May
31, 2012
The
proposed dispensational premillennialist millennium has a major flaw: it’s not
heaven. It is finite, proposed to last for exactly one thousand years. Its end
is predetermined and known by all: massive rebellion and destruction...If I
were a gambler, the only safe bet would be to trust Christ now, because the
proposed dispensational premillennialist millennial kingdom is one of the
largest bones of contention in current evangelical circles, and if that
peculiar interpretation of scripture happens to be mistaken, then anyone
waiting until after the proposed “secret rapture” to cast in with Christ will
be eternally lost.
Why the Millennium Can’t Be the Millennium
By Christina Wilson
NET
Revelation 20:7 Now when the thousand years
are finished, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and
will go out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and
Magog, to bring them together for the battle. They are as numerous as the
grains of sand in the sea. 9 They went up on the broad plain
of the earth and encircled the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but
fire came down from heaven and devoured them completely.
The
proposed dispensational premillennialist millennium has a major flaw: it’s not
heaven. It is finite, proposed to last for exactly one thousand years. Its end
is predetermined and known by all: massive rebellion and destruction.
What
features of a proposed millennial kingdom do dispensational premillennialists
paint?
I.
The church has been raptured out.
According
to dispensational premillennialists,1 the church will be
raptured away before a seven year tribulation on earth. These saints will
receive glorified bodies, similar to Christ’s body on earth after His
resurrection. The wedding feast will occur in heaven, and Christ, accompanied
by the glorified saints, will return to earth for the battle of Armageddon and
the proposed, subsequent millennial kingdom.
The
rapture is sometimes called a “secret”, because no one on earth will actually
witness its occurrence except Christians.2 It is tantamount
to an elopement, which is defined as running away secretly to get married.
Scripture
calls the church Christ’s “beloved”.3 Jesus Christ, the
wholly divine Son of God died an agonizing death upon the cross to redeem His
bride from sin, in order to make her white, white as snow. Why would Christ
return for His bride in order to elope with her? Would elopement befit a King
of kings and the bride whose purchase price was His own blood?
Why
is the proposed premillennialist rapture a secret? Why an elopement?
1)
The secret rapture is termed such because the coming of Christ for His bride is
considered a “partial coming”, or part one of a split coming.4
According to premillennialist reasoning, the coming of Christ for His bride is
not permitted to be the Second Coming. They have reserved the Second Coming of
Christ as a separate occasion for a certain stage of judgment, and they place
it towards the end of Revelation 19. The rapture, however, they place near the
beginning of Revelation, even in the white space between chapters 3 and 4.5
Continuing
the premillennialist thought, the Second Coming of Christ scripturally cannot
be a secret; all men will know He has come. Further, scripturally there can be
but one visible, mighty, glorious Second Coming of Christ. Therefore, if
Christ’s coming for His bride is not to be considered the Second Coming, it
must be a secret. If it were known by all, it would constitute the Second
Coming, which dispensational premillennialists do not want to have happen at
that particular time.
2)
Dispensational premillennialists have planned a proposed millennial kingdom in
which the fulfillment of kingdom promises will be specific to ethnic Israel.
The Old Testament promises, according to their thought, do not include the
church. Since their proposed millennial kingdom is an earthly, physical
kingdom, the church, Christ’s beloved for whom He died, must be removed. (How
could one exclude them if they were still present on earth?) Therefore,
dispensational premillennialists have proposed a rapture which precedes the
proposed millennial kingdom. Since this proposed rapture is not permitted to be
the Second Coming, it therefore must be a "secret",
"partial" coming. For those who may find this line of thought
confusing, please consider.
ESV
1 Corinthians 14:33 For God is not a God of
confusion but of peace…
II.
The proposed dispensational premillennialist millennial kingdom will be a
mixture of fully human subjects and resurrected saints in glorified bodies,
whose role will be to help Christ reign.
