The Premil vs. Amil Debate
The Pro A-Millennial Points
1. Revelation
is highly figurative; not to be taken literally.
2. 1000
years is too perfect a number to be taken literally. It is a multiple of ten, which is often part
of some symbolic reference (even number of perfection)
3. The
1000 year millennium is only found in Revelation, and seems to contradict other
passages which speak of a joint resurrection of the saved and the lost (as in
Matthew 25, the sheep and the goats)
4. Nowhere
else is there any support that Satan will be bound, released, and bound
again. He has been bound partially by
Christ at the first advent.
5. 2
Peter 3:10-13 describes the next event to be the coming of Christ and the
reformulation of heaven and earth (new heavens and new earth), not a 1000 year
delay after Christ returns.
6. The
1000 years being the time between the two advents of Christ was supported by
Augustine.
7. There
is no separation in any other passage of the resurrection of the just and the
unjust. The resurrection of 20:4-5 is a
spiritual resurrection of all.
8. There
is contextual indication that much of the entire book is figurative, even in
the context of the 1000 year binding of Satan.
He is bound with a “great chain.” Is that a literal chain or figurative
for some kind of spiritual restraint?
The Pro Pre-Millennial Counter-points
1. Which
parts do you take literally and which parts figuratively? Did John write the book, or is his name to be
taken figuratively? What is the
hermeneutic to decide which is literal and which is figurative? There is no
contextual indication to take “1000 years” as a figure.
2. To
say the number 1000 is a number of perfection is to add it to the vast list of
numbers said to represent perfection (adding it to the numbers 7, 40, 3, 12,
24)
3. Even
if one passage speaks plainly to a topic it is enough. Reconciling seeming contradictions is the
work of Biblical scholarship, not a reason to reject an interpretation (e.g.
the conflict between James 2 and Romans 4).
4. Satan
is still active as indicated by Paul in 1 Thes 2:18. He is still the “god of this world,” 2 Cor
4:4. His binding is yet future, indicated in Rev 20.
5. The
victory over Satan could not have taken place at Christ’s first advent because John
wrote Revelation c. AD 91 and yet writes of “these things that must soon take
place” (Rev 1:1). The binding is future
from his point in time.
6. The
study of the book is less important if the events all occurred in the past.
7. Augustine
took it as a literal 1000 years (although between the two advents).
8. The
1000 years is not merely mentioned once, but six times, and other numbers where
“thousand” is used in Revelation are best taken literally (e.g. Rev
7:4-8). When used imprecisely it is
found in the plural (e.g. 5:11).
9. There
is certainly a spiritual resurrection of the just (1 Cor 15), but not of the
unjust. Just bodily resurrection.
10. Satan is
thrown into the lake of fire where the beast and false prophet already reside
(20:10). There must be a literal delay
in Satan’s final judgment
11. The mention
of the “first resurrection” certainly implies that there is a second. In what sense can this be taken
figuratively? What’s it a figure of?
12. There is no
metaphorical marker such as the use of “like” associated with the 1000 years
(which John does use 26 other times in the book).
