Amillennialism

I was taught growing up what I now know to be Amillenialism, and of course we were never taught any of the prophetic books and the Book of Revelation, etc.

Q. I was taught growing up what I now know to be Amillenialism, and of course we were never taught any of the prophetic books and the Book of Revelation, etc.

Not to get too deep into my story, I have been on what seems to be the most adventurous path I have ever taken in life, in discovering the nature of prophecy and the end times from (several leading evangelical scholars).

As you could imagine this really opened my eyes to a whole new world of things, until I received information from a member of (my denomination) who challenged me on these beliefs. Now honestly I do not know what to believe and I feel like just giving up on trying to understand these sections of scripture. Can you help?

A. Rev. 20:1-2 says, “And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.”

Verses 6-7 add, “Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years. When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison.”

These are the references from which the term Millennium is derived. It’s a combination of 2 Latin words, mille and annum, meaning 1000 years. In the Old Testament the Millennium was referred to as the Kingdom of God after Daniel 2:44.

“In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.”

In the context, the phrase “those kingdoms” refers to four literal kingdoms that exist in world history. There’s no justification to believe that God’s Kingdom, the 5th, is any different.

The Jews believed this to be a literal kingdom, with the Messiah as their King. And there is simply no Biblical reason to read the verses in Revelation 20 any way other than literally either. They clearly refer to a 1000 year reign of Christ on Earth following the 2nd Coming.

So the first thing you have to understand is that in order to hold an amillennial view, you have to depart from a literal interpretation of Scripture. Once you do that, then it’s possible to re-interpret verses to fit your view, which is what amillennial scholars do.

The real question you have to answer for yourself is whether you’re going to accept the Bible for what it is and assume that it means what it says, like all the evangelical scholars you’ve been studying with do. If you do that, then you’ll be immune to all these arguments and can save your self a lot of time and avoid a lot of confusion.

The verses I’ve referenced above clearly describe a literal 1000 year kingdom. One of the first rules of interpretation is to let clear verses on a subject guide your understanding of obscure ones.

Amillennialists violate this rule by resorting to a re-interpretation of more obscure verses to make their case because the Bible doesn’t contain any clear ones that support their position.