What Is the Millennial Kingdom?

The kingdom of God is one of the great themes of the Bible. Last time, we saw how all of human and redemptive history culminates in the future earthly kingdom of Christ, the millennial kingdom or the millennium. Yet many Christians have interpreted the nature of this kingdom differently.

Taking the text of Revelation 20 (and the numerous other biblical passages that speak of the earthly kingdom) at face value leads to what is called a premillennial view of eschatology. That is, Christ will return and then establish a literal kingdom on earth, which will last for a thousand years. There are two other major views of the millennium in addition to premillennialism: postmillennialism and amillennialism.

Postmillennialism

Postmillennialism is in some ways the opposite of premillennialism. Premillennialism teaches that Christ will return before the millennium; postmillennialism teaches that He will return at the end of the millennium. Premillennialism teaches that the period immediately before Christ’s return will be the worst in human history; postmillennialism teaches that before His return will come the best period in history, so that Christ will return at the end of a long golden age of peace and harmony.

One postmillennialist writes, “The millennium to which the postmillennialist looks forward is thus a golden age of prosperity during this present dispensation, that is, during the Church Age” ^[1]Loraine Boettner, “Postmillennialism,” The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views, ed. Robert G. Clouse [Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1977], 117That golden age, according to postmillennialism, will result from the spread of the gospel throughout the world and the conversion of a majority of the human race to Christianity. Thus “Christ will return to a truly Christianized world.”^[2]Boettner, “Postmillennialism,” 118 The millennial kingdom, according to postmillennialists, will be established by the church, not by the personal intervention of Jesus Christ. Nor will Christ reign personally on earth during the millennium, but rather through His church.

In keeping with the generally optimistic views of those eras, postmillennialism flourished in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The impact of the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the rapid pace of scientific discovery, and Darwin’s theory of evolution convinced many that society was progressing inevitably toward a utopia. That optimistic view was in harmony with postmillennialism, which also teaches that the world is going to get better and better (though by different means). But the numbing horror of the First World War, the moral decadence of the Roaring Twenties, the hard times of the Great Depression, the madness of the Nazis’ slaughter of the Jews, and the worldwide catastrophe of the Second World War brought an end to the naive optimism that had prevailed before World War I. Postmillennialism accordingly also declined in popularity. In recent years, however, there has been a resurgence of postmillennialism in such movements as Liberation Theology, Christian Nationalism, and Theonomy.

Amillennialism

The name amillennialism is somewhat misleading, since it implies that amillennialists do not believe in a millennium. While it is true that they reject the concept of an earthly millennium, and especially one that is actually one thousand years in duration, amillennialists do believe in a kingdom. They believe the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah’s kingdom are being fulfilled now, either by the saints reigning with Christ in heaven, or (spiritually, not literally) by the church on earth. Far from disbelieving in the millennium, amillennialists believe we are in it now, as one advocate states: “As far as the thousand years of Revelation 20 are concerned, we are in the millennium now.” ^[3]Anthony A. Hoekema, “Amillennialism,” The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views, ed. Clouse, 181 The conclusion of this view is that the one thousand years which Revelation 20:2–7 references six times is merely symbolic for “a long time.”

One Thousand Years?

There is absolutely no good exegetical reason to interpret the millennium as anything other than one thousand years. Such is purely an arbitrary act on the part of the interpreter, based on his presuppositions. Robert L. Thomas writes,

If the writer wanted a very large symbolic number, why did he not use 144,000 (7:1ff.; 14:1ff.;), 200,000,000 (9:16), “ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands” (5:11), or an incalculably large number (7:9)? The fact is that no number in Revelation is verifiably a symbolic number. On the other hand, nonsymbolic usage of numbers is the rule. It requires multiplication of a literal 12,000 by a literal twelve to come up with 144,000 in 7:4–8. The churches, seals, trumpets, and bowls are all literally seven in number. The three unclean spirits of 16:13 are actually three in number. The three angels connected with the three last woes (8:13) add up to a total of three. The seven last plagues amount to exactly seven. The equivalency of 1,260 days and three and a half years necessitate a nonsymbolic understanding of both numbers. The twelve apostles and the twelve tribes of Israel are literally twelve (21:12–14). The seven churches are in seven literal cities. Yet confirmation of a single number in Revelation as symbolic is impossible.^[4]Revelation 8–22: An Exegetical Commentary [Chicago: Moody, 1995], 408–9

It is highly doubtful that any symbolic number would be repeated six times in a text, as one thousand is here.

