Mr. Parousia70,
I'm a novice to the millennial issue, and have been trying to form an opinion over the last couple of days. At least in one respect I am not biased, namely that I don't much care whether the 1000 years is literal or not.
On the other hand indoctrination has biased me against the idea that Satan is already bound. I was always taught, and have always assumed, that he is still very much active in the world. So I've been seriously considering your claim that Satan is already bound but find myself in disagreement for the following reasons.
If Satan was bound in apostolic days so that he can no longer deceive the nations, I would expect to have seen, from that time, a major increase in world virtue compared to OT times. Instead, what we have seen worldwide is the same worldwide violence, slavery, imperialism, ethnic cleansing, sexual immorality, idolatry, witchcraft, drug addiction, dishonesty etc. I live in a "civilized" nation economically prosperous but daily I work among colleagues who are continually backstabbing each other in an effort to get the next job promotion.
As "proof" that Satan is bound, you said (paraphrased), "Isn't it true that every nation has at least one Christian? The gospel was unavailable to the nations back when Satan was reigning. Now Christ is reigning."
But this looks to me like two false dichotomies.
Dichotomy 1: The gospel was previously unavailable to the nations. Now it is.
This dichtomy is false. Keep in mind that revival is geographical. It hits one nation or another. The fact that God chose Israel as his first region of major revival was not a denial of the gospel to other nations. In fact the gospel was pronounced to PRE-Israel people such as Abraham. The only condition, in both testaments, is faith. Saalvation has never been nation-dependent. Jonah's preaching the gospel to Nineveh, a city of 120,000 people, at which they REPENTED, challenges the assumption that the gospel was unavailable to the nations. The truth is that Israel failed in her mission to BRING the gospel to the nations, which I cannot discuss in detail here.
The only reason that the gospel has finally sprinkled the Gentile nations is that God, weary of dealing with Israel, has now shifted revival geographically to the Gentiles, the whole point of Romans 11. Satan's binding or loosing has nothing to do with it, nor is even mentioned in Romans 11. In fact, there is a serious weakness in your syllogism.
(1) Major Premise: The nations cannot get the gospel while Satan is reigning.
(2) Minor Primise: Satan is no longer reigning. He was bound in Apostolic days.
(3) Conclusion: Hence the gospel is now available to, event present amongst, all the nations.
The weakness is this: If the Major Premise is true, that is, if the nations cannot get the gospel while Satan is reigning, it's hard to see how Israel got the gospel at all, since she too, is one of the nations. You will have to then admit that's Satan's reigning had NOTHING to do with whether or not the gospel was available to Israel, in which case why should we accept the Major Premise? I reject it - categorically.
Dichotomy 2: Satan was reigning until apostolic times. Now Christ is reigning in His millennial kingdom.
False dichotomy. God has ALWAYS reigned, and since Christ has always been God, Christ has always reigned. Since Christ has always reigned, the millennial reign, if it is to have any meaning at all, must be something BETTER than what the world experienced during Satan's reign, that is, when Satan was still LOOSE. Here again we must define the millennial inaugeration as a transition from a worldwide predominance of wickedness to a worldwide predominance of virtue, for instance the majority of people should be Christians for starters, I should think. Today, in the USA, we are not even allowed to pray in public schools!
This is not to say that your arguments have no merit, or that my arguments are water-tight. Rather, I would say that my critique uncovers a "degree of weakness" in your position, which is enough, in my view, to shift the burden of proof, if we couple this with the fact that the amillennial reading of Rev 20 is contextually weak as well. Here I'm referring, of course, to the fact that it requires considerable theological ingenuity to read "spiritual resurrection" into the "first resurrection" of Rev 20 given the IMMEDIATE CONTEXT of beheaded martyrs, a point addresed quite well in the following article:
http://www.biblicalstudies.com/bstudy/eschatology/kingdom1.htm
I am not denying that Christ is ALSO called the "First Resurrection." But every text has a context. For instance Satan, like Christ, is called a "god" (the god of this world). In one text even people are referred to as gods. Ripped out of context, these texts could lead us to worship both satan and men.
Now here is why Christ, as First Resurrection, is NOT the same "first resurrection" spoken of in Rev 20. Speaking of the beheaded martyrs, Rev 20 says "they lived and reigned a thousand years." Spiritual resurrection is eternal. It's not likely, at least it's certainly not a textual norm, that a writer would put a limited time span on an eternal reality (whether literally or symbolically). After all, John is the writer, and elsewhere he had no qualms about referring to "eternal life" in Christ (John 3:16). Yet here he puts a specific limited timespan on it (1000 years whether literally or symboliclly). Why? Because BODILY existence is ordinarily temporary, and the context here bespeaks bodily resurrection, not spiritual resurrection. John speaks of a 1000 year resurection AFTER WHICH Satan is loosed for a "short time." Tell me, how can our eternal, spiritual resurrection have an aftermath, which only lasts for a "short time"?
Another problem with taking Christ as the "First Resurrection" of Rev 20 is that the passage does not name Christ, that is, doesn't speak of this Individual rising. Christ as the "First Resurrection" of the NT refers to His bodily resurrection. It is bodily that He is numerically "First." As such, men cannot be classified, whenever He is the reference point, as the FIRST resurrection. They are, at best, the SECOND resurrection (whenever He is the reference point). In Rev 20 men are classed as the first resurrection precisely because Christ's resurrection is NOT the reference point of Rev 20. Rev 20 is not talking about Christ as the First Resurrection, or our participation spiritually in it, it's talking about beheaded men as the first of two resurrections chronicled in the immediate context. This is not to deny that we all partake SPIRITUALLY in Christ's BODILY First Resurrection. But I'll say it again, namely that when one is talking about Christ as the First Resurrection, Christians at large are not, in this context, properly refered to as first, since our bodies are not the first to rise, relative to HIM. Here again we see that every text, every word, has a context, and the slightest intermixing of contexts, indiscriminately, can result in torturous exegesis, a charge which amillenialists have insufficiently allayed, as far as I can see.
As I said, I'm a novice to the millennial issue, and don't much care one way or the other, but so far it looks to me that premillennialism is a stronger position than amillennialism.
Sorry, Mr Parousia70, but I find myself in loud applause of Markea's critiques of amillennialism on this thread. They are both skillfull and convincing.
