Shabbat shalom kol beit Yisrael and Mishpachah, welcome to Part LXXII (72) of our study of the Book of Revelation. Today, as I've been promising for some weeks now, we are going to pause before we get into the last two chapters of our course in order to thoroughly turn over the many interpretions that have caused deep divisions amongst Christians and Messianics.

Indeed, there are so many different interpretations that there is an unwritten agreement not to discuss them for the sake of 'unity'. We cannot accept that if for no other reason than this is tantamount to admitting the Bible cannot be understood either because it's too complicated or isn't reliable. Both of these excuses are, in my view, cop-outs. As we've been seeing throughout this course lots and lots of assumptions are made about so many areas of doctrine which, when taken together, is what leads to all the confusion about the Millennium in the first place. So this, as ever, is one of those 'Big Picture' questions and our ability or failure to get this right amounts, in fact, to a admission of whether we have got things wrong like everybody else or whether, maybe, we have got the rest right. Let's find out.

There are four major views on this topic, though most only speak of three:

• 1. Premillennialism (NCAY position);
  • 1a. Classical Post-tribulation Premillennialism (NCAY position);
  • 1b. Pre-tribulation (dispensational/rapturist) premillennialism;
• 2. Postmillennialism;
• 3. Amillennialism (symbolic millennialism); and
• 4. Panmillennialism (non-committalism).

Most people usually end up throwing up their hands in despair at ever coming to a resolution and regard this as an unresolvable academic question of no interest to Christian spirituality. The attitude is that everything will 'pan out' alright in the end, whatever we may thing that may be, hence the fourth category of panmillennialism. So I don't mean by the prefix 'pan-' the traditional idea of 'all' as in the word 'pan-theism' (which is the new Age belief, populariated in the Star Wars movies, that everyone and everything taken collectively is 'god') I simply mean the rather vague hope that it will all work out in the end. And whilst I do believe that everything will 'pan out' in the end, in this and other areas of theology, we really don't have the luxury of sitting back and letting people believe what they want, because the way we view the Millennium seriously affects our whole Christian hope.

Hope is as integral to the Christan/Messianic life as faith and love are (1 Cor.13:13). Indeed, do not faith and love themselves spring from hope? (Col.1:5) If we put our hope in the wrong things or persons we are going to suffer. What we are sure will happen in the future profoundly affects our behaviour in the present. Our 'millennial' convictions powerfully influence both our evangelism and our social action and in particular our hopes for this world are crucial. Will things only get worse or will they get better? Will the return of Yah'shua (Jesus) to this planet have any beneficial effect or simply write it off? Is He coming to judge the nations or reign over them? Or both? And why, as we have seen, is He bringing all departed believers back here with Him as Paul testified to the Thessalonians?

"We believe that Yah'shua (Jesus) died and rose again and so we believe that Elohim (God) will bring with Yah'shua (Jesus) those who have fallen asleep (died) in Him" (1 Thess.4:14, NIV).

That is an indisputable biblical statement of the faith of all professing Bible believers. If that's not in our theological equation or purview (scope) from the start, we're going to take wrong theological turnings and get seriously lost. We're all coming back to planet earth physically which means, as Scripture also testifies, we're all going to be physically resurrected. That immediately knocks out of play all notions of the Millennium being in heaven as the Seventh Day Adventists, New Age Christians and others teach, whether as disembodied spirits or in some other location in the universe. The Millennium is HERE and it's PHYSICAL. That much is plain from our study of the Book of Revelation thus far. It's amazing what a single verse of Scripture can resolve although it's not by any means the only one.

So let's ask ourselves this question: why has Yahweh revealed the future in such detail in books like the Book of Revelation? Is it to merely satisfy our curiosity? Is it to give us superior knowledge so we can brag to others? Or is it so we can prepare ourselves for our part in it? I think we can all agree that when we as believers are convinced that we are going to share Yah'shua's (Jesus) reign in this world as 'priests and kings' (Rev.1:6; 5:10) - at least the Remnant or Bridal believers, the First Resurrection believers - then this will cause us to behave rather more responsibily in the here-and-now. Those who don't believe we're coming back physically, or that we're going to be 'rapured' off somewhere, tend to behave less responsibly and to make fewer or no preparations.

That's why rapturists or pre-tribulational pre-millennialists tend not to be preppers - they don't believe they're going to be around during the tribulations or hard times. That is not a luxury we can indulge in - it's a dangerous delusion. And even if we are wrong and the rapturists are right (which I don't believe for one second), the good news is that we will be prepared and they won't be should they turn out to be wrong. Just think back on the Saviour's parable of the 5 wise and 5 foolish virgins and you'll get my meaning plainly enough (Mt.25:1-13). In other words, don't take speculative risks. Where there is any theological doubt, hedge your bets - avoid committing yourself, as so many rapturists have done and been badly burned, when faced with a difficult choice such as 'to prep, or not to prep', whether spiritually, physically or both. A lot of people hearing or reading me today haven't prepared and are desperately hoping to be whisked away from responsibility or to be taken care of by someone else if they're proven wrong. They likely won't be and will find themselves and their families dangerously exposed because rapturists vastly outnumber serious preppers. It's a matter of numbers. So even if some preppers save a little extra for those who refused, they're not going to be able to help many.

We need, therefore, as we've been doing already, to look at the passage in Revelation 20:1-10 itself, in its own context, see it through the eyes of first century believers, and then ask when and why such widely divergent interpretations of it have arisen. And finally, we need to make a final evaluation and reach a conclusion so that our hope can rest on solid ground. Some of what I am going to say today you have already heard but hopefully some will give you a fresh and helpful perspective. At all times we must maintain a sharp focus on that which is clearly presented to us and not go peering into fuzzy areas about which little or nothing is said. And the first thing we must do is believe - and affirm - that what is written is true.

