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Hello and welcome to Doctrine Matters, a weekly podcast exploring the rich theology of the Christian faith. Each week we want to take hold of one aspect of our faith and try to understand theological concepts that sometimes have been debated, controversial, or maybe just hard to understand. And hopefully we can look at them in a way that is clear, concise and accessible. The goal is that believers would be encouraged and edified and that God would be glorified so we can love him more, know him more, enjoy him forever. I'm Kevin DeYoung, your host and teacher, and this is Doctrine Matters. Believe it or not, we are at the end of this year long journey through systematic theology. Hope it's been helpful to look at a little at a time. For 15 minutes once a week, we come to the end of the matter. Been talking about eschatology, end times and thinking about personal and then cosmic eschatology. There's a lot to say about the millennium and can't begin to answer all the questions that people have and even make a case for my millennial view, though I'll share that in just a moment. But maybe to orient the listener a little bit, maybe you've heard something about this and sometimes people joke and say, well, I'm pan millennial, meaning it'll and I get it. And there's something that's good about that view. Let's not elevate this to a first order theological issue. And yet we don't want to say that too flippantly and make it sound like there's nothing at stake in these discussions. It really does set us on some different trajectories and it does represent some different ways of understanding the Scriptures. So the millennium means a thousand. And when we talk about theology, the millennium refers to the thousand year reign of Christ prophesied in Revelation 20. And when we talk about the when, the what, the how of this millennial reign, we can think of four major interpretations. 1. Historic premillennialism according to this view, Christ returns before the millennium, but after the great tribulation during this current church age, we expect the world to get worse and worse. That doesn't mean that there aren't great advances of the gospel, but there will be a worsening. There will be a single return of Christ during which believers living at the time and those just resurrected will be caught up in the air with Christ and then come to earth with Him. There is, in this view, historic premillennialism, no secret rapture of the church. Christ's reign on earth then begins, and some would say it's a literal thousand years. Or others might say it's a figurative time period, meaning a long time in which we see evil greatly suppressed. Christ is literally reigning on the earth after the millennium, this long period of time, unbelievers are raised and there's a white throne judgment followed by the eternal state. You do find voices in the early church who seem to have this understanding. It's been well represented throughout the history of biblical interpretation. A second view, not to be confused with the first, is dispensational premillennialism. Like its older counterpart, dispensationalism also believes Christ will return before the millennium. That's the pre that language refers to when Christ returns. So he returns before the millennium. But in dispensationalism, which is really only about 200 years old, Christ returns before the great Tribulation. Though there are different varieties of post trib, mid trib, partial tribes, dispensationalism is marked by a more literal hermeneutic. Christ reigns on David's throne for a thousand years, during which time there will be a massive conversion of the Jews. Old Testament promises to Israel will be fulfilled. This dispensational view of the end times, which often includes a rapture, was popularized by the Scofield Reference Bible and in a less serious way, by the Left behind novels. For many American Christians, when they think of the end times, they're thinking of these dispensational charts that might go around the whole sanctuary and this very dramatic understanding of a rapture. And Christ comes once for his saints and then comes another time with his saints. And that has some overlap, the premillennial part, but it is different, and it is much newer and more novel than historic premillennialism. A third view, amillennialism. According to this view, we are already in the thousand years. So the name amillennialism is a bit of a misnomer because that prefix, ah usually is a negation. Like an atheist does not believe in God, so an amillennialist. You might think it's someone who doesn't believe in the millennium, but that's not true. The millennium is in the Bible. This group simply believes that the designation is a figurative one and that we are already in it. We're not looking forward to a future millennial reign other than the church age we now enjoy. Amillennialism teaches there will be a contemporaneous development of good and evil in the world, culminating in a time of intensified tribulation. Nevertheless, during the current church age, Satan's deception is curtailed. The gospel spreads around the world after the millennium, not a literal thousand years, because the numbers in revelation do not function in a literal way. Christ returns to judge all the living and the dead, followed by a new heaven and a new earth for the believer and hell for the unbeliever. A fourth view is called post millennialism. No, it shares some things in common with the Amil perspective. They also take the thousand years figuratively and teach that Christ will return after the millennium. Most Reformed theologians have been Amil or post mill. And sometimes the differences can be hard to spot. I do