Bound Him A Thousand Years

Since there is so much confusion and turmoil about matters relating to end-times and the book of Revelation, I thought it would be a good idea to take a moment and explain what I believe and why I believe it. This might be helpful for those who are sitting on the fence, unsure of where they stand.

There are four major interpretations of the book of Revelation. In my opinion, two of these views can be dismissed immediately, leaving just two interpretations to examine. The four views are:

Preterism: The whole book of Revelation took place in 70 AD, including the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. This view is utter nonsense, and really doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously – especially when you realize that this view depends upon Revelation being written before 70 AD, when in reality it was written in the early 90s AD. This view is easily disproven, as I have done elsewhere.

Historical: This says that the book of Revelation is an overview of all of history from the time of Christ to the Second Coming. The problem is that this interpretation just doesn’t work: people’s attempts to tie the events in Revelation to real events have failed catastrophically. It is a nice theory but in practice it does not even come close to working.

Amillennial: This says that the book of Revelation is a symbolic look at the struggles between good and evil in the Church Age. It is called “amillennialism” because those who hold it believe that there will be no literal thousand-year reign of Christ on Earth; they believe that the “millennium” is symbolic of the Church Age that we are living in now.

Premillennial: This says that the book of Revelation is a description of what happens during the 7-year Tribulation, and is more or less a literal reciting of events using symbolic language. This is the view that believes in the Tribulation, the Antichrist, the Mark of the Beast, and so forth. This view also believes that, at the end of the Tribulation, Jesus Christ will return to Earth in person, set up a physical kingdom, and reign from Jerusalem as a king for a thousand years.

The only two views I take seriously are the amillennial view and the premillennial view. Preterism is easy to disprove and is actually silly. Christ has not already returned; that is utter nonsense. Likewise, the historical view sounds great in theory but in practice it utterly fails. People simply can’t tie the events in Revelation to real historical events; no matter how hard they try, they keep failing. That system of interpretation just does not work.

So between the two possibilities, how do you know which one is right? Is Revelation simply a highly symbolic look at the struggle between good and evil? It’s at least plausible. Or is Revelation intended to be interpreted largely literally? Is the millennium symbolic of the age we’re living in now, or is it a real thousand-year period to come?

Most people these days are “pan-millennial”. They believe that “it will all pan out in the end”, so it really doesn’t matter one way or another. They’re content to ignore the entire issue and go on about their lives. The problem with this view is that “I don’t really care” is not a Biblical stance. The New Testament commands us to watch and be ready; Jesus Himself repeated this several times. Not caring is not the same thing as watching and being ready.

On top of that, the Bible tells us that we should long for the return of Christ and earnestly desire it. If Christ really is the great love of our lives and the great passion of our heart, we will long for Him to return and we will be interested in the events surrounding His coming. Telling Jesus “I love you and all, but I’m not interested in when you’re coming back; you can stay away forever for all I care” is the opposite of passion. It does not honor the Lord. If you love somebody you will long to see them; if you don’t want to see them then you probably don’t really care about them at all (or, at the very least, you have a troubled relationship with them).

So how can you decide between premillennialism and amillennialism? It’s a tough question, but I believe there is an answer. Here is what struck me, and what convinced me to take one side over the other. It all came down to this passage:

Revelation 20:1: “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.”

In this scene an angel comes down from Heaven, binds Satan with a chain, and imprisons him in a pit so that he can no longer deceive the nations or cause any harm. He is bound for a thousand years. During that time the people who were martyred for their faith in Jesus are raised from the dead and reign with Christ for that thousand year period. This is what is called “the millennium”, and it is the key dividing point between the two views. One view holds that this should be taken literally, and the other says that it is symbolic. So which is it?

Here is what bothered me. The amillennial view says that this thousand-year period is symbolic of the age we are living in now. They teach that when Christ died on the cross, He bound Satan and rendered him powerless. In this age the Church is reigning triumphant. This passage is just a highly symbolic look at our time in history.

That brings up a question: is there anyone who actually believes that Satan has been bound and rendered powerless? Does anyone believe that Satan and his forces of darkness have been neutered and can no longer cause any harm, or deceive anyone, or trouble the nations? The apostle Peter sure didn’t; long after the Resurrection Peter warned the Church that Satan was a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour (I Peter 5:8). He didn’t believe that Satan had been bound. Paul warned us that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the forces of darkness, and urged us to take on the whole armor of God so that we can stand against the wiles of the devil. He didn’t believe the devil had been bound.