We have considered numerous translations and so have a pretty clear idea now what was said and meant. The hard nitty-gritty work of sifting and trawling each word and phrase will pay us handsome dividends by enabling us to eliminate numerous doubts caused by a poor understanding of etymology. And for those of you who may not know, or may have forgotten, etymology is the account of, or facts relating to, the formation of words and the devlopment of their meaning. In other words, we need to know what words mean at any one point in history, because the meaning of words changes. (For example, in the space of my own short lifetime, the word 'gay' has radically changed in meaning). By being sound linguists and historians we will spare ourselves numerous rods for our backs. One of our goals, in the wider sense, is the elimination of doubts by being knowledgeable and thorough in the way we handle words in our own English language and make sure they accurately convey the sense of the original Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek - in our case, here, in the Book of Revelation, first century AD Aramaic and koinë Greek - not modern Hebrew and not modern Greek.

Verses 1 to 10 of chapter 20 in Revelation are the focus of the whole debate so it is important to review what is stated clearly before attempting to draw inferences from the passage. So let's start by reading that and use a different version for variation, this time the English Standard Version (ESV):

"Then I saw a malak (angel) coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless (deep) pit (Abyss) and a great chain. he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years¹, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years² were ended. After that he must be released for a little while.

"Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Yah'shua (Jesus) and for the Davar Elohim (Word of God), and those who had not worshipped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years³. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years⁴ were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of Elohim (God) and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years⁵.

"And when the thousand years⁶ are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, God and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones) and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulphur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night for the æon of the æons ('forever and ever')" (Rev.20:1-10, ESV).

The most striking, and I hope obvious, feature is the repeated phrase 'a thousand years' - 6 times, twice with the definite article ('the thousand years') and not any old 'thousand years'. The emphasis is unmistakable. Whether you take this literally or figuratively, it clearly means an extended period of time, as most commentators agree. In other words it is an æon, an age or an era (a system of chronology starting from some particular point in time) - that's to say, an epoch (a new æon, age or era).

The first problem we face is that surprisingly little information is given here about this whole span of time. Indeed - and this is important to remember - only three elements are told us:

• 1. A single event at the beginning;
• 2. Another event at the end; and
• 3. A continuous situation in between.

The 'millennium' starts with the removal of the devil from the earthly scene altogether. A descending malak (angel) with a huge chain seizes, binds, throws, locks and seals him in an exceedingly deep, 'bottomless' pit or prison. In other words, he is located a very, very long way away from humans. The five verbs used in the text emphasise the complete helplessness of the devil, which is confirmed by the plain statement that his career of brilliant deception is over - though only for the duration of the millennium. He is not thrown into the Lake of Fire (yet) but is banished by being securely imprisoned in the 'Pit', 'Abyss, 'prison' or 'Takh'ti' ('Tartarus'- 2 Pet.2:4), usually thought of as under the earth in its depths, and therefore out of reach and out of touch with its living inhabitants.

Incidentally, the Greek for Tartarus (tartaroo) is almost universally mistranslated in English Bibles as 'hell', causing much confusion, just as the word 'hell' does, as Takh'ti/Tartarus [1] is a special prison reserved only for Satan and fallen angels or demons and their offspring [2]. Humans do not live in Takh'ti/Tartarus. Not only that, but the word 'hell' (from the 'modern' Anglo-Saxon hellia and the old Norse and High German, hel and helle, from about 725 AD) is a confusing word too, being an invention of the Roman Catholic Church which borrowed the pagan Greek concept of Hades which the Greek translator used to translate the Hebrew word She'ol. She'ol does not mean 'hell', a reason why in modern English Old Testament Bibles it is wisely left untranslated. She'ol simply means 'the spiritual realm of the dead' and is divided into two main parts:

• 1. Paradise or Heaven; and
• 2. Prison

Prison is, in turn, subdivided into two parts:

• 2a. The place where the unsaved human dead reside; and
• 2b. The place below the human section where Satan, demons and (we suppose) dead giants or nephilim reside.

All of these are spiritually located in the same physical 'space' as planet earth. As the same metaphor for it is used for both Paradise and Prison, namely 'the grave', She'ol is usually collectively 'seen' as being 'under' the earth as that's where the dead are buried. My own view is that Paradise is located in the equivalent physical space of our sky or atmosphere and Prison in the equivalent physical space beneath the ground. This would then account for why both the 'sky' (atmosphere) and 'heaven' (She'ol/Paradise) share the same Hebrew word shammayim since they are located in precisely the same place but in different dimensions. You can learn more about all of this on our Hell website.

So do you now see what I mean about the importance of doing etymology or word studies? The way we translate biblical words into English affects our whole theology. Having done your homework properly you will not think of 'heaven' and 'hell' in quite the same way again. Importantly, this knowledge will enable you to more accurately assess and judge the many claims made by those who have had out-of-body experiences (as I have), near-death experiences, seen alleged visions of heaven and hell, and the like. Satan has had a field day deceiving believers with false visions based on their false theologies and aided by a heafty dollop of imagination, so I am by default sceptical of many of the claims people make because they align with false theology. Frankly, some of the 'visions' and 'dreams' people see are utter nonsense when viewed against what the Bible says. Never assume that just because an experience is 'supernatural' or 'out of the ordinary' that it must by default be true. Just because you've had a dream about talking with Christ doesn't necesarily mean that you actually talked with Him, though it could. Test everything thoroughly and that includes pinching yourself from time to time (1 Thes.5:21; 1 Jn.4:1). Keep everything real.

