<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]While amillenarians and others have tended to view this as nonliteral, there is no evidence to support this conclusion. This is the only chapter in Revelation where a period of a thousand years is mentioned, and the fact that it is mentioned six times and is clearly described as a period of time before which and after which events take place lead to the conclusion that it means a literal thousand-year period.</font><hr></blockquote><p> And here is the problem. There is NO PROOF he is right. Walvoord just offered his opinion. As one elderly lady once said in her philosophical ideology, "Where's the Beef".<br><br>The issue is simply hermeneutics and Scriptural proof. The Scripture explains itself and Venema reveals it.<br><br>Look at this great truth from What About Rev 20:<br><br>One of the intriguing features of the vision of Revelation 20 is its reference to a period of one thousand years. For most premillennialists, this language must simply be taken literally as a reference to a distinct period in history after the return of Christ. Particularly within the context of Dispensational Premillennialism with its commitment to a literalistic reading of the Bible, the language of Revelation 20 is regarded as sufficient to prove the error of Amillennialism and Postmillennialism. Because these two views treat the language of one thousand years in Revelation 20 non-literally, as referring to a long period within God’s superintendence during which Satan is bound and the kingdom of Christ is manifested, they are charged with wrongly spiritualizing the meaning of this language. Furthermore, if it is objected that this is the only passage in Scripture which speaks of a one-thousand-year period, the premillennialist response is typically that one passage should be more than adequate to make the point. If this passage clearly teaches a literal millennium of one thousand years, who has the right to deny its teaching?<br><br>Before looking at the expression ‘one thousand years’ more directly, two general observations are to be made regarding this premillennialist claim. First, the insistence that the language of Revelation (and of all Scripture) be taken literally betrays a way of reading the Bible that we have earlier contested. A book like Revelation, with its rich symbolism and use of biblical types and figures, gives no obvious reason to take literally the term of one thousand years. If much of the book is written in language that is clearly not literal, some reason needs to be given why this must be the case in the vision of Revelation 20 with its use of ‘one thousand years’. Second, there is reason to pause before conceding the argument of Premillennialism here precisely because no other passage of Scripture speaks of a literal period in history of one thousand years (whether before or after Christ’s return). One of the great difficulties in the case for Premillennialism is the relative lack of support for its doctrine of the millennium from other passages in Scripture. This suggests that before we concede as self-evident the claim that one thousand years must mean one thousand literal years, we consider whether Scripture might not support a different reading of this expression.<br><br>Those who argue that the thousand years is not to be taken literally often note that it is a perfect cube of ten, ten being a number of completeness. This would suggest, then, that the reference to a one-thousand-year period should be taken as symbolic of a perfect and complete number within the purpose of God. This is a plausible way of reading this language, but it tends to be too abstract. It still remains to ask, Do the Scriptures elsewhere use the number one thousand in a symbolic way which might cast some light upon Revelation 20?<br><br>As a matter of fact, the use of the term ‘one thousand’ in the Scriptures seems quite pertinent to the interpretation of Revelation 20. Though in some instances the number may be quite literal (for example, Gen. 20:16, Ezra 1:9-10) or possibly literal as well as symbolic (for example, Judg. 15:15-16, 1 Chron. 29:21), in other instances it has a clearly symbolic meaning. In Deuteronomy 7:9, the Lord is described as a ‘faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love him and keep his commandments’. In the summary of the law given in Exodus 20, a contrast is drawn between the Lord’s visiting of judgement upon the third and fourth generations of those who hate him, and his ‘showing lovingkindness to thousands’ who love him and keep his commandments (Exod. 20:5-6). Similarly, in the Psalms we read that the ‘cattle on a thousand hills’ belong to the Lord (Psa. 50:10-11). The Psalmist also speaks of how a ‘day in Thy courts is better than a thousand’ (Psa. 84:10). In the well-known words of Psalm 90, the believer confesses that ‘a thousand years in Thy sight are like yesterday when it passes by, or as a watch in the night’ (verse 4). Responding to the mockers who mocked the promise of the Lord’s coming, the Apostle Peter notes that ‘with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day’ (2 Pet. 3:8).<br><br>What these passages indicate is that the number one thousand is often used in the Scriptures to refer to an extensive period of time. The use of one thousand years in Revelation is, when interpreted against the background of this usage of the symbolism of one thousand, likely a reference to a period of fullness, completion and perfection so far as God’s redemptive plan is concerned. This expression is not meant to teach that the millennium will be a period of 365,000 days, not one more nor one less. Just as God’s faithfulness is perfect and never failing (unto one thousand generations), so the times within his redemptive purposes are perfect and never failing. The most that can be concluded, then, from the use of the number one thousand in Revelation 20 is that the period of Satan’s binding will be great and full, not small and empty, of years. That this is the sense of the vision is only reinforced by the contrasting language that describes Satan’s season of rebellion as a little season, suggesting that it is a meagre and limited period of time within the will of God.<br><br>To summarize: in this first section of the vision of Revelation 20, we have a representation of that period of history between the time of Christ’s first coming and his return at the end of age, in which Satan has been bound so as no longer to be able to deceive the nations. The millennium is now, the period in which Christ’s kingdom is advancing by his Spirit and Word and the nations are being discipled. This period is not a literal period of one thousand years, but the entire period, perfect, complete and extensive, between the first and second comings of Christ. Compared to the vast expanse and power of the kingdom of Christ, the period of Satan’s rebellion at the end of the age prior to Christ’s return, will be pathetically small and limited in scope.

Reformed and Always Reforming,