The night after Japan’s earthquake struck, I watched an 18 minute video shot from a helicopter as it recorded the now famous tsunami moving inland near Sendai, Japan. As the wall of water rammed through the town, consuming houses, cars, people, and all manner of stuff along the way I was mesmerized by its relentless advance. The largest earthquake in Japan’s history brings to mind its timing in earth’s history; could it be part of what Jesus referred to in the Olivet Discourse and thus be a harbinger? The fulfillment of prophecy is illusory since its proof is after-the-fact; how can anybody know that? Yet we are to note of earthquakes in “diverse places.” The current tragedy needs a humanitarian response and I am thankful that organizations such as Samaritan’s Purse are already on the scene.
Part 3 of 3
In this final post on prophecy, I include another viewpoint on prophecy and then quote at length from the book The Thousand Days, which was written in 1889. It represents how Evangelicals were thinking about Israel, prophecy, and the Millennium at the turn of the century.
One view that I did not mention is the “preterist” view; which believes that some/much of Revelation was fulfilled in 70 A.D., when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. The following book came out in 1998 by the reformed theologian R.C. Sproul on this subject:
Review By: Ron Maness
The Last Days According to Jesus by R.C. Sproul
Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1998, 250 pages.
“This book deals with the Olivet Discourse of Jesus, recorded in its most complete form in Matthew 24-25, and in more abbreviated form in Mark 13 and Luke 21. The stated purpose of the book is “to evaluate moderate preterism and its view of eschatology” (page 24). In general, preterism believes that the kingdom is a present reality, in contrast to dispensationalism, which Sproul says “regards the kingdom as yet future” which “will not come until the parousia” (the second coming of Christ) (pages 23-24). But Sproul distinguishes between two distinct forms of preterism: 1) radical preterism, which holds that all future prophecies in the New Testament have already been fulfilled (including the parousia), and 2) moderate preterism, which holds that while many prophecies in the New Testament have already been fulfilled, some crucial prophecies have not yet been fulfilled...
This was confirmed in the January 1999 issue of Tabletalk, the monthly magazine published by Sproul’s Ligonier Ministries. That issue is titled “Some of You Will Not Sleep,” and the theme is NT prophecy regarding the last days, and in particular the preterist view. In the opening article, Sproul says that in his eschatological pilgrimage, he has fluctuated, at times being drawn to the amillennial position and at other times, the historic premillennial view (though he states he “has never been enticed by dispensational eschatology, despite its being the contemporary majority report among evangelicals”—page 6). However, despite having given little credence to postmillennialism in the past, he says: “Yet to my surprise, I have found myself more and more attracted to an orthodox post-mill position with its moderate preterist perspective” (page 6). So it would appear that the post-mill and preterist perspectives are ones that we will hear more about in upcoming days.”
The following quotes come from the 1889 book The Thousand Years, by Nathaniel West. Each section has a heading.
p.53 Book of Revelation
The whole riddle of Ezekiel’s Apocalypse (chapters 37-48), finds its solution in John’s Apocalypse (chapters 10-20).. We have the personal, visible, and glorious advent and appearing of Messiah, for the redemption of His people, destruction of His enemies, and erection of His Kingdom (Rev. 1:7; 6:16, 17; 10:1; 11:3, 17; 14:1; 16:15; 19:11-16). We have the judgement and imprisonment of satan and his angels. (Rev. 12:7-9; 20:1-3) We have the judgement of Antichrist and his armies (Rev. 14:18-20; 16:16; 19:11-21). We have the resurrection of the faithful dead, and their reign with Christ in His kingdom of glory on earth (Rev. 5:10; 6:11,18; 20:4-6).
p.77 Book of Revelation
What we find is that no prophet of the Old Testament gives a complete, but only a partial picture of the End-Time, even as neither Jesus Christ, nor any Apostle does, but that the work of John, under the guidance of the Spirit of Prophecy, was to combine the Eschata of Joel, Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah; in short, the Eschata of all the prophets.. [so they are arranged in their temporal order] until all the Eschata fall into their places.. to make one grand tableau of the End-Time.
p.78 Book of Revelation
Nothing is clearer than that the 1000 years of John are found in the Old Testament prophets, and are Hosea’s “Third Day,” Isaiah’s “Multitude of Days,” Ezekiel’s “Many Days,” bounded by two judgements, each distinguished from the other, and between which the Millennial Kingdom lies.