Do you also see, then, the importance of true doctrine? And why the 'Church' resists this biblcial truth? Think of the tens of thousands of Christian books that would have to be rewritten; think of the loss of credibility of tens of thousands of ministers in their man-made denominations. There's a lot at stake when it comes to the truth with the true teaching about hell and the millennium potentially upsetting a lot of apple carts. No wonder the denominations don't want to get into these matters and have an unspoken truce between themselves! The same goes for 'tongues' and other controversies that are causing much confusion and deception. But we must get into these things, and shall, for this is the time in which all is being revealed and seen for what it is. We cannot afford to hide behind platitudes such as 'this is not essential for salvation' because salvation isn't the only important thing: we also have to live the spiritual life and have concrete Kingdom goals as saved believers in order to maintain our hope and so be whole people.

So let us return to the main thread. This banishment of Satan to the Deep Pit or Bottomless Pit, Prison, Abyss, or lower part of the two sections of Hades or She'ol called Takh'ti or Tartarus, together with the previous consignment of his two henchmen, Antichrist and the False Prophet (the two 'beasts' of Revelation 13), to the 'lake of fire' (Rev.19:20), will leave the world without a government, in a political vacuum, because the global imperial system modelled on ancient Rome has by now been destroyed. That 'gap' has to be quickly refilled by replacement rulers to prevent total anarchy.

Now we move on to the second part of this millennial vision. John sees, not one 'throne' but plural 'thrones' (the only time, apart from Revelation 4:4, where multiple thones are ever mentioned). Who occupies these 'extra' thrones? Human agents given the authority to 'judge' (such as settling disputes, maintaining law and order, and applying justice) all of which clearly shows that we haven't quite reached the heavenly 'ideal' yet but have moved one large step closer to it. Within the larger group of believers John particularly notices those who were martyred for refusing to worship the Antichrist or be branded with his number, 666. This marks an amazing reversal of their former situation as the formerly persecuted underdogs in the beast system suddenly become the world's overlords overnight!

From this we can deduce that both the smaller group, as well as the larger one of which they are a part, have come back from the dead. They have quite simply 'come to life' again to reign with Christ during the Millennium. But what kind of 'life' is this? You see, there are those - chiefly Jehovah's Witnesses, most Messianics, Seventh Day Adventists, Christadelphians, Armstrongites and a few others who maintain that all of these believers completely ceased to exist, save as a memory in the mind of Elohim (God), in the space between their physically dying and this 'coming to life' again. They were, these people insist, re-created from nothing.

This strange doctrine, in which we are first created from nothing, then totally cease to exist, and finally are then re-created from the divine foreknowledge of how we once were - a doctrine which is based on a misunderstanding of how one particular genre of Scripture works - is known as 'soul-sleeping' (see OB 102) and in my view not only distorts the character of Elohim (God) but fails to represent reality as it is. Many (thought not all) amongst those who espouse this view also, not surprisingly, promotethe doctrine of annihilationism, the belief that the vast majority of humans who are re-created for judgment are then completely exterminated a second time, but this time forever, including (presumably) from the Divine memory. The problem with this bizzare teaching is that it leaves one wondering just what these hapless souls were re-created into, since clearly they can't have been remade immortal. This in turn has led to all sorts of confusion about what is meant by 'resurrection' for in reality this is really just a doctrine of temporary 'resuscitation' for which there is no actual word in the biblical languages. In other words, it's a purely human construction and must therefore be rejected as unbiblical.

So what is the proper word for those brough back to physical life at the beginning of the Millennium? There is only one word in the Bible for this and it's called resurrection, the inseparatble connecting of human spirit-bodies with newly fashioned physical bodies that resemble those mortal bodies we now have in this current life, but fixed at a moment of prime youthfulness (probably mid-20s) and incapable of death and dissolution again. I repeat, 'resurrection' is a noun used throughout Scripture that refers to physical bodies in an immortal state. In other words, such a body can never die again, not because Elohim (God) cannot destroy such a body were He to so choose but precisely because He has chosen to make it permanent, and said as much. And because He has declared it, Yahweh cannot go back on His word without ceasing to be Elohim (God). So whilst technically a resurrected soul or person is conditionally immortal (based on the permission or good pleasure of Deity), to all intents and purpose he or she is immortal because the Davar Elohim (Word of God) never returns to the Creator void, empty or unfulfilled (Is.55:11).

We are told in Scripture, then, that those who belong to Christ are thus 'raised' from the grave to life again (a synonym for 'resurrection') at His second coming (1 Cor.15:23). These 'raised' or 'resurrected' beings, souls or persons are described as being 'blessed and qadosh (holy, set-apart)' to be raised at this time to become royal Melchizedek cohenim (priests) for the duration or æon (age) that is the Millennium, and beyond into the 'æon of the æons' or 'le-olam-va-ed' (the Greek and Hebrew words, respectively, meaning 'eternity') and will therefore never run the risk of being consigned to the 'second death', also known as 'the lake of fire' and unfortunately by the word 'hell' too - unfortunately because 'hell' has come to mean a lot of things that the Scriptures do not ascribe to it but owe more to the vivid imaginations of men like Dante.

