Inquirer: There are those who maintain that between the Second Coming of the Lord and the end of the world Christ will reign upon the earth, governing, Himself, along with His elect for a thousand years. What is the truth of the matter, Father?
Elder Cleopa: This idea is an ancient one. In the first centuries of Christianity it was endorsed by the so-called Chiliasts or Millenialists. Against them rose the entire ancient Church and its most important representatives.
The divine Fathers of the Church indicated in their writings that the one thousand year reign referred to in the book of Revelation signifies an infinite number of years, i.e. a kingdom that shall have no end. This we know well since from Holy Scripture it is clear that the Kingdom of Christ is not of this world (Jn. 18:36). In Holy Scripture it is clearly indicated that the Kingdom of Heaven is also the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Christ, in so much as both Saint John the Forerunner and Christ Himself called it so. This Kingdom of Christ will be spiritual and will reign over the internal world of man, while externally being revealed in the righteousness, peace and joy of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17). Christ Himself established this kingdom and explained in His parables how it will appear, who it will include and what power it will possess. His reign will not endure for a thousand years, but eternally (Lk. 1:33). Its inhabitants will include all faithful Christians from all the peoples of the world (Ps. 116:1-2), it will reign over all creation, and it will be a kingdom of righteousness (Dan. 7:13-14). It will be a kingdom made up of souls (Mt. 28:18) - souls that have already entered and lived within it in this present life.
This kingdom of Christ, derived not from this world, constitutes the Church, or the Body, of Christ, of which the head is Christ Himself (Eph. 1:22). The adoption and entrance into this kingdom takes place only through the laver of regeneration (Titus 3:5) or birth from above (Jn. 3:3). No one can enter into this reign of God except through baptism (Rom. 6:3), which is to say by being born again from above or being born of water and the spirit, according to the word of the Saviour: Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (Jn. 3:5). This heavenly birth by the power of the All-holy Spirit is a true resurrection from the dead (Col. 2:12-13), and hence the reason why Baptism is so often referred to as resurrection (Rom. 6:3-5). Thus, also, it is that the Orthodox Christian baptism is a renaissance of life and a resurrection from the dead. When the Apostle Paul writes awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light, (Eph. 5:14) he has in mind precisely this internal regeneration and resurrection through Christian Baptism, for no one can enter the Kingdom of Christ unless he has first been brought out from among the dead by Christian Baptism.
Holy Scripture speaks to us about the thousand-year reign in prophetic and symbolic terms, corresponding to that which we spoke of above. Here is what Saint John the Evangelist says in his Revelation:
And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgement was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever. And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. (Rev. 20:1-14)
From this passage we can ascertain the following:
1. The thousand-year reign of Christ is a period in which Christ has bound the power of the Devil over men. (vv. 1-2)
2. At the end of this period the Devil will again be lord over men and oppress them, but only for a season. (v. 3)
3. The members of this kingdom will be those alone who do not submit to the beast and accept his engraved seal, and who have a part in the first resurrection. (vv. 4-5)
4. Those who were not worthy of this resurrection will be raised at the end of the thousand years, that is at the second resurrection, as this resurrection, relative to the first, is the second. (v. 5)
5. Death will have no power over the sharers in the thousand-year reign. (v. 6)
6. At the end of these thousand years and after a gruesomely violent persecution against the saints, the devil and his followers will be cast into the lake of fire - the second death. (vv. 4-15)
From this it should be abundantly clear that the thousand-year kingdom is nothing else but the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven, and this is clear seeing that:
1. In the period of this reign, the Devil was bound and loosed, receiving power over men. Christ entered into His dominion and bound the Devil, that is, by the redemption of humanity by His Blood He bound and restrained his power over mankind.
