Robert Lowery

The November 18, 2007 issue of The Christian Standard published an essay of approximately 2000 words in which I explained why I am an amillennialist. Due to space limitations, I decided to post additional thoughts for those who are interested in reflecting on the matter more deeply. The remarks below are in no particular order with regard to significance, and at times one point may overlap with another.

1. It is incredible that so much has been written on and so much made of one single passage of Scripture. Some churches, colleges, seminaries, and denominations believe that this is such an important issue that you cannot be a part of their community or heritage unless you accept the view that Jesus is going to establish an earthly kingdom and reign for 1000 years. We must remember that if the scenes in Rev. 20:1ff. had not been given to John or recorded by John, there is absolutely no hint in any other passage in either the Old Testament or the New Testament of a one thousand year earthly reign of Christ. Hence, why is it that Bible students often use Old Testament passages to support the view of an earthly one thousand year reign when the idea is nowhere clearly expressed in any of those passages? I must ask: Could it be that many interpreters take an “obscure” passage and read it back into clearer passages which make no mention of an earthly reign?

2. I would never want to make one position on the millennium a test of fellowship (or other topics like Antichrist, Man of Lawlessness, the meaning of 666, etc.) There is room for disagreement. Indeed, anyone who has read the earliest Christians on this issue know that there were a variety of positions taken. We must be humble as we approach this subject. Yet a note must be made: Classical dispensational premillennialism as evidenced in the books by Hal Lindsay, Tim LaHaye, Jack Van Impe, and others was never known before the 1800s. I believe their writings have done significant harm to understanding Scripture as a whole and not just the book of Revelation.

3. Concerning the structure of Revelation, more times than not premillennialists merely assume that the book of Revelation is to be read chronologically. Seldom are arguments offered for such an approach. Revelation has considerable repetition and recapitulation (think “recap”), allowing John to retell the same events from different perspectives. In general, John drives home the point time and again that the final judgment is coming. I remain convinced that Revelation brings us to the end of the world at numerous points. The book does not move toward a millennium and then the end of the world but rather John constantly reminds us that the end is coming and there will be payday. A key idea in my chapter on structure in Revelation’s Rhapsody (see pp. 121ff.) is that there is chronology mixed with repetition and recapitulation, but chronology in the broadest terms moving from Christ’s first coming to final coming.

4. Concerning the binding of Satan, consider the comments by I. Howard Marshall: “The whole of the ministry of Jesus was a campaign against satanic power. It began with Satan’s attack upon Jesus personally. It concluded with the death and exaltation of Jesus, which He declared prophetically to be the moment of Satan’s defeat and dethronement (Jn. 12.31). The intervening period was, perhaps less obviously, a conflict with the powers of darkness.” See his book, The Work of Christ (Palm Springs, CA: Ronald N. Haynes, Publishers, Inc., 1981), p. 32. P.T. Butler’s perspective is helpful as well (see his Approaching the Millennium, pp. 238-39): “In Old Testament time, the chain binding Satan was extended to greater length and his sphere of influence to deceive and destroy was wide. In New Testament times . . . God, through the Gospel of Christ has shortened the chain, binding the devil and has severely restricted the power of the devil. . . . ” And yet someday, with God’s permission, Satan will be given one last chance to destroy God’s people (see 20:7-10) and he will fail, absolutely. Hence, already Satan has been bound in the sense that he has not been given the opportunity to destroy the church, but someday he will be released and God will use that release to consign him and his followers to eternal torment.

5. Why does Jesus never mention a 1000 year earthly reign in any of his teachings? At best, you have to read Rev. 20:1-7 back into his teachings. Do we violate a principle of interpreting the obscure by the clear by perhaps taking an obscure text like Rev. 20:1ff. and imposing it on clear texts? Why is it that it appears that he rebuked the disciples when they ask about an earthly reign (Acts 1:1ff.)? Jesus appeared to be more interested in extending his lordship and kingdom over the whole world rather than on the land of Israel.