So in Revelation 20:1-10 a very clear distinction is made between this 'first resurrection' of the qodeshim (saints, set-apart or holy ones) and the 'resurrection of the rest' of the human race of both categories - that's to say, the disobedient believers and the unbelievers. The two events are separated by the entire 'millennium'. And the two resurrections have two entirely objectives. What are these? One is to reign with Messiah and the other is to be judged (Rev.20:12).

Let us also understand that Yahweh does not reveal the future to satisfy our curiosity or to give us superior knowledge - let's not miss this vital point - but rather to prepare us for our part in it. We're back to the idea of 'prepping' again, this time in the spiritual sense. Here's the thing: once we have become convinced that we are going to share in Messiah's reign over this world in the next 1,000 year-long æon (age), we must immediately start behaving rather more responsibilty in the here and now in preparation for it. For one who does not behave responsibily in this life is in reality demonstrating that he won't be responsible in the next and is thus simultaneously revealing that he is not the elect Remnant. Because by definition, the elect are naturally responsible, accountable leaders, like parents, who plan for the future and not wait for others to do that for us. That's why Paul says "children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children" (2 Cor.12:14, NIV).

That's the primary reason this doctrine is so important: advance preparation, for the same reason we physically 'prep' knowing in advance that physical deprivation is coming our way because we believe what the scriptures teach about economic collapse, persecution along with the deliberately imposed isolation from the world system on Yahweh's people by the wicked rulers of this world - the imperial system, New World Order (NWO), globalists, satanic élites or whatever you want to call them. For we will not only have to live apart from them spiritually, as we do now, but at some point live physically apart from them as well. That's what the word 'holy' means in its original Hebrew sense - 'set-apart', 'peculiar' (in the antiquated English of the King James Version) or qadosh. That is why we have the words Qadosh laYahweh ('Set apart to Yahweh'/'Holiness to the LORD' - Ex.28:36; 39:30; Jer.2:3; Zech.14:20-21) inscribed on our homes and places of worship - we have made ourselves separate, not by choice but by necessity...and make no secret about it, as a witness to unbelievers, a reminder to believers and as a warning to demons.

In the end we will be forced to do this or else receive the 'mark of the Beast' and become enslaved by the Empire...and forfeit our salvation in the process. It isn't because we want to be anti-social or unloving. We must do it if we are at all serious about surviving intact in this world and desiring the inheritance of the first resurrection of the Millennial world and Eternity. So do you see now why this is so important? Without this action on our part, we would simply be sucked back into the darkness from which we separated ourselves from the world by being in Christ. We are to be in this world but not of it. It's a question of purity verses corruption, for remember that no unclean, impure or corrupt thing can dwell in the presence of Elohim (God) the Father (Dt.23:14). And at some point, in the very near future, this will mean physically gathering out of the world (including the church system) into separated communities which we will only travel out from in order to bear witness of the Gospel for as long as that is possible. Those who won't - who refuse - will be spiritually turned into 'pillars of salt' like Lot's wife (Gen.19:26), unable to move from their chosen spot in life and giving the appearance that this is somehow btheir 'fate'. It isn't. It's a choice.

The third section of John's vision takes us to the very end of the Millennium - Satan removed (vv.1-3), the elect Remnant reigning (vv.4-6) and Satan released (vv.7-10). This is an astonishing development, easier to attribute to divine revelation than human imagination! Why? Well, who would have guessed the devil would be allowed back on earth for a second (and final) attempt to claim it as his own kingdom? Yet he is able, once again, to deceive multitudes into thinking he can give them liberty, and so enlist an army to march on "the camp of Elohim's (God's) people, the city" He loves, which can only be a reference to the millennial or New Jerusalem. As I have previously explained, the forces are labelled "Gog and Magog", a concept borrowed from the Book of Ezekiel from which we know this refers to an attack on the restored Throne of David, on which Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) Himself will be sitting, and this assault is thefore to be distinguished from Armageddon described in chapter 19, verses 19-21. You see, this time round there is no battle because the enemy forces are destroyed by fire from heaven before any clash of armies can take place, and the devil finally joins the Antichrist and the False Prophet in the lake of fire to be punished and interrogated for an exceedingly long period of time.

No reason is given for allowing the devil to have his final fling after such a long period of godly government over the survivors and their descendants after Armageddon by the resurrected qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones). But it will serve to underline the truth that the rebellion of sin comes from the heart (and not from the environment) and to justify the immediate and permanent division of the human race into two main groups - those who want to live under the Divine Rule and those (alleged 'believers', and unbelievers) who don't. The 'Millennium' leads straight into the Day of Judgment when this final separation takes place.

This leaves us with two important questions to answer and they are critical to an understanding as to why there is a controversy over this 'millennium'. They are:

• 1. WHERE does all this happen? and
• 2. WHEN does all this happen?

"The revelation of Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ)" (Rev.1:1) recorded in this book, consisting of verbal ("I heard") and visual ("I saw") elements, alternates settings between heaven and earth, relating events in both. But changes of scene are clearly indicated (Rev.4:1; 12:13). The entire passage from Revelation 19:11 to 20:10 is clearly set on earth. The King of kings rides out of an open heaven to "strike down the nations" on earth; the battle against the forces of Antichrist and the false Prophet takes place on earth; the malak (angel) comes "down out of heaven" to banish Satan from the earth; the martyrs 'reign with Christ' who is now on earth; Satan finally gathers his "Gog and Magog" forces "from the four corners of the earth"; and the earth finally "flees from the presence of the One on the Great White Throne" as we saw last week. This is the p'shat or plain, literal sense of the text. It can't be read any other way.

