“Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.” Revelation 20:6
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
I want to thank those who submitted questions when I had the box outside of my office. There were two questions that came in asking what Lutherans believe about the timeline of the end times including things like the rapture and the 1000 year reign of Christ. I realized from the questions that we are probably overdo for a Bible Study on this topic. I will do my best to give a brief response here.
For starters, how would you respond to the question, “Should we take the Bible literally?” I am guessing that most of you immediately thought, “Pastor, of course we should take the Bible literally!” At least, I hope this was your reaction!! We believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God and chronicles real history. There really was a flood that covered all the earth in the days of Noah. Abraham, King David, the prophet Elijah, and the apostle Paul were real people who trusted in the Lord and said and did the things the Scriptures say they did. Most importantly, Jesus really is the incarnate Son of God—true God and true man—and He really did die on the cross, rise from the dead, and ascend into heaven for us and for our salvation. We do take the Bible literally. However, we also seek to take it in its intended sense. As the Holy Spirit inspired human authors, He led them to use language fully, and some of this language is not intended to be taken literally but rather there is poetic license and symbolism and hyperbole etc. For example, when the prophet Amos is describing the future restoration of Israel, he says, “The mountains shall drip sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with it.” Does taking the Bible literally mean that we are waiting for the day when instead of water flowing down from mountains it will be wine? I would suggest, rather, that Amos is using hyperbole to describe the overflowing blessings of the coming Messianic Kingdom. Likewise, when Jesus says, “If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away,” does He really want us to blind ourselves to avoid the sin of coveting, or is he using language intentionally in a non-literal way to teach something important? I would argue for the latter.
The book of Revelation gets its name from the Greek word Apokalypsis translated into English as Apocalypse, which means “revelation.” Apocalyptic literature is a type of literature that often includes dreams and/or visions, unusual symbolic imagery, number symbolism, and has a heavy interest in end-time events. The opening line of the book of Revelation identifies that it is apocalyptic—it is intended to be. This means that we should expect it to intentionally have a lot of symbolism and things that are intended to communicate truth but not necessarily be taken literally. Revelation 20 is an interesting chapter that describes the binding of Satan for a thousand years, and a thousand year reign of Christ at the end of which Satan is released and subsequently defeated. How are we to understand the timeline of the events described there? Some Christians take this chapter as describing a literal 1000 year period that follows 7 years of tribulation and precedes the final judgment. (This view is called pre-millennialism). Lutherans view the number 1000 as a cubing of the number 10 which is frequently used for perfection or completeness. We understand this to be the total (complete) time that Christ is reigning from His ascension to the right hand of God until the time when He comes again, and Satan is finally defeated once and for all. In other words, we are in the 1000 year reign of Christ now. (This view is called Amillenialism.) This fits well with other passages in Revelation and elsewhere in Scripture that point to Christ ascending to reign. The way we understand the number here is similar to how we understand the 144,000 in Revelation 7. Rather than describing 144,000 literal people who are saved, we see the number symbolism of 12 which often stands for God’s people (i.e. – – 12 tribes of Israel and then 12 apostles) and 10 as the number for perfection/completeness and you have 12 squared and 10 cubed standing for “the total number of the people of God.”
There is a lot more to talk about on this topic, so I look forward to some good discussions and questions at some future Bible Studies. In short, I would just say this, when you read Revelation it is very important to rely on the rest of Scripture and use it to guide how you understand what you read. Thanks again for the good questions, and may our Ascended and reigning Lord bless and keep you now and forever.