This article has been written as part of a series of studies that present varied interpretations of different aspects of eschatology. You can find the others here. It is an area where there are many different viewpoints, and we want to encourage healthy and constructive discussion and thought. We encourage readers to reflect on the various studies put forward, and we very much welcome comments that are made in a respectful and thoughtful manner that reflects the brotherly love we should have for one another. This forms part of a series looking at the interpretations of the millennium. If you wish to contribute an article to this particular series, then you can find our guidelines here. As things stand, we do not yet have an article promoting the post-millennial interpretation, so would welcome it if someone felt inspired to write one for us.
“The Lord says to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’” Psalm 110:1
In Revelation 20:4 we read about Christ reigning for a thousand years, and about satan being locked up for a thousand years and then released. What does this mean? To answer this question we need to look at the nature of the book of Revelation itself, since our views on the book as a whole will naturally condition our approach to any particular passage.
Reading Revelation
Revelation is often considered the most difficult book in the Bible to interpret. Some Christians read it once then leave it alone; others immerse themselves in every detail, finding ever more fantastic interpretations of a work which might well be described as the first century equivalent of science fiction. How then should we approach it? Increasingly scholars are saying that we should view Revelation not as a series of sequential events, but rather as a series of visions which keep showing the same scenario in different ways.
Increasingly scholars are saying that we should view Revelation not as a series of sequential events, but rather as a series of visions which keep showing the same scenario in different ways.
For example, theologian Jeremy Duff would say that John's purpose “is not to give some future generation a blueprint of coming events, but to equip Christians of every age with vital divine insight into the [spiritual] nature of their world”.1 Tom Wright consistently makes the same point, saying “we are not dealing in Revelation with a single sequence of events” which follow one another, “what we are dealing with is several different angles of vision on the one single great [spiritual] reality”.2
John was not drawing back a curtain to allow his readers to peer into the future, rather he was drawing back a curtain to show the spiritual realities behind the political and economic facades of this current age, in his day as well as ours. John's Apocalypse is a colourful expansion of Paul's belief that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness in high places (Ephesians 6:12).
John writes Revelation in code to evade Roman censorship. To interpret Revelation correctly, we need to understand what John is not saying and why, as much as what he is saying and how he is saying it. John is averse to the terminology used by other New Testament writers, such as 'kingdom' and evangelion (gospel), because by the time Revelation is being written such words have become politically toxic. They would have sounded like political subversion to the Roman prosecutors.
John relies heavily on symbolism and metaphor, yet these metaphors shift and change all the time, which means it is unsafe to take any one verse or metaphor in isolation.
So how else could John refer to Christ's current reign on earth? He chooses a variety of coded pictures, clothes his message in apocalyptic language, and uses future settings as a disguise for the present. John relies heavily on symbolism and metaphor, yet these metaphors shift and change all the time, which means it is unsafe to take any one verse or metaphor in isolation.
Christ's Millennial reign
Taken in this context it is fairly straightforward to decode John's reference to Christ's thousand-year reign. It is not talking about some future event, whether 'pre' or 'post' or whatever. As with everything else in Revelation it is a description of present spiritual realities. The New Testament writers were all totally convinced of Christ's present reign now. It is what many of them went to their death for, believing that ‘Jesus is Lord’ rather than ‘Caesar is Lord’.
It is well known that numbers very often have symbolic meanings in Jewish writings. Throughout scripture the number ‘a thousand’ is often used idiomatically, so that ‘a thousand years’ normally signifies a very long period of time, and can even be used to denote eternity. In Revelation 20, John's reference to Christ's thousand-year reign is simply a coded way of speaking about one of the great emphatic truths that all the New Testament writers insist on: that Christ's eternal reign has already begun.
Christ's thousand-year reign is simply a coded way of speaking about one of the great emphatic truths that all the New Testament writers insist on: that Christ's eternal reign has already begun.
John's first readers would never have understood Christ's reign as a future event, they were deeply convinced that Christ is already reigning now. They would never have understood ‘now’ as an interim period, with Christ's reign sometime in the future. No, their commitment was to the reality of his earthly reign having already begun in their lives. The one principle for which the early Christians were ready to face death was ‘Jesus is Lord’. Now, not one day in the future. While we perhaps tend to see it as a ‘technical truth’, they were firmly convinced of its present reality. First century Christians would never have read Revelation 20:4 as being about some time in the future, they would have understood John to be using the future tense as a code to speak about present day spiritual realities.
Hebrews 1 3
Even the very terminology which they used emphasises these deeply held convictions of the New Testament community. The ‘Kingdom of God’ refers to God's present (as well as future) rule in the lives of believers. The term ‘gospel’ (evangelion) means not just generic ‘good news’, (as too often supposed), rather it was a technical term which was used mainly in reference to the Emperor. In the sense in which the New Testament writers adopted it, evangelion means something like an ‘announcement of a new kingly reign’. Thirdly, the frequent use of the phrase ‘seated at the right hand’ of the Father (taken from Psalm 110:1) throughout the New Testament insistently speaks of Christ currently exercising executive power on the Father's behalf.3
My point is that even the very terminology chosen by the New Testament writers emphatically demonstrates their complete conviction that Christ is currently reigning now. They would not have understood any need to refer to a future reign, since they were convinced that Christ's eternal reign has already begun.4
To understand how the New Testament believers would have understood Revelation 20:4-6, we just need to read Ephesians 1:18 – 2:10, where Paul so wonderfully expounds Psalm 110:1. Paul in Ephesians and John in Revelation are saying exactly the same thing, that Jesus is reigning now, only they use different language to do so. Psalm 110:1 was the dominant scripture through which the New Testament writers understood and expressed their eschatology, so I make no apology for using it as a reference point to decode John's eschatological symbolism.5
One Reign or Two?