In
the above scenario, the church has been raptured out, given resurrected and
glorified bodies, been wed to Christ (secretly) and will return with Him in His
Second Coming to reign on earth for one thousand years. Because they will
proposedly have been given their glorified bodies, they will be able to come
and go from earth as they please. Part of their role will be to witness and win
nonbelievers to Christ. Nonbelievers will consist of children of ethnic
Israelite believers and children of the believing nations.6
III.
Jesus Christ will be physically present on earth during the proposed
dispensational premillennialist millennial kingdom.
IV.
What would the proposed kingdom be like for nonbelievers?
Nonbelievers
in the proposed millennial kingdom will have every conceivable advantage to
help them believe in Christ, especially when compared with the present age.
·
Christ will be physically present with them in a resurrected, glorified body.
·
Resurrected, glorified saints will be physically present with them, witnessing
to them for the purpose of salvation.7
What
room would there be for faith in such a kingdom when all would be clearly and
readily seen with the physical eyes? Faith would seemingly amount to assent
only to that which would be openly visible and concrete all around them.
NET
Romans 8:24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope
that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees?
Most
of the New Testament, written as it is for comfort and encouragement for
perseverance in faith and for hope during trial and distress, would be
obsolete. Nonbelievers in the proposed millennial kingdom would be, as it were,
spoon-fed from a silver platter. Biblical history would have all but been
accomplished. A risen Christ would be physically present. Physical testings and
tribulation as everyday occurrences on earth, as all of us now live life here,
would be non-existent. Everything would be beautiful and wonderful, morally
pure and correct.
V.
Except…the disjunction.
It
would all be veneer. It would be surface assent to Christ only. Hearts would
not be converted. Acquiescence would be insincere and shallow. Sin, though
perhaps not outwardly present, would rule the hearts. Why do I say this?
NET
Revelation 20:7 Now when the thousand years
are finished, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and
will go out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and
Magog, to bring them together for the battle. They are as numerous as the
grains of sand in the sea. 9 They went up on the broad plain
of the earth and encircled the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but
fire came down from heaven and devoured them completely.
Let’s
imagine. Choose any of the roles in the proposed millennial kingdom and try it
on for size. Christ would be ruling a kingdom of which He knew that countless
numbers would perish in hell at its termination. Glorified saints, having seen
and tasted the heavenlies, would know that the supposed paradise on earth was
false, shallow, insincere, finite, about to be tragically ended at the close of
exactly one thousand years. Believing Israelites within the kingdom and
believing Gentiles living outside the kingdom proper would not know which of
their progeny would be saved and which would be destroyed in one thousand
years’ time and go to everlasting torment. The progeny themselves would see it,
hear it, live it, know it, but countless numbers of them would remain dead in
their hearts, unchanged, prone to sin, and about to be deceived into rebellion
at the end of exactly one thousand years.
Is
this glorious? Is this what the entire Bible, in dispensational
premillennialist thinking, has been leading up to? Is this the touted kingdom?
Really, except for the presence of Christ and numerous glorified saints present
on earth, how would that kingdom be different from what we have now?
The
difference would be concrete and physical. Most physical suffering would have
ended. But what about men’s souls? Would that have changed? The Bible says no.
That would not be changed.
NET
Revelation 20:7 Now when the thousand years
are finished, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and
will go out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and
Magog, to bring them together for the battle. They are as numerous as the grains
of sand in the sea.
Remember,
according to dispensational premillennialists, these accursed rebels are all
children of believers, all having been born after the inauguration of the
proposed millennial kingdom. Only believers enter the kingdom or the nations
surrounding it. All these rebels “as numerous as the grains of sand in the sea”
would have been born during the proposed millennium.8
What
advantages would such a proposed kingdom give to anyone?
The
advantages would be concrete, physical, literalistic, temporal, and finite
(physical blessings for all), and they would end in eternal tragedy for numbers
of people as countless and “numerous as the grains of sand in the sea.”
What
is missing in this picture? That which is missing is “Christ IN you, the
hope of glory”—inward, spiritual fellowship through the Holy Spirit with a
risen, eternal, ever-present Lord.
NET
Colossians 1:27 God wanted to make known to
them the glorious riches of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in
you, the hope of glory.
