Parsing the Millennium

I’m going to comment on Harold Hoehner’s exposition of Rev 20: “Evidence for Revelation 20,” D. Campbell & J. Townsend, eds., A Case for Premillennialism (Moody Press 1992), chap. 13. This is part of my ongoing effort to evaluate dispensationalism by examining the arguments of its most capable exponents.

There’s a place for debunking popularizers. Figures like Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye, and John Hagee are fair game. Due to their influence, it’s useful to evaluate their presentations–not that their devoted followers will read these critiques.

However, if you want to disprove a position, you need to engage the most astute representatives of that position. Attack the strongest version. Test your own position against the best that the competition has to offer. It’s no great accomplishment to defeat an opponent below your weight division.

By the same token, it’s fine for dispensationalists to critique a pop apologist like Kim Riddlebarger. But if you want to disprove amillennialism, you need to train your guns on the major scholars, viz. Vern Poythress, Gregory Beale, O. Palmer Robertson.

Harold Hoehner was a topnotch NT scholar. To my knowledge, he was the first dispensationalist to break into the top tier of NT scholars, although a number of younger dispensational scholars have achieved the same distinction.

There is no reason to interpret the 1,000 years as anything other than that…For example, the 144,000 (Rev 7:4-8; 14:1,3) must be taken literally because John states that they are made up of 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel. These are real numbers that must be taken literally (249).

i) Actually, that’s a good example of symbolic numerology. John uses 144,000 because that’s a multiple of 12. It trades on the emblematic significance of the number 12, which derives from the 12 tribes of Israel.

ii) Furthermore, Hoehner hasn’t thought through the relationship between literality and symbolism. For instance, metaphors begin with something real, but then compare it to something similar. The fact that a metaphor has its origin in something real is not an argument for literality. For figures of speech typically piggyback on something real.

Take the phrase: “all flesh is grass.” It’s because readers know what real grass is like that they can appreciate the analogy. But the existence of real grass doesn’t make Isaiah’s statement literal.

In addition, when John states that 7,000 are to be killed in an earthquake…it would be reasonable to conclude that he used the numbers literally (249).

To the contrary, the stereotypical use of 7 in Revelation is an indicator of its symbolic value, which has Sabbatarian overtones, and ultimately goes back to the creation account.

…or that the blood of the carnage will cover the length of 1,600 stadia (14:20) (249).

Since 1600 is a multiple of 4 (squared), that suggests a stylized number.

…or that the measurement of the new Jerusalem will be 12,000 stadia in length (21:16) (249).

The artificial symmetry of the new Jerusalem (a cubical city) suggests symbolic numerology. Ringing the changes on 12.

…it would be reasonable to conclude that he used the numbers literally. There is nothing in the context to indicate otherwise (249).

To the contrary, John’s systematic numerology is precisely the context. Throughout Revelation, John makes recurrent use of the same few numbers, which he manipulates (through multiples) to create artificial symmetries or trigger literary allusions. John uses numerology in part to evoke associations with OT events, to compare and contrast the past with the present and the future.

Hoehner keeps giving examples in kind, but repetition doesn't prove his point. For all this means is that we should be consistent in how we construe the numbers–be it literally or figuratively. Treat the same kind of thing the same way. 

The 1,000 years denotes a definite period of time because in the context John describes Satan’s release from the abyss by the indefinite phrase “a short time” (20:3). Hence, John uses in the same verse definite terms for a definite period of time and indefinite terms for an indefinite period of time. Therefore, the 1,000 years are to be taken literally (249).

I’ll have more to say about this momentarily, but that’s not how I think these two time periods are related. Rather, the significance of the 1000 years and the “short time” lies in the back-to-back contrast between the two. They don’t have independent meaning. Rather, they are mutually defining, as opposites–like night and day. The distinction is not between definite and indefinite, but between long and short.

The third point of emphasis is that after Satan has been bound for 1,000 years, he is released for a short season If we accept a literal 1,000-year-reign of Christ, then it would mean that after that period Satan is for a time released and deceives the nations as seen in Revelation 20:7-9 and afterward is cast into the lake of fire. But if one thinks that Satan is bound until Christ’s second advance, at which time the new heavens and the new earth are ushered in, when will Satan be released for a short time? (251).

I think that misses the point of the temporal contrast. The martyred saints are given a 1000-year respite whereas Satan is only given a “short time.” So I think the point of the contrast is to highlight the difference between the advantageous position of Christians and the disadvantageous position of the devil. We have so much and he has so little. Satan is lagging so far behind that he can never catch up and overtake us. We have a thousand-year lead. His brief furlough isn’t nearly enough to make up for our enormous lead-time. Like a race in which one competitor enjoys an unsurmountable head-start. Satan is bound to lose. We are bound to win.