It is therefore perverse to avoid the conclusion, as so many Christian denominations (like the Seventh Day Adventists [3]) do, that the 'Millennium' takes place on earth. 'Heaven' is only mentioned when someone comes 'out of there' to come here. That conclusively answers our first question - 'WHERE' - which is clearly laid out in the Olive Branch revelations too:

"Verily, verily I say unto you, that the thousand year rest shall be on this world, for Heaven shall come down to earth and they shall be one" (Olive Branch 102:17).

The question 'WHEN?' would have an equally clear answer had not Yahweh's Davar (Word) been divided into chapters in the Middle Ages, something I've already talked to you about. This arrangement may be convenient (together with verse numbers, a separate but equally uninspired, man-made development) but the division is sometimes in the wrong place, breaking up what Yahweh had originally joined together (Mt.19:6; Mk.10:9). This is especially true here. The bishop who inserted 'chapter 20' into the text was clearly not afraid of the curse on those who 'add anything to the words of' the prophecy in this book (Rev.22:18). Little did he realise what damage it would do, though it probably reflected his view, as we shall see.

If the three chapters 19, 20 and 21 are read as one continuous revelation, as Yahweh intended, the sequence of seven visions (from 'I saw' in 19:11 to 21:1) becomes clear (see Appendix II below). They reveal the final events of world history, in the order with which they follow each other (for example, 20:10 - the devil thrown into the lake of fire - refers back to 19:20 - Antichrist and False Prophet thrown into the lake of fire - as having already happened...it's a natural sequence of 'bad guys first' and 'worst guy' right at the end). Dividing the visions between three chapters has meant that they are rarely read, much less studied, together. The sequence is lost. The events can then be juggled into quite a different order...and tragically have been. Yahweh didn't get the order wrong!

Anyone reading through Revelation, without prejudice or any preconditioning of their minds and without letting chapter divisions and headings have any influence on their thinking, would naturally assume that the 'millennium' follows the return of Christ and the Battle of Armageddon and precedes the Day of Judgment and the New Heaven and Earth. That is the simple and plain meaning of the text and has always been the Messianic Evangelical position.

So the passage appears to reveal a lengthy period of Messianic Israelite government on this earth after Messiah Yah'shua (Christ Jesus) returns and raises His own from the dead but before He finally judges the world. So why don't all Christians and Messianics believe this - and look forward to sharing in the transformation it will bring?

For the first five centuries the Messianic Community (Church) agreed on this interpretation. Over a dozen of the 'Fathers', as the early theologians are called, mentioned what Papias, bishop of Hieropolis, referred to as 'the corporeal (i.e. bodily) reign of Christ on the earth.' There is not so much as a hint of any other view, much less any debate about it. They assumed that Scripture was to be taken as it stood, on both this and other matters. This position, seemingly universal in the first half millennium of the Messianic Community (Church), is better known pre-millennial, because it holds that Yah'shua (Jesus) will return before (i.e. 'pre') the 'millennium' described in Revelation 20.

All of this was to change when a North African bishop called Augustine who has had more influence on Western theology - Catholic and Protestant - than anyone else. He is also the one who reversed the early Messianic Community's (Church's) position on Universal Reconciliation and introduced an early form of Calvinism - indeed the Calvinists arrogantly claim that the 'early church' got its doctrines of salvation wrong before Augustine came along to straighten everything out! In other words, they imply, Elohim (God) got it wrong for 500 years! Augustine started off fine as both a pre-millennialist and a universalist, but later allowed the neo-Platonist philosophy obtained from his Greek education to change his thinking on these and many other aspects of Christian belief and behaviour.

The basic problem, which again I have discussed here before, was that Greek thought, unlike the Hebrew mindset in Scripture, separated the spiritual and physical realms, tending to identify the former as 'holy' and the latter as 'sinful. Sex, even within marriage, came under suspicion and clerical celibacy followed. Augustine, who was a convert from the Manichaean cult that engaged in sexual perversion, was, in fact, heavily influenced by the very gnosticism that the apostle John roundly condemned throught his writings.

As a result of this 'mixing' with Greek paganism, the bodily return of Yah'shua (Jesus) to reign over a physical earth became difficult for the emerging Catholic Church to handle and there may have been a reaction to over-indulgent preaching of physical pleasures on the millennial earth. Indeed, the very thought that the resurrected qodeshim (saints) would enjoy marriage, have sex, and raise families again, let alone naturally living in plural relationships as prophesied by Isaiah (Is.4:1), was too much for the Augustinians to handle. Suffice to say that even the 'new' earth tended to 'disappear' in the Augustinian mind and Christians started only looking forward to 'going to heaven' as permanently disembodied spirits. Yah'shua's (Jesus') Second Coming was reduced to judging the "quick (alive) and the dead" (2 Tim.4:1; 1 Pet.4:5, KJV) and destroying the earth (though actually Revelation 20 puts this in reverse order). The Catholic Council of Ephesus in AD 531 was so heavily influenced by this new semi-pagan approach that it condemned pre-millennialism as heresy, and this has caused it to be under suspicion ever since! So the Augustinian Church turned neary everything on its head. No wonder John Calvin's Commentary on the New Testament excluded the Book of Revelation! He hadn't a clue.