One objection often put forward against the view that the Millennial reign began at Christ's resurrection is based on the various references to 1,260 days, forty-two months, or three-and-a half-years. All of these of course mean the same thing and are common scriptural numerical symbols. In a seven-year period there is a positive connotation – a sense of completeness – indicating that God's purposes are fulfilled. Three-and-a half-years is half of seven years, suggesting a discontinuity. This time-period therefore signifies a period to which God has given a pre-determined end, yet his purposes are not yet perfected or completed.
John uses this kind of constantly changing mix of metaphor all the time, which is why it is unwise to be too dogmatic about any one interpretation.
Since many scholars see the various references to 1,260 days, forty-two months, or three-and-a half-years, as referring to Christ's present reign now, before his return, therefore (they would argue) the millennial reign must refer to something else. However, I would suggest this is an unnecessary distinction. It treats the metaphorical use of time periods differently from the use of other metaphors. Commentators point out how John constantly switches and changes the various symbolism – “shifting, kaleidoscopic images”6 – so there is no reason why the same principle cannot hold true for John's symbolic use of Hebrew numerology.
To take just one small example, Tom Wright points out that believers are described in quick succession as being both the bride of Christ and as being the wedding guests.7 In Revelation 19:7 the church is the bride, two verses later we are the guests. John uses this kind of constantly changing mix of metaphor all the time, which is why it is unwise to be too dogmatic about any one interpretation. He is constantly changing perspective to say the same thing.
What John is not doing is using allegory, which is what confuses present day readers. Our minds are more attuned to the logical deconstruction of allegory, where every symbol always carries the same meaning in an almost algebraic sense. We find Hebraic apocalyptic idiom, where meanings and shades of meanings of symbols and metaphors can shift and change all the time much harder to cope with. If one moment the church can be the bride, then two verses later we are the guests, there is no reason why the expressions three-and-a half-years and a thousand years cannot both refer to Christ's current reign now, albeit with differing connotations of emphasis.
We are currently in the “until” of Psalm 110:1; meaning the reign of Christ between the Resurrection and his Return. A “thousand years” also covers the same period, but continues on into eternity.
‘Three-and-a half-years’, as we have seen, refers to a set period of time, but where God's purposes remain incompletely fulfilled, unfinished. We are currently in the “until” of Psalm 110:1; meaning the reign of Christ between the Resurrection and his Return.8 A “thousand years” also covers the same period, but continues on into eternity. It also begins at the Resurrection, but will continue into ‘everlasting’, (whatever that looks like). In Hebraic numerology a “thousand years” not only means a huge indefinite period, but can also imply eternity, while being a cubic number (10x10x10, or 103) signifies a divine dimension against the incompleteness of three-and-a half-years. Both cover Christ's current reign now, one recognises the “until” of Psalm 110:1, the other signifies that the reign which has already begun will never end. The same reign, different perspectives. As always in Revelation, different perspectives on the same theme.
Satan in Prison
That leaves us to consider the other references to a thousand years in chapter 20, namely that satan is imprisoned for a thousand years, then released for a short time, before finally being dealt with once and for all. Again, it is unhelpful to try to take the numerical symbolism as serious chronology. That is not how it works at all. The time periods are symbolic of current realities, rather than descriptions of future events. The description of satan being bound for a thousand years means that in eternal terms Jesus has won a once-and-for-all victory, while the idea of his being released for a short period is not really about successive events in an earthly time-frame, but is using time-pictures as yet another of the many different kinds of metaphors used to describe contemporary spiritual reality. We are looking at “theology done through narrative chronology” as one scholar describes it.9
Despite Christ's victory the enemy still has sufficient freedom for a limited period to do evil. It is the same description of the current age that we find throughout the New Testament, the now-but-not-yet of modern theologians, and the ‘until’ of Psalm 110:1. It simply means that “the victorious work of Christ keeps satan bound, and what influence he does have is brief and passing, and within the constraints of the sovereignty of God”.10
Summary
Revelation is not an add-on to the rest of the New Testament, rather it is a re-statement of basic New Testament teachings in a different kind of language. It is not about the future, but about spiritual realities in the present. It should be a normal principle of sound biblical interpretation not to base any doctrine on just a single passage in scripture, but when that passage is in Revelation then even more so. Succinctly, if Jesus and Paul have not already said it, then Revelation doesn't say it either!
Notes
1 Dr Jeremy Duff 'Reclaiming Revelation' lecture at the University of Gloucestershire 19/7/2012
2 Tom Wright 'Revelation For Everyone' (SPCK 2011) p103
3 See my Research Paper OPRP 28, 'The Psalm, the Gospel & the Kingdom' (Olive Press 2016).
4 Tom Wright 'Revelation For Everyone' p180
5 See my Research Paper OPRP 21 on 'The Significance of Psalm 110:1 in the New Testament '(Olive Press 2014)
6 Tom Wright 'Revelation For Everyone' p183
7 Tom Wright 'Revelation For Everyone' p170
8 The three-and-a half-year Tribulation should likewise be seen as yet another perspective on the “until” of Psalm 110:1, but that is outside the scope of this paper.
9 Ian Paul 'Revelation' (Tyndale/IVP 2018) p327
10 Ian Paul 'Revelation' p327
