The Millennium and the End of Sin

A thousand years sounds like a long time, but not when you’re in heaven. Graeme Loftus looks at the period after Christ comes a second time.

At this time of the year—the Easter season—most Christians focus in some way on the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the impact these two epochal events had on their own personal lives and 2000 years of history in general.

There are sound reasons for the enduring nature of Christianity. The thing that ultimately sets it apart from every other religion is the fact that the God of Christians is not just a metaphysical concept to explain big philosophical questions. Lacking a knowledge of or experience with God, most find it difficult to understand where we—humankind—came from, where we are going, and where meaning can be found in between those two immense times of our origins and destiny.

In the person of Jesus Christ, God has stepped into our human history, shown us what He is like and answered those questions. While retaining His divinity, He became in every respect fully human and lived with us for thirty-three-and-a half years. The birth, life, death, resurrection and exaltation of Jesus give us all we need to know about who God is and what His character is like, for “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father,” said Jesus (see John 14:9; Hebrews 1:1, 2). It cannot be denied that in 30 short years, from 30 to 60 AD, Christianity turned the world upside down. Since then it has transformed the lives, beliefs and moral structure of the billions of people who’ve encountered Him, developed a faith in and experience of Him.

But to a nonbelieving observer, nothing seems to have changed in the great problems besetting life on earth: sickness, war, death and all the malevolent manifestations of sin that existed before Jesus came to earth, continue to plague us. Humanity’s inhumanity continues to escalate at a frightening pace, moving our world into an increasingly fearful future.

The questions that surface are: Did Jesus’ death and resurrection make any lasting difference to these pressing issues? And, if Jesus is who He said He was, is He ever going to stand up and deal decisively with the Hitlers, Stalins, Pol Pots and bin Ladens of this world?

John the Revelator saw those “who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, ‘How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?’” (Revelation 6:9, 10). The prophet Daniel heard a similar agonising question being asked: “How long will it take for the vision to be fulfilled—the vision concerning . . . the rebellion that causes desolation?” (Daniel 8:13).

These questions are answered decisively in the closing chapters of the book of Revelation, as they describe Jesus stepping into history a second time. Revelation 19, sometimes blithely called the chapter of two suppers, depicts the marriage supper of Christ and a supper of vultures. They are intentionally placed in contrast with each other.

The chapter opens after Jesus has come a second time and we view a multitude of human beings in heaven praising God for their deliverance and looking back on His judgment on those who rejected the gospel and sought to put Christians to death at the end of time. Jesus is portrayed as the heavenly bridegroom who sits down to a marriage feast with His bride, those people faithful to Him through the ages.
The chapter closes with something akin to a flashback, describing the final moments of the great controversy between Christ’s followers and those who oppose the gospel at the end of time.

Jesus is depicted descending from heaven with an army of angels behind Him, riding out to destroy all those who, despite the strong wooing of the Holy Spirit, have hardened themselves intellectually, emotionally and spiritually against Him and sought to destroy His people.

They had knowingly given their whole lives over to the control of Satan and been driven by Satan’s hatred of Christ and His followers. Every last one is slain by words from Jesus’ mouth and, in a gruesome poetic portrayal, He calls the vultures to come and feed on their dead flesh.

And so, with all the righteous delivered safely into heaven with Jesus and the wicked all destroyed, the scene is set for chapter 20. We are told that for the next 1000 years (this is sometimes referred to as the “millennium”) the devil and his angels are confined to the “abyss,” a place where demonic beings are isolated by Jesus (see Luke 8:31). The word used here is the same as that describing the formless nature of the earth before Creation. It’s an apt portrayal of our devastated planet at that time of history.

Occurring during that same period of time, we are shown the righteous in heaven engaged in a work of judgment, which is foreshadowed by Paul (see 1 Corinthians 6:1-3). It is evident that this judgment involves access to the way God has dealt with those who rejected His love and the consequences of their rebellious choices. In so doing, God has been willing to put Himself under judgment so every last vestment of doubt of His righteousness might be removed. Not only is justice done, but also it is openly seen to be done.

At the end of the 1000 years, those who rejected Jesus are brought to life again (Revelation 20:5). This is not a second chance, for they come out of the grave just as they went into it, with hearts full of hatred for God and His people. God has another deeper purpose for their resurrection. Satan is described as deceiving them once more into believing they can still overcome God. Satan marshals them for one last attempt at conquest, and they march across the broken earth to a final battle.
Revelation 21:2 describes the descent onto the earth of the Holy City, which Jesus told His disciples He was going to prepare for His followers (see John 14:1-3).

So at this moment every created person in the whole of history is present. All those who have accepted Jesus as Saviour are with Him inside the city, and all those who have rejected God are with Satan outside the city.
It is now that the climactic scene of all history occurs. Jesus is pictured elevated on His throne of judgment. The untiring work of God’s grace in the lives of those outside the city and the ceaseless opportunities given to them to respond to the salvation offered them are replayed from the books containing those records.

God has once again put Himself on trial in order that Satan’s accusations against Him might be refuted before even those who rejected Him. They see that God is righteous in doing what He is about to do. In the great moment described in Philippians 2:10, every person, including those who have rejected Him, acknowledges the righteousness of God, albeit reluctantly or defiantly.

In images that remind us of the flood (2 Peter 3:3-12), a consuming fire descends on the earth and utterly destroys all those outside the ark of safety, the city of God. From the ashes of the old earth God creates a new heaven and a new earth (2Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1) and sin is removed for all time from the universe.

Should the same questions about God’s goodness ever arise again, the story of His eternal love and grace as expressed in the birth, life, death, resurrection and exaltation of Jesus will be retold once more. John tells us that the nail prints in Jesus’ hands remain in His glorified body as an eternal witness to the cost of our salvation (John 20:27), and the loving character of God stands forever vindicated at last.

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