It sums up your extra non biblical view of pre-mill. Both are empty words. Where is your Scripture in Isaiah 65 that claims the millennium is saturated with sin filled humanity? When has God changed His mind to allow sinners long extravagant lives? This is not the NHNE. Jerusalem is still a city on earth. It is not the one coming down from above. Isaiah 65 still has curses and still has Death. Your interpretation of long life does not "cut it". Incorruptible sin free bodies that cannot be touched with the Second Death does not prevent Christ from sending one to Death. Sin is not remembered, and is not in their consciousness. Obeying the direct iron rod rule of Christ does not need sin to be a thing. One does not need sin nor a sin nature to disobey a command from Christ. Adam brought sin into the world. God is certainly capable of taking sin out of this world, and not using sin as an excuse. You all are too hung up on sin, and cannot see life without it. There will be no disobedience in the NHNE. There will still be the ability to disobey in the Millennium. And Death is not defeated until the very end. It is the last enemy to be defeated. Show me the verse in Isaiah 65 that says Death is defeated and eradicated. The number 1000 may not be mentioned, but death is.
"No more will babies die in infancy,
no more will an old man die short of his days —
he who dies at a hundred will be thought young,
and at less than a hundred thought cursed."
Why should any one living now, today, be concerned about what the rules are? Ruling with an iron rod, does not mean no rules nor punishment does not exist. Christ will still put rebellion to an adrupt end. People just can't go around being rebellious. There will be no prisons, because no sinful nature to reform. There are laws. None of the laws, if broken, will bring sin back into the world. Just instant Death. No one will be given a corruptible body as a consolation prize to keep on enjoying life in a body full of sin and decay. They will go immediately to Death. They will be removed from the Lamb's book of life, and cast into the Lake of Fire at the GWT.
Those in the OT thougt the Messiah would bring that condition with Him when He comes the first time, but God declared from the beginning 2000 more years of sin. This was pointed out in the 4th Commandment. The hope of the church was always a soon return. It was not "in 2000 years we will get the Millennium".
It is funny how most preach "endure to the end with patience". That was the motto of the early church. Not the motto to go through God's Wrath on the world. The motto was to get every generation through their own time of tribulation during this past 1991 years. Not some future event after the Second Coming. Isaiah 65 gives no time frames, that was covered by Moses, and they forgot what they were supposed to Remember. They listened to the Greeks and Romans.
The church is still listening to the world. God has not canceled Revelation 20 and removed it from His Word. Claiming that Isaiah 65 is a totally different reality than the same old same old, is the reason you all reject Revelation 20. Where is the consistency of reasoning? Do you think the whole chapter of Isaiah 65 is just symbolic and should not be taking literally about any thought, including new heavens and earth? Why claim Revelation 20 is too symbolic and Isaiah 65 is not symbolic at all? Isaiah 65 is not symbolic of a totally different reality. It is still the restoration of the Paradise that was lost. The NHNE is not restoring Paradise. The NHNE is a totally different creation.
It is Premils that force a meaning on Revelation 20 that enjoys no other support throughout the Word of God. You have admitted you only have one proof text - one that contradicts numerous climactic Scripture.
Premils are swift to dismiss Amils when they let Scripture interpret Scripture. They let the clear and distinct references to the new heavens and new earth speak for themselves. They contrast Revelation 21 to Isaiah 65 and see a definite and unquestionable correlation in the detail of both. But when asked to correlate the detail between Revelation 20 and Isaiah 65 Premils have absolutely nothing to provide apart from mere human reasoning and theological soundbites. They have not a peep! The fact is: there is no correlation or corroboration for the 2 new heavens and new earths Premil argument. It is therefore surely bold of Premils to do this and expect that it in some way proves their case or adds validity to their argument.
Of course, when we look to the book of Revelation we discover that this does not happen until the commencement of the new heavens and new earth, which Revelation makes clear does not appear until after the millennium. After the conclusion of the millennium/Satan’s little season, Revelation 21:1-4 says,
“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband … And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”
As enlightening as Isaiah’s revelation of the new earth is it is surely dim compared to that unveiled by Christ and the Apostles in the New Testament. We are particularly assisted in our understanding of this much-debated reading before us by John in the book of Revelation as he actually refers to Isaiah 65 – only in clearer and broader terms. In fact, he removes most, if not all, the haze surrounding this Old Testament revelation of the new heavens and a new earth and points us to its time of fulfilment. He removes any existing confusion by outlining in simpler and more comprehensible language the sense and meaning of the text. The fuller revelation, as is common in Scripture, better explains the hyperbole description in this Old Testament passage and explains more wholly the full meaning of this familiar passage.
John explains in a more lucid manner what Isaiah was trying to convey in Isaiah 65:19-20. John passes over the metaphoric hyperbole and tells us that “
God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” This passage fits in perfectly with what the prophet Isaiah was explaining in Isaiah 65:17-21. He was looking forward to a time when the curse and its accompanying features would be finally eliminated. He sheds more light on this much-debated reading, explaining better Isaiah 65:20. Certainly, interpreting Scripture with Scripture is the only way that we can truly comprehend the meaning of challenging verses like Isaiah 65:20. Moreover, it helps us understand the intricate language used by Isaiah in regards to death and the “new earth.”
Tears, sorrow, mourning, depression, terror, fear, death and sin continue unabated in the Premil millennium, negating the location of Isaiah 65:17-21 before the Second Coming. Again, the passage does not need situated anywhere apart from where the Holy Spirit located it: the “new heavens and a new earth” – which Revelation shows comes after the millennium. It is wonderful when the Bible student stops fighting with Scripture, and lets the Bible speak for itself.
Like Isaiah, John also sums up the revelation, after describing the glory of the new heavens and new earth, refers to the lot of the wicked. In Revelation 21:8 he writes,
“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”
What Isaiah wraps up in the succinct phrase:
“the sinner an hundred years old [shall be] accursed” John describes it in greater detail. This is quite normal for New Testament writers that had a fuller revelation of the purposes and plans of God through the coming to earth of Christ.
Premillennialism makes much of the wording of Isaiah 65:20. In fact, they force a lot of over-cooked theology into the text that is not allowed by other clear Scripture. Moreover, this viewpoint totally conflicts with John’s exegesis of it (in Revelation 21). This reading can’t be speaking of a parenthesis period in-between our age and the new heavens and a new earth as Premillennialists imagine; it is expressly speaking of the “new heavens and a new earth.” This creates another difficulty for Premillennialism because Revelation makes clear that “a new heaven and a new earth” comes at the end of the millennium (Revelation 21:1), not the beginning.
