The One Thousand Years
In Revelation 20 we find the nature of “this age”, which is the highly symbolic “thousand years” expressing Life in Christ, whether the nascent growing ekklēsia between the cross and 70AD, or our individual lives in Christ thereafter. In its symbol we find the truth that allows Christ’s intended liberty and empowers a true spiritual life. It is this ten-by-ten-by-ten perfect cuboid symbol of the temple of God which Paul asks of Gentile believers, “Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” 1 Corinthians 3:16.
So the thousand years “ends” with the war. The thousand represents those who made it to the end of the age without giving up on Jesus Christ, as encouraged in the letters to the seven churches. They are the New Jerusalem, the temple, the Bride, the Garden in the River of Life, trees of Life etc. And the war ends with the torturous cleanse of three entities. The three represent everything against Christ:
- The false prophet (liars / denial of Christ)
- The beast (those persecuting the church)
- Satan (the enemy of Christ as a body – that’s what the Hebrew word satan means – the “man of lawlessness” meaning rejection of the New Covenant and favouring the shadows, so self-righteousness – – which was Adam and Eve’s sin – aka human as god, cut off from family fellowship). It does not mean that evil or demons would not exist after the war. Humankind is still subject to free-will. But it does mean the believer is not subject to that dark kingdom. We are delivered into the family of the Son of His Love.
We note here that the great sin is to reject Christ and think that we have been a “good person” in and of ourselves. Humanity relying on self is devilish. Reliance on Christ and His power within is all in all!
What this “lake of fire” does mean, however, is the end of the power altogether of the threats of things like condemnation etc., and any lure back to legalism. The Old Covenant is finished. It was made obsolete at the cross. Victory had been won. But now, with physical temples done away with, no Christ-believer, especially if they are Jews, need be tied to the physical temple. God Himself has shown us the greater reality open to all.
“…the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe.” 1 Timothy 4:10b
The Lake of Fire is not literal, as it exists nowhere aside from the set of symbols that Jesus spoke of at the start of the book. For fire, which is seen elsewhere, besides this “lake”, we understand biblically, is about judgment to correct something gone wrong.
It is important when one comes across a symbolic passage in poetry, apocalyptic genre or parable to discern meaning, that is to exegete, by looking to those references and topics in the plainer texts of the Bible. This is where the millennialism doctrine in its various forms deviates from God’s intention in Revelation 20.
In Revelation 20 the thousand years are presented as a time when Satan is bound; yet we see no other scriptural reference to a literal thousand years. Not from John’s other writings, or Paul, or Peter; and certainly, Jesus never outlined such a millennial kingdom as from a physical temple. He referred to that Messianic time as “the age to come” in contrast to the time He was in (the end of the Old Covenant time). There are other symbolic numbers in Revelation, including symbolic fractions and multiples in the thousand-notion, but Jesus and the apostles never refer to a millennium apart from this one passage, leading us to assign it the symbolic meaning consistent with its apocalyptic context and other non-year references. Jesus also explained that this work that John was to write was given “in symbols” at the start of the book of Revelation.
Revelation is littered with symbolic numbers. The numbers seven, two, twelve etc are repeated and hold significance of meaning apart from quantifying. Thousand is often absolute, as in God’s mercy to a thousand generations and the cattle on a thousand hills – no-one would see this as literal, as to do so would deny the point that Psalm 50:10 is making, i.e., that God owns everything (there are more than a thousand hills in the world).
A thousand is symbolic of an absolute filling all in all as He fulfilled the law for us. What a fitting symbol of Messiah’s reign in “this age” and through His bride.
One thousand is a perfect cubed number for God’s law; Our Father favours neat squares and cubes to express fulness, and squares to express perfection – like the square of twelve in the 144 which also are expressed in the thousand each. The city or New Jerusalem, Mount Zion, which symbolises the bride, and simultaneously, the Lamb’s wife of 21:10 is likewise complete and expressed as a cube.[1] The thousand years is the time of perfection; she operates from heaven because that is her seated position in the spirit.
The need for the first century saints to be patient under horrendous tribulation was one of the reasons Revelation is written, that believers may rejoice in their trials, knowing that the testing of faith “produces patience” as James 1:3 and 4 tell them, “But let patience have its perfect work, that you (the believer of the new creation twelve tribes, i.e., the ecclesia) may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”
For this reason, we are well advised against fanciful interpretations of our own speculation that may miss the point and lead into error. The saying, “Let scripture interpret scripture” is very important in understanding difficult passages. Since Old Testament prophets, while writing under inspiration, did not have the full understanding of how the kingdom would be established, it is therefore the ones who have understood what the Holy Spirit has now revealed, that is, the apostles, who bring the prophetic verification and explanation of Old Testament prophecies. The old is fulfilled in the new and has no prophetic impetus apart from Christ, the inauguration of His kingdom at His sacrifice and the expectation of His sudden and consummate completion of the Day of Atonement. That “return” must be complete before the wider world beyond the geographical promised land might know God in Christ as His temple. Such is the reality of that former shadow – the last feast, i.e., the Feast of Tabernacles has become a personal relationship with God. It is a reality to spread to the whole earth.
When we seek a contemporary or future political meaning of Old Testament prophecies apart from Christ, we fall into a dangerous and devilish trap of humanism. Human interpretation of Scripture causes us to stunt our spiritual growth.
Yet more is at stake here than just stunted growth. The absolute error of this millennial misinterpretation, especially where there is the creation of another kingdom reign, which is counter-kingdom, cannot be over emphasized in our effort to help the brethren. This error is not one of those unimportant side issues; it is not one to be glossed over as non-essential to the Christian’s walk. The belief is crippling. What happens when one holds to such notions about both the age we live in and the future, means the expression of what is known as “prophetic” has launched from a shaky materialist pad into a false trajectory of greater error. Consequently, this can lead to the issuing public and ecclesial “words” as from the Lord which are failing to achieve anything like the purpose of prophecy or preaching. It fails to help us all grow.
Further, the nations are not helped either by the judgmentalism inherent in any ungodly “prophecies”, or the shifting sands of their timing and words, as both dispensational, amillennialism, premillennialism and some postmillennialism causes leaders to scramble to stay politically relevant in a calling that was not from the Lord. But God is merciful, so repentance is needed and a humble attitude to rethink the hebraic expressions of Revelation.
