Isn’t the
millennium exactly 1,000 years because when “years” is used with a number in
the New Testament, it always meant literal years?
Day 28
B. Hodge, Biblical Authority Ministries, June 29, 2020
This
oft-used argument falls short when used of other words elsewhere in the New
Testament. If one word’s meaning as strictly used in the New Testament is
grounds for interpreting it in the book of Revelation, a highly metaphorical
book, then the “beast” in Revelation must be an animal, as “beast” in all other
places in the New Testament was a literal animal! Such interpretations can lead
to absurdity.
Next,
the rest of the New Testament isn’t written in the style of a prophetic work
like many Old Testament books are. So Old Testament uses of 1,000 and how it is
used, especially in metaphorical language, should not be neglected (or
off-limits). Instances where a thousand is not meant to be a literal number but a
great and vast amount in the Old Testament are: Deuteronomy 1:9-11; Deuteronomy 7:9; Job 9:1-3; Psalm 50:10, 68:17, 84:10, 91:7, and 105:8. A 1,000 meant a lot!
Even
in modern times, people have used 1,000 for a long, indefinite period of time.
Adolf Hitler and the Nazi’s in the A.D. 1930s, whose atheistic and evolutionary
ideas spawned WWII, often purported that their Third Reich would last a
“thousand years”, which they clearly believed it would last far longer than
that literal number. Of course, World War II with Allied forces of the UK,
Soviet Union, United States, and many others lead to their downfall much
quicker than they anticipated.
Read Revelation 20:1-10 twice and meditate on it.