6. Preoccupation with an earthly kingdom in Israel by Christians today seem to echo the preoccupation of the disciples who looked for an earthly kingdom that would rout the Romans and re-establish the kingdom of David. The word “earth” nowhere appears in Rev. 20:4-6. It is read “into” the text and not read “out of” the text. The bottom line is this: There is no authority whatever for placing the thrones and the souls that sit on the thrones on earth! Many Scriptures which are quoted to support the idea of Christ reigning on earth for a 1000 years really set forth an eternal reign (II Sam. 7:16; Isa. 9:7; Dan. 2:44; 7:14; Luke 1:33). The premillennial view erroneously seeks its main support in a passage which represents a scene in heaven and makes no mention whatever of the Jews, of an earthly and national kingdom, nor of the land of Palestine. Moreover, the common New Testament teaching does not give us two, three, or even four resurrections. The New Testament speaks again and again of the resurrection of just and unjust in one breath (e.g., John 6:39-40,44,54; 11:24; 12:48).

7. It is important to note that there are two major forms of premillennialism. The first is often labeled “historic premillennialism” and the second “dispensational premillennialism.” The former finds its roots in the early centuries while the latter is the “new kid on the block.” The historic premillennialists reject the idea of a two-stage coming of Christ before the resurrection (no “secret rapture” nor a seven year period of tribulation) and hold that Christ will appear openly to take away his saints and to overthrow Antichrist and establish his millennial kingdom on earth.

On the other hand, dispensational premillennialism is very much more elaborate than anything known in the church until quite recent times (the opening decades of the nineteenth century). I believe it is a convoluted eschatology. This view holds that the Lord will come in secret and will raise the dead saints, snatching them away together with the living believers–an event commonly called the “secret rapture.” There will ensue a seven-year period of great tribulation, in which the Antichrist will rule the earth. Then Christ will appear from heaven openly, Armageddon will be fought and Christ will overthrow the Antichrist and the hosts of evil. This will usher in Christ’s glorious reign at Jerusalem and the temple and the sacrificial worship will be restored. At the end of the thousand years, Satan will be loosed again and will stir up rebellion against God. His crushing defeat will be followed by the resurrection of the wicked and their judgment and the eternal state. Many of the proponents of dispensationalism hold that Christ intended to establish the kingdom of his father David when he was on earth–a national kingdom. Because the Jews refused to repent, this kingdom was postponed till his second coming, when it will be set up, and he will reign at Jerusalem. There are many more details and intricacies that could be added. One of the most succinct and devastating critiques of dispensationalism is found in Ben Witherington’s The Problem with Evangelical Theology: Testing the Exegetical Foundations of Calvinism, Dispensationalism and Wesleyanism, pp. 93-168. The chapter titles alone entice the reader: “Enraptured but not Uplifted: The Origins of Dispensationalism and Prophecy”; “What Goes Up, Must Come Down: The Problem with Rapture Theology”; and “Will the Real Israel of God Please Stand Up?”.

8. In every instance in Scripture where the expression “a thousand years” is used, it is a symbol for a period of time and is not to be taken literally (Ps. 90:4; II Pet. 3:8). It is long, but it is limited. I am not aware of the expression ever being used in a literal way. What I suggest in the article is that the expression refers to a period of time either from an earthly perspective (Satan is bound and the result is that until God permits him, he cannot gather the evil forces of the world for one last effort to destroy the church) or from a heavenly perspective (saints reigning with Christ upon their death). When did the former begin? It began when Jesus bound Satan through his ministry that culminated in his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension (John 12:31-33; 16:11; Luke 10:18). For the saints, the millennium begins for each upon his or her death, and it comes to an end when Satan and his allies have been thrown into the lake of fire and Christians are rewarded. We have no other source to study the millennium other than Revelation 20.

