📖 Revelation Intensive — Unit 13: The Millennial Views — Premillennialism

Text: Revelation 20:1-6

What Premillennialism Holds

This unit presents the second of the three main views of the millennium, premillennialism, and the course continues to hold the views side by side without favoring any. The word "premillennialism" means "before the millennium," for in this view Christ returns before the thousand years begin. Premillennialism teaches that the millennium of Revelation 20 is a literal future age, a real reign of Christ upon the earth that follows His second coming. When Christ returns in glory, He raises the righteous dead in a bodily resurrection, defeats His enemies, binds Satan, and establishes a kingdom of peace and righteousness that lasts a thousand years, with the risen saints reigning together with Him. At the end of that age Satan is released for a final rebellion, which is crushed, and then come the resurrection and judgment of the wicked and the eternal state. There are two main forms of the view. Historic, or classic, premillennialism was held in a simple form by some of the earliest church fathers; dispensational premillennialism, which arose in the nineteenth century, adds a sharp distinction between Israel and the church and other features that will be described below. Both forms agree on the central point: Christ returns first, and then He reigns on earth for a thousand years.

The Order of Events

The premillennial order may be set out in this way. The present church age runs on, and toward its end many premillennialists expect a time of great tribulation. Then Christ returns bodily and visibly. At His coming the righteous dead are raised in the first resurrection, and this, premillennialists say, is a literal bodily rising. Christ then binds Satan and establishes His thousand-year reign upon the earth, the risen and glorified saints reigning with Him over the nations. When the thousand years are finished, Satan is loosed for a little while, gathers the nations in a last rebellion, and is destroyed by fire from heaven and cast into the lake of fire. Then the rest of the dead are raised in a second resurrection, all stand before the great white throne, and the wicked are judged, after which God brings in the new heaven and the new earth. Dispensational premillennialists add further stages, most notably a removal of the church from the earth, called the rapture, which many of them place before the tribulation, and a special future for national Israel within the millennial kingdom. The one feature common to all premillennialism is that the return of Christ comes before, and brings in, the earthly reign.

The Biblical Case for Premillennialism

Premillennialists rest their case first of all on the plain order of Revelation 19 and 20. In chapter nineteen Christ returns on the white horse and defeats the beast; then, in chapter twenty, Satan is bound and the saints reign a thousand years. Read in sequence, they argue, the reign follows the return, exactly as premillennialism teaches. They point next to the two resurrections of the chapter: those who reign with Christ share in "the first resurrection," while "the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished" (Revelation 20:5), which they take to mean two bodily resurrections separated by the thousand years, the righteous raised first and the wicked afterward. They appeal to Paul's teaching that the resurrection comes in orders, Christ the firstfruits, then those who are Christ's at His coming (1 Corinthians 15:23). They read the Old Testament prophecies of a glorious earthly kingdom, where the wolf lies down with the lamb and the earth is full of the knowledge of the LORD, as awaiting a literal fulfillment (Isaiah 11; 65). And they hold that God's promises to Israel are irrevocable and will yet be fulfilled (Romans 11:29). They add that a form of the view, then called chiliasm, was held by some of the earliest Christians, close to the apostles in time.

How Premillennialism Reads Revelation 20

Premillennialism reads the thousand years of Revelation 20 as a literal future period, an earthly reign of Christ that begins at His second coming and lasts a thousand years, whether the number is taken as exact or as a long but real span. The binding of Satan is complete and visible during that reign, for he is shut in the bottomless pit and sealed so that he cannot deceive the nations at all, in a way that, premillennialists argue, does not match his present activity in the world. The first resurrection is understood as a literal, bodily raising of the righteous dead at Christ's return; "they lived and reigned with Christ" is taken in its ordinary sense of coming to life again. And "the rest of the dead," who do not live again until the thousand years are finished, are understood as the wicked, raised bodily in a second resurrection at the end, to stand before the great white throne. So Revelation 20, read in this way, lays out a clear sequence: the return of Christ, the bodily resurrection of the righteous, the thousand-year earthly reign, the loosing and final defeat of Satan, the bodily resurrection of the wicked, and the last judgment.

Two Forms and Their History

The two forms of premillennialism differ in their details and their history. Historic premillennialism is the older and simpler, held in some form by early fathers such as Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, who looked for a literal reign of Christ on earth after His coming. In modern times it has been taught by scholars such as George Eldon Ladd, and it is common among many Baptists and evangelicals who do not hold the dispensational system. Dispensational premillennialism arose in the nineteenth century, chiefly through John Nelson Darby, and was carried into countless homes and pulpits by the Scofield Reference Bible of 1909 and later by teachers such as Lewis Sperry Chafer, Charles Ryrie, and John Walvoord, and by Dallas Theological Seminary. It is marked by a sharp distinction between Israel and the church as two peoples with two programs, by a literal method of interpreting prophecy, and by the expectation of a rapture of the church, which many dispensationalists place before a seven-year tribulation, after which Christ returns to reign. As noted in the previous unit, the spread of the Scofield Bible and the disillusionment that followed the First World War helped make premillennialism, in one form or another, dominant across much of twentieth-century evangelicalism. Two further features are often tied to dispensationalism and should be named with care. The first is the system of dispensations itself, the division of all history into successive eras in which God deals with humanity in different ways, such as innocence, conscience, promise, law, grace, and a coming kingdom. The second, which is a separate thing, is a popular reading of the seven churches of chapters two and three as a prophetic outline of seven successive ages of church history, running from the apostolic church at Ephesus down to the complacent church of the last age pictured at Laodicea. The seven church-ages and the seven dispensations are two different sevens, and not every dispensationalist holds the church-ages scheme; the course notes both readings without insisting on either.

Objections Raised by Others

Those who hold other views raise several objections, and fairness requires that they be heard. First, they say a literal thousand-year earthly reign rests heavily on a single passage, Revelation 20, read literally, in a book full of symbols, while the rest of the New Testament does not plainly teach an interim earthly kingdom between Christ's return and the eternal state. Second, they argue that the New Testament generally presents the resurrection of the righteous and the wicked, and the final judgment, as taking place together at one coming, rather than in two resurrections separated by a thousand years (John 5:28-29). Third, they point to the difficulty of a millennial earth peopled at once by resurrected, immortal saints and by mortal survivors who still marry, sin, age, and die, and who can be gathered by Satan in a final revolt. Fourth, against dispensationalism in particular, critics dispute the sharp separation of Israel and the church and the idea of a secret, separate, pretribulation rapture, holding instead that Scripture knows one people of God and one return of Christ. Premillennialists reply that the natural reading of Revelation 20 is sequential, that the language of resurrection is best taken bodily, and that God's unfulfilled promises to Israel call for a literal kingdom.

Summary and an Even-Handed Word

The great strength of premillennialism is that it takes the sequence of Revelation 19 and 20 and the language of two resurrections in their plain order, honors the many Old Testament promises of a glorious earthly kingdom, and stands in continuity with a hope held by some of the earliest Christians. Its central claim is that Christ returns before the millennium and then reigns upon the earth for a thousand years with His risen saints. Sincere, godly, orthodox Christians have held this view, in both its historic and its dispensational forms, and the course presents it at full strength without endorsing it; it favors no single view. The unit that follows presents amillennialism with the very same fairness, so that students may weigh all three for themselves before their teachers and their God. What the three views share, and what matters most of all, is the certain hope that the Lord Jesus Christ will return in glory, raise the dead, judge the world in righteousness, and reign forever. On that great hope the whole church stands together, however its members may understand the thousand years.

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