Body: | What is the 1000 Year Reign of Christ?
When the complex life becomes to intense, and our frustrations on earth
rise to high level, we as men of all ages speculate about the end. We're
living in such a time. Good people are investing enormous energy in many
ways on prophecy, and on predictions of the immediate end of the world.
The state of the Kingdom, which is the same as the church, finds various
views of millennial theories becoming increasingly popular. We shall not
labor the point overly much, that the church and the kingdom are one and
the same thing. We would ask you to read the following passages which point
this up so vividly: Matthew 16:18, Coll. 1:13, and Hebrews 12:28.
Revelation Chapter 20 is central to the millennial controversy, and is
perhaps the most disputed text in the Bible. This is the crucial paragraph.
"And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless
pit, and a great chain in his hand, and he laid hold on the old dragon,
that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand
years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a
seal upon him that he would deceive the nations no more, until the thousand
years should be fulfilled, after that he must be loosed a little season.
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgement was given to them,
and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus,
and for the word of God, which had not worshipped the beast, neither his
image, neither had received his mark upon his foreheads or in their hands.
And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of
the dead lived not again, until the thousand years were finished. This is
the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first
resurrection. On such the second death hath no power, but they shall be
priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.'
Revelation 20:1-6.
In connection with this passage please also read John Chapter 11 , verse
25. Col. 2:12, 3:1, also Romans 6:3-5. The thousand years appears nowhere
in the sixty-six books, 1,189 chapters, 31,173 verses of the Bible except
in this one passage where it occurs six times in six consecutive verses. It
is not solid study to build an entire system of beliefs about the end of
the world, and the status of the kingdom on such a highly symbolic passage.
More especially when that interpretation conflicts with other plain
passages of scripture. In a book that is highly symbolic, we face certain
difficulties accepting a theory of a thousand year reign of Jesus on earth,
when we consider the total view of the book. There are some things not
mentioned in this chapter. First, it does not mention the second coming of
Christ. Second, it does not mention a reign on earth. Third, this passage
does not mention a bodily resurrection. Fourth, it does not mention Christ
on earth. And fifth, it does not mention us, it says "they" lived and
reigned with Christ a thousand years. The passage speaks of they, that is
the souls of them that had been beheaded for their testimony of Jesus. In
an earlier chapter of this same book of Revelations, in Chapter 6:9-11, the
picture is of the souls of martyrs who had been slain for the word of God
under an altar crying for vengeance. Here the martyrs are on thrones, God's
inevitable judgement has come. The victory came in the spirit world, God
assured their victory. The passage also mentions the first resurrection,
which is in contrast with the second death. The point is not that the
righteous is raised a thousand years before the wicked, for a physical
reign on earth, but that the cause of Christ for which the martyrs died is
triumphant. Evil is not forever on the throne. God has overcome.
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