Those of you raised in Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant traditions (which is most of us) therefore have a serious problem to deal with. What should you do with Revelation 20? Like it or not, it is still part of the Davar Elohim (Word of God) though many of the Reformers wanted to remove the whole Book of Revelation or tuck it away in an Appendix. You cannot ignore it even if it overturns lots of your pet doctrines (and it does, as we have been seeing these last two years). If you're going to stick with your Augustinian traditions, how are you going to make the Book of Revelation 'fit'? Well, there's only one thing you can do - and that is what orthodox Christianity by and large has done - and that is to transfer the Millennium from after to before Christ's return, and then boldly claim that chapter 20 comes before chapter 19 in historical time, even if it doesn't in Scripture. And that's what a lot of you have been 'taught' to do by your teachers and ministers indoctrinated in Augustianism. So in this 'new', twisted version, chapter 20 is no more than a 'recapitulation' of events leading up to the Second Coming. This, the Augustinian cult claims, then 'belongs', by human fiat, to church history in the present and not in the future as it actually is.

The result of the Augustinian disaster is that it shifted the Messianic Community (Church) from a pre-millennial to a post-millennial position, because it holds that Yah'shua (Jesus) will return after (i.e. 'post') the 'millennium' described in Revelation 20! Nevertheless the actual sequence in Revelation 19-21 is historical fact which is why, as I keep on telling you, believers must do history in addition to theology!

The trouble with this mutilated 'version' of the Book of Revelation is that it left an ambiguity behind that was to lead to a further major division of views, as always happenes when you introduce a false teaching into what is essentially a single, unified theology. Augustine did not spell out clearly whether this new 'millennium' was a purely spiritual reign of the saints with Christ (which in a sense could be applied to the whole of church history, from the first to the second coming of Christ) or whether it would be political as well (when the church would have become strong enough to take over the government of the nations in the name of Christ). In his book, The City of God, which as you can see is a thick tome indeed, written by Augustine when the Roman Empire was collapsing, does not make it clear whether he expected the 'Kingdom of God' to take over from Rome (which it virtually did, becoming the 'Holy Roman Empire') or merely survive and grow in spite of the catastrophe. This paved the way for two schools of thought, both claiming roots in Augustine.

On the one hand, there are those who believe the Messianic Community (Church) will christianise the world, not by converting everyone but by gaining political power to apply Elohim's (God's) laws - and thus introduce a lengthy period (even literally a thousand years) of universal peace and prosperity. The effect of such a notion, though, is to relegate the Second Coming to the distant future, since this particular kind of 'millennium' hasn't even started yet and, indeed, seems to be further off than ever. But this idea has often resurfaced - in Victorian missionary hymns coincideing with the expansion of a 'Christian' British Empire, for example; and more recently under labels like 'Restoration', 'Reconstruction', 'Kingdom-Now' and even 'Revival'. This optimistic outlook has claimed exclusive use of the adjective 'post-millennial'. That's one school of thought.

A second consists of those who believe the 'reign' of Yah'shua (Jesus) and His qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones) is purely spiritual and began at the First Advent and will continue to the Second. They have had to hunt around for a new title for themselves and have coined the term 'a-millennial'. But this is both inaccurate and misleading, since the prefix 'a-' means 'non' (as in 'a-theist', one who doesn't believe in theism, i.e. one who doesn't believe in God). You see, this kind of thinking is really still just post-millennial because it still believes in a period of time before Christ returns, but only differs from other 'post-millennials' in believing that we are already in the millennium and have been for 2,000 years! So this is a completely illogical, contradictory and unscriptural idea.

And yet this so-called 'a-millennialist' view, which goes back through the Protestant Reformation to Augustine, is probably the most common view in Europe, though not in America, as we shall see. But let's just pause on that for a moment and first see how these 'a-millenialists' handle Revelation 20 because it is instructive on how people twist Scripture to fit preconceived notions.

Lots of subtle changes have to be made. For example, the 'angel' dealing with Satan becomes Yah'shua (Jesus) Himself, the 'binding' taking place either at His temptations or crucifixion. In the theology of this new a-millennialist fantasy world, Satan is bound but not banished. He is not thrown into the Abyss but merely put on a long chain, so is only limited in his movements, which means that the biblical words 'thrown', 'locked' and 'sealed' are dismissed as meaningless instead of dismissing their own silly theory. Usually the 'limit' of Satan's activities is seen by them as solely an inability to prevent the gospel spreading and the church being built. He is left on earth, they say, and not imprisoned and isolated in a 'pit' or 'abyss'.

And so the excuses multiply and what is then left for us to decide is whether or not these ideas are good biblical exegesis or not - and by 'exegesis' we mean reading out of Scripture what is clearly there. Or is it bad eisegesis, which means reading into Scripture what one wants to find there. I hope that you, like me, have no doubts whatsoever that amillennialism is eisegesis, not exegesis. I not only find such an a-millennialist interpretation totally unconvincing but it is perfectly clear that this is just another one of those liberal attempts to make man's political and social ideas fit with the Bible's...and they don't. Anyone with a modicum of common sense can see that we are not living in the kind of Paradise desribed thoughout the Scriptures. It's still hell-on-earth. Anyone who has experienced the real world knows this to be so.

There has been one other major development in the millennial debate which we need nto be aware of, not least because it is widely held in America, though it originated in Europe, specifically in Great Britain, with John Nelson Darby who founded the Brethren movement. We have talked about this before. It was popularised by his pupil, an American lawyer called Dr. C.I.Scofield who produced the 'Scofield' Bible, and by a seminary in Dallas, Texas, especially through a former student of his, Hal Lindsay.

The one positive side of this movement is that, from the early 19th century, many were led back to the pre-millennial conviction of the early Messianic Community (Church). It had never entirely disappeared (and you might be interested to know that Isaac Newton was a supporter of this view) and others would discover it including Anglican bishops like Ryle, Westcott and Hort, but the major influence came through the Plymouth Brethren.

