Jesus
The End Times:
Still All About
By Katie Hill
“ Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.” Revelation 20:6 (ESV)
“I’m a panmillennialist,” a friend confided in me once. When he saw my questioning look he didn’t wait for me to ask. “It means I believe everything will pan out in the end.” I had to laugh at that. From a certain point of view, he was right. After all, we believe in a God who promises to work all things for our good, so of course everything has to work out because it will through His Son, Jesus.
H I G H E R T H I N G S __ 10
However, we live in an era where there is a great deal of fascination with the end of the world…and not only in our churches. Consider the level of engagement with dystopian literature in our culture: Hunger Games, the Divergent series, etc. And of course, while not dystopian, the apocalyptically focused Left Behind series has experienced amazing success, burgeoned into a kids’ series, several movies, as well as the Bible study market. My own experience with the Left Behind series was that, while I generally enjoyed reading through some of the novels, I knew going in that the doctrinal foundation of the books’ premise was weak at best. And yet many of our evangelical brethren see books and movies like that as sort of a roadmap for the days to come. So what does the Bible have to say about the thousand years referenced
in Revelation 20? Let’s take a very general look at the major views of the ends times or more specifically, this “millennium.” Summary of the Four Views Probably the most popular view today is called dispensational premillennialism (DP). Formulated officially in the late 19th century, DP asserts that throughout history, God tests the obedience of His people within seven different dispensations or administrations. Right now we are under the dispensation of grace, whereas the nation of Israel was under the dispensation of law. According to DP, the people of Israel will always be God’s true chosen people and His end goal is to physically set up His kingdom on earth for His people. Prophecies in the Scriptures are to be taken literally, including those in Revelation. There
will be a secret rapture of all of God’s people (views differ as to when this specifically happens in relation to the Tribulation—a 7-year period of particular suffering on the earth during which the Antichrist rules) but all agree that it is before a literal thousand-year reign of Christ on earth wherein Satan is bound and there is an era of peace. The temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem and the sacrificial system reinstated. Eventually Satan will be released for a time, leading to Armageddon (the war to end all wars), followed by the final judgment and finally the new heavens and new earth. Two less common views are historic premillennialism and postmillennialism. Historic premillennialism is similar to DP, but there is no separate rapture. Postmillennialism does not present a literal thousand-year reign or even a visible reign of Christ but claims there will be a golden age of sorts before Christ comes again, during which knowledge of Jesus increases and evil decreases. And now we come to amillennialism, which has been the historical view of the church and is currently embraced by Lutherans, Catholics, Anglicans and many Reformed denominations. It is also the Biblical view because
