A Thousand Years of Christ’s Reign

Eschatology concerns the doctrine of the last things, and it involves both personal eschatology—what happens to us as individuals at the end of our lives—and the events leading up to the return of Christ to consummate His kingdom. In the latter category, we place the millennium, the one thousand years of Jesus’ reign that is described in Revelation 20:1–6.

To this day, Christians continue to debate what the millennium of Revelation 20 describes. As we look at the modern church, we see four major views on the topic: historic premillennialism, dispensational premillennialism, amillennialism, and postmillennialism. At least among American evangelicals, it seems that some form of premillennialism holds sway. Historically, however, most Christian traditions have affirmed something closer to the amillennial or postmillennial view.

Both forms of premillennialism take Revelation 20:1–6 quite literally as referring to an exact one-thousand-year period of time that will commence when Jesus visibly returns. This will be a visible kingdom on earth, at the end of which the new heavens and earth promised in Revelation 21:1–22:5 will arrive. Dispensational premillennialism adds to this view the belief that Christ will make an invisible return to remove Christians from the earth for a period known as the Great Tribulation. After the Great Tribulation, a time of great sorrow and pain, Jesus will visibly return to commence the millennium.

Amillennialism and postmillennialism both look at the one thousand years of Revelation 20 as essentially encompassing the entire time between Christ’s ascension and visible return. Looking to passages such as 1 Corinthians 15:20–28, amillennialists and postmillennialists argue that we are not waiting for the promised reign of Jesus to begin; rather, it started when Jesus ascended to heaven and sat down at God’s right hand. Until Jesus returns to consummate His kingdom, He is exercising this reign, bringing all enemies under His feet through the preaching of the gospel. The time frame of one thousand years, therefore, is symbolic. Postmillennialists differ from amillennialists in that postmillennialists believe that the majority of the world will be converted and that there will be an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity before Christ comes back.