Why I don’t Believe in the Literal Millenium

Members of Berean are divided in their beliefs regarding the future millennium kingdom from Revelation 20. We can agree to disagree on this issue. I do not believe in a literal 1000-year reign of Christ on the earth to fulfill promises made to the ethnic national territorial (ENT) Israel for the following reasons.

1. I believe the eschatological promises in the OT are fulfilled in and through Christ, and we in Him (2Co 1:20).
2. I believe from the beginning, there has always been ENT Israel and true Israel. Abraham was in both. And true Israel is united to Christ through faith—therefore, the promises to true Israel are fulfilled in and through Christ and the Israel of God (Gal 6:16).
3. I believe the apostolic pattern is “this age” and “the age to come” (Eph 1:21; Mat 12:32), not a three-age scheme that inserts a distinct, intervening earthly kingdom between Christ’s return and the new creation.
4. I believe if a worldwide, 1,000-year interim kingdom preceded the eternal kingdom, we would expect more than one chapter in the entire NT about such an event. Instead, the New Testament concentrates on Christ’s return, the resurrection, judgment, and the new heavens and new earth (1Th 4–5; 2Th 1–2; 1Co 15; Rev 21–22).
5. I believe the battle of Gog and Magog in Ezekiel is Armageddon in Revelation (Rev 16). These are complementary depictions of the same climactic showdown, not distinct historical wars separated by a literal millennium.
6. I believe the clear teaching of the NT is that the church is God’s temple (1Co 3:16–17; Eph 2:19–22). The NT gives no expectation of a return to a physical temple or temple sacrifices; Christ’s offering is final (Heb 9:11–14; 10:1–14).
7. I don’t believe there is anything in the NT that points to the future going back to a quasi-Mosaic system of laws and sacrifices. This would contradict the trajectory of redemptive history (Gal 3:23–25; Col 2:16–17; Heb 8:13).
8. I don’t believe the other 65 books of the Bible support the idea that the world will be nearly destroyed at the end of the great tribulation, then Christ will rebuild it for 999 years until it is destroyed all over again and again by the Satan.
9. Jesus says nothing about a literal 1000-year kingdom during the Olivet discourse (Mat 24, Mark 13).
10. Paul gives no space for a literal 1000-year kingdom in 1 Corinthians 15:23-26, 1 Thessalonians 4-5, or 2 Thessalonians 2, or anywhere else. Paul’s sequence is concise: Christ’s coming → the resurrection → the end. He gives no space to a temporal, mixed administration of glorified and unglorified humanity for 1,000 years.
11. I believe the Satan needs to be bound (Mat 12:29) (curtailed) now, when the church is taking the gospel to the nations (Mat 28:19, Rev 20:3), not afterward, when a land promise is being fulfilled to Abraham’s descendants who rejected Christ. I believe the land promises are fulfilled on the New Earth.
12. Peter directs our hope to the new heavens and a new earth (2Pe 3:10–13), not a 1000-year kingdom that delays the arrival of the new earth, 1000 years beyond the Second Coming.
13. A 1000-year kingdom with humans in physical bodies (followers of God and unbelievers who can still rebel and die) and saved people in glorified (spiritual, 1Co 15:44) bodies who cannot sin is a bizarre mixture of humans that the Bible does not describe. This scenario creates tensions the New Testament never addresses. The apostolic emphasis is on the one consummation of all things in Christ (Eph 1:10).
14. The normative way of interpreting the book of Revelation is symbolic, figurative language. For example, is the salvation of people redeemed during the great tribulation going to be limited to only 144,000 male virgins, or is that symbolic language? (Rev 14:4)
15. I believe the correct way to interpret the Revelation of Jesus Christ is recursive parallelism. Revelation presents multiple visionary cycles that cover the same span—from Christ’s first coming to His return—intensifying the picture rather than extending the timeline (Rev 6; 12–14; 19–20). I believe Revelation 20 is not a new chronological era after Revelation 19, but a fresh angle on the church age climaxing in final judgment. Ask Google AI, “What is recursive parallelism in the book of Revelation?” The answer is superb.
16. I believe the redeemed people of God, from the beginning to the end, are described by Paul as one tree; branches are broken off and branches are grafted in (Rom 11). I don’t think the plan is Israel, church, Israel.

Finally, I struggle with the idea that the 66-book canon of Scripture is still on the earth, but we aren’t making disciples of Christ anymore, or are we? Is the gospel still being preached, or isn’t it? Is the church still gathering for worship? Pause and contemplate how you will answer these important questions. Remember, the millennial kingdom is not the New Earth. It, according to that system, happens before God creates the New Heavens and the New Earth. Sin and death are still present, which necessitates the gospel and another resurrection of the dead.