Systematic Theology (Volume 3 of 3)

by Augustus Hopkins Strong

The Scripture foretells a period, called in the language of prophecy “a thousand years,” when Satan shall be restrained and the saints shall reign [pg 1011] with Christ on the earth. A comparison of the passages bearing on this subject leads us to the conclusion that this millennial blessedness and dominion is prior to the second advent. One passage only seems at first sight to teach the contrary, viz.: Rev. 20:4-10. But this supports the theory of a premillennial advent only when the passage is interpreted with the barest literalness. A better view of its meaning will be gained by considering:

(a) That it constitutes a part, and confessedly an obscure part, of one of the most figurative books of Scripture, and therefore ought to be interpreted by the plainer statements of the other Scriptures.

We quote here the passage alluded to: Rev. 20:4-10—“And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and such as worshipped not the beast, neither his image, and received not the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand; and they lived, and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead lived not until the thousand years should be finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: over these the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.”

Emerson and Parker met a Second Adventist who warned them that the end of the world was near. Parker replied: “My friend, that does not concern me; I live in Boston.” Emerson said: “Well, I think I can get along without it.” A similarly cheerful view is taken by Denney, Studies in Theology, 232—“Christ certainly comes, according to the picture in Revelation, before the millennium; but the question of importance is, whether the conception of the millennium itself, related as it is to Ezekiel, is essential to faith. I cannot think that it is. The religious content of the passages—what they offer for faith to grasp—is, I should say, simply this: that untilthe end the conflict between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world must go on; that as the end approaches it becomes ever more intense, progress in humanity not being a progress in goodness merely or in badness only, but in the antagonism between the two; and that the necessity for conflict is sure to emerge even after the kingdom of God has won its greatest triumphs. I frankly confess that to seek more than this in such Scriptural indications seems to me trifling.”

(b) That the other Scriptures contain nothing with regard to a resurrection of the righteous which is widely separated in time from that of the wicked, but rather declare distinctly that the second coming of Christ is immediately connected both with the resurrection of the just and the unjust and with the general judgment.

Mat. 16:27—“For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then shall he render unto every man according to his deeds”; 25:31-33—“But when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all the nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats”; John 5:28, 29—“Marvel not at this: for the hour cometh, in which all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall some forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment”; 2 Cor. 5:10—“For we must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad”; 2 Thess. 1:6-10—“if so be that it is a righteous thing with God to recompense affliction to them that afflict you, and to you that are afflicted rest with us, at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of his power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus: who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be marvelled at in all them that believed.”

2 Pet. 3:7, 10—“the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.... But the day of the Lord will come as a thief; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up”; Rev. 20:11-15—“And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne; and books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of the things that were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it; and death and Hades gave up the dead that [pg 1012]were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, even the lake of fire. And if any was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire.”

Here is abundant evidence that there is no interval of a thousand years between the second coming of Christ and the resurrection, general judgment, and end of all things. All these events come together. The only answer of the premillennialists to this objection to their theory is, that the day of judgment and the millennium may be contemporaneous,—in other words, the day of judgment may be a thousand years long. Elliott holds to a conflagration, partial at the beginning of this period, complete at its close,—Peter's prophecy treating the two conflagrations as one, while the book of Revelation separates them; so a nearer view resolves binary stars into two. But we reply that, if the judgment occupies the whole period of a thousand years, then the coming of Christ, the resurrection, and the final conflagration should all be a thousand years also. It is indeed possible that, in this case, as Peter says in connection with his prophecy of judgment, “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day”(2 Pet. 3:8). But if we make the word “day” so indefinite in connection with the judgment, why should we regard it as so definite, when we come to interpret the 1260 days?

(c) That the literal interpretation of the passage—holding, as it does, to a resurrection of bodies of flesh and blood, and to a reign of the risen saints in the flesh, and in the world as at present constituted—is inconsistent with other Scriptural declarations with regard to the spiritual nature of the resurrection-body and of the coming reign of Christ.

1 Cor. 15:44, 50—“it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.... Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.” These passages are inconsistent with the view that the resurrection is a physical resurrection at the beginning of the thousand years—a resurrection to be followed by a second life of the saints in bodies of flesh and blood. They are not, however, inconsistent with the true view, soon to be mentioned, that “the first resurrection” is simply the raising of the church to a new life and zeal. Westcott, Bib. Com. on John 14:18, 19—“I will not leave you desolate[marg.: ‘orphans’]: I come unto you. Yet a little while, and the world beholdeth me no more; but ye behold me”:—“The words exclude the error of those who suppose that Christ will ‘come’under the same conditions of earthly existence as those to which he submitted at his first coming.” See Hovey, Bib. Eschatology, 66-78.