Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Feb/82

Contributor - John Verhoog

Title - The 1 000 Years of Reign of Christ on Earth - What Does It Mean?

Topic -Jesus Christ

The dominant interpretation among a millennia lists of the present day is that the millennium represents the blessedness of Christian experience now. Believers are already in heavenly places in Christ Jesus and reign to live by Him; Satan is a destroyed foe, and believers triumph over him in Christ. They rest on a symbolic interpretation of Revelations 20 and the expression, "a thousand years" is understood consistently with the symbolic use of numerals apocalyptic language. In such a context figures represent not arithmetical values but ideas. The figure 1,000 is accordingly regarded as symbolic of the idea of fullness and completeness.

T.F. Torrance, in company with Hodge and L. Berkhof, takes it to be the time from the First Advent of Christ to the Second Advent, the coming of the Kingdom of God upon this world in the person of Jesus Christ. The Bible does not give the slightest indication that the great events of the future; namely, the resurrection, the final judgment and the end of the world, are separated by a thousand years, except this be found in lev. 20:1 - 6, Matt. 13:37 - 42, 50 show that these events clearly synchronize. These verses speak of a separation of the good and evil at "the end" not a thousand years before. This is also shown in Matt. 25:31 - 46, John 5:28, 29, 6:44, Acts 24:15. According to the New Testament the resurrection of the righteous shall take place in the last days. This is also supported by the verses II - 15 of Rev. 20. These passages hardly justify the claim of the pre-millenarians in objection to this, that the day of Lord may be a thousand years long so that the resurrection of the saints and judgment of the nations takes place in the morning of that long day, and the resurrection of the wicked and the judgment at the great white throne occurs the evening of that same day. They appeal to II Peter 3:8 where we read that "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day". But the tables may be turned here. We can just as easily prove with these same words of Peter that the thousand years of Revelations 20 are only one day.

The pre-millenarians hold to the idea that God will establish an earthly kingdom at His return that will last for 1,000 years. This thought is foreign to New Testament teaching. The New Testament proclaims that the Kingdom of God, was at hand and, yes, already has come in Christ Jesus and only waits the day of its consummation to attain its completion. It is not seen in the New Testament as an earthly kingdom, but it is described as a spiritual kingdom. Jesus said to Pilate that His Kingdom was not of this earth. Jesus had a spiritual kingdom in mind, and not a natural kingdom of the Jews (Matt. 8:11, 12; 13:31 - 33; 21:43; Luke 17:21; John 3:3; 8:36 - 37). Jesus represented the kingdom as already present during his public ministry (Matt. 11:12; 13:28; Luke 17:21). Jesus, speaking to the Pharisees who asked Him when the kingdom was to come, says, "The kingdom of God is in the midst of you". The Church of Jesus Christ is not something different from the kingdom of God, as the premillenarians give one to believe, but the visible representation of the kingdom of God. When a person, through the grace of God, by faith, accepts the gift of salvation offered to man in Jesus Christ, he enters into life, into the kingdom of God. This is when he becomes a member of the "body of Christ" visibly manifested in the church of Jesus Christ upon earth.

The position which I believe is most true to scripture is that the reign of Christ and His saints is a present spiritual reality (Rev. 3:2 1; Eph. 2:5 - 6). It does not expect a millennial reign after Christ's return. The thousand years is a symbolic number for the entire period of Christ's present reign through the church.

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