A literal one thousand year reign of Jesus on His throne. There are many that believe Jesus’ return is for just that – a literal one thousand year reign (millennium) on earth. It is widely taught and even passed down as “church doctrine.” It is a teaching that comes from primarily one verse – Revelation 20:6. To be sure, this verse states that “they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years1.” However, let’s consider its context and consider other uses in Scripture that may help us understand this important question.
How Scripture answers "Will there be a literal one thousand year reign (Revelation 20:6)?"
There is no reason to believe there will be a literal one thousand year reign on earth since there is no other place in scripture where “a thousand years” (or anything like it) is used literally2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16. We see “thousand” used figuratively in books of history2,7,14,16, poetry3,4,8,10,13, New Testament epistles12,15, other books of prophecy6,9 including in other places in Revelation5.
In Revelation, we are reading “one thousand years” within the broader prophetic and highly figurative vision of John. By the time we get to the passage of Scripture that promoters of this “literal one thousand year reign” doctrine stake their claim on1, Scripture has well established a figurative use for “a thousand years”2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16. Indeed, without the clouding lens of a presupposed doctrine that requires a certain interpretation – namely that Jesus will return to earth to reign one thousand years – the Revelation 20 text1 is simply communicating to the reader a very long (everlasting2,3,4,7,11,12) and triumphal (complete2,3,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16) future reign of Christ and the Saints at the judgment.
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