Premillennialism is the eschatological view that Christ second return will precede the millennium. So this view says: Christ returns, and then 1,000 year reign follows. Within this scheme of reading the Bible, there are two major views: Historic Premillennialism (HP) and Dispensational Premillennialism (DP). There are significant differences between the two. But the two schools share the view that Christ returns will be followed by the 1,000 year reign. This is the position that they arrived at when they read a Scripture passage like Rev. 20. In this post, I am going to raise a problematic feature that is common with premillennialism.
But before that, let me lay out the scheme:
1. Christ first coming on earth.
2. Church age began with Pentecost (and we are living in this era now).
3. Church age will conclude as the tribulation breaks out.
4. Jesus will then return, and then the battle of Armageddon ensues (Rev. 16.16)
5. Jesus will defeat Satan and the latter will be bound for 1000 years; resurrection for the believers.
6. Jesus reigns for 1000 years with the resurrected, including those who survive Armageddon battle.
7. At the end of this 1000 year reign, Satan will be released once more ( Rev. 20.7-8)
8. The battle of Gog and Magog will ensue
9. Jesus will defeat Satan once more, and the latter will be cast into the lake of burning sulphur.
10. Judgement,
11. New heaven & new earth.
Now one may ask the question: Who will Jesus defeat in point no. 9? Answer: Satan and his army (Rev. 8-9). But who all will be in the army? Those people that Satan had deceived.
Here is the problem: when Jesus literally reigns for 1000 years, he probably was a bad ruler and therefore people are unhappy with his reign, and therefore Satan was able to gather them to be part of his army.
This is a very serious theological problem for the premillennial scheme of things. For the amillennial and postmillennial scheme of things, this problem is not there because they interpret Rev. 20 differently.
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