Revelation 20 - part one: The thousand year reign of Christ

The tricky chapter! As if none of the others were!

The main area of dispute in this chapter is how to interpret the "thousand years" or the Millennium. There have been three main views (with probably countless variants!)

The first two views both regard the Millennium as being and actual period on earth of a thousand years.

Post-millennialism understands that there will be a period in human history of a thousand years when Satan is bound up, and so evil is restrained, and the followers of Jesus will experience only blessing on the earth. It is after this millennium (post-) that Jesus will return to the earth for the second time, bringing an end to human history.

This view was particularly popular in the nineteenth and early century, especially amongst those who saw the abolition of slavery and other social reforms as humanity 'improving' to the point where the blessings of Millennium would be experienced here and now.

The first world war and especially the Second World War brought a sharp shock to this interpretation of the progress of humanity. The horror of the Nazi extermination camps, in particular, seemed to mitigate against such a positive view of human development.

Pre-millennialism understands that Christ will return before (pre-) the Millennium. At this time he will take his followers to be with him (the rapture). Some premillennialists believe that this will be preceded by a seven year of tribulation (hence Post-tribulation premillennialists); others believe that the rapture will be followed by a seven year tribulation, and then Christ will return with his followers to commence the thousand year reign on earth. This pre-tribulation premillennial view has been popularised in the Left Behind series of novels by Tim Lahaye.

One of the key problems with this point of view is that the book of Revelation only refers to thrones in heaven, not on earth, apart from the throne of the beast.

The third view is that of amillennialism. This view regards the thousand year reign as symbolic, rather than literal, just as with the use of many other numbers in the book of Revelation. The number ten is used as a number to signify completion, so 10 x 10 x 10, or ten cubed, would refer to a period of time that is intensively complete. Viewed in this way, the thousand years refers to the time between Christ's birth and his second coming, and is John's final glimpse behind the scenes at human history, showing what is happening spiritually behind what is seen physically.

If I haven't given it away already, my approach to this text is an amillennial approach, as I think that this makes better sense of the text, and treats the numbers in the same way that I would interpret them elsewhere in Revelation, or even in the rest of the Bible. In Psalm 50, for example, we learn that the cattle on a thousand hills belong to God, whereby we are intended to understand that all the cattle belong to him.

Part two follows shortly!