When does the Millenium occur?
Here’s the simplest way to put it. The millenium occurs before Christ’s second coming, before Christ’s second coming. Look at verse 7. “When the 1000 years are over”–so this is after the millenium--“Satan will be released from his prison.” This is what I understand to be a time of tribulation where Satan is given a short time to persecute the church as he never has before. “Satan will be released from prison and will go out to deceive the nations and the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. They march across the breadth of the earth, surrounding the camp of God’s people. Fire came down and devoured them, and the devil is thrown into the lake of burning sulfur.”
All of this happens after the Millenium. Now anybody can see that. It says right here, when the 1000 years are over. So, the key is understanding that this battle scene describe here is the same as the battle scenes we’ve seen described three or four times in Revelation already. The premillennialists, again not our enemies, I just disagree with them on this point, the premillennialists would say Chapter 19, Christ comes, he takes up the believers, and then he sets up his kingdom. And then Chapter 20, there’s some sort of coming again, at least if you’re dispensational. And there’s a final battle where he destroys the devil, after the Millennial Age. And I want to argue, as I have before, that the battle in Chapter 20 is the same as the ones we’ve seen before.
So, turn back to Chapter 9. I did this last week, I’ll do it very briefly this week. There are at least four times where there is a final battle scene described. Chapter 9, verse 13, the sixth angel sounded his trumpet, said release the four angels who were bound at the great river Euphrates. And they were released to kill a third of mankind, and the number of the mounted troops was 200,000,000. So, there is a final battle scene--all these troops gathering at the Euphrates, which I understand to be symbolic.
That was the sixth trumpet, now look also at 16:12, the sixth bowl poured out on the river Euphrates. The waters dry up, three spirits looking like frogs perform miraculous signs. They go out to the kings of the whole world. They deceive them, they gather them for battle on the great day of the Lord. There’s another – same battle scene,
Chapter 19, verse 19, then I saw the beasts and the kings of the earth, and their armies gathered together to make war against the rider on the horse, and the beast was captured and with him, the false prophets. There’s another final battle scene. Three times in Revelation, we have ho polemos. Polemos is the word for war in Greek. Ho is the definite article, the. Three times, Chapter 16, Chapter 19, and Chapter 20, we read of THE battle, or THE war.
So, Chapter 20, the beginning takes us back prior to the end of Chapter 19, and we’ve seen this time and time again in Revelation. That Revelation works in parallelism. You have the three seals, and boom, the end of the world, lighting thunders, and then let’s look at it again, and there’s three trumpets, end of the world. Back up, three bowls. And each time it’s not exactly the same. Each time gets a little more intense, and it catapults us a little closer to the end. We keep zooming in closer to the end. So, the trumpets look a little bit more at the end. The bowls look a little more at the end, and now we’re focusing mostly on the end of the age. But it’s repeating. This has happened before in Chapter 6, the seals. At end, who can stand the wrath of the Lamb. And then Chapter 7 opens with a vision of the 144,000 who are sealed. Which takes us back prior to those events to show us who will stand.
Or, if you look in Chapter 16, at the very end, verse 19. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine and the fury of his wrath. So, Babylon is taken down in Chapter 16. But then we back up the truck in Chapters 17 and 18, and we zero in on Babylon again. And so time and time again, we see Revelation does not work in a strictly chronological order. And so that’s what’s happening here. Chapter 19, we have the battle, Christ returns at the end, and then we take a step back now and we’re looking at what happens before that battle, leading up to one more final battle scene in Chapter 20, verse 7. You with me? This is why nobody gets the book.
Now, if the binding of Satan takes place chronologically after Chapter 19, we are left with a puzzling question. What’s the point? Look at Chapter 19, verse 17. An angel stands, calls to the birds, come and gather together for the great supper of God so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, mighty men, horses, riders, flesh of all people, free and slave, small and great. That’s pretty comprehensive. I mean the bad guys are totally wiped out. So, if that happened and then the binding of Satan happens, you have to ask, “What’s the point? Why does Satan need to be bound? There’s nobody left.” Christ has already destroyed everybody. The birds are circling. They’re poking their eyes out. So, it makes much more sense that we’re looking back now before this end. So, I would argue that the Millennium is the age of the triumph of the gospel inaugurated by Christ in his death, resurrection, and ascension. Let me say that again. The millenium is the age of the triumph of the gospel inaugurated--that means begun--by Christ in his death, resurrection, and ascension. So, this church age, stretching from Christ’s first coming to his second coming, is the Millennium. So, I argue that we are in the Millennium. So, amillennial doesn’t mean I don’t believe in the Millennium. It means I don’t believe in earthly Millennium where Christ is sitting on the throne reigning. But we are in this Millennial Age.
And it goes without saying by this point that I don’t believe that the Millennium is a literal 1000 years. We’re already over 2000 years getting there. But you think what number in Revelation has been literal? We’ve argued the 144,000 are not literal. The 1260 days, the times, times, and half of times, the 200,000,000 mounted troops, all of the sevens, the twelves, the fours. The numbers are symbols. And think of all the symbols that have not been taken literally. Even, I think the strictest dispensationalist would not take most of these literal. A prostitute, a beast, a second beast, a pregnant woman, a bride, a groom, eating a scroll, seven heads, ten horns, fire coming from the mouths of the two witnesses, Christ killing people with a sword in his mouth, blood as high as a horses bridle for 200 miles. John saw all of these things. It’s not that they’re untrue, don’t hear that. But they point to something else. Just look at the immediate context here. Think of what John sees. Well, we had the dragon chained up in an abyss. To me, this seems to be more than a little metaphorical. There’s not literally a dragon somewhere in the core of the earth chained up. And so it makes sense that the 1000 years are also part of the symbolism not to be taken literally. So, when does the Millennium occur? It’s occurring right now, prior to Christ’s return.
Chris White
