Yesterday I heard someone make an argument for Amillennialism that started with John 5:28–29. I admit my first thought was, "here we go..." I've heard this argument from Amillennialists more than once.
The argument goes something like this: Revelation 20:1–10 is the only passage in Scripture that specifies a 1,000 year reign of Christ. Revelation 20:4–6 describes the 1,000 years beginning with "the first resurrection," and tells us "the rest of the dead" aren't raised until the 1,000 years are finished.
But in John 5:28–29, the Lord says there is "an hour" coming in which there is a resurrection to life, and a resurrection to judgment.
Thus, we conclude that the 1,000 year reign in Revelation 20 isn't to be understood literally, as the Lord specifies those two resurrections happen in the same hour – not necessarily 60 minutes, but at least closely in time.
This isn't a terrible argument, but I don't find it very convincing.
First, the context (John 5:24–30) makes it difficult to argue that "hour" precludes a literal 1,000 years. Consider John 5:25, "an hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that have heard shall live."
The Lord is describing His ministry of regeneration – calling the [spiritually] dead to life. The "hour" in John 5:25 was already underway at that time ("and now is"), and has been going on for almost 2,000 years now.
So given the Lord described the last two millennia as an "hour" just three verses earlier, there's no reason to believe the "hour" in John 5:28–29 can't encompass all the events of Revelation 20:1–10.
Second, it's a strange hermeneutic that insists a detailed passage (Revelation 20:1–10) must be understood symbolically because of a much less detailed description in an earlier passage (John 5:28–29). By that logic, we should insist the Gospel accounts are purely symbolic, because the prophets didn't describe the entire three-year span of the Lord's earthly ministry.
Of course that's ridiculous. We understand that the prophets gave terse summaries of events to come. The Gospel writers, describing the actual events, give significantly more detail.
Similarly, the Lord's one-sentence description of the "hour" of two resurrections is a terse summary of coming events that Revelation 20:1–10 describes in more detail and precision. Yes, the Lord combines two events into a single "hour" in His summary, just like the Old Testament prophets combined several events into a short summary in their writings.
Finally, Scripture is consistent in its use of time spans like "hour" and "day" to indicate longer periods of time. Genesis 2:4–5 describes the seven days of creation as the "day that Jehovah Elohim made earth and heavens," and everything in them. We don't then interpret Genesis 2:4–5 as contradicting the entire first chapter of Genesis, but we understand it uses the word "day" to describe a period of time that's characterized by a single thing.
The Lord uses the word "hour" to describe whole eras: the era of worship "in spirit and in truth" (John 4:23), and the era of persecution of the Apostles after His ascension (John 16:2ff). Again, He is using the term "hour" to describe a period of time characteristically.
The Lord describes His death as an "hour" (Mark 14:35, Luke 22:53, John 7:30, John 12:27). We don't thus conclude that the Gospel descriptions of the Crucifixion lasting several hours are to be understood symbolically. Rather, we understand that He is using the term "hour" to describe a period of time characterized by that single awful event.
Insisting the Lord's use of the term "hour" in John 5:28–29 must mean the first and second resurrection cannot be spaced 1.000 years apart ignores His own repeated use of the word "hour" to describe very long periods of time.
Now, I'm not making the claim that Amillennialism cannot be argued from Scripture. I am pointing out that John 5:28–29 provides no meaningful evidence against a literal 1,000 year reign in Revelation 20. To read John 5:28–29 that way is to ignore how the Lord uses the same word just three verses earlier (John 5:25), how He uses the term "hour" throughout John's gospel, and how Scripture as a whole uses terms like "hour" and "day."
There is a less-obvious lesson here for our Dispensationalist friends, and we need to be careful not to miss it. I have sat in many a Bible reading where Christians spent a great deal of effort to differentiate between the Lord's "coming" and His "appearing." I've heard Christians go through the epistles with a fine-toothed comb to separate and distinguish between coming events.
That's not necessarily sin, but I have to ask the question: why didn't the Lord Jesus do that? Why did He sum up a 1,000 year period as an "hour"?
The Son of God saw value in discussing two events that are separated by 1,000 years in a single sentence. So yes, the epistles distinguish between these events. But the Son of God did not. We should ask ourselves why.
I would suggest that if the Holy Spirit sees value in discussing these events distinctly in Revelation 20:1–10 and indistinctly in John 5:28–29, then there is wisdom in us not seeing them only in one light or the other. There is wisdom in meditating on them in both lights.
Paul's epistles consistently point us to the Lord's imminent return for us (Philippians 3:20–21). Peter's epistles point us beyond that, to new heavens and a new earth (2 Peter 3:13). I've actually heard "brethren" use that as some sort of argument that "Paul's ministry" is greater than Peter's.
To be clear, that is sin.