The denial of a literal 1,000 years is not because of the exegesis of the text but a predisposition brought to the text.  Even in modern times scholars like Kline think the concept of a literal millennium is incompatible with the Reformed view of the covenant of grace. However, this is forcing a text to conform to a certain predisposition rather tha letting the text speak for itself…In his response to Michaels, Kline demonstrates a real aversion to a literal millennium because it is incompatible with the Reformed view of the covenant of common grace. But this is arguing deductively from his theology rather than inductively from the text (250,255).

Several issues:

i) I agree with Hoehner that Kline is unduly motivated by a larger agenda, an agenda that’s extraneous to Revelation.

ii) That said, we must still evaluate Kline’s analysis on the merits.

iii) Actually, Kline is not defending the traditional Reformed view of common grace. Kline was a theological innovator. His position represents a break with traditional Calvinism. Indeed, that probably accounts for his militancy. It’s an uphill climb to challenge the status quo.

iv) Citing Kline is a hasty generalization, for Hoehner can’t legitimately extrapolate from Kline’s example of amils generally.

v) Dispensationalists can also bring a theological agenda to the text of Revelation. Hoehner doesn’t seem to be conscious of his own presuppositions.

Recently [Fowler] White posed that those who see 20:1-3 as a sequential progression from 19:11-21 fail to see the discrepancy of Satan’s being bound thus preventing him from deceiving the very nations which had been destroyed in 19:11-21. In other words, how can nations be deceived that no longer exist? (251).

However, the destruction in 19:19-21 does not mean that every person of every nation is going to be destroyed. Only the wicked of the nations will be destroyed at the second coming (252).

After this period Satan will be released and as many as the sand of the sea will follow him. Who are they and why? These will probably be the descendants of those who originally entered the Millennium after the Tribulation. They will have heard of the Lord and will have experienced the wonderful provisions of the Millennium but will not have personally trusted in the Messiah for salvation. When Satan is released, they will believe his lie and go with him. God is going to demonstrate that the reason people reject Him is not because of imperfect circumstances like those of the Tribulation… (257-58).

The problem with this harmonization is that Revelation doesn’t narrate two different sets of wicked nations to be successively destroyed. Hoehner is duplicating the wicked nations to salvage his chronology. So he invents his own narrative to paper over the problem. But that’s a stopgap. And it’s not how John tells the story.

The critical problem of this part of the verse is the meaning of the aorist verb ezesan, rendered “made alive.” Does it refer to physical or spiritual life? As mentioned above, Augustine held that the first resurrection has reference to the regeneration of the soul in the present day when one responds to the call of the Son of God. But this is allegorizing the text. The very fact that they are beheaded because of the testimony of Jesus…would indicate that they had been regenerated… (253).

i) I agree with Hoehner that the text doesn’t describe regeneration.

ii) However, even though Augustine’s interpretation is mistaken, it’s not inconsistent. It would be inconsistent to say that Christians are regenerated after they go to heaven, but that inconsistency is generated by combining two different interpretations. Since Augustine doesn’t think this text has actually refer to martyrdom and the afterlife, his interpretation doesn’t yield that incongruity. The Augustinian interpretation can be criticized on other grounds, but not on that ground.

Hoehner then spends time on sense of zao in NT and LXX usage. However, I think the correct interpretation doesn’t rely on general usage, but on Ezekian usage (37:6,10,14, LXX). The specific background is key. John is comparing the figurative resurrection of the exilic community–the Jewish remnant–with the figurative resurrection of the Christian martyrs in heaven.

Kline observes that there is mention of the first but not the second resurrection and mention of the second but not the first death. He proposes that there is a double binary pattern in which the first resurrection is metaphorical referring to the death of the Christian who is presently reigning with Christ (20:4), the second resurrection is the literal physical resurrection, the first death is physical, and the second is metaphorical, which is the absence of spiritual life. The complexity of this view makes it suspect. Michaels responds by warning against setting up a phantom of a double binary pattern when John does not specifically speak of a first death or a second resurrection (255).

But Kline’s chiasmic analysis is implicit in the first resurrection/second death scheme. All he’s done is to fill out the rest of the scheme. There’s nothing “suspect” about that analysis. It represents a consistent development of the textual cues. A is to B as C is to D. A matching pattern that’s already hinted at in the text.

Michaels correctly observes that one should not think of the second death in a metaphorical or spiritual sense but as a real final physical death in the lake of fire (255).

i) That’s equivocal. Taken without qualification, that would be an argument for annihilation. Yet I hardly think Hoehner was an annihilationist.

ii) The wicked don’t literally suffer a final physical “death.” To the contrary, the wicked are deathless. They only die once. Therein lies a crucial aspect of their punishment. They suffer everlasting punishment because they are immortal. Their immortality is a curse. Because they cannot die, they cannot escape their punishment. So the second “death” is, indeed, figurative. It stands in metaphorical contrast to the kind of “life” which the saints enjoy.

iii) The second death is no more literal than the lake of fire.

iv) It’s true that the wicked will be physically resurrected. However, that’s not necessarily something you can get from Revelation. That’s based on a number of Scriptural texts.

