How does one refute Amillennialism?
This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1999.
You ask how one refutes the amillennialist viewpoint. I should think the first thing to do would be to take the passage in the New Testament that deals explicitly with the thousand-year reign of Christ, and to expound it carefully and insist on interpreting its terms consistently.
For this purpose, you might find it useful to get hold of a copy of Dean Alford's commentary on the New Testament. It is, of course, now somewhat old—he wrote it towards the end of the nineteenth century. Dean Alford was an Anglican, and Anglicanism as a whole insists on treating these verses on the millennium as though they were simply a metaphorical way of describing the present rule of Christ. But Dean Alford—unusually for an Anglican theologian—insisted that the only proper hermeneutical method, when applied to these verses, demands that we take them to mean that there will be a literal reign of Christ over the earth before the end of the world; and consequently that that reign of Christ cannot be now; it must be in the future.
His reasoning is straightforward and clear. First, this thousand-year period indicates a definite period with a beginning and an end —even if the figure of one thousand years is a literary expression, in the sense that we use the phrase 'one-thousand-and-one' to indicate a large but unspecified number of things. Secondly, the beginning of this period is clearly defined: it begins when the beast and false prophet, who up to that point had been deceiving the nations, are taken and put into the lake of fire, and Satan himself is bound and put into the abyss, so that neither they nor he can deceive the nations any longer until the one thousand years are finished.
If words mean anything at all, it means that, before the thousand years begin, the beast and the false prophet were deceiving the nations; but with the advent of Christ—the rider on the white horse, the beast and false prophet, along with Satan, were stopped from deceiving.
The amillennialist has to say that Satan was only potentially stopped, but not effectively. They argue from the passage in Luke, where the strong man is bound so that his prisoners can then be set free, that Christ bound Satan by dying at Calvary, thus making it possible for believers to be released from the chains of guilt; and that this is what is meant by the binding of Satan in Revelation 20. That is to say, Satan was potentially bound at Calvary at the spiritual level, but not completely and effectively bound, so that he does still deceive the nations; but on the other hand, we as Christians are meant to go forth preaching the gospel, and therefore to make the binding of Satan more effective.
Dean Alford points out that such an exposition contradicts the plain, straightforward meaning of Scripture that, at the beginning of the millennium, the beast, false prophet and Satan himself are so dealt with that they do not in actual fact continue to deceive anybody, and that the cessation of this deceit will last until the thousand years are fulfilled. At this point Revelation 20 explains, Satan will be loosed and will once more set about his work of deceiving large masses of people. When Scripture says that the deceit is put a stop to at the beginning of the millennium, and will be allowed to renew itself only at the end of the millennium, it is quite unsound hermeneutics to say that it does not literally mean what it says, but means that Satan is bound now already, but is not quite bound completely. And, of course, he is deceiving the nations still, even though he is bound.
The next point to consider is what is meant by the reign of Christ. There surely will come a time, as Revelation 11:15–19 indicates, when God will take to himself his great power and reign. The world will be judged; the time of rewarding of the saints and the martyrs and the prophets shall come; all opposition shall be put down. This will happen at and during the millennium.
But to say that Christ is already ruling, in the sense of these verses, is altogether against the clear facts of history. Christ is certainly ascended and he is upon the Father's throne. But to say that Christ is now ruling and reigning, and that evil has been put down, is just simple nonsense and contrary to the fact. Evil throughout the world is worse than it ever was, and if Christ is supposed to be reigning now over the world, then, in all reverence be it said, he is making a very poor job of it.
The prophets are very clear. Both Isaiah and Micah tell of a time when the Lord shall reign and the nations shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. To suppose that that time is now flies in the face of the sheer facts. The twentieth century has been the worst and most violent of any in the whole course of human history. Not only have the pagan nations fought each other, but Christendom itself has fought battles within itself: Catholics have fought Protestants, Protestants have fought Catholics, and Catholics have fought Orthodox, and so forth. To suppose that the prophecies of the millennium given to us by Isaiah and Micah have already been fulfilled, that Christ is now reigning, and that this is already the millennium, is seriously contrary to the fact.
The other fact is that all the early church fathers believed in a literal millennium. There may have been one or two early church fathers who did not; but the vast majority did, and no one can dispute the fact. It was people like Origen and Augustine who reinterpreted Scripture to get away from the literal understanding of the millennium and to spiritualise it as a poetic description of our Lord's present reign. Doubtless, some people in their day had interpreted the promises of the millennial reign in a very vulgar way, as little more than sensual indulgence. Origen and Augustine were ashamed of such an interpretation, particularly when they had to face the criticisms of the Hellenistic philosophers. But Augustine's interpretation of the millennium gave the church the impression that Christ is already reigning on earth through the church; that the Pope is his vicar, and that the church therefore has authority from Christ to dash the nations in pieces, as a potter dashes the clay vessel in pieces, and to rule the nations with a rod of iron. This has had the most disastrous effects in the history of Christendom, as the church has called upon the state to get out the armies and to convert people at the point of the sword or gun, persecuted unbelieving Jews, and created endless scandals in the name of Christ.
These, then, are a few thoughts to get on with.
Ever yours truly in Christ,