NET
John 17:23 I in them and you in me– that they
may be completely one, so that the world will know that you sent me, and you
have loved them just as you have loved me.
NET
John 6:47 I tell you the solemn truth, the one who believes has eternal
life. 48 I am the bread of life.
NET
John 17:3 Now this is eternal life– that they know you, the only true
God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.
Yes,
the glorified, previously raptured saints would have Christ in them; the
proposed believers saved during the proposed post-rapture tribulation would
presumably have Christ in them, but what about all the nonbelievers born during
the millennium? Numbers of them as countless as the “grains of sand in the sea”
would know nothing of the risen, eternal Lord and King dwelling within them.
How would that be any different than the situation which exists today?
VI.
What would the role of a Christian in a glorified, resurrected body during the
proposed dispensational premillennial kingdom be?
The
most wonderful Christians I know, those such as my current pastor, grieve and
mourn daily, even minute by minute, laboring ceaselessly for the salvation of
the lost. What joy would a raptured Christian experience as a member of the
bride of Christ, having been returned to a non-redeemed earth of which
scripture foretold that in exactly one thousand years souls as numerous as the
sand in the sea would be judged and condemned to eternal damnation? What would
be the one desire of such Christians?
Evangelism.
Knowing that the time was short (exactly one thousand years on an eternal scale
is very short), they would want to go out and evangelize the lost, who would be
indistinguishable in an earthly near-paradise among all the children of
believers, those lost who would be giving lip service only to the King of
kings. Knowing that their efforts would be futile for countless people as
numerous as the grains of sand in the sea would fill their hearts with grief
and despair. Would this be joy or misery for the bride of Christ?
For
evangelists at heart, would the proposed millennial kingdom be any different
than the situation today? The greatest temptation, I believe, for Christians
today is the temptation to sit back and do nothing. How great a temptation
might that be for believers in a world of peace and prosperity, one where very
little physical suffering remained?
But,
because we are speaking of a raptured church ruling with Christ in the proposed
kingdom, resurrected saints in glorified bodies would be beyond temptation and
sin. What would it be like for those millions of previously raptured believers
to be living on an unredeemed earth, albeit one having perhaps received a
partial makeover, knowing that countless millions of mortal people in front of
them were still going to be judged and sent to hell? The best Christians I know
would be suffering, grieving, mourning, and working incessantly to save the
lost. That’s the millennium?
Unless,
of course, everyone would be content to sit idly by enjoying the material
blessings and benefits. Where is the weight of focus now in dispensational
premillennialist thought? Isn’t it on the “fulfillment” of Old Testament
promises, interpreted as coming in the form of concrete, literalistic, physical,
and material blessings? Would the focus during the proposed millennium remain
there?
Ah,
but someone will object, Christ will rule with a rod of iron, and there will be
a standard of goodness, peace, and morality higher than any since the fall. But
Revelation 20:7-9 puts the lie to that scenario. According to that passage, any
such goodness and morality will not spring from a genuinely reborn nature. When
temptation and deception would again be permitted by the unbinding of Satan
(Revelation 20:7), mankind would once again express their rebelliousness to the
extent of numbers “as numerous as the grains of sand in the sea”.
VII.
Blending
Some
dispensational premillennialists believe that the millennial reign of Christ is
the first installment of His eternal reign, and that the proposed millennial
kingdom will fall into a “blending” into the eternal state.9
But is this what scripture teaches? Is Peter in the following verses describing
a “blending”?
NET
2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will
come like a thief; when it comes, the heavens will disappear with a horrific
noise, and the celestial bodies will melt away in a blaze, and the earth and
every deed done on it will be laid bare. 11 Since all these
things are to melt away in this manner, what sort of people must we be,
conducting our lives in holiness and godliness, 12 while
waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God? Because of this day,
the heavens will be burned up and dissolve, and the celestial bodies will melt
away in a blaze! 13 But, according to his promise, we are
waiting for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness truly resides.