In conclusion, it is best to look at the first resurrection as a physical resurrection of the believers who will be killed in the Tribulation (Rev 6-18) and who will reign with Christ for 1,000 in the future (256).

But by back-loading the passage so that it now has exclusive reference to an endtime generation of Christians, it ceases to offer any encouragement in persecuted Christians in the 1C. It ceases to bear on plight of Christians in Asia Minor, to whom John was ministering in this very book.

If, by contrast, this has reference to the intermediate state, then that’s an encouragement to Christians in every generation. And encouragement to Christians throughout church history, especially Christians under the gun. That steels them to stay faithful in the face of persecution and martyrdom.

This does not fit will with an amillennial position because if the present age is the Millennium and Christ comes at the end of it, where does Satan’s release fit in? (256).

This assumes that Revelation is sequential, so that Satan’s parole represents an interval within a linear series of events. It also assumes that both the Millennium and the Satanic furlough take place on earth.

If, however, the “Millennium” is a picture-language for the intermediate state, then there needn’t be any alternation between Satanic activity and Satanic inactivity–inasmuch as that doesn’t take place on the same plane. Rather, Satan is active on earth, but inactive in heaven. Satan needn’t be in abeyance for saints to reign with Christ–if that has reference to heaven.

In the Millennium…the curse will be removed (Isa 35:9; 65:25), allowing the land to flourish (Isa 35:1; Rom 8:19-22), and there will be no sickness (Isa 33:24; Jer 30:17; Ezk 34:16), making for an incredible life-span (Is 65:20) (257).

That’s odd coming from someone who interprets Revelation sequentially, for Hoehner is reading the conditions of 21-22 back into chap. 20. 

The reference to God and Magog is reminiscent of Ezekiel 38-39. However, there are at least six differences between the Gog and Magog of Ezekiel and of Revelation 20…(6) in Ezekiel 38-39 the events fit chronologically before the restored millennial Temple; in Revelation 20 the events fit chronologically after the Millennium. Hence, [the] Gog and Magog of Ezekiel 38-39 are different from the Gog and Magog of Revelation 20 (258).

[Fowler White] discusses the use of Ezekiel 38-39 in Revelation 19:17-21 and 20:7-10. He believes the descriptive language and imagery in both 19:17-21 and 20:7-10 come from one episode in Ezekiel 38-39, and therefore Revelation 19:17-21 and 20:7-10 cannot be two different events but 20:7-10 is a recapitulation of 19:17-21. However, as mentioned above, the Gog and Magog of Revelation 20 are not the same as in Ezekiel 38-39 (259).

It doesn’t occur to Hoehner that if there are irreconcilable variations between Ezk 38-39 and Rev 20, then that’s evidence that neither one was meant to be taken literally. Writers enjoy more artistic license when dealing with figural analogies rather than literal history. Because neither account is literally descriptive, they don’t need to be literally consistent or literally harmonious.

In addition, if 20:7-10 is a recapitulation of 19:17-21, there is confusion and an inconsistency. In 19:17-21 it is the beast and the false prophet who are cast into the lake of fire, whereas in 20:7-10 it is Satan who is cast into the lake of fire. John never confuses the first beast and the false prophet with Satan. They are never one and the same (259).

I think that misunderstands the nature of recapitulation. When dealing with a complex event, John doesn’t say everything at once.  Indeed, it isn’t even possible for John to say everything at once. He tells part of the story, then goes back and tells another part of the story. He uses flashbacks to add various details.

The defeat of Satan is more climatic than the defeat of Satan’s minions, so he saves that for later. Both Satan and Satan’s minions suffer a similar fate, but as a storytelling technique, John tells the same basic story more than once to cover the same complex event from different angles. Retelling the story from more than one perspective. A synoptic/resumptive-expansive narrative technique.

Also, normally it is better to understand the later revelation to explain or expand on earlier revelation. Hence, Revelation 19:17-21 and 20:7-10 explain new details not given in Ezekiel 38-39 (259).

That concession is fatal to dispensational hermeneutics. For that’s precisely how amils like Beale operate. They use the NT to interpret the OT. That’s their starting point.

However, I’m happy to report that as of 2009, Hoehner has been a confirmed amillennialist. Indeed, as I found out in my weekly audience with the angel Gabriel, Hoehner recently began using Beale’s New Testament Biblical Theology as a textbook to get new arrivals up-to-speed on eschatology. He team-teaches with Geerhardus Vos at the Holy Smokes Seminary up yonder.