For the first century and a half after the close of the New Testament era, the church was largely premillennial. Among the church fathers of that period who believed in a literal thousand-year earthly millennium were Papias (a disciple of the apostle John), Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and the author of the Epistle of Barnabas. That premillennial consensus was challenged by other ancient writers who advocated an allegorical approach to interpreting Scripture (most notably Origen). But it was the influence of Augustine, the greatest theologian of the early church, that ensured that amillennialism would dominate the church for centuries. Today, most scholars in the Reformed tradition are amillennialists.

At the heart of the debate over millennial views is the issue of hermeneutics. All sides in the debate agree that interpreting Old Testament prophecy literally leads naturally to premillennialism. Amillennialist Floyd E. Hamilton candidly acknowledges that truth: “Now we must frankly admit that a literal interpretation of the Old Testament prophecies gives us just such a picture of an earthly reign of the Messiah as the premillennialist pictures.”^[5]The Basis of Millennial Faith [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1942], 38 Postmillennialist Loraine Boettner, cited earlier, agrees with Hamilton’s assessment: “It is generally agreed that if the prophecies are taken literally, they do foretell a restoration of the nation of Israel in the land of Palestine with the Jews having a prominent place in that kingdom and ruling over the other nations”^[6](“A Postmillennial Response [to Dispensational Premillennialism],” The Meaning of the Millennium, ed. Clouse, 95

In light of the above admissions, the question that naturally arises is, Why not take the Old Testament prophecies of the millennium literally? Those who reject a literal interpretation argue that the New Testament appears to interpret some Old Testament prophecies nonliterally. Yet in most cases, the New Testament is not interpreting those prophecies but merely applying principles found in them. In fact, scores of Old Testament prophecies relating to Christ’s first coming were literally fulfilled.

There are several compelling reasons for interpreting Old Testament prophecies literally.

First, if the literal sense of a passage is rejected, who is to determine what the nonliteral or spiritual sense is, since the normal rules of interpretation do not apply? Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., poses the dilemma:

Who or what will arbitrate among the various [nonliteral] meanings suggested and decide which are to be accepted as authoritative and which are spurious? Short of saying that every person’s fancy is his or her own rule, there does not appear to be any final court of appeal. . . . There simply are no justifiable criteria for setting boundaries once the interpreter departs from the normal usage of language.^[7]Back Toward the Future [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989], 129–30

Second, adopting a nonliteral view of the Old Testament kingdom prophecies raises some disturbing questions: What did those prophecies mean to their original addressees? If prophecies seemingly addressed to Israel really apply to the church, did God give revelation that, in fact, failed to reveal? And if those prophecies were meant to apply symbolically to the church, why were they addressed to Israel? What meaning could such prophecies have in their historical settings? Ironically, many who spiritualize Old Testament prophecies reject the futurist interpretation of Revelation because it allegedly robs the book of its meaning for those to whom it was written. Yet they do the very same thing with the Old Testament kingdom prophecies.

Third, spiritualizing those prophecies leads to some glaring inconsistencies. It is inconsistent to argue that the curses they pronounce apply literally to Israel, while the blessings they promise apply symbolically and spiritually to the church. An example of inconsistency in the spiritualizing method of interpreting prophecy comes from the angel Gabriel’s words to Mary in Luke 1:31–33: “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.” If, as all conservative scholars agree, Jesus was literally conceived in Mary’s womb, literally named Jesus, literally became great, was literally “the Son of the Most High,” will He not also literally reign on David’s throne over Israel? Can the same passage be interpreted both literally and nonliterally? Further, both amillennialists and postmillennialists interpret some prophetic events literally, such as Christ’s second coming, the Great White Throne Judgment, and the new heavens and the new earth. Why not interpret the millennial kingdom literally? Finally, amillennialists and postmillennialists interpret the nonprophetic portions of Scripture according to the literal, historical, grammatical, and contextual method of hermeneutics; why adopt a different method for interpreting prophecy? Such an adoption is utterly arbitrary.

Premillennialism

The natural conclusion, then, is that Revelation 20 tells us of a future time in which Christ will reign on earth for one thousand years. The rest of the passage supports this conclusion and can be divided into four headings: the removal of Satan, the reign of the saints, the return of Satan, and the revolt of society.

For the remainder of this series, we will walk through this passage verse by verse to understand everything we can about the coming kingdom of Christ.