Amillennialism
Amillennialism literally would mean “no millennium,” though this is a bit misleading. Some proponents have not liked the term. Vern Poythress prefers “preconsummationist”1 and Cornelis Venema “nowmillennialism.”2 Naturally amillennialists are also “postmillennial” in that they agree that Christ returns after the period that is designated by the term. For this reason Venema states, “they have in common an identical framework.”3 In fact, the term “amillennial” was not used until the twentieth century.4
One of the strongest arguments for it is the simple fact that the words “thousand years” are only ever mentioned with this referent in this one passage. Six times in it—but one place nonetheless—and in a book that is highly symbolic, especially with its numbers. Now there is one other time that the expression “thousand years” is mentioned in the New Testament; but it is instructive that even in that place, we are pointed away from literal calculations: “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and ta thousand years as one day” (2 Pet. 3:8).
That said, we must remember again that the debate is over two things—time and nature. Amillennialism combines with its figurative reading on that number in Revelation 20 a Christological concept that is a consensus among the Reformed. The amillennialist infers from it a pattern for the Christian.
The state of Christ’s humiliation is the standard for the church in this age. Bavinck clearly articulates this point:
“Jesus only knows of two aeons: the present and the future aeons. In the present aeon [age] his disciples cannot expect anything other than oppression and persecution and must forsake all things for his sake. Jesus nowhere predicts a glorious future on earth before the end of the world. On the contrary, the things he experienced are the things his church will experience.”5
Distinctions
David Engelsma makes a pointed distinction in saying that, “Millennialism may be described as the false doctrine that interprets the thousand years of Revelation 20 literally as a period of time in the future, before the end of all things, during which Christ will establish a carnal kingdom of earthly power, peace, and prosperity in this world.”6
Can we speak of “Optimistic” and “Pessimistic” Amillennialisms? The optimistic strand emphasizes the spiritual and ecclesial nature of Christ’s reign, though treats dominion as a legitimate mandate. The pessimistic strand emphasizes that both the world and the church will go from bad to worse, leading up to the end. The relationship between antichrist and apostasy is stressed—e.g., “the Antichrist, having corrupted true religion, will fill up all things with superstition and impiety.”7
Implications
Engelsma points out that while Premillennialism excludes the main signs (they occur after the rapture), and Postmillennialism tends to see those fulfilled with AD 70, only Amillennialism takes precursory signs seriously.8
Amillennialists are split on the nature of the First Resurrection—some believing that it begins with the new birth (Jn. 5:24-25; Eph. 2:6); others with one’s death and rise in the intermediate state.
The plainest way to conceive of the kingdom reign is summarized by Turretin from Psalm 110:1 and 1 Corinthians 15:26-28: “Hence it is necessarily gathered that his sitting at the right hand of the Father and his kingdom in heaven will last equally long; for the Scriptures know of no sitting of Christ at the right hand of God, except in heaven.”9
Hoekema speaks of the failure of modern Evangelicals to view history from the perspective of this true spiritual reign of Christ. He gives five implications of this—the last of which the Postmillennialist will find surprising:
1. The characteristic activity of the present age in missions. 2. We live in a continuing tension between the already and the not yet. 3. There are two lines of development in history … that alongside of the growth and development of the kingdom of God in the history of the world since the coming of Christ we also see the growth and development of the ‘kingdom of evil.’ 4. All of our historical judgments must be provisional. 5. The Christian understanding of history is basically optimistic.10
Important Texts
For the amillennialist the two resurrections are simple and straightforward in terms of the wider system of Christian doctrine—the first being of believers being regenerated and transfered to Christ’s kingdom; and the second of all bodies and souls on the Last Day.
John 5:24-29. Note three things: 1. the different expressions—“The time is coming and is now here,” versus “the time is coming; 2. the context of the first resurrection is the new birth (v. 24); and 3. the second resurrection is of both the righteous and the wicked at the same voice.
Ephesians 2:6. [God] “raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Note the past tense and the location of the heavenly throne.
1 Peter 1:3. Again, the new birth is treated as a phenomenon inside of the power of Christ’s resurrection: “he has caused us to be born again … through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
John 6:39-40. Twice, the same “all” whom Jesus causes to persevere to the end are the same “all” whom He raises on the Last Day. This reinforces the “same day” pattern in the other second resurrection, or rapture, passages.
