The Millennial Question

The Millennial Reign of Jesus on Earth: Why the Future Matters Today

Defining Our Terms

Premillennialism--the millennium is literal, Christ will rule, and this will follow and indeed be the direct result of His return in power to this earth, as He has promised.

Amillennialism—no literal millennium.

Postmillennialism--”That view of last things which holds that the kingdom of God is now being extended in the world through the preaching of the Gospel and the saving work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of individuals, that the world is eventually to be Christianized, and that the return of Christ is to occur at the close of a long period of righteousness and peace commonly called the “Millennium.” … The second coming of Christ will be followed immediately by the general resurrection, the general judgment, and the introduction of heaven and hell in their fullness.” (Boettner)

Arguments favoring premillennialism (James Boice, a Reformed premillennialist):

Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1999), 511.

The obligation to interpret Scripture normally

Unfulfilled prophecy awaits fulfillment

Only premillennialism gives a meaningful culmination of world history

God’s assignment for man requires it

God’s Purpose for Man Revealed

Genesis 1:26–28 NASB95

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Psalm 8:4–8 NASB95

What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than God, And You crown him with glory and majesty! You make him to rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, All sheep and oxen, And also the beasts of the field, The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.

The Imago Dei

The image of God is primarily revealed in the actual activity of man functioning as he was created to function.

To be in the image and likeness of God is to make visible the invisible.

Man was created to be king, so that by his being and through his function he could serve to bring glory to the King.

God’s Purpose for Man Repressed

Genesis 2:16–17 NASB95

The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

Genesis 3:17-19

Genesis 3:17–19 NASB95

Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.”

Romans 5:12

Romans 5:12 NASB95

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—

Romans 8:19–22 NASB95

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

Has the purpose of God failed?

Redemption is eschatological

God’s Purpose for Man Restored

The Old Testament

The New Testament

Acts 1:11 NASB95

They also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.”

God’s Purpose for Mankind Realized

The 2nd Coming ushers in the promised kingdom, and the characteristics of that kingdom.

—judgment

—righteousness and justice

—peace

—an end of sin

—Satan deposed

—an indestructible kingdom

—King of kings and Lord of lords

--a visible, judicial, earthly kingdom marked by everlasting dominion over a restored creation.

1-2—a visible, judicial, earthly kingdom marked by everlasting dominion over a restored creation.

Jesus Christ is the perfect image of God and the perfect representative of man, and thus fulfills God’s purpose for man. When? During His kingdom, when all creation is brought into submission.

Creation itself longs for this fulfillment of man’s purpose (; )

Romans 8:19 NASB95

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.

Romans 8:21 NASB95

that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

—a visible, judicial, earthly kingdom marked by everlasting dominion over a restored creation.

Must Christ Literally Reign on the earth? The integrity of God demands it.