p.93 Interpretation errors
The theory that divests prophetic numbers of their chronological exactness, and makes them mere signs, or counters of abstract ideas.... sprang from the Augustinian view of the thousand years, which, as a spiritualizing and allegorizing protest against a gross, crass, Chiliasm, swung its reacting pendulum to the opposite extreme, interpreting “Israel” as the “New Testament Church,” the “Church” as the “Kingdom,” and the thousand years as “all the years of our Christian dispensation.”
p.105 Interpretation Errors
The post-millennarian assumption, that Israel is nationally cast away forever, that God has no national future for Israel restored, and that Israel is now the “Church” is the one fundamental and false postulate that blinds so many to the true interpretation of the “70 Weeks” of Daniel.
p.207 Interpretation Errors
When John wrote the Apocalypse, A.D. 96, the Destruction of Jerusalem predicted by both Daniel and our Lord already lay behind him, by the distance of a full generation... Far from his mind was the thought that Jerusalem should forever sink out of sight, and Rome arise a Christian city, the center of the world. No! but Rome, New Babylon, christianized, should go down in the dust as the End of the Days, under Antichrist’s blow, and Jerusalem, long down-trodden, shall rise from beneath the Gentile heel, shake off her chains, be redeemed with judgement, and shine as the central glory of the coming age.
p.xii Interpretation Errors
The Anti-Semitism of our modern times, with its hatred of the Jew, -a thing disgraceful to Christendom, and so unlike the Philo-Israelism of the apostolic days, - is due, in no small degree, to these false systems of interpretation.
p.272 Interpretation Errors
That the 1000 years begin with the First Advent, and represent the whole Church period down to the Second Advent. This was the view of Augustine, Eusebius, Jerome, and the State Church after the early martyr-period, the view of the Mediaeval Church, the Lateran and the Scholastic theory, still leavening Protestantism itself not yet wholly free from the traditions of Rome.
Israel is forgotten. Rather, the Church is Israel.
p.387 Interpretation Errors
It is from Jerome, chiefly, we get the sounding approach that, to believe in a Pre-Millennial Coming of the Lord Jesus to restore Israel, raise His sleeping saints and establish on earth his kingdom as predicted by the prophets is to “Judaize.”
p.414 Interpretation Errors
Never was a violence, so monstrous to the word of God, committed until the Church, as Maitland says, began to “Heathenize,” and Origen and Jerome, and Augustine, great, good, and beguiled, evaporated Israel’s right to future recognition; and, breaking as with hammer stroke the chronological connection, first between Chapters 7 and 8, then between Chapters 11 and 12, and next between Chapters 19 and 20, applied the symbols, concerning Israel to the Church, sliding backward the 1000 years, across the whole dispensation covered by the 7 Epistles, and dating these 1000 years from the death of Christ! That is the way it was done! That is the magic, mischief, and monstrosity, of pre-advent Millennialism, which now, abandoning its old arguments, raises the banner, “Symbolical numbers don’t count!”
p.436 Interpretation Errors
This view goes back to the days of the platonizing Origen and Augustine, both men of grandeur and renown, who, confounding the “Church” with the “Kingdom,” idealized Israel out of his rights and place in future history. It became the mediaeval creed, and naturally enough, influenced the Reformers, not wholly escaped from Rome’s traditions, and lacking the time to study Eschatology, yet rebuking a false Chiliasm, and opening the door to the true. It is held by many noble men who see in the Psalms of David only the Church whenever Israel, Jacob, Zion, or Jerusalem are named. Our Christian Hymnology, so beautiful, also supports the same exegesis as it stands on “Jordan’s stormy banks.” The habit of allegorizing becomes a part of devotion, and the result is that “Ideal Israel” emerges in the consciousness of believers as the only Israel known to faith and prophecy!... The main thing in prophecy is said to be “the inner thought,” the “Idea underneath”; not the words.
p.421 Catholic Anti-Semitism
No sooner was the martyr-flame extinguished by the first imperial law of toleration, and the Church protected by the State, then laws most cruel were enacted against Pagans, Heretics, and Jews. By the (Catholic) Church, which assumed to “take Israel’s place in the Kingdom of God,” the Jews were consigned to an irreversible curse;
ostracized, hated, persecuted, their Synagogues burned to the ground. Whatever cruelty the Inquisition and the Papal Empire afterward practiced was begun here.
