Amillennialism

The thousand years are now

The name sounds as if it denies the thousand years, but amillennialism does not deny the millennium. It denies a separate thousand-year reign on earth after Christ returns, and holds that we are living in the thousand years now. Some therefore prefer the name ‘realised millennialism’.

The view reads Revelation as a series of visions that show the same age several times over, and takes chapter 20 as going back to Christ's first coming and beginning again. The binding of Satan is the binding of the strong man in Jesus' saying, "unless he first ties up the strong man" (Matthew 12:29). Facing the cross, Jesus said, "now the prince of this world will be cast out" (John 12:31). Satan is bound "so that he could not deceive the nations" (Revelation 20:3): he can no longer stop the gospel reaching them. Augustine explains the strong man's binding this way: "He has bound the strong man, in that He has taken away from him all power of hindering the faithful from following Christ, and gaining the kingdom of heaven." Augustine

The first resurrection is new life in Christ, or the reign of departed believers' souls with Christ in heaven; John saw "the souls of those who had been beheaded" reigning (Revelation 20:4). In John 5 Jesus speaks side by side of a spiritual resurrection now and a bodily resurrection at the last day.

Truly, truly, I tell you, the hour is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

John 5:25

A few verses later he speaks of the hour when all who are in their graves will come out (John 5:28-29). So amillennialists look for one general resurrection of the righteous and the wicked at Christ's return, one last judgment, and then the new heavens and new earth.

The church's long reading

The name is fairly recent, but the reading goes back to Augustine. He once looked forward to a thousand-year sabbath after the resurrection, but came to read the thousand years as the present age, in which the church reigns with Christ Augustine, City of God, Book 20. This reading passed through the medieval church to the Reformers, and today the Catholic and Orthodox churches, most Lutheran churches and many Reformed churches read Revelation 20 this way.

In conversation with other views

Premillennialists ask why ‘came to life’ should mean two different things in verses 4 and 5, when it is the same verb, and how Satan can be bound when the devil still "prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8). Amillennialists answer that John 5 speaks in one breath of a spiritual coming to life now and a bodily resurrection at the last day, so that the same language can carry both senses, and that the binding is limited to deceiving the nations. Postmillennialists agree with amillennialists in placing the thousand years before the return, but expect the gospel to transform the world more visibly before Christ comes. This is a difference among evangelicals, and the three views are set side by side in the lesson Christ’s return and the millennium and in What are the rapture and the millennium?