9. Note that at numerous points John himself explicitly explains the meaning of a symbol (See 1:20; 4:3; 5:8; 7:13-14; 12:9; 13:18; 17:9,12,15,18; 19:8). He does so in 20:4-6, 14. What is the first resurrection? It is described in 20:4-5, specifically telling us who participates in it and who does not. We must pay careful attention to the language John uses and the context of the passage if we are to understand the definition he gives to the expression rather than impose one in accordance with the way we would like to define the terms. But what about the rest of the dead that John refers to in this paragraph when he writes that they “did not live until the thousand years” had ended? The word “until” does not mean that they begin to live at the end of the millennium. Indeed, Rev. 20:11-15 makes it plain what happens to the rest of the dead: they will be judged by God.

10. Why is that we assume, merely assume, that Rev. 20:4-6 refers to earthly reign of Christ in Israel when the word “earth” is not found in the passage and words “soul” and “throne”, when used to describe God, Christ, or Christians, are always heavenly scenes not earthly scenes. Again, I ask: What are the arguments against the interpretation that Rev. 20:4-6 refers to saints who are not on earth but who, upon their death, reign with Christ. Therefore, the one thousand year reign is a symbol for that period between a disciple’s death in Christ and the final resurrection. I would appreciate it if someone would respond to the word study methodology that I use and compare it with theirs. The burden of proof is on those who would link “throne” and “soul” to the earth rather than “heaven” or God’s presence. Finally, I have wondered if John is also presenting an apologetic against the notion of an earthly reign by Christ in addition to the message of comfort concerning the fate of those who have remained faithful to Jesus until death.

11. Let me expand on John’s definition of “the first resurrection” in 20:4. It is a symbol for Christians who have arrived “home,” so to speak. They are safe from Satan and his allies. Not even death can break their relationship with Christ. What a powerful word of comfort for believers and for their brothers and sisters in Christ! The second death will have no power over them. The first resurrection is something special and definite. It is only for Christians who have died and reign with Christ upon death, and it will come to an end when Christ comes and the dead in Christ receive their resurrected bodies fit for a new heaven and new earth (21:1ff.). And what about those Christians who are alive at Christ’s final coming? They will see the promise of Phil. 3:20-21 fulfilled.

12. I believe that The New American Standard Version offers the best translation of 20:4 by clarifying that John sees two groups of Christians (the grammar is sufficiently vague that either the NASB or the NIV offer possible valid translations), those who died a martyr’s death and those who died natural deaths and remained faithful to Jesus throughout their lives, thus embracing all disciples of Jesus. As Christina Rossetti so beautifully writes: “One who cannot be a martyr in deed may yet be a martyr in will.” (see her book The Face of the Deep, p. 465). Furthermore, the faithful described in 20:4 stand in contrast with the word “coward” in 21:8, the term that leads the list of those who will be thrown into the lake of fire. The word is a military term used to describe those who have gone AWOL. I suggest that the “cowards” are those disciples who have fallen away and abandoned Christ, a theme that is stressed in Revelation in such places as Rev. 3:4ff. and 14:9ff. This verse, along with others in Revelation, present a bit of a problem for those who believe that once one is saved, one is always saved!

13. Why would Jesus want to return to exercise such an earthly reign? In the Gospels we consistently read that when Jesus comes a second time, that is it! There will be the final judgment with rewards for the righteous and punishment for the wicked.

14. Why is that neither Paul nor any other New Testament author ever refer to a 1000 year reign. Note: I know that there are those who appeal to I Cor. 15:20-28. It is possible that a case could be made for a reference to the millennium. But such a reference does not fit the context. Taken in context, Paul is teaching that the end comes directly after the resurrection of those who belong to Christ. The resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of believers must be distinguished from each other. Paul seems to be unaware of an earthly millennium here or in any of his other writings. There is not the remotest hint that he ever held to a belief in an earthly millennium. The bottom line is this: We have no source other than Revelation 20 to discuss any concept of a one thousand year reign.