Ambrose of Milan, good, great, bold, and eloquent, and who moulded Augustine’s view and cherished the spirit that formed the new canon of interpretation, was a zealot against the Jews, encouraging the conflagration of the synagogues, and rebuking Theodosius for insisting on restitution by the incendiaries.
p.422 Catholic Anti-Semitism
In the heat of such hatred, the Church-Teachers of the 4th century, zealous for Christ, and robed in imperial toilet furnished at the State expense, and believing the Millennial Age was born, and the Devil was bound, rejected the Chilialism of the Anti-Nicene fathers and first apologists of Christianity, and formulating the new canon concerning Israel, applied to themselves the Old Testament prophecies, and voted Israel nationally dead forever! It was the doctrine of the Middle-Ages, and is Rome’s doctrine today [1892]. The Church is the Kingdom and the Church is Israel.
p.82 Correct interpretation
But as surely as Israel “abides” Israel and Daniel’s “people” are not the “Church," so surely is Israel the key for the true and final interpretation of the closing prophecy of the New Testament.
p.96 Correct interpretation
Biblical prophecy is itself, and by necessity, a divine measurer of time, is organically bound to history, and connected with a calendar by which the Times and Seasons, the ages and the ends, have been regulated in the past, are so now, and will be in the future.
p.97 Correct interpretation
The prophetic numbers are all grounded, as Leyrer and Cruisius both discerned, in “the cyclical relations of a higher order of things we yet see,” but the laws of which work on a greater or smaller scale, yet always in the same analogous proportions... He works everywhere, and does all things “by number, measure, and weight.”
p.427 Correct interpretation
...we may follow men of scholarship and greatness, such as ....Delitzsch... and agree... that it is vain, either to idealize, or seek to spiritualize, the many and minute details of these chapters [which speak of Israel in the future]... we have no right to distort into the spiritual, or pronounce fantastic, the hope of Israel’s actual glorification in their land.
p.253 Correct interpretation
Israel is the key to the book of Revelation. It can only be evaded by the adoption of a spiritualizing interpretation which makes “Israel” mean the New Testament Gentile “Church,” and so confounding things different, negates the prophetic word of both Testaments.
p.244 Overview
...what was pledged to Abraham in covenant has now been realized, viz.: That in him and his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. That is the meaning of the 144,000!
(1) That Israel shall be converted when the fulness of the Gentiles has come in, and the Times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.; (2) That this shall be during Daniel’s 70th Week; (3) that the Apocalypse presupposes the truth of all Old Testament predictions, and the New Testament ones, concerning Israel; (4) that, as a people, Israel shall repossess their fatherland; (5) that an election, large indeed, shall be protected in the Great Tribulation, and survive to see the Advent; (6) That a Countless Company of Jews and Gentiles, both, shall suffer death, and pass into the peace of God, and rise again after the First Resurrection; (7) That Israel, as such, shall stand victorious with the Lamb upon the earthly Mount Zion, and dwell in the “Beloved City.” (8) That not only in the Millennial days, but in the final state, Israel shall be the Root and Basis, the Center, and the Crown, of the glorious Kingdom of God.
p.251 Overview
And with Delitzsch, we can say, “The New Testament Apocalypse represents the Old Testament Eschata in their future temporal succession and order. It is, in this respect, the Key to the whole prophetic word. To spiritualize the prophecies concerning Israel, is to distort and negate the prophetic word itself.”
p.xiv Israel's Old and New Covenant
The Old Covenant at Sinai, and the New Covenant at Jerusalem, were, both, made with the literal Israel, with Jews, and not with Gentiles. Hebrews 7:8-13. Christian Israel, according to the flesh, was the historic and organic Root and Basis of the Church, at the first coming of Messiah - and at the Messiah’s Second Coming.
p.7 Israel
Israel, the created people of God, abides Israel, and the history of Israel is not a mere frame in which to hang pictures of the New Testament Gentile church.
p.9 Israel and Millennial Kingdom
The solution of the great problem of Israel’s future, sprung from the breach in David’s Kingdom, is the solution of the problem in David’s Kingdom, is the solution of the problem of the Millennial Kingdom, and comes with Israel’s future acceptance of David’s Son as their Lord, the closing up of the ancient breach in David’s Kingdom, the union of Israel and Judah in one nation, on the mountains of the fatherland forever.
p.69 Pre-1948 “Ignorance of Israel as a nation”
But it is equally true that whatever conversion of Jews occurred on the day of Pentecost, or of any Israelites since, is only the initial, not the final, redemption of that people, since Israel, as a nation, is still cast away, not gathered, their house desolate, and their land still trodden under Gentile feet.
