse 10.) Full preterism is the belief that all prophecies have been fulfilled. Both heaven and hell are prophesied in the Bible. What can the full preterist believe, then, except that hell and heaven are in the past, and are, therefore, allegorical? And what has the full preterist to say about wrongs one day being righted? If all prophecies are in the past, all murderers and rapists and robbers who have gotten away with their sins and crimes will never be finally judged. If all prophecies are in the past, we are told in vain to ‘give place to wrath’ so that God can do the repaying (Romans 12.19.) If all prophecies are in the past, the Lord will not repay criminals with vengeance after all. Therefore, if the plan of the full preterist is correct, present lawlessness will never give way to justice.              

The story of how Don K. Preston became a full preterist is helpful as a warning. This story he gave in a speech called, Testimony Regarding Full Preterism. Freshly graduated from seminary, Don K. Preston decided, not to teach what the Holy Ghost impressed him with, not even to teach what a new minister ought to be paying attention to, but what the women in his Bible class wanted him to teach. What did he study? What did he teach? He studied and taught Matthew 24 and Revelation. Instead of studying and teaching the fundamentals of the faith, which he ought to have done, he studied and taught the subject of end-time prophecy. Besides the fact of his unbelief, is this not the key to how he was led astray? He began with last things instead of first things; and because he was never grounded in first things, his false interpretation of last things led him into fundamental errors. His problems did not start here though. When he was in seminary, two of his professors admitted that they did not believe what they were about to teach. It is not a surprise, then, that Mr. Preston was cast adrift. Not to say that the ‘Church of Christ’ textbook that his professors were teaching from was thoroughly truthful. The point is that the seminary that he went to did him no good. And then he became a minister who didn’t know what to believe. And from all of this we get a man who ends up preaching full preterism. The man began with last things instead of first things; then he interpreted first things according to his theory of last things; and it is no wonder that a Christian can barely understand a thing that he says. When a man begins with last things before he is grounded in first things, he risks ending mixed up about all things. It is not safe to begin your ministry with difficult eschatological texts that masters in the word of God have been doubtful about the interpretation of and have disagreed with each other on. It is not safe; it is not wise; it is not ministerial. Did he teach something other than eschatology after he graduated? I don’t know; but I doubt it. To teach eschatology as a young minister, without the ballast of historical theology, is impetuous, reckless, and hazardous. It is a sure way to shipwreck your faith and the faith of those who listen to you. How did I write this article? Did I rely on my own skill and understanding? Here is how I did it: I looked closely at each passage that seemed to address the subject in question; I compared those passages with others of similar character; I came up with an outline; I took notes; I looked up some key words; I took more notes; I compared all of this with full preterism; I wrote the article; in my revision of it I made sure that I was convinced; I turned to learned Commentators, and received correction from them in places where they convinced me of error; I opened up a Confession or two, and considered them; and during all of these stages I was meditating and praying intermittently. I did not begin with Commentaries and Confessions. I did the work on my own; then I allowed myself to be edified by the body of Christ (Ephesians 4.12) that these Commentators and Confessors are part of (verse 11.) Before all of this, however—years and years before all of this—I had studied to the point of arriving at a considerable share of certainty regarding a system of theology. This does not mean that my system of theology decided anything; I did not adopt the system before I was persuaded, through much hard labor, of its truth. And this system proves itself right again and again by its reasonable interpretations, especially of passages of Scripture that focus on doctrines and events of the first rank. 

A system that purports to solve problems by a great sweep is attractive to persons who like singularity more than complexity, and relaxation more than labor. Imagine: so many prophecies thought unsolvable, redirected through one easy channel! a system with more unifying force in eschatology than the theories of Einstein in science! Its design is to draw prophecies to itself to receive the simple explanation of the year A. D. 70. But lo! “The Guillotine was not originally designed with any view to what turned out to be its most important characteristic—the great numbers of victims that it could dispose of in a short space of time: it is curious, and ought to be to theorists an instructive lesson, that this bloody implement was at first proposed on a combined principle of justice and mercy” (John Wilson Croker, History of the Guillotine, p. 7.) The cure of beheading became worse than the alleged disease of hanging. Similarly, full preterism is worse than what it claims to be a fix for. It may become a convenient mode, not to solve prophetic puzzles, but to smooth the way toward hell for thousands of inconstant professors. It can roll from place to place like a Guillotine could, only faster. It may roll from city to city and from site to site, drawing souls away from the faith without bother of removing heads. Full preterism is no innocuous belief. Prophecy is not a frivolous matter. The second coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the judgment of the world are doctrines and events that souls must live on, or else die forever without. To knit and gossip around a Guillotine, as certain women did during the Reign of Terror in France, is no way to stop the blade from falling. Full preterists must be warned before they lose their everlasting souls. It may be, since men choose to trifle instead of learn what they should believe, that the Lord is dispatching a Robespierre or two in the midst, to take multitudes down in their folly. Strong delusions are sent by God to deal with persons who amuse themselves with lies when they should receive the truth; and their false believing issues in damnation (2 Thessalonians 2.) This is not unlike a person who wills to believe, against mounting evidence, that there is a plague when there isn’t one, only to be given over by God to further believe that he needs a vaccine, which vaccine ends up killing him. 

In the French Revolution it was shown that a cheek, when slapped, will blush after its head is severed. In like manner, dead bodies will blush with life when the Lord comes back to resurrect. And what comes after but the final judgment? To have died a full preterist will be to have died in faith that is vain instead of saving. There is a resurrection unto damnation; full preterism is a damnable heresy; many bodies, no doubt, will be raised to be damned because of an allegiance to it. 

Professing Christians who are most in danger of falling for the full preterist heresy are persons who have become exhausted by all the false predictions of prophecy pundits and their pulp prophecy books. This includes, especially, professing Christians who hold Pentecostal beliefs. This kind of professing Christian acts like, even if he does not say so, as if the Bible may be, not only contradicted, but superseded by his subjective connection with the Holy Ghost. That his beliefs may contradict the Bible poses no more problem to his mind than the clash between verses in the Koran troubles the Muslim.        

Full preterism is a foolish, perilous heresy. Those who travel down this road risk losing their path toward heaven. There are certain doctrines and events that we, as professing Christians, are obligated to believe. To not believe that the Lord is coming back to resurrect and to judge is to disbelieve some of the most fundamental matters of religion in the Bible. Resurrection is the completion of redemption. It is called ‘the redemption of the body.’ Can a person be saved while disbelieving in redemption? The notion that one can seems blasphemous. “Where is the promise of his coming?” (2 Peter 3.4.) To the full preterist, the promise has been fulfilled, and we didn’t even know it. But the second coming of Jesus Christ is not in the past. It still stretches out in the future because the Lord “is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (verse 9.) This extension of mercy does not exclude the full preterist, as sacrilegious as his heresies are; any full preterist who is among the elect will, in the fullness of his time on earth, repent and receive correction. The longer he puts repentance and learning off, the more he should suspect that it has not been decreed from eternity that he enter the kingdom of God.