Does the bodily resurrection occur 1,003.5 or 1,007 & 1,000 years before the LAST DAY? (That is two resurrections before the last day!)
Or does it occur on the LAST DAY?
Judgement Day.
We cannot split the climactic, inescapable, and final events of 'Judgement Day' into separate events like premil, pre-trib, or however else you want to classify it. It's all the one great and terrible day of the Lord and it all happens together. The 'Day of the Lord' raises all the dead, judges the living and the dead, separates every saint from every sinner that has ever lived, judges Satan and his minions, and ends sin, sickness and death and this entire Universe and results in a New Heavens and New Earth, an eternal home for God's Kingdom. The 'rapture' and 'last day' and 'age to come' are all wrapped up in this one climactic, final event.
First, let me explain one presupposition I have. I believe in doing something radical, and that is using the *clear* statements of scripture to interpret the less clear. Reading John's own gospel is a clearer interpretative grid to try and understand Revelation than the other way around! John's gospel is the lens through which we interpret his less clear symbolism in Revelation. Many would rather allegorise and tone down the *clear* teaching of scripture to squish the clear stuff into their bizarre end times tables, but it just doesn't fit.
1: BOTH BELIEVERS AND UNBELIEVERS ARE RAISED TOGETHER ON THE LAST DAY!
(not 1000 years apart)
John explains that the LAST DAY is when us Christians are raised to eternal life.
John 6:39
39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the LAST DAY. 40 For my Fathers will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.
John 11:24
24 Martha answered, I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the LAST DAY.
2: WE ARE SAVED OR JUDGED on the LAST DAY
John 12:48
48 There is a JUDGE for those who reject me and do not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the LAST DAY.
John 5
28 Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come outthose who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.
Where's the 1000 years above? Nope, none. We are raised on the LAST DAY and judged on the LAST DAY.
Luke 17
"24 For the Son of Man in HIS DAY will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. 25 But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.
26 Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. THEN the flood came and DESTROYED THEM ALL.
28 It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. 29 But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all."
Believers are rescued, unbelievers judged. Noah didn't enter the ark and wait 1000 years for the flood! Lot didn't leave Sodom and wait 1000 years for the fire!
Does Matthew 25:31-46 (the sorting of the sheep and the goats) mention 1000 years between the sheep being raised and the goats?
What about Matthew 13:24-29 and the Parable of the Sower? "First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn."
Are you really arguing that there is 1000 years in the word 'then'? Who's really reading the bible literally here?
Likewise in 1 Thess 4 Christians are raised and gathered together with the living, and in 1 Thess 5 the ungodly are immediately judged!
4. SIN, SATAN, AND DEATH ARE DEFEATED AND BANISHED FOREVER, AS IS MORTAL FLESH AND MORTAL PROCESS LIKE HAVING BABIES.
(Right now I don't have time to look up verses for Sin and Satan banished and judged, so let's continue...)
The Age to Come banishes death.
Mark 10:30 "...will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fieldsalong with persecutionsand in the age to come eternal life."
Or 1 Cor 15: "For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death"
There's no mortals in the age to come. Getting there depends on resurrection!
Luke 20:35: "But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come AND IN THE RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD will neither marry nor be given in marriage,"
The Millennium cannot have both immortal resurrected Christians and mortal sinners living along side each other, because after 70 years there would be no more sinners. They can't have babies! Resurrection = age to come = no babies.
1 Corinthians 15
"50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: Death has been swallowed up in victory.
Therefore the so called Millennium cannot have mortals and immortals living together AFTER the resurrection because the resurrection is Judgement Day, the final separation of sheep and goats (above), the ushering in of God's New Kingdom when Death itself is destroyed. How Dispy's assert mortals live alongside immortals in the Millennium blows my mind in the light of these clear verses!
4. FINALLY THE WHOLE UNIVERSE IS UPGRADED AS CHRISTIANS GO TO OUR PERMANENT HOME
But there is one more BIG THING that still happens. What is it? It happens on the Day of the Lord.
2 Peter 3:3-10
"3 Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. 4 They will say, Where is this coming he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation. 5 But they deliberately forget that long ago by Gods word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. 6 By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. 7 By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly....
....10 But the DAY OF THE LORD will come LIKE A THIEF. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare....
...13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells."
Last Day = Last Trumpet = Resurrection = Age to Come = No marriage & no babies = No Mortals = Judgement Day! = 'in His Day' = Day of Lord = New Heavens and New Earth = SECRET!
Can it be any clearer? It all happens at once, suddenly, when life is going along more or less 'normally'. There is no warning. And it is instantaneous!
So what do we make of the Millennium in Rev 20? Indeed, what do we do with the entire book of Revelation?
Well, I'd recommend '666 and all that' by Dr Greg Clarke and Dr John Dickson.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/666-All-Tha...7800/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1293364899&sr=1-1
http://www.sydneyanglicans.net/life/resources/666_and_all_that/
I would also recommend 'Apocalypse Now and then' by Dr Paul Barnett, which is a bit partial preterist and a bit Symbolist.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Apocalypse-now-then-reading-Revelation/dp/0949108421
Or if you don't have the time buy and read these books, try the free audio at Sydney Anglicans. The following link has sermons listed by book of the bible. Scan down to the end and download the sermons. You'll be amazed at the consistency of reading Revelation with the REST of the New Testament!
Synod 2013 Bible study 3 | Audio
Or if you REALLY want to go deep, check out the free audio lectures by Dr Kim Riddlebarger. There's probably about 30 hours of material entitled "Amillennialism 101" on the down the right hand column here.
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