I believe what the Bible actually says, not anyone's 'interpretation'.
The Return of Jesus is 1000 years before the final Judgment of God, as described in 1 Cor 15:50-56
The AMill theory that we are in the Millennium now is false and unsupportable.
But scriptures like Psalms 2 and Zechariah 14:16-21, +, make it clear He WILL reign on earth. An earth just as it is now.
Yes; Jesus does sit at the right Hand of God and has proved His worth to be King, but He does not yet exercise His power.
What really is foolish, is to say Revelation is 'highly spiritualized' and not to be taken literally. Most of those prophesies are quite possible to be fulfilled as Written, or by using common sense, we can discern how they can be applied in our modern world. The 'mark of the beast', is an example.
Peter is prophesying about the Lord's Day of fiery wrath the forthcoming world changer.
THEN 2 Peter 3:13 says: Nevertheless, or; in expectation of His Promise, we look forward to the NH, NE, in which righteousness and justice will be established.
So you are wrong in thinking the NH, NE happens at the Return.
Jesus Judges the nations, not individuals at His Return.
Revelation 20:11-15 says that God will Judge all the people, when the 1000 years have ended. The 1000 years start when Jesus Returns.
Why can't you read what Revelation 20:7-10 actually says?
Jesus will be the Winner in the final test. To Him be the glory and honor!
If you could simply see that what you attribute to Rev 20 is wrong and where you locate it is wrong you would see that the second coming is the end! Your fight here is not with Amils but Scripture. Revelation is indeed highly figurative book. It is written in apocalyptic language:
· Creatures full of eyes with 6 wings (4:6)
· A 7-eyed lamb (5:6)
· People talking to mountains (6:16)
· People being washed clean by blood (7:14)
· Locusts with human faces (9:7)
· Lion-headed horse (9:17)
· An angel with the sun as his face, a rainbow upon his head, wearing a cloud around him and his feet were pillars of fire (Revelation 10:1).
· Fire-breathing prophets (11:5)
· A woman clothed with the sun while standing on the moon (12:1)
· 7-headed dragon that pulls stars down from heaven (12:3-4)
· Serpent vomiting out a river (12:15)
· 7-headed beast with 10 horns (13:1)
· Frogs coming out of the mouth of a dragon (16:13)
· A blood-drinking harlot (17:6)
· A woman sitting on seven mountains at the one time (Rev 17:9).
Revelation 1:1 begins with:
“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified [Gr.
semaino]
it by his angel unto his servant John.”
The order here is: God – Christ – Angel – (signified or symbolized) John. This Greek word
semaino is found seven times in the New Testament and is interpreted as follows in the King James Version:
· Signs (John 4:48)
· Signify (Acts 25:27)
· Signifying (John 12:33, 18:32, 21:19)
· Signified (Acts 11:28; Revelation 1:1)
Revelation is a unique book. It is wrapped in an apocalyptic genre. Understanding it is a mixture of deciphering coded language and putting a jigsaw puzzle together. You need to collate all the relevant information and descriptions, compare them and then establish what belongs to what.
In Bible times, they were very familiar with this type of communication in Bible times, but this is not the way we communicate today. Revelation presents a lot of symbolism. But the symbolism is not irrelevant; it is not meaningless, it describes spiritual realities.
Christian authority on Judeo/Christian Customs and historic developments and current lecturer at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Dr. James Fleming explains, “The western mind will have a tendency to focus too much on the details of visual images in the Apocalypse rather than what the images stand for.” He then advises, “One cannot interpret Revelation using a Western structure and form of perspective. The functions of the things described in Revelation have to be understood in order to know what they mean.”
The symbolic nature and style in which the apocalypse was written was largely familiar to 1st and 2nd century readers, the design, imagery, narrative, and symbols being commonly used in Judaic religious manuscripts of John's day. Notwithstanding, it is fair to say that this unique apocalyptic style creates many undoubted difficulties for the modern mind, as this genre is just not used today.