p.455 Pre-1948 “Ignorance of Israel as a nation”
When Israel is a “nation born in a day,” then “the Lord will gather all Nations and they shall come and see His glory in Jerusalem.” Isaiah 66:18-21
p.11 Day of the Lord
To this “Day of the Lord” belong all the Eschata, or Last Things, that precede the age of glory on earth, and are connected with the Advent of Messiah. To this one End all prophecy constantly looks, in every picture of the future, from Joel to Malachi.
p.10 Millennial Age
It is among the “Eschata,” or “Last Things,” the things to “come to pass in the last days,” or “End Time,” that we find the Millennial Age.
It is bounded by two distinct judgements, one at the opening, one at the close of the Millennial Age, the opening judgement being that of the Nations, and of all powers, terrestrial and super-terrestrial, opposed to Christ and His reign, as also by a judgement upon Israel and Jerusalem, ending in the redemption of both.
The judgement that closes the Millennial Age is represented as a judgement on Gog and Magog, which extends itself to a visitation of final doom upon all the wicked, after which Israel rests eternally secure in their glorified land.
p.13 Messianic Age
The character of this Messianic Age is painted in colors the most gorgeous and brilliant in the prophets, even as it is sung in strains the most inspiring in the Psalms. When the Lord has come and brought salvation with His own right arm, and Jacob’s tribulation is past, everything puts on a new appearance. Under the New Covenant, sin is pardoned through Messiah’s death, the gospel is preached, the Gentiles are gathered, the Spirit is poured from on high, and streams of knowledge, holiness and life, perpetually overflow... The city of Jerusalem is transformed, made glorious not alone by the boundless wealth of the nations then tributary to it, but by the new-creating presence of the Lord Himself. The Temple is rebuilt in glory unsurpassed. The Land itself is transfigured into an Eden. Jerusalem is Jehovah’s throne. Zion is His dwelling place. The very desert blooms like Sharon... All nature is at peace, and man in harmony therewith. Idolatry and War and Crime exist no more. Sin is restrained and death is checked, because Satan is bound. The curse is gone, longevity returns, and Israel’s risen saints enjoy a deathless life, fresh and beauteous, as the flower on which the morning dew still rests, and the morning light still shines. In a new heaven and earth, the Holy City is crowned with light, and the nations walk in that light.
p.33 Messianic Age
The “Day of the Lord” is preceded by the outpouring of the Spirit upon Israel, attended by the reappearing of their wounded shepherd to them, their national, domestic, personal and universal, penitence and tears.
Then follows the Messianic Age of glory, the Millennial day, when Israel’s land is transfigured, Jerusalem inhabited forever, and the theocracy becomes a universal empire with Messiah as the universal king... All nations are obedient to Israel’s king. Jerusalem has seen a Jewish Christian Passover, and a Jewish Christian Pentecost, in which some Gentiles shared. She sees a Jewish Christian “Feast of Tabernacles” now, in which all nations blend their harvest jubilee... This is Zechariah’s painted page, a page among the very brightest and the richest in all Old Testament prediction.
p.35 Messianic Age
It remains now to speak definitely of the different names given to the Millennial Age in the Old Testament, and point out those passages where John found his 1000 years. In this we shall admire the unity of both Testaments, and learn that John understood the prophets better than do most of his expositors.
...the time when, in the vision of John, “the angel, having the key of the abyss, and a great chain in his hand, laid hold of the dragon, the Old Serpent, which is the devil and satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and cast him into the abyss, and shut and sealed it over him that he should deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years should be finished, after which he must be loosed for a little season.” Rev. 20:1-3
p.41 Messianic Age Begins
The letting loose of Satan is only the prelude to his total destruction, Rev. xx:10. Then follows the last, highest, and grandest revelation of God. The earth becomes now what it ought originally to have been, but was hindered from being by the sin of man, the common dwelling place of God and men. The heavenly Jerusalem, the Tabernacle in which God dwells with men. Rev. 20:1-3, descends upon the renovated earth and here Jehovah reigns as king.
[Nathaniel claims that Isaiah 24:22 and Ezekiel 38:8 describe the identical event.]
p.76 Millennial Age
The Messianic Kingdom and Glory on earth, i.e., the Millennial Age, is defined in six equivalent expressions:
1. Rov Yamim. Multitude of Days. Isaiah 24:22
2. Rabbim Yamim. Many Days. Ezekiel 38:8
3. Yom Hashshelishi. Third Day. Hosea 3:4-5
4. His Days. Psalm 72:7
5. Leolam. Forever. Ezekiel 37:25-28
6. Chilia Ete. Thousand Years. Revelation 20:1-7
...all descriptive of the same period of time, bounded on each side by the same events, the period between the Second Advent and the Destruction of Gog, or between the binding and loosing of satan.
p.50 Messianic Age Ends
What the prophet here predicts is Satan’s last attempt, through Gog and Magog, in the latter years, against the Kingdom of Messiah, after Israel has been long time restored, and dwelling safely in their fatherland as a reunited and converted people, and the final judgement on Gog and his armies.
p.18 Israel and Gog and Magog
It is new-born-Israel of the end-time, coming to their inheritance and priestly royalty, re-established in their land forever.
But the peculiarity of Ezekiel is this, that even to this coming age of Israel’s blessedness in the kingdom, he sees an “end;” not an end to the kingdom, but an end to the age. Another end heaves into sight, the transition point between the Millennial Age and the age that is endless. The event that marks this new end is the predicted war-march and judgement of Gog and Magog, at the end of Israel’s “many days” in the kingdom.
p.24 First and Second Advent
...at the First Advent the kingdom came in its spiritual inward power on the day of Pentecost - a tasting of the powers of the world to come,” - it was postponed in its outward, visible, and glorious part, as a polity and public sovereignty, until Messiah’s Second Coming; and this because of Israel’s unbelief.
p.24 Second Advent and 70th Week
The 70th week stands in the midst of the Day of the Lord. It precedes the Second Advent, the destruction of Antichrist, the Resurrection, and Israel’s glory in the kingdom restored to Israel.
p.25 70 Weeks
The prophetic formula, including the 70 years’ captivity, viz.: 70 plus 7 plus 62 plus (interval) plus 1, represents the whole stretch of time measured by the height of the Colossus, from head to feet, which is also the whole stretch of time measured by the life of the four beasts, in all reaching to the Second Advent..
p.27 Second Advent
The pre-condition of them all is the Second Advent, itself pre-conditioned by the witness of the gospel to all nations, and Israel’s begun repentance and return to Messiah. Nowhere, in all prophecy, is the Millennial Age located in the “Times of the Gentiles,” the Church-Historical Period, the time of Israel’s national death and resting in the grave.
These never come before the fall of the Colossus, nor before the overthrow of Antichrist, nor before the end of Gentile power, nor before the resurrection of the faithful dead; none of which events occur before Messiah’s coming in the clouds of heaven, descending to alight on the Mount of Olives.
p.38 Second Coming
The judgements upon Antichrist and his armies, and upon Satan and his hosts, are identical in Isaiah and John, and occur “in the day” the day of the Second Coming of Christ.
p.83 Second Advent of Messiah
Behold He comes with clouds, and every eye shall see Him; they also who pierced Him.” Rev 1:7
The text is a combination of two passages, one from Zechariah, the other from Daniel, both in strict textual connection, in the prophets, with Israel’s deliverance at the Second Advent of Messiah.
p.68 the Thousand Years
“In the history of Christ the history of Israel is recapitulated.” (Delitzsch) Equally clear is it that the “multitude of days” in Isaiah 24:22, and “Many Days” in Ezekiel 38:8, are identical with “the Thousand Years” in John (Revelation 20:1-7), and reach from the Second Coming of Christ to the destruction of Gog and Magog.
p.106 Law of the Sabbath
It is the law of the Sabbath that shapes the times and seasons, the ages and the ends, the cycles and the epicycles, equal or proportionate, and is ingrained in all the processes of Nature.
p.107 70 Weeks
It is of the first importance however, to observe that the prophecy of the 70 Weeks relates the fortunes of the literal Israel, and to Israel as a nation, and is an answer to prayer and anxious investigation of the prophets concerning Israel, to the world.
p.115 70 Weeks
This is what the Angel says to Daniel, viz., that “70 Sevens” are appointed for the purpose of bringing Israel’s final redemption, and “69 Sevens” are appointed for the purpose of bringing Messiah’s first Appearing... After the 69 Weeks, Messiah shall be “cut off” and there shall be nothing for Him.
p.116 70 Weeks
What the Angel informs Daniel is that Messiah will come while the Second Temple is standing, and the Second Temple shall be destroyed because Messiah has been “cut off.”