think that there's a difference here. Some of today's advocates of post millennialism have a definite political theology that follows as a result of that post millennialism, where I think older post mill theologians it functioned as a hopeful, optimistic view of what God was doing in the world and didn't necessitate a certain political prescription for their nation or for the nations. That's why an optimistic Amil and a post mill might not be very easy to tell the difference between the two. Which is why when you look back and look at Reformed theologians, it's not always clear what sort of camp you might put them in. But the key distinction for post mill is that they believe the church age will blend into the millennium. There's a time where the influence of evil will be negligible. The world will be essentially Christianized. Not yet heaven on earth, but essentially Christianized. Post millennialism does not think everyone becomes a Christian in this age, the thousand year age, but it expects the lordship of Christ to rule more and more in the world. And today, as I said, this outlook often influences how a post mill might approach politics and the mission of the Church. Now, my position is amillennialism. I know there may be people listening who have one of the other views. Whether my perspective is convincing or not, I do encourage Christians not to dismiss this whole discussion as esoteric theologizing with little importance for everyday discipleship. Yes, this is not as important as the Trinity or the two natures of Christ or justification. But it does matter. So why amillennialism? Well, this takes us Into Revelation, chapter 20. The key to understanding the when of the millennium is to recognize that the cataclysmic scenes depicted in Revelation 20 have already been depicted in the book. Here's my argument. There are at least four times in Revelation where a final battle at the end of the world is described. In Revelation 9, 200 million mounted troops gather at the Euphrates. In Revelation 16 where demonic forces assemble at Armageddon. And in Revelation 19, where the beast and the kings of the earth gather with their armies to make war against the rider on the horse. And then again in chapter 20, where the devil gathers his forces for a battle against the camp of the saints. Revelation works by recapitulation, that is, by telling the same cycle of stories over and over with different symbols. Many commentators have made this point, and correctly so, that we should not read Revelation. You know, so you get the, the letters of the seven churches in two and three, so prologue in one, then two and three, then a heavenly scene in four and five. And then sometimes people lay out chapter six through 22, just a long continuous timeline. That's not the way to understand the apocalyptic prophecies in Revelation. They form cycles. This recapitulation, you're seeing the same scene from a different camera angle, or here's the same reality, but let's put a different. Let's see it through a different lens and a different picture. The point is that many times in Revelation we have the end of the world as we know it described. So when we come to Revelation 20, we are seeing something we've already seen. Which means the binding of Satan in Revelation 20 does not take place chronologically after the events of Revelation 19. So there's this judgment and then the binding. That's how people read it, if you just go 19 to 20. But if you understand there's recapitulation, you know that it doesn't necessarily have to follow sequentially. It would not make sense for an angel to announce that all the bad guys had been wiped out at the end of chapter 19, only for Satan to be bound sometime later. Christ has already destroyed the evil army in chapter 19. What binding could be necessary? What battle could be left? Unless the battle in Revelation 20 is the same battle we've seen before, in which case the thousand year binding of Satan and the reign of Christ are not something that happens in the future, but something that's happening now as we await the end. The millennium is not a literal thousand years. It's simply not how numbers work. This isn't about having a lower view of the Bible's authority. It's about dealing with the Bible on its own terms. The 1,260 days, the time times and half a time, the 200 million mounted troops, all the sevens, the twelves, the fours, they're symbols, just like a prostitute, a beast, another beast, a pregnant woman, a bride, a groom eating, a scroll, seven heads, ten horns, fire coming from the mouth of two witnesses, Christ killing people with a sword in his mouth, blood as high as a horse's head for 200 miles. These are not literal pictures. They are true, but they are not literal. The millennium refers to a long period of time, a time, I argue, in which the gospel goes forward before an intense period of tribulation, the last battle and the final judgment. So my basic argument for amillennialism is that we are in the millennium now. Okay, so you say, how can that possibly be the case? Look at our world. This seems far from some essentially Christianized planet. Well, that's not what I think the millennium is telling us. We have to deal with the text given, which is specifically about the binding of Satan. Now, someone's still going to say, look around. You think Satan is bound? He seems to be doing his worst right now. He seems to be having a heyday. But think about this argument, the binding of Satan. Here's what I believe is an amillennialist occurred in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Consider three passages in the Gospels. One, in Mark 3. 