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Why Am I "Pre-mil" Rather Than "Post-mil"?

by Joe Haynes

Posted on December 14, 2010

I've often been asked why I hold to a premillennial (pre-mil) interpretation as opposed to amillennialism or postmillennialism.

First, it’s a matter of hermeneutics. Like many people do with the issue of gender roles in 1 Tim 2-3, for example, one can easily dismiss the plain wording of Revelation 20 for the sake of their preferred interpretation. But it seems to me that this kind of hermeneutical subjectivity is dangerous: anyone can just dismiss anything the Bible says if they don't like it. But since the Bible is the inerrant and inspired Word of God, the reader must submit to the Bible and not the other way around. So it comes down to the original words and what the prophets and apostles, under the Holy Spirit, meant by those words.

If Paul can turn his entire soteriology on whether Abraham was circumcised before or after he believed God (c.f. Rom 4); if complementarian eldership turns on just a couple of related passages like 1 Tim 3 and 1 Cor 11; if the Lord Jesus Christ exposed the sophistry of the Jews by appealing to a single word in an obscure passage in the Psalms, saying "and Scripture cannot be broken," (John 10:35), then surely the very wording of Revelation 20 is decisive on the question of whether the millennium is going to be a literal, historical period or nothing more than a spiritual idea? 

Six times in Rev 20:2-7, once in each verse, an event is described along with specific chronological definition related to "the thousand years" (definite article in Greek). 

• And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years... (Rev. 20:2 ESV) χίλια ἔτη.

• ...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 years were ended.  (Rev. 20:3 ESV)  τὰ χίλια ἔτη.

• They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. (Rev. 20:4 ESV) χίλια ἔτη.

• The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.  (Rev. 20:5 ESV) τὰ χίλια ἔτη.

• 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 God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years. (Rev. 20:5b-6 ESV) χίλια ἔτη.

• And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison... (Rev. 20:7 ESV) τὰ χίλια ἔτη.

There is no ambiguity here as to whether John had in mind a specific period of time. Either "the thousand years" with the article, or "a thousand years" without the article, is repeated 6 times. It is repeated as a period known to the readers ("the thousand years"), and as a measurement of an era anticipated in many Scriptures ("for a thousand years"). It is the time period before which, during which, or after which specific events will take place. 

Of course, Revelation does make heavy use of literary allusion, metaphor, and symbol. And while there is good evidence that "the thousand years" is an allusion to a period of time known to John's readers in the First Century, there is no evidence here in the text, or in the subject matter being alluded to, that it is not a literal period of ten centuries that John has in mind.

To quote John MacArthur, on the interpretation of metaphoric and symbolic language in Scripture,

If it says horse, it means horse. If it says he went somewhere, he went somewhere. If it says house, it means house. If it says man, it means man. And not everything is to be extrapolated off into some mystical spiritualization, allegorization, or whatever. It is literal. We understand Scripture, then, in the literal sense of language. Now, there are figures of speech - there is simile, metaphor, hyperbole, onomatopoeia, whatever else - ellipses. All of the figures of speech will be there... There may even be sarcasm. There may even be exaggeration, as a device. There may be symbolism, such as the symbolism in the prophetic literature, which is obviously symbolic, clearly symbolic. But it is in the normal language of speech. We use symbols in our language. We say, “That man is as straight as a pine tree,” or “that man is as strong as an ox.” Well, we’re using a symbol to make a literal point or statement.[1]

While Revelation 20 is full of symbol and metaphor, nothing indicates "the thousand years" are anything other than an allusion to some period John's original audience understood. While it is possible to interpret this prediction of a thousand years on the basis of the year-day principle, Dr. Collins argues, along with nearly all premillennial historicists, that it is far more likely the period John has in mind is a literal 1000 years.[2]

John repeats this reference to “the thousand years” 5 times in 5 verses. He says it again in verse 7 too. And it stands out, the way he says it, “the thousand years” (vv3, 5, 6) like he and his readers know which “thousand years” he’s talking about. Because they did. At least some of them in those churches would have known about what Bible scholars back then thought about the end-times. There was a first-century Jewish book called 2nd Enoch, written while there was still a temple in Jerusalem, that talked about the end times and described a thousand-year Sabbath era at the end of time (2nd Enoch 32:1-33:1). Other leading Jewish rabbis talked about a  1000 year era of redemption based on their reading of the Old Testament.[3] Another well-known example of Jewish literature back then referred to a future period of justice on earth similar to the imprisonment of Satan here waiting until the final judgment; a period when the wicked would also be bound and buried “for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, till the day of their judgement and of their consummation” (1 Enoch 10:4-7, 12-13). 70 generations is more like at least 1400 years but the idea is similar. The idea of something like a thousand-year future era of victory on earth for Israel was well-known. So when John keeps talking about “the thousand years” as if his readers would know what he was talking about, well, they did.[4]

The Anchor Bible Dictionary states,

Although various Rabbis posited different lengths for this temporal Messianic reign, it nevertheless was a doctrine widespread in Judaism. A literal thousand year reign was held by some prestigious rabbis. With the influence of Revelation 20, this became common doctrine in the early church until the rise of the allegorizing interpretation with Origen (ca. 185-ca. 254).[5]

There is no indication John has in mind a non-historical fulfilment such as amillennialism requires. The amillennial interpretation arises out of a hermeneutical commitment arrived at before one arrives at Rev 20. And the hermeneutic that usually goes with amillennialism also usually goes with supersessionism, or "replacement theology," which I find to be completely unbiblical. See this sermon for example. In other words, I am arguing, amillennialism is not exegetical.

Second, it's a matter of biblical theology. Many prophecies in Scripture, like those in Rom 8:19 and 21, where Creation itself is anthropomorphically described as longing for a future event, best fit a premillennial interpretation. When exactly will Creation witness "the revealing of the sons of God"? This sounds like the resurrection. If so, it makes good sense of the passage to understand the setting "free from its bondage to corruption" and its obtaining "the freedom of the glory of the children of God" as gradual events taking place during the thousand year reign of Christ and His saints on this Earth. Otherwise, Creation isn't actually longing for a new era, but for death: because the alternative to the millennium is that the "revealing of the sons of God" ushers in the destruction of the Universe (c.f., 2 Pe 3:10-12; Rev 21:1). Likewise with 1 Cor 15:24-28. There seems to be an analogy here between what Creation will experience and what each believer experiences. The believer is freed from bondage to corruption (Rom 6:17-18; Rom 8:21) and undergoes a process of sanctification (Rom 6:22; Rom 8:21, 1 Cor 15:24-28, Rev 20:6b) before finally being released into perfect glorification (Rev 20:4, etc.; Rev 21:1). Following that analogy with the experience of the Christian, Creation will be "sanctified" during the thousand year reign of Christ, and "glorified" in the New Heavens and New Earth.

These are some of the exegetical considerations that are convincing to me. Furthermore, the arguments for amillennialism usually presented seem rather to be arguments AGAINST dispensationalism or futurism. That tactic creates a false dichotomy (i.e., that since the pre-trib rapture argument lacks exegetical support the only alternative must be amillennialism!) failing to recognize that there are other exegetical solutions to interpreting the thousand years without falling into a pre-trib rapture sort of dispensationalism. Namely, premillennial historicism (not to mention post-trib futurism, although, as an historicist, I reject that option for a whole lot of other exegetical reasons!).