The Dark World of End Times...

The book of Revelation is arguably the most intimidating and controversial book in the Bible. How exactly we interpret Revelation may not be essential to the gospel, but it is certainly very important for various reasons.

So while I say to you, this is not an issue central to our understanding of the gospel, know that this is an issue of importance, of more importance to some than to others. Nor do I argue that it shouldn't be held as something that is very important.

Why Revelation Matters for the Gospel, Culture, and the Future

This will say much about the way you read the scriptures as a whole. It'll say much about the way you view the Great Commission. It'll say much about the way that you view geopolitics. It will influence the way you view culture, and it will influence the way that you view the future.

So it is of consequence.

Our interpretation of Revelation affects our view of current events, of the nation of Israel, and of what we expect for the future. A very reasonable starting point for interpreting Revelation is recognizing that Revelation was written to be relevant for all Christians, not just Christians living during the time immediately before Jesus's second coming.

This is not a book that is meant to be meaningless to Christianity for all of time until one particular period in time. So you get the first five chapters that are meaningful for all Christians in all places and all times, and then the rest of the book is only meaningful to the generation that is here when these last battles are aligned and occur.

Don't believe that that's the way this book was intended to be understood. That the meaning here is pertinent for every Christian of every age.

Premillennialism, Postmillennialism, and Amillennialism

By far the most popular view of Revelation today is the premillennial view, which argues that Jesus will return to establish a thousand-year reign. This view was popularized by the Schofield Study Bible and by the Left Behind series.

Premillennialism, or if you will, biblical millennialism, that is the confidence that Scripture indeed does teach a future one thousand-year reign of Christ on the earth explicitly and exactly as Revelation 20 describes it.

Another view of Revelation is the postmillennial view, which argues that there will be a victorious millennium for Christians and the church before Jesus returns.

And so when we talk about postmillennialism, what we're really talking about is the arrival of the kingdom of the Messiah, that the Messiah is ruling now with all authority, and that he is spreading his gospel of peace and his rule throughout the world through his church, through the proclamation of his saving gospel.

And of course we believe that it is only the gospel that saves, and we believe that as we are preaching the gospel in this fallen world that Christ is redeeming and saving and transforming, there's going to be hardship along the way, difficulties, moments of great victory from our perspective, and moments of great collapse from our perspective.

But of course if we anchor our eschatology in what the apostle Paul taught in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, we'll have the perspective of the inspired writers of Scripture, and that is that Jesus is reigning, and he must reign until all of his enemies are put under his feet as a footstool for his feet, and then the last enemy is death.

And a third view of revelation is the amillennial view, which, contrary to popular belief, does not mean no millennium.

They call themselves by a strange sort of negative term, amillennialists, as a way to say they deny that there will be an actual earthly kingdom. They deny that there will be the future salvation of Israel, that there will be a reign of Christ actually physically on the earth, and the ah being a negative, they negate that.

But rather that Jesus established the millennium with his atoning work and victory over death, and will return at the end of this current millennium. There's the amillennial view.

The amillennial view, again, a lot of people just go and they say, ah, that means no or not millennial. There is no millennium. That's not actually what the amillennial view is. The amillennial view sees the millennium as the age between Christ's first and second coming, which is now.

The amillennial view is that Christ is reigning now.

Although premillennialism is what's most popular today, throughout history, the predominant eschatological view in the reformed community has been amillennialism. And that's the position we will talk about here.

Let's consider four things about interpreting revelation. Symbolism in revelation, the timing of the millennium, the binding of Satan, and the nature of Jesus's second coming. Hey, this is Michael.

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Symbolism in Revelation and the Meaning of the Millennium

Some argue that most of what we read in revelation must be interpreted literally, since that's the most natural way of reading the book. However, that is simply not true.

One of the issues is, do we see this millennium as literal or symbolic? And to be quite honest with you, this is one of the things that kind of gets under my skin the most when I deal with people from differing perspectives.

Because oftentimes, as you heard in my own experience, and Sam Storm's experience, and Riddle Barker's experience, and others' experience, there is this charge of liberalism. This charge of not taking the Bible literally, and not taking the Bible seriously, if you view the millennium as not being a literal thousand years.

That is so incredibly disingenuous. Why? Well, first of all, the nature of the book of Revelation, it's filled with symbolic numbers. It's filled with symbolic numbers. In fact, at the beginning of the book, the author makes it clear that he's using symbols.

So how can it be not taking the Bible seriously when you interpret Revelation symbolically, just like Revelation says it's supposed to be interpreted? Secondly, the use of numbers, the use of numbers here and the use of numbers throughout the book would point us to the idea that we use this symbolically, not literally.

