Millennium – What Does This Mean?

Last Things #14: The Missing Millennium

Encore Post: Called the “Jewish opinion” by the Lutheran Confessions, the belief in a Millennium comes from a face value reading of Old Testament prophecy and poetry about the Church or about eternal life with God after the Second Advent. It also treats the Book of Revelation, written in a symbolic code called Apocalyptic, in a similar way. By doing so, it uses difficult to understand passages to complicate the very clear words of Jesus, Peter, Paul and other New Testament writers. It is the view of the Pharisees that caused them to rule out Jesus as the Messiah, because he did not intend to battle the Romans and to miss that the Scriptures pointed to the birth, life, sufferings, death and Resurrection of the Son of God.

The word itself comes from Revelation 20, where the reign of Christ through in his church is described as 1000 years. This number is not a literal 1000 years, but is Jewish numerology. The number ten meant to them perfection and when multiplied three times, the number of God, means when everything is completed. It points to our times, when the Gospel has reached every corner of the earth.

While it may seem harmless to believe such things, it detracts from the what Christ has commanded us in order to read every event, looking for the return of Christ. Instead, we should be ready, as Jesus instructs us, making disciples of all nations by baptizing and teaching them, knowing he is with us always.

©2018, 2023 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

Last Things #11: Rapture and Tribulation and Millennium — Oh My!

Encore Post: Many of our evangelical brothers and sisters are fascinated by Biblical prophecy. Seeing the evil around us, they are convinced that we are living in the very last years and months before Christ returns to raise the dead, bring an end to sin, death and the power of the devil, gather all in the final judgement and begin the marriage feast of the lamb that has no end. They are not alone — in every period of time, Christians were convinced they were living in such times — even St. Paul and Martin Luther!

What makes their view unique in the history of the church is they accept a theological view called Dispensationalism, a Christian school of thought that was born in the 1800s. It adopted the ancient view that Christ would reign on earth literally for 1000 years after he returned in glory. It set this view in a way of looking at history inspired by the 19th century cultural movement known as Romanticism. Dispensationalism was developed by Charles Nelson Darby, D. L. Moody and C. I. Scofield.

Dispensationalists believe that God divided the world into seven dispensations (also called economies and administrations). In each age God supposedly revealed himself in different ways. Salvation was offered according to different plans for each age (for example, under the Law of Moses, salvation was by works, but in the church age, by grace) and humans were held accountable to the set of rules for that age. They get to these views by treating at face value prophecies written in figurative and symbolic language and using the interpretations they discover to understand in a complex way the simple and clear words of Jesus and the apostles.

For them, this age will come to an end when events predicted in prophecy occur. They look to current events to fulfill these prophecies, treating the Bible as a giant algebra problem. Some have used such calculations to predict end time events. Among these are the rapture, when all true Christians will suddenly be removed from the world, leaving only unbelievers, the Tribulation, when they will be punished, and those who come to faith seeing these events are persecuted and the Millennium, when Christ and the church will rule the world a thousand years. Two problems with this: Christ promised that he would return suddenly and the last judgement follow immediately (so the Bible is not an algebra problem) and these versions of a rapture, millennium and tribulation are not in the Bible.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

©2018-2023 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

Last Things #10: The End of Days and the End of Your Days

Encore Post: As the turn of the millennium approached, people began to wonder if maybe Jesus would return. They sold all their property and gave the money to the poor. They went on pilgrimages. Some gathered with the Pope to celebrate the last moments of the millennium. It is said some died of heart attacks anticipating the end of days. But when the bells of St. Peter’s tolled in the New Year and Pope Silvester the First made the sign of the cross in benediction, the Trumpet did not sound and the dead were not raised. With great relief, they welcomed in the year 1000.

840 years later, a baptist farmer became convinced that he had decoded the Bible’s prophecies of the second advent. It would be on March 21st, 1843, he announced. So people sold all their property and gave the money to the poor. They traveled distances to hear William Miller. When March 21st came, they gathered with him in white robes. But the Trumpet did not sound and the dead were not raised. The disillusioned called it the Great Disappointment.

Throughout the years, Christians have been tempted to ignore Jesus’ warning that no one knows the day or the hour. (Matthew 24:36) In 1988, one man claimed, “but that doesn’t mean you can’t know the month and the year.” Truly distressed by the trials of this world, they latched on to the thought that they were in the last days. In the process, they missed the work that God had for them to do.

Rather than focus on any one day, Jesus calls on us to always be ready, because we do not know when he will return. That is true not only of the end of days but of the end of your own days. Our lives are short and in God’s hands, who alone knows when it is best for us to be by his side. When that day comes, be it in the end of days or at the end of our days, his angels will come and escort us home forever. In the meantime, be alert! Work while it is still day, because you do not know when you will rest from your labors. Come, Lord Jesus, Come!

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana