The Second Coming and the Millennium

Text: Revelation 20:1-7

Series: Restoration Sermons

Date:

Speaker: Ed Rangel

Location: Waupaca Church of Christ

Bible Version: NASB 1995

Sermon Type: Expository

Learning Objectives

By the close of this lesson the hearer should be able to:

1. Recognize that the "thousand years" appears only once in Scripture, in a highly figurative book.
2. Give reasons the millennium of Revelation 20 is not a literal, future, earthly reign.
3. Show that one universal, simultaneous judgment of the righteous and wicked occurs at Christ's coming.

Thesis

The "thousand years" is mentioned only once in the Bible — in the most figurative book of all — and cannot bear the weight of a literal earthly reign; Scripture everywhere teaches instead one coming, one resurrection, and one simultaneous judgment of righteous and wicked, leaving no room for a literal millennium.

Burden

An entire end-times system has been built on six verses in the most symbolic chapter of the most symbolic book in the Bible — and on a thousand-year period mentioned exactly once in all of Scripture. That alone should make us cautious. We do not build fundamental doctrines on a single figurative passage while ignoring the plain teaching of the rest of the Word. the does the sober thing: he asks whether Revelation 20 can carry the freight laid on it, and he sets it beside the clear passages on resurrection and judgment. The burden of this lesson is to let the plain texts govern the obscure one, and so to free people from a system the Bible never taught.

Introduction

"Millennium" is the Latin for a thousand years; the Greek is chilias. The second coming and the millennium have been bound together down through the ages — but they are not bound together in the Bible. The outline examines two things: the one passage that mentions the thousand years, Revelation 20, and the Scripture's plain teaching on the judgment.

I. Revelation 20:1-7 — The Only Mention of a Thousand Years (Revelation 20:1-7)

1. This is the only place in all Scripture that speaks of a thousand years in this connection.
• A truth can be mentioned only once and still be true — but for a doctrine this fundamental to appear only once is highly unusual; no other fundamental fact is so treated.
• Stranger still, it appears in the part of the New Testament hardest to understand, and there in symbolic, figurative terms. Why would God reveal a literal, central program only here, only once, and only in symbols?
• Is the passage figurative or literal?
• Only here is a resurrection of the righteous placed a thousand years before that of the wicked. The plain passages put both in judgment together (Rev. 20:12, 15).
• The clear texts agree: all face one judgment (Matt. 25:46; John 5:28-29; 1 John 2:28).
• Reasons not to take it literally:
• If the "first resurrection" means saints raised with glorified bodies, there would be no need to assure them that "the second death has no power" over them — the glorified are already beyond it.
• The passage allows only two classes — those in the "first resurrection" and those under "the power of the second death." Where, then, would we place all who are supposedly born and live during the thousand years? The literal scheme has no room for them.
• It would make Christ and all His saints reign for a thousand years over only the wicked then living, since on that scheme the dead wicked are not yet raised — a strange and unworthy picture of the reign of Christ.
• "The second death" is plainly separation from God (Rev. 20:14-15) — a spiritual reality, confirming the figurative character of the whole.

Read with its own book and against the plain texts, Revelation 20 will not yield a literal earthly millennium.

II. The Judgment — One, Universal, and Simultaneous (John 5:28-29)

1. The righteous and the wicked will be judged together. The proof is simple and positive:
• Christ will separate the good and the wicked at one time, like sheep from goats (Matt. 25:31-46).
• Both are raised and judged at the same time — "all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and will come forth," some to life and some to judgment, in one hour (John 5:28-29).
• A day has been appointed to judge all (Acts 17:31; Rom. 14:10, 12; 2 Cor. 5:9-11; 1 John 4:17).
• This judgment is at His coming.
• It occurs "when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven" (2 Thess. 1:6-10).
• It will bring to light all hidden things (Rom. 2:16; 1 Cor. 4:5).
• "The day of judgment" is set at His coming (2 Pet. 3:7, 10, 12; Rev. 20:11-15).
• Therefore the judgment is simultaneous. No provision is made anywhere for people living on earth through a millennium after the Lord comes. Scripture teaches one universal, simultaneous judgment of all mankind at the coming of Christ — which leaves no thousand-year gap to be filled.

Application

Be careful where you build. A doctrine that rests on one figurative passage, read against the plain teaching of dozens of others, is a house built on sand. The Bible gives you one coming, one general resurrection, and one judgment of the righteous and wicked together — and that is enough to live and die by. Do not let charts and timelines about a literal earthly reign rob you of the plain, bracing truth: Christ is coming once more, and when He comes, every person who has ever lived will be raised and judged at the same hour. That truth is simpler than the systems and infinitely more urgent. The real question Revelation 20 should leave you with is not "when is the millennium?" but "on which side of that one judgment will I stand?"

Conclusion

The millennium and the second coming are wedded in the traditions of men, not in the Word of God. The thousand years is mentioned once, in symbols, in the hardest book of the Bible; the plain texts everywhere teach one coming and one simultaneous judgment of all. Let the clear govern the obscure, and the literal millennium simply vanishes — leaving the far weightier certainty that we shall all stand before Him together.

Invitation

There is one judgment coming, and it is set for the day Christ appears. Prepare for it now, while there is time, in the only way Scripture gives: believe on the Lord Jesus, repent of your sins, confess Him, and be baptized for the remission of your sins (Acts 2:38), so that when the dead are raised you come forth "to a resurrection of life" and not "of judgment" (John 5:28-29). Come while we sing.

Word Study

Scripture Interlock Table

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Converted from H. Leo Boles, Outline 39. Doctrinal audit: core-framework — amillennial; the "thousand years" of Rev. 20 read as figurative (one mention, symbolic book), with one coming, one general resurrection, and one simultaneous judgment of righteous and wicked at Christ's return. Explicitly refutes premillennialism. Fully consistent with the framework; no correction. The interpretive arguments are Boles' own, presented as his reasoned case. Style audit: OCR cleanup ("II Cor. 5:9-11"→2 Cor. 5:9-11). All of Boles' citations verified and retained as given.