Then there is the issue that the details don’t match up. Amillennials say that when Christ died on the cross He bound Satan. In this passage, however, Satan isn’t bound by Christ; he is bound by an unnamed angel. Christ is mentioned in this passage (the martyrs reign with Christ), but Christ doesn’t do the binding of Satan. On top of that, the passage does not say that Satan was bound by the death of the Lamb; it says that Satan was bound with a chain. If this passage really did represent Christ binding Satan at the cross, then Christ should have been the one doing the binding and the binding should have been accomplished by His death and His shed blood. But we don’t see any of that here.

There is yet another big problem. Verse 6 speaks of a resurrection that happens before the reigning begins; it says that people who were martyred for their faith in Christ will be raised from the dead and reign with Him. In fact, it is the martyrs who are doing the reigning, and they start right after Satan is bound. So if, as amillennial people claim, Satan was bound when Christ died at the cross, that raises a question: just how many people were executed for their faith in Christ before Christ died? There were martyrs in the Old Testament, but they did not believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ because it hadn’t happened yet and people didn’t know about it yet. On top of that, how many of those people have been raised from the dead and are now reigning? It won’t do any good to claim that they are reigning from Heaven; that is not the same thing as being resurrected – and, beside, Revelation 5:10 makes it clear that the reigning happens on Earth.

For that matter, is the Church reigning over the Earth during this period of history? Not exactly: for most of the past two thousand years the Church has been brutally oppressed, persecuted, hunted down, and slaughtered. We are not living in a time of triumph; this is a time of tremendous suffering and agony. Paul says that we and the whole creation are groaning, awaiting our adoption. God is saving countless people, but it is a bloody process that is full of pain. Christ said “In this world you will have tribulation”, not “in this world you will reign as kings”.

The point of Revelation 20 is that Satan has been neutralized, the dead have been raised, the martyrs are living again, and they are reigning triumphantly over an Earth where evil has been soundly defeated and the powers of darkness are unable to harm anyone. In no way does that even begin to describe the age we are living in now. I simply cannot believe we are in the millennium; the details are all wrong.

That only leaves one option. If the millennium is a real thing that is going to happen, and if it hasn’t happened yet, then it must happen at some point in the future. If it happens in the future then the premillennial view must be true. At some point in the future there must be a time when Satan will be bound, the dead will be raised, and Christ and the martyrs will reign triumphantly over a peaceful Earth.

From that point it is not hard to work out the rest. Revelation does contain symbolic language, but the symbols it uses are all defined elsewhere in the Bible, most notably in the Old Testament. It is not hard to look up the handful of symbols it uses and see what it is really talking about. The rest, like the millennium, is all literal.

As a side-note, some have argued that the premillennial view must be wrong because that interpretation is only about a hundred years old. For most of its history, people claim, the church believed in amillennialism. That sounds good, but that is actually wrong. The early church was premillennial; letters that have survived show that in the centuries that immediately followed Christ the church interpreted end-times and Revelation much as premillennial people do today. However, when the Catholic Church arose in the 5th century they quickly stamped out that view, since Catholicism teaches that they are the fulfillment of the millennium. For more than a thousand years the Catholic church held power and enforced its view on pain of death. It was only with the advent of the Reformation that people began to escape its clutches and go back to what the Bible actually teaches. Shortly after the Reformation (and long before Darby and the 19th century) people began writing about premillennialism again.

You could just as accurately say that the idea that Christ is the head of the Church is a recent view. That view only became prevalent after the Reformation. Before the Reformation the Catholic church taught that the Pope was the head of the church (and they still teach that today). The truth is that many Biblical doctrines appear to be “recent discoveries” because the Catholic Church forced their heretical view on the world for such a long time. After the Reformation, though, people began going back to what the Bible actually teaches.

The reason I am premillennial is because I see it taught in the Bible. It is the only viewpoint that consistently makes sense and doesn’t result in really bizarre problems. Amillennialism sounds good, but when you look at the details it falls apart. As amazing as it sounds, there really will come a day when Christ will establish an actual, physical kingdom on Earth, centered in Jerusalem. Revelation speaks of it, but it is not the only book to do so; the Old Testament is filled with references to it. That, however, is a subject for another time.