The Revelation versus Manmade Eschatology

I have noticed that, in popular, "Left Behind"-style eschatology, there is always an immediate rush past the first chapter of the Revelation to offer hair-raising interpretations of the symbols in the rest of the book. I don't want that to be taken to mean that I don't understand that rush. Studying the first chapter would shut down the exciting interpretations that make some men, such as Hal Lindsey, a lot of money.

Notice first verse 3: "Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near" (emphasis added). The events in the book, or, at least, the majority of them, are explicitly stated to be in the near future when John was writing these words. Not two-thousand years and counting afterward!

In particular I want to direct your attention to verse 9: "I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus." The two important words here are "tribulation" and "kingdom." Dispensationalists love to make up new theories about a future tribulation, mostly involving the modern State of Israel. And the Kingdom, i. e., of God, they put off until some future millennium that supposedly occurs after the return of Christ. Yet, John tells us that he was sharing in both at the time he was writing (which I believe to be about 68 AD, shortly after the beginning of the Roman campaign against Israel and Jerusalem).

Any sober reading of the Revelation must, therefore, conclude that most of the feverish teaching that is so popular today is merely manmade (un)science fiction, not biblical exegesis.

How Many Resurrections Will There Be?

As the reader probably knows, premillennialism teaches that there will be two literal resurrections, that of believers at the beginning of the millennium, that of the wicked at the end of the millennium. They base this on a literal interpretation of Resurrection 20:4-5: "I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection." Note two things: first, this is the only chapter in all of Scripture which describes this millennium; and second, this would mean that resurrected saints will be sharing the earth with aging, dying, and sinning unbelievers. I find that a detestable thought!

The problem with that is that it turns the principles of hermeneutics (i. e., the interpretation of Scripture) on their head. One fundamental hermeneutical principle is that clearer, simpler passages of Scripture are to be used to explain the more-difficult passages, traditionally called "the analogy of faith." Yet, this one chapter, full of symbolism, in a book also full of symbolism, is imposed on other passages which were perfectly clear before that imposition. In fact, as I will now proceed to show, that literal interpretation is contrary to the explicit statements of other portions of Scripture.

Look first at John 5:28-29 (see also Ephesians 2:5-6): "An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear His [i. e., the Son of God, v. 25] voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment." Will the resurrections be separated by a thousand years? Or any period of time, for that matter? No, the Lord explicitly states that the two resurrections will occur in the same hour. Jesus is paraphrasing the prophecy of Daniel 12:2: "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." The essence of the two passages is the same, but Jesus adds the explicit time reference in John.

Also in that Gospel, consider John 6:39: "This is the will of Him who sent Me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given Me, but raise it up on the last day." When will He raise us up? On one day, then a thousand years will transpire? No, but on the last day! In the biblical course of events, must that not be at the end of history? The end of the millennium, if you will?

Oops, did that disturb you? If Revelation describes a resurrection at the beginning of the millennium, and another one at the end, but other passages, by the same Apostle, describe only one resurrection, then what about the "first resurrection"? I believe that is a reference to conversion, which is often described in resurrectional terminology in the New Testament. Look, for example, at John 5:24, just before the verses above: "Whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life." This is the key: the millennium is the time of the reign of Christ between our respective conversions and the general resurrection at the end of history. Without denying that He reigns over all things, Jesus especially reigns in the hearts of His people. The millennium is now, and each new Christian enters it upon his conversion, his spiritual resurrection.

Hermeneutics for the Millennium: Sometimes People Work Too Hard to Miss the Obvious

"For a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night."
- Psalm 90:4

This thought is repeated in II Peter 3:8, "with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

Roman Numeral 1000

Revelation, chapter 20, contains the phrase "thousand years" six times in the first seven verses. And many Christians take that as a literal, countable, one thousand years, neither more nor less. This literalistic interpretation has become predominant, in spite of two relevant facts: first, that the phrase recurs in a chapter otherwise full of symbolic, even mysterious, imagery; and second, that isn't the way the phrase is otherwise used in Scripture.

Historically, Protestants have used the phrase "the analogy of faith" to express the same principle that we now phrase as "scripture interprets scripture." The difference is that historical Protestants meant it as using clearer passages to interpret the more obscure. Yet, in this case, modern evangelicals take an obscure passage to force an interpretation on passages which were easier to understand before the insertion of Revelation 20.

As indicated by Moses in Psalm 90, and the Apostle Peter in his second epistle, "a thousand years" is used to indicate a time beyond our conception, but representing an indefinite period of time in which God completes His purposes. That interpretation brought into Revelation 20 makes sense, but the literalist interpretation of Revelation 20 imposed on Psalm 90 and II Peter makes nonsense. Which is likely to be the purpose of God?