Revelation 20:4-6. Now one can re-read Revelation 20 and compare to all of these passages, and especially using John 5:25-29 as the other template. Notice how well the first resurrection corresponds to the First Advent and defeat of Satan by Christ’s work then, and how all new births thereafter are swept up in that same resurrection power. Revelation 20 speaks of the second death having no power over these. When “The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended” (v. 5), this is not speaking about some other class of Christians or any others divided principally by the literal thousand year period. The principal division is that the First Resurrection (i.e. of all Christians) does not happen to this other class of people. So there are only two classes of people. Those who are raised with Christ the first time, and those who are not.
As to the texts that have the saints “reign on the earth” (5:10), it begs the question as to whether these are more future-directed to the consummated kingdom. When the text specifies the period in between the two resurrections, we have this: “I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God …They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years” (20:4, 6). In what sense did they “come to life” in order to reign if they were first martyred? Shedd comments about this, “Had St. John intended a literal resurrection, he would have said, ‘I saw the bodies of them that were beheaded’”11—and he said this as a postmillennialist himself. The fact that this encompasses regeneration as a whole can also explain how “reign on earth” can include the earthly life of the saints before any such martyrdom.
Moreover, Christ ascended to the throne and bound Satan at the First Advent.
Matthew 12:28-29. “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can someone enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house.”
Matthew 28:18. “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
Perhaps the most important text establishing this comes from Peter’s sermon at Pentecost, which is really a coronation sermon, as Christ is seated on His throne and his apostle preaches in the courts below.
“Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, band of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’ Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:30-36).
As to the saints presently reigning with Christ, consider Revelation 1:6, Philippians 3:20, and Colossians 3:1-3.
The return of Christ, and the judgment of all, are placed on the same Last Day. For example,
John 5:28-29. “Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his 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.”
Matthew 25:31-33, 46. “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left … And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Luke 17:34-37. “I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed. One will be taken and the other left. There will be two women grinding together. One will be taken and the other left.’ And they said to him, ‘Where, Lord?’ He said to them, ‘Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.’” This is specifically tied to the end of the world.
This fits the pattern of all of the other rapture-resurrection passages, which, once we begin to look for it, clearly reveal themselves to all be talking about different angles of the same event. These are not speaking of different days and fundamentally different phenomena. For instance,
1 Corinthians 15:50-53. Whole body-soul glorified Christians are being produced on this same day attended by that Last Trumpet.
1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. Again, note the implausibility of interpreting this as a secret, or ethereal, occurence that can be separated from everyone witnessing it and being a part of it, for better or worse.
2 Thessalonians 1:5-10. Likewise in this text, Paul gives us the judgment aspect, as Christ defeats His enemies and the saints marvel at Him.
2 Peter 3:10-12. At a time we cannot know, Christ returns to judge and bring closure to the whole cosmos and age. Again, how can this be if it of an additional second coming in which one can count to a literal 7 or 1000? That is aimed chiefly at the Premillennialist (and especially Dispensational and Pretribulational brands). To the Postmillennialist we might point to that aspect of Peter’s argument concerning the scoffers. It appears to be a day of settled, increasing evil, where the scoffer’s words would make more sense.
Proponents
As I mentioned elsewhere, it is true that Augustine speaks of the City of God as something that touches down in history, and, especially if we take the whole of his works (especially the Anti-Donatist writings), something that begins to take over the whole of the world—and yet, on the question of what the millennium is in Revelation 20, Augustine is clear that it is a figure, and he makes much of the same parallel mentioned above in John 5:24-29.12
Augsburg Confession, Article 17, “They condemn also others who are now spreading certain Jewish opinions, that before the resurrection of the dead the godly shall take possession of the kingdom of the world, the ungodly being everywhere suppressed.”
The Second Helvetic Confession of 1566 seems to bolster Engelsma’s conviction of the inverse relationship between a gospel of grace focus versus an “worldly millennium” focus: “We further condemn Jewish dreams that there will be a golden age on earth before the Day of Judgment, and that the pious, having subdued all their godless enemies, will possess all the kingdoms of the earth. For evangelical truth in Matt., chs. 24 and 25, and Luke, ch. 18, and apostolic teaching in II Thess., ch. 2, and II Tim., chs. 3 and 4, present something quite different” (Ch. XI).
Although the labels did not exist, certainly Turretin’s view resembles the whole of Amillennialist doctrine.