Yet,
the timing of the above verses must precede the eternal state and follow any
proposed earthly, millennial kingdom. Do you see a “blending”?
Further,
why would Peter in those verses be exhorting today’s unraptured church on earth
to live holy and godly lives in waiting for the “day of God”, if by the time
that day were to come, the proposed rapture, the tribulation, and the proposed
millennial kingdom would have already occurred?
My
premillennialist study Bible notes on this passage posit two such days of
God—one at the time of the tribulation on earth and a second “1,000 years later
at the end of the millennial kingdom”.10
According
to the premillennial view, the tribulation will follow the rapture and be
exactly seven years in duration. Yet the biblical text says that the “day of
the Lord will come like a thief”. Could a thief surprise someone who knew he’d
be coming in a definite period of only seven years? Do you see a contradiction?
Further,
everyone who might be alive at the time would know that the literalistic
millennium proposed by dispensational premillennialists would last exactly one
thousand years after a second coming of Christ. Counting alone would give a
fairly accurate knowledge of the exact year of the second “day of God” proposed
by dispensational premillennialists as an interpretation of 2 Peter 3:10-13.
Yet, the biblical text says that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief”.
Another contradiction?
One
last contradiction between the biblical text and the dispensational
premillennialist interpretation of dual “days” of the Lord is that the
construction in Greek is singular. Surely Peter knew enough Greek to use a plural
construction if he had intended to imply two distinctly separate days of the
Lord? Or, perhaps the dispensational premillennialists have a greater
revelation than the Apostle Peter?
Does
the dispensational premillennial view add up to coherence?
A
Personal Note on What I Believe
Preparing
this article has convicted my heart that I am not currently doing even the
smallest iota of what I should be doing in terms of evangelism to reach the
lost. What I described above as the evangelistic needs of the proposed
premillennialist millennial kingdom are just as true today as I described they
would be then. Selah.
……….
Now
is the time which scripture calls “today”.
NET
Hebrews 3:15 As it says, "Oh, that today
you would listen as he speaks! Do not harden your hearts as in the
rebellion."
NET
Hebrews 4:7 So God again ordains a certain day,
"Today," speaking through David after so long a time, as in the words
quoted before, "O, that today you would listen as he speaks! Do not harden
your hearts."
Now
is the only moment in time when salvation is certain for those who would accept
Jesus Christ as their Lord.
I
do not personally believe that after Christ comes for His beloved bride for
whom He died—which is His church and includes believers of all ethnicities of
all ages and all times— that there will be life on earth as we know it today. I
believe that Christ will come once very openly and visibly to all the earth
simultaneously. He will come with the recompense of reward in His hand for
those who love Him and with judgment in His hand for those who do not. (Matthew
24:27; Matthew 25:31-46; 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-10;
Hebrews 9:24-28; Hebrews 10:32-39; Jude 1:14-15). His one coming will
embrace both the gathering of His beloved to be with Him forever as His bride
and the gathering of all for judgment.
I
believe that the millennium is right now, today.11, 12
I believe that God in His infinite wisdom today uses the suffering and
misery of this fallen world as a tool to draw His people home to Himself
through His Son Jesus Christ (Romans 8:28). Think: if effective evangelism is
as difficult today as it now is, how much more difficult would it be in a world
in which there would be no outward motivations for any unsaved person to search
her own heart? No outward circumstances of trial and tribulation to cause an
unsaved soul to squirm and question her place in the universe? Scripture tells
us that evangelism in the millennial kingdom will have an extremely high
failure rate at its close: rebels as “as numerous as the grains of sand in the
sea.” These countless rebels will all be children of the proposed millennial
kingdom, under that proposed scenario.13 Is that a song for
hallelujia?
I
believe that the millennium is right now, today, that Christ the King is
reigning right now on His throne in heaven and in the hearts of all saved
believers present on earth in the church militant (Zechariah 9:9; Matthew 21:5;
John 12:15). Many Christian theologians have taken this view (See footnotes 11
and 12 for two examples). Therefore…
If
I were a gambler, the only safe bet would be to trust Christ now, because the
proposed dispensational premillennialist millennial kingdom is one of the
largest bones of contention in current evangelical circles, and if that peculiar
interpretation of scripture happens to be mistaken, then anyone waiting until
after the proposed “secret rapture” to cast in with Christ will be eternally
lost.