15. Premillennialists try to have it both ways. They emphasize the symbolic character of certain aspects of the scene. The key, chain, and seal are symbols, so they say. I think the symbols emphasize God’s sovereignty that Satan has indeed been chained by God when Christ defeated death–see Luke 10:18; John 12:30-32; 16:11; Luke 11:17-22; Col. 2:15; Heb. 2:14-15, passages that speak rather decisively about Christ’s victory over evil). Yet when it comes to the 1000 year reign they want to make it literal. They mingle the symbolic and the literal at mere whim, at least from my perspective. Those who take the number 1000 as literal pay no regard to the use of numbers in Revelation. Not once in Revelation is the number 1000 used literally. If we interpret the thousand years literally in Rev. 20:1ff., it will be the only example of a literal use of numbers in Revelation. This objection alone is fatal.

16. Many commentators quote Henry Alford (See The Greek Testament, volume 4, p.730) as if it should go unchallenged. Alford writes: “If, in a passage where two resurrections are mentioned. . . [and] if . . . the first resurrection may be understood to mean spiritual rising with Christ, while the second means literal rising from the grave;–then there is an end of all significance in language, and the Scripture is wiped out as a definite testimony to any thing. If the first resurrection is spiritual, then so is the second, which I suppose none will be hardy enough to maintain: but if the second is literal, then so is the first . . . ”

Alford merely asserts his conclusion and provides no arguments, and must be challenged. Every student should know that context controls the meaning of a word and in places you may have a word or an expression mean two different things within a passage or within the whole book.

Words shift in meaning frequently in Revelation. Let me illustrate this point on two levels. First, it is significant that the number seven appears in Rev. 1:4 and is used in the literal sense (seven churches in Asia Minor and yet numerous scholars say that the number emphasizes that the book is for the church universal) as well as a non-literal or symbolic way (the seven spirits)! If Alford is correct in the above statement, then I have to take the number in 1:4 as either literal or symbolic but not both! Would Alford himself argue that the Holy Spirit is really seven spirits? Of course, this would be absurd. On another level, even when a word is used symbolically, one word may have a variety of meanings. In Rev. 3:8, 20 and 4:1 the word “door” has three different meanings (one is the door of salvation, the other is the heart or one’s life being symbolized by a door, and the final one suggests that the word is used in the sense of a door of revelation). Or consider the use of the verb “to come” in Rev. 22. On the one hand, the verb is used by Jesus or John with regard to Jesus’ final coming (22:12, 20) while the same word is used to describe the Spirit and the bride’s invitation that is extended to people to come and drink of the water of life without cost (22:17).

Even within Paul a word can take on two different meanings in which the word may be used either literally or symbolically. In I Thess. 5:7 the word “sleep” is used to describe the actual act of sleeping while in 5:6 “sleep” is used to refer to a lack of spiritual alertness with regard to how Christians ought to be living in light of Christ’s final return. Furthermore, in I Thess. 4:13 the same word is used to describe death as a sleep!

17. What is the purpose of the millennium? What will it be like? Why doesn’t the Bible describe it other than the way John describes it in Rev. 20:1ff? For example, the glorified saints will be on an earth which is not “glorified” or renovated. Will saints with glorified bodies mingle with saints and sinners who have not glorified bodies? Will Satan be bound so as to deceive the nations no more, yet these nations continue at heart as enemies of Christ, ready to obey Satan and to war against the saints the moment the thousand years are finished? Will Christ’s rule experience any opposition? If so, how can this be if he reigns and if Satan is bound? If anything, the forces of evil seem to be even more in number than the righteous at the end of the millennium (see Rev. 20:7-10).

As I point out in my essay, the Bible is silent on the nature of the millennium. For exploring this troublesome issue for the premillennial position, please see A. L. Lewis’s The Dark Side of the Millennium: The Problem of Evil in Revelation 20:1-10 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980). Lewis asks many powerful questions that no premillennialist should and can ignore.