When the Spirit of God gives us two different perspectives, that's not so we can choose between them. That's so we can subject ourselves to God's word, and meditate on both of them.
So when Paul's epistles draw distinctions between coming events, and Peter's discuss them all as a single large event, that's so we can see the mind of God in both the big picture and the fine details. That is not so we can think of ourselves as wiser than the Spirit of God who inspired both.
When Revelation 20:1–10 gives in much greater detail the expanded view of the two resurrections in John 5:28–29, that's not license to sin by discounting the words that the Son of God spoke. That's so we can learn both the "big picture" lessons of John 5 and the "fine detail" lessons of Revelation 20.
(Yes, I am aware that the Lord's crucifixion is a rejection of Him as King, so that the millennial kingdom in Revelation 20:1–10 could not, in a sense, be discussed in John 5. Peter's offer of "the times of refreshing" (Acts 3:19–21) would seem odd if the Lord had already publicly discussed the details that Revelation 20:1–10 give. But I still maintain that the Lord's willingness to view the "big picture" and view that entire chapter as a single "hour" must mean it's a worthwhile perspective for us to consider.)
2 comments:
A very good post, Mark.
I think I’ve probably shared this on Assembly Quest before, but I’m reminded again of something William Kelly said about getting obsessed with single parts of the truth, or single perspectives:
“The very man (Paul) to whom all are most indebted for the gospel of the grace of God, set forth as none else did that particular phase of it which is called the gospel of the glory of Christ. At the same time he preached the kingdom of God as decidedly as possible. He never was afraid of the ignorant outcry that this is low ground. The fact is that hasty and little minds say so, unable to take in more than one idea, and apt to be intoxicated with that one; but the apostle exhibits that excellent largeness and elasticity which gives its place to every message which God has revealed, which pretends not to choose in scripture, but thankfully takes and uses the testimony of God as it is given. It seems to me that we really lower the revival of truth grace has wrought by allowing the idea that this truth or that is the only truth for the day. The speciality of our blessing is that we have got into a large place, contemptible as it looks to unbelief — that no truth comes amiss, and that all truth is for this day. I hold this to be an important point for us, avoiding the pettiness of fancying or seeking a factitious value for whatever happens to be dawning with especial force on our own minds.
It is a snare the more to be dreaded because it has ever led to the making of sects through an active mind laying hold of (or rather taken captive by) some favourite notion or even truth. I consider it then an essentially sectarian bias; and that the true and distinctive blessing of what God has given us now in these days is not so much laying hold of this or that truth higher than others accept, though this be true, but the heart open to the truth in all its extent, and this bound up with Christ personally, as the only possible means of deliverance, if by grace we walk there in the power of the Spirit, from every kind of pettiness. It will be found too, that it is immensely important practically for holiness, because we are so weak that we are likely to take just what we like and what at the time suits our own character, habits, position, circumstances, and capacity; whereas what we want is to detect, judge, and thus be saved from self; not that which ever spares flesh, but what gives us to mortify our members on the earth, as well as what in divine love suits the varying wants of souls around us, and above all His glory, who has given us not only a particular part of His mind, but the whole of it. Thus, as it has been well said, the peculiarity really of the right position is its universality. That is, it is not merely a special portion or phase of truth, no matter how blessed, but the truth in all its fulness as the divinely given safeguard from particular views, and the communication of the exceeding largeness of God's grace and truth and ways for us in the world. "All things are yours." Anything that tends by distinctive marks to make a party by bringing forward one's self or one's own views as practically a centre is self-condemned.”
"We don't really need to know how salvation works, scholars may want to go into the detail of Romans but it is enough for us that John 3:16 gives the gospel in a nutshell".
"We could get on with the business of evangelising if we did not have the baggage of assembly truth to deal with".
"We should probably skim over chapters like Ephesians chapter 1 as it just leads to complications when we come to clear verses like John 3:16".
These are all statements made in public in the past year in the UK by men who claim to be full-time teachers of God's Word!
Paul's charge to Timothy was to teach 'the things that thou hast heard of me'. Supposing after the death of Paul, Timothy thought to himself, 'Romans is foundational but Galatians is quite Jewish and not really needed. Ephesians thrills us with the blessings in the heavenlies but Colossians is the same teaching, just harder to understand. Philippians is a lovely church epistle but, hopefully, we won't see the likes of Corinth again. So I will teach faithful me Romans, Ephesians and Philippians'.
Then, suppose after the death of Timothy those faithful men said to themselves, 'Timothy was a good brother and he had a solid ministry that he learned from Paul but times have changed and, to tell the truth, Romans is hard going and Ephesians is very controversial and we are tired of hearing all that Philippians church truth.' Where would that leave the 4th generation of 'others also'?
The answer can be seen in assemblies across the world. Mr Kelly's warning is a word for our times I feel.
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