The Return of Christ

The Millennium Explained

The millennium is the thousand years of Revelation 20, during which Christ reigns and Satan is bound. Faithful Christians read it in three main ways: premillennialism, that Christ returns before a literal reign on earth; amillennialism, that the thousand years pictures Christ's present reign through his church between his two comings; and postmillennialism, that the gospel will spread and Christ returns after a long age of its triumph. Each has been held by devout believers. The Living Bread describes all three and declares no winner.

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.Revelation 20:6 (KJV)

The passage everyone is reading

The word millennium simply means a thousand years, and it comes from a single passage, Revelation 20, where John sees Satan bound for a thousand years, and the faithful reigning with Christ during that time:

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.Revelation 20:6 (KJV)

Because Revelation is a book of vision and symbol, and because this thousand years is mentioned only here, Christians have long asked what it means. Is it a literal future age on the earth, or a picture of something already true, or something the gospel will bring about? Sincere, Bible-loving believers have answered in three main ways, and the names for those answers all turn on where the return of Christ falls in relation to the thousand years. The Living Bread holds none of them as the required view; what follows describes each as fairly as it can.

Premillennialism

Premillennialism means Christ returns before, pre, the thousand years. On this view the second coming leads into a real, future reign of Christ on the earth, a golden age in which he rules and his people reign with him, after which comes the final judgment and the new creation. It reads the thousand years of Revelation 20 as a distinct era still to come.

This view has ancient roots; some of the earliest Christian writers held a form of it, and it is widely held today, especially in evangelical Protestant churches. Those who hold it point to the plain sequence of Revelation 19 and 20, where the return of Christ appears to be followed by the binding of Satan and the reign of the saints. Within premillennialism there are further differences, including how a rapture and a tribulation relate to Christ's coming, which the previous page describes. What unites premillennialists is the expectation that Christ will reign on the earth after he returns.

Those who hold this view find in it a strong emphasis on the visible, public triumph of Christ over evil in the very world where evil did its worst, and a comfort that the creation itself, and not only the soul, is the arena of his victory. They read the promises to Israel and to the nations, and the pictures of a reign of peace where the wolf lies down with the lamb, as pointing to a real future age under the returned King. Whatever one concludes, it is a reading held by many devout believers who love the Scriptures and read them carefully.

Amillennialism

Amillennialism, despite its name, does not mean no millennium. The a signals that the thousand years is not read as a literal future period but as a symbol of the whole present age between Christ's first and second comings, during which he reigns from heaven through his church, and Satan is restrained from finally deceiving the nations. The saints who reign with Christ, on this view, are believers who have died and now live and reign with him.

This has been the majority view through much of church history and is held across Catholic, Orthodox, and many Protestant traditions. Those who hold it note that Revelation is a book of symbols, that a thousand can signify fullness or completeness rather than a literal count, and that the New Testament elsewhere speaks of only one return of Christ leading directly to the final resurrection and judgment. On this reading, we are living in the millennium now, and Christ's return brings the age to its end and ushers in the new creation.

Those who hold this view find in it a strong assurance that Christ is already reigning, that his kingdom is not merely a future hope but a present reality quietly at work in the world through his people, and that his return does not begin his rule but consummates it. They see the binding of Satan not as a distant event but as the restraint Jesus spoke of when he said he had come to bind the strong man, so that the gospel could go out to all nations. It is a reading with deep roots and wide company across the church.

Postmillennialism

Postmillennialism means Christ returns after, post, a millennial age. On this view the thousand years is a long era, not necessarily literal, in which the gospel spreads and increasingly shapes the world for good, until a time of great blessing and widespread faith, after which Christ returns to raise the dead and judge. It is the most hopeful of the three about what the gospel will accomplish in history before the end.

This view was especially influential in earlier centuries and inspired much missionary and reforming zeal, the confidence that the knowledge of the Lord would cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Those who hold it point to the parables of the kingdom growing like leaven and a mustard seed, and to the promises that the gospel will reach all nations. It shares with amillennialism the reading of the thousand years as the present age, but it expects that age to end in triumph rather than tribulation before Christ appears.

Those who hold this view find in it a great motive for hope and labor in the present world, a confidence that the gospel is not merely holding ground but advancing, and that no work of mercy or mission is spent in vain. They read history as a long sunrise rather than a gathering dark. Others, reading the same Scriptures and the same history, are more sober about what to expect before the end. Here, as everywhere in this cluster, faithful believers weigh the evidence and reach different conclusions in good conscience.

Why the Living Bread declares no winner

These three readings have each been held by devout, careful, prayerful Christians, by great theologians and humble believers alike, for centuries. They cannot all be right in their details, but the disagreement among them is not a disagreement about the gospel. It is a disagreement about how to read one symbolic passage in a symbolic book, and the church has never made any one of them a test of faith.

So The Living Bread, being non-denominational, describes them and does not choose. If you come from a tradition that teaches one of these, you are free to hold it, and free to hold it with charity toward the others. What matters far more than the label is the shared and certain hope underneath all three: that Christ truly reigns, that Satan's power is broken and will be ended, that Christ will return, that the dead will be raised, that there will be a judgment, and that God will make all things new. Every millennial view is only trying to fit the thousand years around those certainties. Hold the certainties, and hold the rest in peace.

A note on the end times: on the questions where sincere Christians differ, chiefly the rapture, the millennium, and the timing and details of Christ's return, this platform is non-denominational and describes the main views fairly rather than declaring a winner. What all Christians share and hold as certain is this: Christ will return, the dead will be raised, there will be a judgment, and God will make all things new. We anchor on that, and hold the rest in peace.

Related: What is the rapture? · The resurrection and the last judgment · The new heavens and new earth · The Return of Christ