27, Jesus describes himself as the one who enters a strong man's house to carry off his possessions. Jesus says, you can't do that unless you first bind the strongman. The word bind is the same word used in Revelation 20, when Satan is bound. So Jesus understood his ministry as tying up Satan in knots. A second passage, Luke 10:18, Jesus tells the disciples he saw Satan fall like lightning in their ministry when they went out and they preached the gospel and cast out demons. Now what is that? The dragon has already been cast down. Jesus saw it in their gospel ministry. And then a Third Text, John 12:31, Jesus announces that now is the time for the ruler of the world to be cast out. Ekballo. It's related to the word used in Revelation 23, where it says Satan was thrown down. Importantly, later in John 12:32, Jesus says he will draw all men unto himself. This is significant because the purpose of binding Satan in Revelation 20 is so that he may no longer deceive the nations. We underestimate what Jesus did on the cross and the defeat that he handed to Satan. We see these same realities in Revelation. We see a picture of the church that is both vulnerable and invincible. The two witnesses, for example, are trampled, but they also breathe out fire brought back to life. A picture of the church in this age. So you say, isn't the millennium this. This nearly perfect age? Well, that may be our importation into the meaning, but let's deal with what the Text says about the millennium. It's a time when Satan is bound so that he can no longer deceive the nations. That means he may lead the world astray, but he may no longer deceive the nations. So worldly persons, worldly systems, yes, they're still operative, they're still enthralled to Satan. But peoples are coming to Christ. This is really important. The binding of Satan does not mean he cannot harm or that he is not active, or that he does not need to be resisted. The Satan who is bound in verse three is unable to do what Satan in verse seven attempts to do, namely gather the nations against Christ and his Church. In the end, even this final attempt to wipe out God's people proves futile. He's been bound. He is a dog on a leash headed for the pound. And then the second thing the binding of Satan means is that the nations will have the opportunity to respond to the gospel and know the true God. So Satan cannot wipe out the church, he cannot deceive the nations. In Acts 14, Paul tells the people in Lystra that in the past God let the nations go their own way. In Acts 17, Paul tells the people in Athens that in the past God overlooked the times of ignorance. But those days are gone. Something decisively has shifted. The Gentiles are no longer strangers and aliens to the covenants of promise. Jesus is now drawing all men unto himself. He commissioned the church to make disciples. Revelation 20, then read in light of these passages, becomes a great missions text. The ancient serpent. Yes, he is active in the world, but he is bound in this sense that he can no longer prevent the nations from receiving the Gospel and coming to Christ. And we have seen that the gospel spreading across the world, even as evil grows and spreads. At the same time the Church is growing and the Gospel is going forward. Well, let's end here, not on discussion of the millennium, but this other phrase, his glorious appearing. Wonderful that Christ's second coming is described with this terminology. All those who love his appearing or wait for this blessed hope. Throughout the book of Revelation, Jesus is described in the most exalted language. Stunning imagery. The first and the last, the living one who holds the keys of death and Hades. That's what we're doing. That's what we're waiting for. This one. His head looks like white wool, his robe flowing, his sash golden, his voice like many waters, his feet burnished bronze, his mouth like a sword, his face like the sun. He is the Amen, the faithful and true witness. He is the root of David, the bright morning star. The lion of the tribe of Judah, the Lamb who was slain. He rides on a white horse. His eyes are like blazing fire. Fire. And on his head are many crowns. His robe is dipped in blood. His name is the Word of God. He rules the nations with an iron scepter, and on his thigh he has this name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We are, as it were, living in the eighth month of the first creation's labor. We don't know how long the last month will be, but every day the birth of a new world gets closer. Every day the glorious appearing draws nearer. And on that day the singing will be like nothing that has ever been heard, louder and fuller than anything that has ever been sung, even in heaven. O Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll, the trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend. Even so, it is well with my soul. That's our song. It's our song today, and we sing it with the Spirit Come. And he who testifies to all that is true, the one who is the way, the truth, and the life. He also says, surely I am coming soon. And we say, Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. You've been listening to Doctrine Matters with me, Kevin DeYoung, your host and teacher. If you'd like to learn more about the topics we talked about today, you can check out my book, Daily Doctrine. It's available in print or audio from Crossway.org and you may want to talk to your pastor or a trusted friend who can recommend other good resources. The Doctrine Matters podcast is produced by Crossway and on profit ministry that exists solely for the purpose of proclaiming the truth of God's word through publishing gospel centered content. To learn more, visit Crossway.org until next week, I'm Kevin DeYoung, and this has been Doctrine Matters. Thanks for joining us.