p.117 Times of the Gentiles
There is a decreed measure of national punishment. It is the “times of the Gentiles” and this interval between the 69th and 70th Weeks, during which the national covenant is suspended, and Jerusalem lies prostrate under Gentile feet, and Israel is nationally cast away, is opened out by Messiah Himself.
p.117 70th Week
The 70th Week closes the long Interval that follows the rejection of Messiah and destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, A.D. 70, and is divided into two equal periods of 3 1/2 years or 1260 days.
p.195 70 Weeks
Ever since “blood, fire, and vapor of smoke” colored the sky over smoking Jerusalem, Israel has fulfilled the role in the legend of the “wandering Jew.” Awful, sad, weary, the way! But the end approaches. And surely, as God has already literally fulfilled 69 of the 70 Sevens or 483 years decreed upon that people and that city, so surely will He fulfill the 70th also, to them, in their own Sabbatic time... Israel divides both the sea and the Jordan. The spiritualizing, or idealizing of Old Testament prophecy, and the whole false conception of the character of John’s Apocalypse have only made the evil almost incurable. From the days of Eusebius and Augustine, Jerome, Africanus and Syncellus, the Church has gone staggering like Elymas, groping for the door. Greek, Latin, Lutheran, Reformed, all are in the mire.
p.197 70 Weeks
The 70 Sevens are an Outline of the Philosophy of Universal History, and the Almanac of the Ages. They reveal to us an organic Unity and theologic End of History such as Herodotus and Thucydides never dreamed of, simply because they were unable to understand Israel’s place in the “Times Fore-appointed,”
p.198 Conclusion of 70 Weeks
The 70 Sevens cover the entire times of the Gentiles from the fall of Babylon in the past, to the fall of the greater Babylon in the present. They begin with Cyrus. They end with Christ at His Second Coming. They are in the Times of the Gentiles, but not of them. They are decreed upon the Jews Jerusalem, not upon the English and London, nor the Irish and Dublin, nor the Scotch and Edinboro, nor the Americans and Boston or New York. They belong to Palestine alone.
And, as the 69 Sevens have been literally fulfilled upon the Jews and Jerusalem, in their own land, so will the 70th Seven be fulfilled upon the same people, in the same land, and according to the law of their own Sabbatic Seven.
p.396 Two Witnesses
Like Joshua and Zerubbabel, the Restorers of the Jewish Church and the State, after the Return form the Babylonian Exile, so do these Two Witnesses, the two “Sons of oil, standing before the Lord of the whole earth,” labor for the Restoration of Israel returned from a longer captivity. Like Moses and Elijah, one the founder of the Jewish nation, the other reformer in the hour of its apostasy, so do these Witnesses labor to the same end.
p.406 Beast
Chapter 13 tells us what the Beast is doing during the Second Half of the 70th Week. He is working up the “Great Tribulation,” while the 144,000 are sheltered in the wilderness, and Satan, bodied in the Antichrist, expends his rage upon the “remnant of the Woman’s seed.”
p.407 Overview
And now come Chapters 16-19, giving us the Vials poured on the earth, intensely upon the seat or “throne” of the Antichrist, an account of the Harlot, the Armageddon scenes, the slaughter in the valley of Jehoshaphat, the great world-shaking earthquake, “the shock that splits the Mount of Olives,” and shatters the cities of the Nations, in that “day unique and only known to the Lord,” Zechariah 14:4-7
p.413 False Prophet
Bereft of his old companions, the Beast and the False Prophet in the lake of fire, Satan in the Pit, and alone, he sighs out the solitude, prostrate in a corner, wondering how long “1000 years” may be.
Upon this great event comes the announcement of a still greater and more solemn - the Resurrection of the righteous dead, the “First Resurrection in which the Apostles, Martyrs, and Confessors of Jesus made co-assessors and regents with Christ, live and reign with Him “the 1000 years.”
p.414 1000 years
The 1000 years, therefore, sustain a relation to the Eternal State in the final New Heaven and Earth, like that of a vestibule to the Grand Temple to which it is the Entrance.
At the close of the 1000 years, we encounter the Last Judgement - and the Last Resurrection, followed by the final Re-genesis of all things, the surrender of the Messianic Kingdom to God the Father, “the Son Himself subjected to Him that did subject all things to Him, that God may be all in all.” Rev. 20:11-15
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