As we have discussed in many pages on Endtimes.org, the Millennium, or Millennial Kingdom, or Millennial Reign of Jesus Christ is referenced in various books of the Old Testament, and the duration of that kingdom is given in Revelation chapter 20 along with identifying the people. In keeping with the idea of Progressive Revelation, in the Old Testament we get the main idea through the promise of the Davidic Covenant. Beyond that we get a glimpse into the Kingdom itself.

Summary

We learned already about the Davidic Covenant that God made with King David — that one of his descendants would sit on the throne of an everlasting kingdom. This is the future Messianic or Millennial Kingdom. Jesus was uniquely qualified as shown in Matthew 1 and Luke 1, shown to be in the lineage of King David.

Luke 1:30 “The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. ³¹“And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. ³²“He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; ³³and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.”

We call it the Millennial Kingdom because the book of Revelation describes it as a 1000 year time period, or age. This is the kingdom that the Jews were expecting when Jesus came the first time. They were looking for the overthrow of Rome, and their renewed Theocracy with God ruling. That wasn’t to happen as National Israel rejected Jesus as their Messiah.

Let’s distinguish between the promise of the Messianic (Davidic) Kingdom, and anything we can learn about the people and nature of that kingdom. In other words:

• What is God’s purpose for this age?
• Who are the people of the Kingdom?
• What is unique about life in the Kingdom.

Isaiah 11

The Messiah

“Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, And a branch from his roots will bear fruit. ²The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and strength, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.”

His Righteous Rule

^“But with righteousness He will judge the poor, And decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth; And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked.”

The Nature of the Kingdom

And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, And the leopard will lie down with the young goat, And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little boy will lead them. ⁷Also the cow and the bear will graze, Their young will lie down together, And the lion will eat straw like the ox. ⁸The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. ⁹They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD

References to the Millenium

• OT passages – (Is. 11:4; Jer. 3:17; Zech 14:9)
• NT (Revelation 20 is the key chapter.)

Satan is bound for 1000 years

Rev 20:4 – All resurrected believers reign with Christ for 1000 years.

Rev 20:5 – the rest of the dead didn’t come to life until the thousand years were completed.

Rev 20:7 – when the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison.

Why interpret these passages literally?

There are some good reasons that these passages should be interpreted literally, and not symbolically.

• The passages themselves don’t give us any indication that they are symbolic.
• The number 1000 is repeated many times, and no other symbolic term is ever used to indicate some long period of time.
• If the Lord wanted us to know that it was a literal 1000 years, how else could He have indicated this to us? If after reading verse after verse very literally say that “such and such an event will be 1000 years, and then the next thing will happen, lasting 1000 years, and then at the end of the 1000 years so and so…” we still say it’s symbolic, I would submit that it would be impossible for the Lord to have told us that it was literal without using the word “literal 1000 years”, and this doesn’t happen in the Bible.

Different Millennial views

• Premillennialism – The view that endtimes.org holds, teaches that there will be a literal 1000 year reign of Jesus Christ on the earth, and that it will begin a number of days after the second coming of Christ, which happens at the end of the tribulation. (The rapture views are different within Premillennialism)
• Postmillennialism – Teaches that the 1000 years is not a literal thousand years, but a long period of time, and that the world will be Christianized by the gospel, thus bringing in the kingdom, and then a long period of peace called the millennium will ensue, ending with the second coming of Christ, and heaven.
• Amillennialism – Teaches that the millennium is symbolic, that we have already realized the millennium, and that we will go directly into eternity at the second coming. No literal 1000 year reign of Christ after the second coming. Current day Amillennialism teaches that Christ’s present position at the right hand of God fulfills the OT promises of the kingdom.