18. When I have shared the above as well as the exegesis presented in the article, premillennialists do not know how to respond to the word studies on “souls” and “thrones,” terms used always in connection with God and his followers and always in heavenly scenes, never earthly (except for three places where “throne” describes evil forces on earth, see Rev. 2:13; 13:2; 16:10. The other 44 times the word is used in the context of heavenly scenes!). Often, I have wondered if some have even taken the time to do the appropriate word studies as well as the analysis of the immediate and overall contexts of Rev. 20. Silence is not an appropriate response to the points I make. I emphasize to my students that I believe that more misunderstanding takes place because of missed contexts than for any other reason. I am frustrated, quite frankly, when some Bible students do not do their word studies, grammatical analysis, and evaluation of the immediate and the various layers of contexts.

19. A fundamental hermeneutical rule is this: John addressed first century Christians in terms they could understand, and therefore we must let John have his say and not impose other meanings on the words he uses other than the meanings he assigns. It is the height of arrogance to do so. And it is wrong.

20. I need to make another point about hermeneutics. And it is a lengthy point! What we are fundamentally dealing with is whether or not we read the New Testament primarily through the lens of the Old Testament or the Old Testament primarily through the lens of the New Testament. (This is not to deny that we need the Old Testament to help us interpret the New Testament.) At times I have been perceived to be “liberal” because I do not interpret the Bible literally. If literal means understanding a passage in light of the author’s intended meaning then I am a literalist. I prefer saying that I interpret the Bible naturally in lights of a book’s or passage’s genre(s). But if the word “literal” means that I deny that the Bible uses symbolic language to communicate truth (of course, along with non-symbolic language), then I am not a literalist. Some accuse me of adopting a hermeneutic that allows us to make the text mean anything we want it to mean. This is preposterous. If anything, the literalist makes a prophetic text say whatever the interpreter wants it to say in light of today’s newspaper headlines! Not even a crass literalism has proved to be much protection against such a tendency of making a text say whatever is in the eye of the interpreter. Literalism raises a variety of questions about the way words can be used, literary genres, how language operates, the locus of meaning, etc. To be frank, the literal meaning of a text is not necessarily self-evident. Even the literalist Bible prophecy experts cannot agree on the “literal” meaning of the text. If you put Tim LaHaye, Hal Lindsay, Jack Van Impe and Pat Robertson in the same room and ask them to give a literal meaning of a passage in Revelation or Malachi, you would have spiritual free-for-all that leads to a hermeneutical freefall!

One of the greatest areas of concern is how we interpret the prophecy of the Old Testament. “Literalists” claim to take the promises concerning the restoration of Israel, Jerusalem, and the temple literally. What does this mean? Here is a problem: How do you determine what the literal meaning is? Surely we must acknowledge that the prophets of Israel had a preference for using non-literal language (see their poetic imagery, symbolism, and metaphor). And when you add this with apocalyptic symbolism (see Daniel!), the challenges are even greater for those who interpret the images in the prophetic writings literally!

We do well to remember that one of the key reasons why Jesus was crucified was over hermeneutics. His hermeneutical scheme came into conflict with that held by the Pharisees and the Sadducees. These two power groups practiced a “literal” hermeneutic, so much so that they could not understand the prophecies Jesus applied to himself (see John 5:39-47; 8:39-47). Jesus had to teach the disciples how to read the Old Testament (Luke 24:25-27, 44-45; Acts 1:6-8). The point is this: The hermeneutical principle for understanding the Old Testament writings was and is the Gospel not literalism! Let me ask that the “literalists” explain or answer the following:

How can John the Baptist be literally Elijah (Matt. 17:12-13)?

If the promise to David in II Sam. 7:12-16 is fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus (Acts 2:29-32), then it is not a literal fulfillment according to any normal use of the word “literal.”

If, as Paul says, the resurrection of Jesus is the fulfillment of the promises of God to Israel (Acts 13:29-32), then literalism cannot be sustained.

If, according to Heb. 12:18-24, the Jewish Christians have already come to “Mount Zion and to the city of the living God” through faith in Jesus, this is the only Zion that matters.

To be sure, some of the prophecies associated with the first coming of Jesus were fulfilled in a rather literal way (Micah 5:2 and the Messiah being born in Bethlehem or the Messiah being born of a virgin, see Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:22-23). But these examples do not establish “literalism” as the basic hermeneutic. Again, the Gospel requires that we allow Christ to be the hermeneutic principle.

I am indebted to Graeme Goldworthy in his book Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics: Foundations and Principles of Evangelical Biblical Interpretation, pp. 169ff.) for his insights on the issue of a gospel-centered hermeneutic. Let me end this point with his concluding paragraph (p. 171):

Evangelical prophetic literalism is an exercise in interpreting the New Testament by the application of a supposed literal meaning of the Old Testament. If the gospel is our hermeneutic norm, then while it is true that the interpretation of the New needs an understanding of the Old, the principal emphasis is on the way the gospel and the New Testament as a whole interpret everything, including the Old Testament. The literalist must become a futurist, since a literalistic fulfilment of all Old Testament prophecy has not yet taken place. Christian Zionism not only reshapes the New Testament’s view of the future, but also affects the present period in which such a future is anticipated. It affects the way many Christians view the respective rights of Palestinians and Israelis to live in ‘the promised land.’ Yet one does not have to be a Zionist to appreciate Paul’s emphasis on God’s method of salvation, in that the gospel is ‘to the Jew first’. That perspective is maintained in the New Testament, while the notion of the restoration of the temple and Jerusalem in Palestine is uniformly absent.

I must build on this and show the implications. I do not believe in a future earthly kingdom as the premillennialists would have me believe. And yet I do believe in an earthly kingdom, but a different one. Specifically, I believe Christians are already in the kingdom of God/heaven (Rev. 1:5b-6) and that we await the Kingdom that shall be made complete on the new earth and in the new heavens (21:1ff.; 22:3-5). And that perfect Kingdom will come only at the second or final coming (11:15ff.). I do not believe there is a twofold coming of Jesus, one to rapture Christians and then a return to earth to reign (Heb. 9:27-28). I do not await the rebuilding of a Temple and the restoration of sacrifices as a memorial (or whatever!), because the Temple is God’s Church and the Lord’s Supper removes any need for sacrifices, past, present, or future. I do not await the restoration of another priesthood. Why? Because Christians have been made priests (Rev. 1:5b-6; I Pet. 2:9ff.). I do not believe that God wants a piece of real estate called “Israel,” a nation the size of the state of Vermont, but he desires his Kingdom to embrace the entire universe. I do not believe that the Church is God’s “Plan B” (as some do) but that Christ died for the Church and it was God’s Plan A. Indeed, it is his only plan. He wants to use the Church to extend the Kingdom of God throughout the world, to his praise and glory.

21. My livelihood does not depend upon my view of the millennium and neither do my salvation or orthodoxy. But my orthopraxy (rightly practicing the implications of my beliefs) does. What is at stake is my integrity to be a responsible interpreter of Scripture. I must be faithful in applying sound hermeneutical principles and follow appropriate exegetical steps. What replaces bad exegesis is good exegesis. Such subjects that I have raised on this blog count because I believe sound doctrine counts. I believe that no church can be healthy unless it has sound doctrine that is in accord with Scripture’s teachings.

22. For a model of outstanding, detailed exegesis on Revelation and the book as a whole (Some may feel he is too detailed!), please examine Gregory Beale’s work, The Book of Revelation, The New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999). For example, Beale’s analysis of such issues as the number of groups in Rev. 20:4 and the meaning of “they lived” are examples of excellent exegesis.

Related posts:

1. Why I am an Amillennialist: Additional Reflections