Let
us first take a look at Different Theological Positions
Preterism
Preterism
(from the Latin praeteritus, meaning "gone by") is an approach which
sees prophecy as chiefly being fulfilled in the past, especially (in the case
of the Book of Revelation) during the first century
Historicism
Historicism
is an approach which sees prophecy as being fulfilled in the past, present and
future, including (in the case of the Book of Revelation) during the previous
two millennia.
Futurism
In
Futurism, parallels may be drawn with historical events, but most
eschatological prophecies are chiefly referring to events which have not yet
been fulfilled, but will take place at the end of the age and the end of the
world.
Idealism
In
Idealism, also known as "spiritual" or "nonliteral"
approach, the Book of Revelation and other eschatological materials are
interpreted symbolically. Different authors may interpret the judgments and
resurrections on a more existential level, argue that the Beast and Babylon
represent a variety of social injustices (including any corrupt or even all
mortal governments, or view the recreation of the earth and the establishment
of the kingdom of heaven as the general improvement of society.
The
Bible states:
Now when He had spoken these things,
while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their
sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold,
two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, "Men of Galilee,
why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from
you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into
heaven." (Acts 1:9-11)
Many,
but not all, Christians believe:
The
coming of Christ will be instantaneous and worldwide. "For as the
lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming
of the Son of Man be." (Matthew 24:27)
The coming of Christ will be visible to
all. "Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all
the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on
the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." (Matthew 24:30)
The coming of Christ will be audible.
"And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they
will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to
the other."(Matthew 24:31).
The resurrection of the righteous will
occur. "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with
the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ
will rise first." (1 Thessalonians 4:16)
In one single event, the saved who are
alive at Christ's coming will be caught up together with the resurrected to
meet the Lord in the air. "Then we who are alive and remain shall be
caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And
thus we shall always be with the Lord." (1 Thessalonians 4:17)
In
Matthew 24 Jesus states:
For then there will be great
tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this
time, no, nor ever shall be. For false Christs and false prophets will rise and
show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. (Matthew
24:21, 24 NKJV)
These
false Christs will perform great signs and are no ordinary people "For
they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the
earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of
God Almighty." (Revelation 16:14) Satan's angels will also appear as godly
clergymen, and Satan will appear as an angel of light. "For such are false
apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ.
And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.
Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into
ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works."
(2 Corinthians 11:13-15) "As his crowning miracle, Satan will claim to be
Jesus" (Matthew 24:23, 24).
As the crowning act in the great drama
of deception, Satan himself will personate Christ. The church has long
professed to look to the Savior’s advent as the consummation of her hopes. Now
the great deceiver will make it appear that Christ has come. In different parts
of the earth, Satan will manifest himself among men as a majestic being of
dazzling brightness, resembling the description of the Son of God given by John
in the Revelation. (Revelation 1:13-15).
Lamb
of God
After
Jesus meets his followers "in the air", the marriage of the Lamb
takes place: "Let us be glad and rejoice and give him glory, for the
marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife has made herself ready. And to her
was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the
fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints." (Rev 19:7-8) Christ is
represented throughout Revelation as "the Lamb", symbolizing the
giving of his life as an atoning sacrifice for the people of the world, just as
lambs were sacrificed on the altar for the sins of Israel. His "wife"
appears to represent the people of God, for she is dressed in the
"righteous acts of the saints". As the marriage takes place, there is
a great celebration in heaven which involves a "great multitude."
(Rev 19:6)
Notes
on Millennialism
Two
Resurrections of the dead
An
interpretation of the New Testament is the understanding that there will be two
resurrections. Revelation says: "Blessed and holy is he who has part in
the first resurrection. Over such, the second death has no power, but they will
be priests of God and of Christ, and will reign with him a thousand
years." (Rev 20:6) The rest of the dead "did not live again until the
thousand years were finished". (Rev 20:5)
Despite
this, there are various interpretations:
According to the premillennial
post-tribulational position there will two physical resurrections, separated by
a literal thousand years (one in the Second Coming along with the Rapture,
another after a literal 1,000 year reign);
According to premillennial
mid-tribulationists there will be three physical resurrections too (one in the
rapture at the middle of tribulation, another in the Second Coming at the
finale of tribulation, the last one after a literal 1,000 year reign), the
first resurrection would be the resurrection in the Rapture and the
resurrection in the Second Coming, the second resurrection would be after the
1,000 year reign.