Modern Reformed proponents have included Herman Bavinck, Geerhardus Vos, Louis Berkhof, Herman Ridderbos, Cornelis Venema, Kim Riddlebarger, as well as in the commentaries of William Hendriksen, Vern Poythress, and G. K. Beale. It has been the majority position among Reformed seminarians for most of this past generation.
Criticisms and Responses
We will divide the criticisms of amillennialism by alliteration—four p words: popery, prophetic stretches, pietism, and pessimism.
1. Popery (or the Roman view)
Chafer, for example, called it the “strange theory, the origin of which is traced to the Romish notion that the church is the kingdom.”13 Naturally, the traditional Reformed view envisioned Zion as that heavenly Jerusalem that the church manifests in this time. It is one body for both Jew and Gentile. But as we have seen elsewhere, this is not a “replacement” theology in that no believing Jew and no promise to Israel is being replaced or revoked. So while the dispensationalist seem to be drawing attention to Romanism here, really they are just making the same backhanded charge of anti-semitism in the process.
2. Prophetic Stretches
Gentry examines a set of texts in the Old Testament prophets which postmillennialists relate to a future glory before Christ returns and which amillennialists must make symbolic either of heavenly realities now or of the eternal state. Gentry then gives five lines of evidence against the amillennial interpretation:
“First, numerous prophetic references portray factors inappropriate to the eternal state, such as the overcoming of active opposition to the kingdom … birth and aging … conversions … death … sin … suffering … and national distinctions and interaction.
Second, though reduced to minority proportions, the curse will continue despite the dominance of victory (Isa. 65:25). Isaiah 19:18 may suggest a world ratio of five Christians to one non-Christian.
Third, some passages speaking of prophetic glory apply to Christ’s first advent [cf. Isa. 9:6; Dan. 2:35]
Fourth, some prophetic passages expect the present, pre-consummative order to continue into that glorious era, such as the continuance of the current sun and moon (Ps. 72:5, 7, 17). Yet 2 Peter 3 indicates the destruction and recreation of the universe prior to its renewal for eternity.
Fifth, hermeneutically it would seem that prophetic figures should not be figures of figures. For instance, if the nations’ breaking the bows and spears is a figure of peace, would the prophetic breaking of bows and spears be a figure of peace (the absence of carnal warfare) which would in turn be a figure of salvation (the absence of spiritual warfare with God)?”14
3. Pietism.
This objection especially lands a blow against the form of amillennialism today that is joined at the hip with the Radical Two Kingdom theology, promoted by Westminster Seminary in Escondido, CA. For these proponents of amillennialism, the doctrine of Christ’s dual reign is pressed is the following way:
The essential reign is paired with “the common kingdom,” that is, the society which is rooted in God’s covenant with Noah.
The mediatorial reign is paired with “the holy (spiritual) kingdom,” that is, the society which is rooted in the covenant of grace with Abraham.
Consequently, Christ’s millennial reign is exclusively spiritual over the church, and does not imply a program for the church to speak to (over) the culture in general, and the state in particular. Those who would react to the progressivism of the contemporary church see this and conclude that postmillennialism is the only view that stands against this. But this was not at all Augustinstian Amillennialism, nor even the forms that would have been held to prior to the past generation.
4. Pessimism
To be pessimistic about the success of the gospel is to lack faith in Christ Himself—His power, goal, and means. However, the whole question circles back to the nature of the kingdom—indeed, the nature of that nature. Riddlebarger responds in this way:
“amillenarians are optimistic about the kingdom of God. It is the kingdoms of this world which give amillennarians pause. Defining this debate in terms of ethos (optimism versus pessimism) overlooks the complexity of the exegetical issues in view and the nature of New Testament eschatology.”15
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1. Vern Poythress, Understanding Dispensationalists (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 1993), 36.
2. Cornelis Venema, Promise of the Future (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2000), 235.
3. Venema, Promise of the Future, 220.
4. The first use seems to be from Albertus Piertes’ Studies in the Revelation in 1943 — cf. Gentry, He Shall Have Dominion, 67.
5. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, IV:673.
6. Engelsma, The Church’s Hope, I:4-5.
7. Second Helvetic Confession (1566), Ch. 11.
8. Engelsma, The Church’s Hope, I:84
9. Turretin, Institutes, III.20.3.6.
10. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future, 33-38.
11. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 864.
12. Augustine, City of God, XX.6, 7.
13. Chafer, Systematic Theology, IV:281-82.
14. Gentry, He Shall Have Dominion, 214-215.
15. Riddlebarger, A Case for Amillennialism, 237.