The negative impact of Darbyism and Scofieldism (and it's a huge negative) is that Darby combined this ancient belief with some quite novel and totally anti-biblical notions in a complete theological system now known as Dispensationalism, named after the seven imagined eras or dispensations, into which he artificially divided history, in each of which, he imagined, Elohim (God) dispensed His grace but on a different basis. Darby taught that the church was in a state or irrecoverable ruin, that the Jews were God's 'earthly' people and Christians His 'heavenly' people, kept separate for all eternity, never mind that Yahweh has only ever had one people both in heaven and on earth. Such is a recipe for spiritual schizophrenia, for dispensationalism is riddled with contradictions. Finally, one of his greatest errors, Darby taught that Christ would return twice, once secretly to take His 'church' away before the Great Tribulation (the false 'Rapture' doctrine) and then publically, to rule the world. His detailed schedule of the future also included four separate judgments, not the two described in the Book of Revelation just before the Millennium and just after it.

The great tragedy of Darbyism is that his dispensationalism, Zionism, rapturism, Kingdom Now-ism and a whole host of other errors, were so tightly integrated that it is now widely believed by many evangelical Christians that a pre-millennial belief 'must' be dispensational just as Calvinists believe Calvinism is the Gospel. In their mind, to reject Darbyism is to reject pre-millennialism. That's just not true as hopefully I have been able to show you over the years, and particulary in this course. And so, millions of evangelical Christians, are to be found heavily indoctrinated by Darbyism - who really ought to called 'Darbyists', the adherants of the Darby Cult...and it is a cult if for no other reason than you must accept the whole Darbyist package in order to be accepted as a pre-millennialist (much like Calvinism's 'Tulip' package, though Calvinists do disagree amongst themselves privately). So I repeat, you do not have to be a Darbyist - a Zionist, rapturist and dispensationalist, etc. - in order to be a pre-millennialist any more than you have to be a Calvinist fatalist to accept the sovereignty of Elohim (God) since to give man free agency is a divine sovereign act. The early Messianic Community (Church) was not 'evangelical-Protestant' any more than it was 'Catholic', 'Orthodox' or even 'Messianic' for that matter...as we understand these terms today, but we'll not get into all of that now.

It is so important that the Remnant gets out of the Darbyist mindset as quickly as possible but without throwing out the baby with the bathwater. As I said, the Darbyists were, and are, right in promoting pre-millennialism, just as every group is right about some things. So what this means, practically-speaking, is that we must make a clear distinction between the 'classical' pre-millennialism of the early Messianic Community (Church) and the pre-millennialism of the 'dispensationalism' of many modern Evangelicals, Pentecostals and others. A small but growing number of biblical scholars have been realising this for a number of years now but changing theological mindsets often meets with considerable resistance and for a variety of reasons - the fear to upset others we are close to, laziness, dislike of change, and so on. But change we must, carefully and systematically, not only mentally but practically too. The Remnant does and will have a unified doctrine and practice - it must - because we are commanded to be "like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind" (Phil.2:2, NKJV), being of one, unified faith. It was the apostle Paul who said:

"It was [Christ] who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare Elohim's (God's) people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of Elohim and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ" (Eph.4:11-13, NIV).

Because this is a growing process (there's a lot more to sort out today than there was 2,000 years ago), and because everyone is in a 'different place' in that process, we must extend grace to one another in different parts of the Body of Christ provided we don't stop there and spiritually stagnate. We can't just 'agree to disagree' and pretend all is well. We're journeying up a river against the tide of traditions and lies and the moment we stop paddling, the prevailing current will drag us back to where we started. I have seen this in action so many times now that I don't have the delightest doubt it is true. People who abandon the Way more or less return to where they came from. This means we must be patient with one another whilst actively pursuing the goal and expecting honesty and integrity along the way.

Speaking for myself, and to perhaps make matters even more confusing for those who may have read some of my early writings - and here I must apologise and try to make amends - in the past I used the words 'dispensation' and 'age (æon)' interchangably as I was not then aware of the different nuances these words had. I have also, like you, been on a journey myself, beginning as an uncritical and immature Zionist and ending up exposing it as a harmful unbiblical doctrine. We have all embraced various mixtures or cocktails of doctrines from different schools of thought not knowing where each of them originally came from. Most of my labours over the years have been devoted to sorting through this mess and tracing the original first century teachings of Christ and the apostles and then promoting them. And since I have produced so many written and audio-visual materials over some 40 years of ministry, it's not always been possible to go back and correct all of the early errors, so I hope you will forgive me if, for example, you come across some of these in my earliest writings on our website. All I can say is thay it gets better and more accurate as time goes on.

Like everyone else coming to the Gospel, we are initially confonted by a confusing slew of Christian and Messianic teachers all promoting personal and contradictory world views and in most cases their teachings inevitably contain a mixture of light and darkness, of truth and falsehood. Before the advent of the Internet, we tended to we get funnelled into a particular denomination mindset if we weren't actually raised in it (as I was as an Anglican) which set our theological 'tone', in many cases, for life. These days believers using YouTube tend to hop from one teacher and teaching to another, usually from all sorts of denominational backgrounds, and then wonder why their doctrinal 'mixture' gets worse and worse. We're fast reaching the point where everyone has become their own personal 'church' and 'theological school'. To be able to hop around like that, you need a sound prior spiritual foundation, a system which you can tweek when there's justification to do so. If you have no system, you will just end uo more and more confused. I went through several 'system changes' that required a long and painful reorganisation each time: from Anglican, to Restorationist, to Messianic and finally to what you see here.