Armageddon
The
Book of Revelation states: "I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white
horse. And he who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and with righteousness
he judges and makes war." (Rev 19:11) We now see Christ, not as a lamb,
but as a warrior, ready to make war against the forces of evil. There is a
passage in Zechariah which is identified with this event: "I will gather
all the nations to battle against Jerusalem. The city will be taken, the houses
looted, and the women raped… Then the Lord will go forth and fight against
those nations… Thus the Lord my God will come, and all the saints with
you." (Zech 14:2-5) In Matthew, Jesus says, "The sign of the Son of
Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and
they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and
great glory." (Matthew 24:30)
The
army of heaven is described in similar terms as the resurrected and raptured
believers: "The armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean,
followed him on white horses."(Rev 19:14) Revelation continues: "I
saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to
make war against him who sat on the horse and against his army." (Rev
19:19) Isaiah also speaks of such a battle: "The Lord will come with fire
and with his chariots, like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his
rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by his sword the Lord will judge
all flesh, and the slain of the Lord will be many." (Isaiah 66:15-16)
In
the end, according to Revelation, the Lamb and his armies are victorious and
the Beast, generally identified as the Antichrist, is captured and thrown into
the lake of fire, while his battle casualties are left as food for the birds.
Satan, the spiritual driving force behind the beast and his armies, is
imprisoned:
I saw an angel coming down from heaven,
having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid
hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound
him for a thousand years. And he cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him
up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till
the thousand years were finished. (Rev 20:1-3)
While
only Revelation speaks of a period of a thousand years for Christ's rule on
Earth, there are numerous other prophecies in both testaments concerning a
future age of peace. Isaiah speaks of such a time and describes it in Edenic (a
state of perfect happiness or bliss) terms (Isaiah 11):
The wolf will dwell with the lamb; the
leopard will lie down with the young goat; the calf, and the young lion, and
the yearling together, and a little child will lead them. The cow and the bear
will graze; their young ones will lie down together; and the lion will eat
straw like the ox. The nursing child will play by the cobra's hole; and the
weaned child will put his hand in the viper's den. They will not hurt nor
destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of
the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11:5-9)
Just
as the physical bodies of people are changed into spiritual bodies in the
resurrection , so Isaiah implies that animals will undergo a transformation
which enables them to live in peace with human beings and with each other.
There is no more killing, either in the human or the animal kingdoms. God reverses the covenant made with Noah in
which he said, "The fear and the dread of you will be on every beast of
the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that moves on the earth, and on all
the fish of the sea." (Gen 9:2) If the passage in Isaiah is interpreted
literally, a return to the vegetarian diet of Eden seems to be a natural
conclusion. Gen 1:29-30
Micah
expresses similarly lofty thoughts, adding that Jerusalem will be the Lord's
capital in those days:
Out of Zion the word of the law will go
forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge between many
peoples, and rebuke strong nations afar off. They will beat their swords into
plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword
against nation; neither will they learn war any more. But everyone will sit
under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one will make them afraid. (Micah
4:2-4)
The
End of the World and the Last Judgment Satan released
According
to the Bible, the millennial age of peace all but closes the history of planet
Earth. However, the story is not yet finished: "When the thousand years
have expired, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive
the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to
gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea."
(Rev 20:7-8)
There
is continuing discussion over the identity of Gog and Magog. In the context of
the passage, they seem to equate to something like "east and west".
There is a passage in Ezekiel, however, where God says to the prophet,
"Set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshach,
and Tubal, and prophesy against him." (Ezek 38:2) Gog, in this instance,
is the name of a person of the land of Magog, who is ruler ("prince")
over the regions of Rosh, Meshach, and Tubal. Ezekiel says of him: "You
will ascend, coming like a storm, covering the land like a cloud, you and all
your troops and many people with you."( Ezek 38:2)
Despite
this huge show of force, the battle will be short-lived, for Ezekiel, Daniel,
and Revelation all say that this last desperate attempt to destroy the people
and the city of God will end in disaster: "I will bring him to judgment
with pestilence and bloodshed. I will rain down on him and on his troops, and
on the many peoples who are with him: flooding rain, great hailstones, fire and
brimstone." (Ezek 38:22) Revelation concurs: "Fire came down from God
out of heaven and devoured them." ([Rev 20:9) It may be that the images of
fire raining down are an ancient vision of modern weapons, others would say a
supernatural intervention by God, yet others that they refer to events in
history, and some would say they are symbolic of larger ideas and should not be
interpreted literally.
