Revelation 20 describes a 1,000-year period—a millennium—when the dragon, Satan, is locked up and an elect group of believers come back to life and reign with Christ. Such an extraordinary event would be an interruption of natural law and global politics. Yet, this 1,000-year reign of Christ is the subject of tenacious debate. All Christian believers anticipate Christ’s return to earth and His final judgment, but there are different interpretations of how this 1,000-year period fits into those final events. In this article, we’ll look at the three views on the millennium and why it matters.
View #1 – Premillennialism
Premillennialism refers to Christ coming back “pre” or “before” the millennium. The return of Jesus will inaugurate the millennium, a new era of human history. In Matthew 24:22–31, Jesus speaks of His return, but it is unclear how the millennium fits into His framework. The general idea is that Christ will fulfill, in His second campaign, the prophetic texts indicating that the Law and leadership of God would emanate, through the Son of David, from Jerusalem to the nations of the earth. The first disciples seemed to hold this view. Even after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the disciples were anticipating the Kingdom to take on a nationalistic complexion: “Then they gathered around him and asked him, ‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:6).
Premillennialism still anticipates the Messiah returning to Jerusalem, where His literal Kingdom will have a geographic center rooted in His ongoing promises to Abraham, Israel, and David. This interpretation generally views Revelation 19 and 20 as chronological. The difficulty some Christians have with this view is synthesizing ethnic and political promises to Israel with the spiritual nature of the church.
View #2 – Postmillennialism
Postmillennialism refers to Christ’s second coming “post” or “after” the millennium. As the death and resurrection of Jesus receded in history’s rearview mirror and the Christian movement began to spread across the world triumphantly, the church began to reimagine itself as already living in the millennium. The powers of darkness were abating, and the church was rising triumphantly in a golden age. The thousand-year period came to be viewed as figurative rather than literal. Postmillennialism viewed the Kingdom of God as growing ever more powerful and ushering in a triumphant era of mass salvation, righteousness, and peace as people lived the moral commands of the Scriptures. At the end of that golden age, Jesus would return to His triumphant church and commence the final judgments.
Some of Jesus’ teachings lend themselves to this interpretation: “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is [within you]” (Luke 17:20–21). This view has received a significant blow after the fracture of the Reformation, the religious wars of the seventeenth century, and the political wars of the twentieth century. Even so, the global spread of Christianity continues.
View #3 – Amillennialism
Amillennialism does not believe in a future 1,000-year reign, as premillennialists do, or that we are currently in a figurative golden age, as postmillennialists do. Rather, the millennium refers more figuratively to a spiritual reality. Christ is already reigning in Heaven, and the souls of the deceased believers are reigning triumphantly with Him. Satan’s spiritual power has been broken (Colossians 2:15), even if he still has earthly influence to deceive and persecute the living believers on earth.
In this view, the millennium is the “already, but not yet” reality we live in, the times between Christ’s first and second coming. It is filled with suffering and triumph. Amillennialists differ from premillennialists in this significant way: the promises made to Abraham, Israel, and David are fulfilled in Jesus Christ and His Church in the present age, not in a future age. They also view Revelation 20 as a parallel to Revelation 19 rather than a sequential or chronological development.
Unity
When stepping back from the details of interpretation, it’s always important to see the bigger picture. There is ambiguity in Scripture over certain topics, but certain essential doctrines of the faith are crystal clear. At Petra Church, it’s important to us that we maintain a spirit of unity around doctrines essential to the Christian faith, such as the inspiration of Scripture, the Triune revelation of God, the divine and human natures of Jesus Christ, Jesus being the only way of salvation, salvation through faith in Jesus’ atoning sacrifice, and the infilling of the Holy Spirit for all believers. But on secondary issues, such as how we interpret the Scriptures on the millennium, we want to maintain collegial and respectful dialogue as we attempt to understand our texts and discern how God is moving among us.
Diversity of Interpretation
There are other examples of secondary issues that may be important to how a particular church functions or how a community understands the nature of God’s Kingdom. For example, the structure and offices of church leadership, whether women can serve in leadership, the exact way the Holy Spirit continues to minister today, or the degree to which God’s Kingdom is strictly spiritual, or, conversely, is politically involved. These are important, and they do shape how we practice as a community. But agreement over them is not essential to salvation in Jesus Christ and his disciple-making mission.
God’s Kingdom has a heavenly and earthly dimension.
One of the difficulties in discussing the millennium is understanding the exact nature of God’s Kingdom. We’d like to suggest that there is a spiritual and earthly dimension to His Kingdom. He is, after all, the Lord of Heaven and earth.
In this respect, the amillennialist accurately understands the spiritual dimension already operating in God’s power over evil, even if evil still exists in our world. Yet there are very literal, earthly dimensions to God’s Kingdom as well. The postmillennialist sees the importance of the social dimension of the gospel and rightly understands that the gospel is a seed, a contagion that grows, expands, and transforms as it moves outward into society. The premillennialist takes the prophecies to ancient Israel seriously, even if that has an ethnic and political complexion. The volume, specificity, and diversity of those prophecies can’t be easily dismissed as having been fulfilled in Christ in his first coming. While the church may not be a political entity in the same way that national Israel was, that doesn’t negate the possibility that Christ’s Kingdom will again take on political dimensions at the Second Coming.
Regardless of a person’s view on the millennium, we are called to…
- Be ready! Live as though Jesus were returning at any moment, as you will give the Judge an account for your life (Matthew 24:36–51). Live pure and holy lives. Your view of the millennium should not pacify the urgency and purity Jesus demands of his disciples.
- Build His Kingdom! Jesus’ Kingdom is already here, and not yet fully here. We are to pray and act as if the Spirit is partnering with us to break into our current reality, even as we wait for Christ’s future and ultimate return (Matthew 4:17, 23; 6:10; 7:21; 10:7; 11:12, etc.).
- Live on Mission. As we build His Kingdom, we are also to focus on being disciple makers who share His gospel with every person (Matthew 28:18–20; 1 Timothy 2:3–5; Romans 1:1–6; Acts 17:30–31). God desires to save the nations that are lost and doomed to Hell. “God our Savior…wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 3–4).
Though we may disagree on our views of the millennium, we can agree on living for Jesus in this present hour and helping share His gospel with the entire world.
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