Where does Scripture say there will be another thousand literal years after Christ returns to earth the second and final time?
Literally in Revelation 20. Why would Jesus leave earth prior to Revelation 20?
What I affirm is that Christ has come to earth once, and He will return once more on the last day, when the final trumpet sounds and time will be no more. A thousand years equates to time that ends with the seventh and final trumpet.
Revelation 10:5-7 (KJV) And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer: But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.
The return is a last day, but not the last day. The 1,000 years with Christ is the last day. Jesus will sit in judgment in Jerusalem after the Second Coming. Matthew 25:31 is a process over time. Jesus did not come the first time, the week of the Cross and gave the command to put Him on the Cross and called it finished. There was a 3.5 year process from Baptism to Resurrection. Why do you think the Second Coming is not a similar process?
The first coming was the process of being the Messiah. The Second Coming is the process of being the Prince.
Christ received the Kingdom when He ascended to the Ancient of Days after His resurrection. He has been reigning from heaven over His Kingdom since that time.
Daniel 7:13-14 (KJV) I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.
Acts 1:9-11 (KJV) And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
Yes, he is reigning from heaven. Yet at the Second Coming when the process of the final harvest is complete, as noted in Matthew 13 with the angels, at the 7th Trumpet all those free reigning kingdoms become under the direct authority of Christ. After a physical resurrection, many humans will live and reign for another 1,000 years.
What would be the purpose for a thousand years? That doesn't make any sense??? Once sin and death are no more, we will live with Christ throughout eternity on the new earth. So you need to explain why there would still be this TIME of a thousand years once Christ has come the second and final time????
Paul explained it in 1 Corinthians 15:24
"Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power."
The Second Coming was not the end of the Millennium, it was the beginning.
"For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet."
This is describing Jesus as Prince on earth after the Second Coming. It is not describing the first coming, nor the time between comings. It is the realization of those 6 promises in Daniel 9. They will be lived out for 1,000 years with the Prince ruling from Jerusalem.
It's purpose is to redeem whosoever believes! It's called redemptive history. Christ came to seek and to save His lost. He does that throughout TIME, which is what a thousand years symbolizes. But the thousand years equates to TIME between Christ first coming and His coming again.
No, there has not been 6,000 years since the Cross. Redemptive history has been since Enoch who walked with God. God redeemed all of mankind, not just those born in the last 1992 years. Your redemptive history is short sighted and is not a symbolic 1,000 years written about in Revelation 20. That biblical interpretation is worse than preterism.
John shows us the thousand years has already begun when he sees the martyred souls of saints alive and reigning with Christ in heaven. The second death has no power over them because in life they had part in the first resurrection, which is the resurrection of Christ. John writes that only those who partake of Christ's resurrection in life, (the first resurrection) will reign with Christ after death, and they will never die again.
First of all, souls are not dead. Those souls currently in Paradise already rule and reign with Christ. Revelation 20 is a physical resurrection on earth. Nothing is claimed they are dead nor in heaven in any verse of Revelation 20. That is a human imagination of assumption more than viewing the chapter as chronologically after 19. Satan was just defeated at Armageddon in chapter 19, and then bound in Revelation 20. Should the point of Satan being bound have been a totally separate chapter?
In Rev 20 John sees life in heaven for those who died in faith on earth. That is what seeing souls equals. John does not see complete humans, but only souls that are still alive when they should be dead, because they were beheaded. In the vision John is given to understand that life (souls) still exist even after physical death for those of faith.
To be a living soul without a body indicates having the breath of life (spirit) from God still present after physical death. The soul alive indicates the breath of life from God. These martyred souls still possess that breath of life, which is spirit (intellect; mind) through the Spirit of God in them. Without the life giving Spirit, man simply physically dies having no life at all until the last day when they will hear Christ calling them from the grave to stand before God in Judgment.
This description of the soul and spirit sounds like gnostic or pagan connotation. Souls received a physical body at the Cross. This is mentioned in Matthew 27. That body was not stripped away by God, putting them back into the mode of death. This is all backwards. Those souls in Revelation 20 were not even martyrs. If they had not chopped off their heads God would have marked them for death. The only call to salvation is getting one's head chopped off. This beheading is not symbolic of martyrdom. From Revelation 13 till 20, John is presenting a choice between being beheaded or receiving the mark. This is not about left behind believers being martyrs. This is the literal choice between Death and the Resurrection and the Life. This is a lost sinful soul receiving the gift of redemption with the physical act of cutting their head off. They are not in heaven with the resurrected glorified church. They are given incorruptible permanent physical bodies to live on earth and reign on earth. They are the gleanings of the final harvest. They are literally the only reason Satan even gets 42 months of total desolation in full control of the earth. It is so desolate that the only means of salvation is via chopping one's head off.
Genesis 2:7 (KJV) And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
John 5:28-29 (KJV) Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.
These verses cannot even apply to Revelation 20. God sets up thrones for judgment. This is not Jesus calling souls out of their graves. Those beheaded were never placed in graves. Their flesh just left to rot by those who have the mark of the beast. It is called a first resurrection, because the soul only receives a permanent incorruptible physical body. They are not glorified, but only escape the second death called the LOF.