Thirdly, there's other things in this text that are obviously symbolic. Let's look again, shall we? Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key. Are we talking about a literal key?

Oh, to the bottomless pit and a great chain. Is the devil going to have a literal chain around him in the bottomless pit? Again, those individuals who would interpret the thousand years, literally look at these things and say they're symbolic.

And he sees the dragon. I thought the devil was an angel who was a fallen angel. Now he's a dragon. And of course, those individuals who say it's liberal. If you interpret the numbers symbolically, don't look here and say the devil is literally a dragon.

So again, they don't have a problem with symbolism unless and until it disagrees with them. So revelation filled with symbols, the numbers used in the book overwhelmingly used symbolically. The number of 1000 has been used symbolically.

We've already talked about that. And there are other things right here in this same paragraph that have to be interpreted symbolically. Listen to Kistemacher. Revelation on the whole, in chapter 20 in particular, demonstrates symbolism.

For instance, the chain with which the angel binds Satan is not a customary string of metal links. Neither is the key to the abyss a metallic object, nor are the thousand years chronologically 10 centuries.

The term key appears in chapter 1 verse 18, where Jesus notes that he holds the keys of death and Hades. In 3 .7, Jesus says that he holds the key of David. In 9 .1, an angel described as a star holds the key to the abyss.

In all these passages, the word signifies authority. It is clear that a spirit cannot be shackled with a chain, but can be restricted by a divine command. And the expression 1000 in a book that is filled with symbolic numbers intimates a multitude that is a large number.

That is the most natural sense in which this term can be read.

It seems clear that Revelation is a book filled with symbols and that much of Revelation should be interpreted symbolically. Pre-millennialists argue that because Revelation 19 speaks of Jesus's return and Revelation 20 speaks of the millennium, therefore these events must occur chronologically and the millennium must come after Jesus's second coming.

However, there are numerous problems with this interpretation and there is an extremely compelling alternate interpretation called progressive parallelism.

Progressive Parallelism and the Binding of Satan

And that the things that we see here are revealed progressively. There is this progressive parallelism and there is the same story told over and over again from different angles. We've seen this story told before from another angle.

We talked about that on last week. This angle, however, is from the perspective of the finality of the judgment. Revelation chapter 20 poses many difficulties, not least of which is its placement. Its placement after Revelation 19 can make it a bit confusing since in Revelation 19, we seem to have had an end of all things and an end of judgment.

But we've seen this before, have we not? Where we see the culmination of God's righteous judgment and then a recapitulation, if you will, or a retelling of this picture of God's righteous judgment. Here in chapter 20, I believe we have another such recapitulation, another retelling of God's righteous judgment, but from a different perspective.

What problems does progressive parallelism solve? The two that we'll talk about here are the binding of Satan and the nature of Jesus's second coming. In Mark 3, 26 to 27, Jesus teaches that the strong man or Satan must be bound before one can enter his house and plunder his goods.

This means that with his victory over death, Jesus bound Satan so that the gospel could go forth unhindered.

Now, if the binding of Satan so that he doesn't deceive the nations doesn't happen until some future time after the so-called church age, then how is the great commission accomplished? Seems to me that Jesus makes it very clear that Revelation 20 is the reason that Matthew 28 can be accomplished.

Because of the binding of Satan specifically during this period of his reign in and through his church so that the nations can be evangelized.

But if Revelation 20 occurs after Revelation 19, and Satan is only bound after Jesus's second coming, and that seems to contradict what Mark 3 is teaching, that evil still occurs today does not mean that Satan is not bound.

Jesus has already won the decisive victory over Satan, and we are now just waiting for Jesus's final victory over Satan. The Bible consistently teaches that Jesus's second coming, the final judgment, and the end will all occur together.

And that there are simply two ages, the present age and the age to come.

In the scriptures, we have this picture of two ages, not three. We don't have in the scriptures a picture of the present age and in the millennial age and in the age to come. We don't find that anywhere.

In the New Testament, when Jesus speaks and when his apostles speak, they speak about the present age and the age to come. And that's it. When they speak about Christ's return, they don't speak about Christ's return in stages.

They speak about Christ's return and the end, period. Now he comes and does a few things, and then there's a different... No, he comes and that's the end of the age. There's this present age and there's the age to come.

We see this in Titus 2, Matthew 12, Matthew 13, Luke 18, Ephesians 1, Acts 2, Hebrews 1, 1 Corinthians 15, and 1 Thessalonians 4. The idea that Jesus will return, but then there will be another thousand years where people can still come to Christ and be saved, seems to read too much into what Revelation 20 says about the millennium.