The Millennial Kingdom Dispensation of Christ. Revelation 20:1-5

The period of the Tribulation concludes with the second coming of Christ which we studied in Revelation chapter nineteen. Revelation chapter twenty opens with the final events that took place in the seventy-five-day interval between the second coming of Christ and the beginning of what is referred to as the Messianic kingdom or sometimes the Millennial kingdom. The term “millennium” is taken from the Latin word milli which means a thousand. Theologically it is used to refer to the thousand-year reign of Christ based on the text of Revelation 20:1-6, the word “thousand.” Five times in these six verses we have the phrase “one thousand years,” so it is very clear from the repetition of the term that we are talking about a literal period of one thousand years.

In terms of the terminology we have these two words that have been used in church history” milli, the Latin word for “thousand,” and the other word is chilioi [xilioi] which is the Greek word for “thousand.” In the early church those who held to a literal future one thousand-year reign of Christ on the earth were called chiliasts. Later they became known as millennialists [in the sense of pre-millennialists]. Then somebody came along somewhere who was all confused linguistically and they recognized there were a certain segment of people who didn’t really believe in a literal one thousand-year reign, and since they didn’t they were called amillennialists.

Revelation 20:1 ^NASB “Then I [John] saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand.” We don’t know where the bottomless pit is located. It is a place of darkness, a place where there is no escape, a place where various demons were confined until they were released during the fifth trumpet judgment, and this is where Satan will be chained for a thousand years. That means that when we look at the future kingdom once source of evil is removed from having any influence on the human race. [2] “And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; [3] and he threw him into the abyss, and shut {it} and sealed {it} over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time. [4] Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I {saw} the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. [5] The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.”

Every time we run into numbers in the book of Revelation they are understood literally. There are no numbers in the book of Revelation that are understood symbolically. So the basis for the belief in the length of the Millennial kingdom comes out of these six verses. This is the only place in all of the Bible that tells us how long the Millennial kingdom is going to last. This is really stage one of the eternal state. In the early part of the church age these numbers were understood literally. When we look at the various theologians in the second century, especially Iranaeus who has written on prophecy, they understood and interpreted these passages in a literal fashion. But by the end of the second century and into the third century with the influence of a man name Origen a shift occurred and they didn’t interpret the Bible in a literal fashion. They introduced allegorical or spiritualizing and so the kingdom didn’t become a literal earthly kingdom, it became more of a spiritualized, allegorical kingdom.

There are three different ways that Christians have tried to interpret the end times and the return of Christ in relationship to His kingdom. The first is called post-millennialism, and in post-millennialism Jesus returns after the Millennial kingdom. In post-millennialism first you get the kingdom, then you have Jesus; that is the order, and in the church age Christianity is going to have progressively more and more of an impact until eventually all of the institutions around the world have become Christianized. There are actually two forms of post-millennialism. There is the liberal utopic form that dominated in the late 19^th century that has nothing to do with the gospel or literal belief in Scripture, and then there is the conservative view where they do believe in Christ, they just interpret prophetic passages in an allegorical way. Loraine Boettner, a Reformed theologian and post-millennialist, has a book called The Millennium in which he says:

Post-millennialism is the view of last things which holds that the kingdom is now being extended in the world through the preaching of the gospel and the saving work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of individuals, that the world is eventually to be Christianized and that the return of Christ is to occur at th4e close of a long period of righteousness and peace commonly called the millennium. The second coming of Christ will be followed immediately by the general resurrection, the general judgment, and the introduction of heaven and hell in their fullness.

A lot of early post-millennialists in the 16^th and 17^th centuries believed that before Jesus returned at the end of the millennium the Jews would be regathered in the land. Theere were post-millennialists in England and they believed in helping the Jews get back to the land. So not only pre-millennialists but post-millennialists at that time wanted to help Jews return to the land.

Then we have pre-millennialism. This view sees Jesus return before the beginning of the kingdom, and this is the view that we hold. Jesus will return at the end of the Tribulation, He will cleanse the earth and establish the kingdom which will last for a literal one-thousand year period. The kingdom was offered to the Jews at the first coming, they rejected Him as King, rejected the offer of the kingdom, and the kingdom is then postponed until Jesus the King comes. But He is not on the throne right now, He is sitting on the throne of God right now and He doesn’t receive His throne until He returns. In strict pre-millennialism there is no kingdom now, the kingdom is future.

Amillennialism is the third view and this is the view that there is no literal earthly kingdom. In this view the church age is a spiritual kingdom, Jesus is on the spiritual throne of David in heaven, and every time somebody becomes a Christian and are regenerated then that is the first resurrection. So the church age and the kingdom are at the same time, they overlap, they are the same thing. Then at the end of this present age Jesus will come back, the second resurrection takes place, all the judgments take place, and then we go into eternity.

We believe that the way the Bible interprets itself is that it should be interpreted literally, so that when the Bible talks about Israel it means Israel, when the Bible talks about the church it means the church, when the Bible talks about Zion it means a particular location in Israel—either the literal Mount Zion or by extension Jerusalem, or by extension the whole nation wherein the Mount Zion exists. But in amillennialism and in post-millennialism Zion means the church and Israel means the church. They would say Israel was the church in the Old Testament and the church is Israel in the New Testament. They are just making it up as they go along, they don’t take words at face value. Satan’s greatest tool is to destroy language, and the meaning of language. Once you destroy the real meaning of language you can’t do business anymore. That is one of the main things that is happening with postmodernism today. It has destroyed the meaning of language and absolutes. If you don’t have absolutes anything can mean anything however you want it to mean. How can you enter into a contract with anybody of the terms don’t mean what it appears that they mean?

Illustrations