A good teacher must not only be thorough but he must teach his pupils how to think for themselves. A good teacher will share the various interpretations that denominations and individuals advance and encourage his pupils to search the Word and find out the truth for themselves, having also given them a reasonable foundation in biblical languages and history. The more exegetical tools and information we have at our fingertips, the less likely we are to be hoodwinked and go down a false trail. The problem with the Internet is that it rarely offers an integral approach - it's a giant soup or pot pourri of ideas - a giant mixture, a mess. And where it is integrated, as in Wikipedia, it usually promotes a liberal, secular humanist agenda and is far from neutral. Everybody has an agenda, including those who claim they don't. Mine is biblical and critical-realist, a scriptural, historical and scientific approach that simultaneously acknowledges the supernatural and all the spiritual gifts. But I insist the latter be tested by the former, a reason I am very careful with purported prophecies, visions, inspired dreams and the like.

So let me end today with a sunmmary of why I am, what you might call, a 'classic pre-millennialist' when it comes to interpreting Revelation 20:

• 1. It is the most natural interpretation, without any forcing of the text;
• 2. It gives the most satisfying explanation of why Yah'shua (Jesus) needs to come back and bring us with Him;
• 3. It is the view that gives greatest emphasis on the hopeful expectancy of His return;
• 4. It explains why Yahweh would want to vindicate His Son in the eyes of the whole world;
• 5. It 'earths' our future, as does the whole New Testament, heaven being a 'waiting-room' (David Pawson) or 'traveler's inn' (N.T.Wright) for the desembodied spirits of the rightous until we return as resurrected, immortal, physical beings;
• 6. It is realistic, avoiding the 'post'-optimism and the 'a'-pessimism, as regards this world;
• 7. It has fewer problems than the other views, though it still leaves some questions unanswered; and
• 8. It is what the early apostolic and post-apostolic Messianic Community (Church) unanimously believed in, and being they were 'nearer' Christ and the apostles than those who came later, we ought to give them the greater credence.

Now I did say that I would try to answer the 30 or so questions I posed earlier about the Millennium in Part LXIX (69) but today's teaching has already gone on too long. Hopefully you can now answer them for yourself but if you would still like a lesson devoted solely to these I will happily consider adding it, even if it's just an ex tempore video. In the meantime we must press on, as I am acutely conscious of the shortage of time remaining both for myself (as my health is rapidly declining and I have many things I need to do before I depart) and what with the world disintegrating as fast as it is now, I want this course completed and available for the last generation. So next week we will move on to Chapter 21 with a view to being finished by the spring festivals which are earlier this year.

So until next week, may Yahweh bless and all and keep you in His grace, is my prayer in Yah'shua's Name. Amen.

Endnotes

[1] Though it is traslated 'underworld' in the Jerusalem Bible (JB)
[2] This word (tartaroo) was borrowed by the Greek translator from ancient Greek mythology which regarded tartarus as the deepest region of the world, the lower of two parts of the underworld, where the gods locked up their enemies. It takh'ti (HRV) which is the lowest part of She'ol. The Jewish New Testament (JNT) and Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) accurately translate this word conceptually as "gloomy dungeons lower than Sh'ol" (JNT)
[3] Why, then, do the Adventists insist the saints are in heaven during the millennium leaving the earth as the haunt of demons? (The Jehovah's Witnesses have another twist, saying the 144,000 elect are in heaven ruling from there). Because the Adventists are forced into this position by their 'damage-control doctrine' of the 'Investigative Judgment' invented by Ellen White as an escape valve the failure of their prophecy that Christ would return in 1844

Acknowledgements

[1] Tom Wright, Revelation for Everyone - The New Testament for Everyone Commentary Series, Vol.19 (SPCK, London: 2011)
[2] N.T.Wright & Michael F.Bird, The New Testament in Its World: An Introduction to the History, Literature and Theology of the First Christians (Zondervan Academic, SPCK, London: 2019)
[3] E.W.Bullinger*, Commentary on Revelation (Kregel Classics, Grand Rapids, Michigan: 1984)
[4] David H. Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary (JNT Publications, Clarksville, Maryland: 1992)
[5] ESV Study Bible (Crossway, Wheaton, Illinois: 2011)
[6] The NIV Study Bible (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan: 1995)
[7] Ed. J.R.Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (MacMillan, London: 1909)
[8] David Pawson, Unlocking the Bible: A Unique Overview of the Whole Bible (Collins, London: 2007)

*E.W.Bullinger was a brilliant Anglican clergyman and scholar whose works merit careful study by serious students of the Bible. He was, however, seriously in error in at least three main areas, namely, (1) he believed the 'Church' has been raptured before the Book of Revelation opens, (2) he believed that the 7 churches in Revelation 2-3 are 7, literal Jewish churches or assemblies yet to come, and (3) he believed in a pre-tribulation, pre-millennial rapture.

• C. The Far Future
  • C1. Chapter 19
    
    • C1.1. Yahweh's Victory Celebration (19:1-10)
    • C1.2. The Beast Defeated (19:11-21)
  • C2. Chapter 20
    
    • C2.1. The Millennial Reign (20:1-6)
    • C2.2. The Final Judgment (20:7-15)
  • C3. Chapter 21:1-21
    
    • C3.1. The New Heaven & Earth (21:1-5)
    • C3.2. The New Jerusalem (21:6-21)
  • C4. Chapter 21:22-22:21
    
    • C4.1. New Jerusalem (21:22-22:7)
    • C4.2. 'I am Coming Soon' (22:8-21)