The
Last Judgment
Last
Judgment
Following
the defeat of Gog, the last judgment begins: "The devil, who deceived
them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the
false prophet are, and they will be tormented day and night forever and
ever." (Rev 20:10) Satan will join the Antichrist and the False Prophet,
who were condemned to the lake of fire at the beginning of the Millennium.
Following
Satan's consignment to the lake of fire, his followers come up for judgment. This
is the "second resurrection", and all those who were not a part of
the first resurrection at the coming of Christ now rise up for judgment:
I saw a great white throne and him who sat
on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found
no place for them. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and
Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one
according to his works. And Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire.
This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was
cast into the lake of fire. (Rev 20:11, 13-15)
John
had earlier written, "Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first
resurrection. Over such the second death has no power." (Rev 20:6) Those
who are included in the Resurrection and the Rapture are excluded from the
final judgment, and are not subject to the second death. Due to the description
of the seat upon which the Lord sits, this final judgment is often referred to
as the Great White Throne Judgment.
New
Jerusalem
In
Isaiah, God promises a new heaven and earth: "Behold, I create new heavens
and a new earth, and the former will not be remembered nor come to mind."
(Isa 65:17) The author of Revelation has a corresponding vision: "I saw a
new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed
away." (Rev 21:0)
The
focus turns to one city in particular, the New Jerusalem. Once again, we see
the imagery of the marriage: "I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem,
coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her
husband." (Rev 21:2) In the New Jerusalem, God "will dwell with them,
and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their
God."(Rev 21:3) As a result, there is "no temple in it, for the Lord
God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple". Nor is there a need for the sun
to give its light, "for the glory of God illuminated it, and the Lamb is
its light". (Rev 21:22-23])The city will also be a place of great peace
and joy, for "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be
no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying; and there will be no more pain, for the
former things have passed away." (Rev 21:4)
Description
The
city itself has a large wall with twelve gates in it which are never shut, and
which have the names of the twelve tribes of Israel written on them. Each of
the gates is made of a single pearl, and there is an angel standing in each
one. The wall also has twelve foundations which are adorned with precious
stones, and upon the foundations are written the names of the twelve apostles.
The gates and foundations are often interpreted (by whom ) as symbolizing the
people of God before and after Christ.
The
city and its streets are pure gold, but not like the gold we know, for this
gold is described as being like clear glass. The city is square in shape, and
is twelve thousand furlongs long and wide (fifteen hundred miles). If these are
comparable to earthly measurements, the city will cover an area about half the
size of the contiguous United States. The height is the same as the length and
breadth, and although this has led most people to conclude that it is shaped
like a cube, it could also be a pyramid.
The
Tree of Life
The
city has a river which proceeds "out of the throne of God and of the
Lamb." (Rev 22:1) Next to the river is the tree of life, which bears
twelve fruits and yields its fruit every month. The last time we saw the tree
of life was in the Garden of Eden. (Gen 2:9) God drove Adam and Eve out from
the garden, guarding it with cherubim and a flaming sword, because it gave
eternal life to those who ate of it. (Gen 3:22) In the New Jerusalem, the tree
of life reappears, and everyone in the city has access to it. Genesis says that
the earth was cursed because of Adam's sin, (Gen 3:1)] but the author of John
writes that in the New Jerusalem, "there will be no more curse." (Rev
22:3)
The rich symbolism reaches beyond our
finest imaginings, not only to the beatific vision but to a renewed, joyous,
industrious, orderly, holy, loving, eternal, and abundant existence. Perhaps
the most moving element in the description is what is missing: there is no
temple in the New Jerusalem, 'because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are
its temple.' Vastly outstripping the expectations of Judaism, this stated
omission signals the ultimate reconciliation.
The
Major theological positions
There
are diverse opinions concerning the thousand years of peace (Millennium)
described in Revelation and the events associated with it.
Some interpret a literal, future,
thousand-year time period in which Christ will rule over the Earth, a time
which will be characterized by peace and harmony.
Others understand a literal age of peace, but
think the "thousand years" is a figure of speech.
Still
others see the Millennium as symbolic of a spiritual ideal, with no
corresponding earthly condition. All of these positions fall into the category
of millennialism, a broad term which includes any and all ideas relating to the
millennium of Biblical prophecy.