2. The entrance into this kingdom presupposes the first resurrection, that is, none other than holy baptism itself, often, in fact, called by the name of resurrection, or being born again from above or simply regeneration. This resurrection through baptism is the first, in comparison to the second, the general one, of the body, which is also called the last resurrection, as when Martha spoke to Christ concerning her brother: I know that he shall rise again at the resurrection on the Last Day. (Jn. 11:24)
3. At the end of this kingdom or reign, the Devil will again be let loose to deceive the people and with power and mania to assault and oppress holy Christians in the person of the antichrist, the beast or false prophet. (Rev. 13:1-11)
4. The duration of this period will be brief and yet it will constitute one of the signs signalling the immediacy of the Second Coming of Christ. (Mat. 24:22; Rev. 13:5, 20:3)
Therefore, it should be clearly known that the first resurrection is the baptismal resurrection and the second resurrection is that which we await on the last day, the last resurrection. Furthermore, it should also be clear that the first death is the natural one or the separation of the soul from the body, while the second death is the eternal torment [of hell] (Mt. 18:8), so called due to its opposition to the blessed life of eternity (Jn. 5:24). It should also be clear that this second death has no power over those made worthy of the first resurrection. Likewise, from this it follows that the first death, from which not even the saints are delivered, is the natural or bodily death.
In Holy Scripture someones sinful condition is also compared to a kind of death. It is with this meaning that the Saviour says to one of His disciples who had asked leave to first go and bury his father, Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead (Mat. 8:22). Likewise does He speak with this in mind when saying, He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die (Jn. 11:25). The Apostle also had this meaning in mind when he wrote, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 6:11, 8:10). Moreover, with this meaning as well is it written to the angel (
επίσκοπο) of the Church in Sardis: I know thy works, and that thou hast a name that thou livest, but thou art dead (Rev. 3:1). This does not, however, constitute the first death, as the baptismal resurrection constitutes the first resurrection, considering that this death is a condition that
leads to but is not already the fact of death. When we spoke of resurrection and death above we had in mind not merely a condition or state but a specific action or event - of resurrection and of death respectively.
Although the duration of the reign of Christ is designated on the whole as a thousand years, we should understand this to signify an era immeasurable and undesignated. Therefore, its length is nothing else except the period between the first and second comings of the Lord, or more precisely, the period of the consolidation of the Kingdom of God until His Second Coming. This is the explanation of the Kingdom of God and its duration upon this earth.
Inq.: Father, recently I had a very disturbing conversation with some people concerning this question and came away with the opinion that the thousand-year reign could only be understood in earthly terms. This must be the case seeing that: it will be inaugurated at the Second Coming, will be preceded by the resurrection of the righteous who in turn will reign with Christ for a thousand years, after which will occur the resurrection of sinners, the judgement and the end of the world.
This interpretation seems to me to proceed from the twentieth chapter of Revelation that you read earlier. It can be deduced from that chapter that there will be final resurrections: the first resurrection of the righteous at the beginning of the thousand years and the second resurrection of the sinful at the end of world. (vv. 4-5)
During the period of a thousand years the active power of the Devil will be restricted up until just before the end when, after a brief but horrible flurry of aggression, he will be thrown into Hades together with all of his servants (vv. 7-14). Afterward, they will be resurrected, judged and condemned to eternal punishment (vv. 12-15). After the first period we will pass through to the end of the world (v. 11). This is, for example, what the Apostle Paul says when writing to the Christians of Thessalonica: For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first (1 Thess. 4:14-16). Consequently, at His Second Coming Christ will raise those who have died faithful to Him, i.e. those which, as the Apostle says, shall rise first, hence the first resurrection. The resurrection of the dead, or the second resurrection, will follow later - He does not tell us exactly when - but according to Revelation it will be after a thousand years. Listen to what Saint Paul says about this: But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits (1 Cor. 15:23); afterward they that are Christs at His coming. In other words, the Just join the choir of the Righteous at the beginning of the thousand-year reign and the sinful an assembly of their own at the end of the thousand-year period. Is this not the truth of matter, Father?
EC: As I explained to you earlier, the True Church of Christ understands the millennium of Holy Scripture mystically and symbolically to mean an indeterminate number of years. Do you think that Scripture only in this passage speaks in a mystical and veiled manner, or could it be that many hard to comprehend subjects are approached in this way? Are there not, in fact, many mystical, symbolic and allegorical expressions or events that cannot be explained literally (Rev. 5:1) but carry exalted and spiritual meanings often completely different from that readily apparent? How can we explain the book of Revelation literally when it is bound with seven seals? (Rev. 6:4) What is the red horse that is like unto fire? And what of the seven angels who were given seven plagues? (Rev. 15:1-7) How should we understand them?