Today
is the only safe moment in eternity to consider the claims of Christ and turn
to Him for salvation. Anyone who teaches a day of salvation that follows
“today” may be sorely mistaken, not to their eternal damnation, but if they are
mistaken, then it might be to the damnation of any unbelievers who may have
believed their teaching and decided to wait and see what might happen after the
proposed rapture.14
NET
Hebrews 3:15 As it says, "Oh, that today
you would listen as he speaks! Do not harden your hearts as in the
rebellion."
NET
Hebrews 4:7 So God again ordains a certain day,
"Today," speaking through David after so long a time, as in the words
quoted before, "O, that today you would listen as he speaks! Do not harden
your hearts."
Please
place your trust in Jesus Christ, not in a proposed millennial kingdom.
__________
1 Such as John MacArthur, Because the Time Is Near;
Chicago, Moody Publishers, © 2007
2 Beth Moore, DanielLives of Integrity Words of Prophecy,
Nashville, Tennessee, Lifeway Press, © 2006, Eighth printing March 2011, page
169.
3 ESV Ephesians 1:6 to the praise of
his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved; and numerous
other citations.
ESV 2
Thessalonians 2:13 But we ought
always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God
chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit
and belief in the truth.
ESV 1
John 3:2 Beloved, we are God's children now,
and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we
shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
4 NET (New English Translation) Bible version notes on
Zechariah 9:9; also found in John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible, New
American Standard Bible Updated Edition, Thomas Nelson, Inc., © 2006, page
1319, note on Zechariah 9:9,10.
5 John MacArthur, “A Jet Tour Through Revelation”,
December 05, 1982, available at http://www.gty.org/resources/sermons/1290/A-Jet-Tour-Through-Revelation
.
6 John MacArthur; Because the Time Is Near; Chicago,
Moody Publishers, © 2007, pages 298, 299.
7 Ibid., page 299
8 Ibid., pages 301-303.
9 “The day will come when the church is raptured out and God
will mediate His will on the earth in a direct way as He pours out judgment on
the earth, takes the earth back, and the mediates His rule on the millennial
kingdom for a thousand years with Christ reigning on the throne until the
eternal state in which everything falls into the blending of God's sovereignty
in the final form of our existence. So I would be a very historic
dispensationalist.” John MacArthur, I.F.C.A. Meeting (6-26-89), Part 1;
available at http://www.gty.org/resources/Print/Sermons/90-36
10
John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible, New American Standard
Bible Updated Edition, Thomas Nelson, Inc., © 2006, page 1929, note on 2
Peter 3:10.
11
William Hendriksen, More Than Conquerors, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker
Books, © 1940,1967, pages 142 f., 185-193.
12
Arturo Azurdia III, Sermons, Revelation, available at http://www.spiritempoweredpreaching.com/sermons.htm
13
John MacArthur; Because the Time Is Near; Chicago, Moody Publishers, ©
2007, pages 301-303.
14
Some dispensational premillennialists do teach that the mass conversion of
ethnic Israelites is scheduled to follow the rapture of the church. However, if
as many biblical scholars believe, the rapture of the church and the second
coming of Christ are aspects of one and the same event, and if judgment follows
immediately after the second coming, then there will be no conversions after
any of those eternally simultaneous events, not of ethnic Israelites nor of
anyone else, in that history as we know it today will have been completed.
For
a proposed period of salvation after the rapture, see:
John
MacArthur, Because the Time Is Near; Chicago, Moody Publishers, © 2007,
pages 16, 187, 312.
John
MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible, New American Standard Bible
Updated Edition, Thomas Nelson, Inc., © 2006, page 1683, note on Romans
11:26.
For
opportunity to appropriate salvation by grace alone today, see footnotes 11 and
12 above.
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