Like many, many folks throughout the centuries, I have struggled with gaining an understanding of these two difficult biblical subjects. There are many theories in existence about the nature of these two entities. No theory is without its faults and believers in each of them are not shy about pointing out the faults with the others. As a result of significant issues I see with the three mainstream views on the millennium of Revelation 20 (i.e. pre-, post- and amillennialism), I believe there is yet another view with which those who hold strong opinions on these subjects can now find (hopefully fewer) faults. That view is one I’ve come to refer to as apeiro-millennialism. This post is a summary of that view.

This is only an overview of what seems to me to be the best understanding possible for these two scriptural entities. I’m simply sharing my understanding and preliminary evidence for it. Future posts are planned where we will have occasion to explore further evidence for my understanding. I do not critique other views here. I only present my own.

The 1,000 Years

I believe the 1,000 year period mentioned in the context of Revelation 20 is eternity future. The number 1,000 can be a symbolic, scriptural way of saying “all possible“. Just as it is in the passage where God says “for every animal in the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills” (Psalm 50:10). The reference here is not to a literal 1,000 hills but rather all possible hills where cattle (or the singular Behemoth) may be found. Likewise, God is described as remembering “his covenant forever, the promise he made, for a thousand generations” (1 Chronicles 16:15; Psalm 105:8 cf. Exodus 20:6; Deuteronomy 5:10; 7:9). I believe the number one thousand is used in the same sense in Revelation 20.

That is, if time will always exist, then 1,000 years (i.e. “all possible” years) would literally mean a period which lasts forever.  This is consistent with passages that describe Christ’s reign as being eternal (Luke 1:32-34; Hebrews 1:8; Psalm 89:3-4; Isaiah 9:7; Ezekiel 37:24-25 cf. Revelation 20:4,6; 22:5).  Even the reign of the saints who accompany Christ is said to be eternal (Revelation 22:5 cf. Revelation 20:4).  This is all reflected in the name apeiro-millennialism.  This term is based on the Greek ápeiros [ἄπειρος] which means “infinite” or “boundless”.  Other English words like apeirophobia and apeirohedron likewise use this prefix to represent their infinite nature.

I believe that’s the nature of:

  • the reign of Christ and His saints in Revelation 20:4,
  • the period of time that those who worship the beast in Revelation 20:5 (i.e. “the rest of the dead”) would be prevented from coming to life of the same quality as those who participated in the 1st resurrection
  • Satan’s detention of Revelation 20:2-3

This understanding may seem like an impossibility due to the short release of Satan from his prison mentioned in Revelation 20:7-8 and the Gog-Magog war supposedly following it.  However, there is substantial evidence  that these statements are sarcastic and recapitulatory to quickly regress the narrative from the future, to the present and ultimately back to the immediate past.  This regression has the effect of putting a sudden and blunt emphasis on the sarcasm being employed.  In the view I’m describing here, this war had already happened in the previous chapter and is only mentioned to remind us of why Satan would never be released.  This release, though stated, will never occur. It’s only a tongue-in-cheek statement meant as an aggravating battle taunt of the victorious. A dramatic glimmer of hope dangled before the enemy only for the purpose of being able to dash that hope again, dragging out his humiliation and offering an occasion to remind him of his formerly mentioned defeat. A tactic with which Satan would be familiar, ironically turned against him (Hebrews 11:25).  Satan made a career out of promising pleasure in sin that deceptively only lasted a short time.  In like fashion, his just punishment is being released for only a short time.

This is the perspective that is missing from most interpretations of these passages. This chapter is typically approached as if its sole purpose is to communicate clear facts about the future, directly to us, the readers. However, if it’s viewed in the context of Revelation 19:11-21 where Satan is rendered completely ineffective by having his earthly agents destroyed in battle much like the outcome of the Gog-Magog war, such a purpose seems illogical. The speech in Revelation 20 would more naturally be expected to have the tone of a victor. As victors are known to do, they may taunt their captives with ridicule, misleading offers of comfort and relief, and turn their own tactics and efforts to deceive and subvert ironically around on them.

This is not beneath the motives of victors of righteousness. Consider the language applied to Babylon in Psalm 137:3,8-9.   In the context of Revelation 20, Babylon had just fallen two chapters earlier and she is told that she would be paid back in exactly the manner in which she had sought to destroy the righteous (Revelation 18:6-7,20).  A future taunt of exactly this sort was even predicted with an allusion to Satan, the puppet-master of Babylon, in Isaiah 14:4.  One could certainly envision a captor in these circumstances taunting those that had been bound nearby as they overhear him telling his fellow victors that orders had been received from those in command that the captives should be freed.  Devices such as outright boasting and mocking or temporarily posing as shocked and distraught over the staged “news” of the release of their prisoners may be employed to agitate or foster false hope in this regard.  Each of these tones seems to be represented in portions of Revelation 20.

In any case, the sarcasm concerning the release of Satan after the thousand years is expressed as a type of hyperbole known as adynaton.  Adynaton is derived from the Greek ἀδύνατος (G102) and can be defined as a rhetorical figure “which claims that the impossible will come true sooner than the event in question will take place” [1]. Our modern expression “when pigs fly, such-and-such will happen” is an example. This expression is not meant to indicate that pigs will eventually fly and that such-and-such will literally happen after that. Rather, the intent is to say that such-and-such will never occur because pigs are never expected to fly.  This type of expression was not unknown in NT times.  Jesus used adynaton in His famous comparison between the possibility of a rich man entering heaven and that of a camel passing through the eye of a needle (Matthew 19:24; Mark 10:25; Luke 18:25).  From this perspective, if the thousand years in this context is really infinitely long in duration, then the release of Satan for a “short time”, by comparison, may be infinitely short so as to never happen at all.

The events concerning Gog and Magog, etc. are actually restatements of what happens in Revelation 19:11-21 and are mentioned to make it clear at this point that the promises just made must be sarcastic.  It’s because Satan had already been defeated. The very bizarre, regressive use of future, present and past tenses in those relatively few verses concerning the battle of Gog and Magog demonstrate this shift from Satan’s imagined future to his then past defeat:

  • Future: Satan will be released and will come out to deceive
  • Present: the nations that are at the four corners of the earth; their number is like the sand of the sea
  • Past: they marched and surrounded; fire came down and consumed the devil who had deceived and was thrown into the lake of fire

If there was any doubt as to whether their captors were being serious or not, at this point, it is now clear to the prisoners that they were being played.  Having drawn the taunt to a close, verse 11 picks up where chapter 19 left off by beginning to explain events that happen afterward at some indeterminate point within this eternal reign of Christ.

The coming to life of “the rest of the dead” after the 1,000 years were over in verse 5 may also seem problematic for this view.   However, when taken in context, this event is actually further evidence that the 1,000 years has no end.  The “rest of the dead” are clearly worshipers of the beast. Verse 4 tells us it was those who did not worship the beast that came to life before the 1,000 years were ended. This means “the rest of the dead” were all people who were worshipers of the beast.  These wicked people have every appearance of coming to life that is of the same quality as those in the first resurrection, it’s just delayed for them by 1,000 years. This is clear because this raising to life of the wicked is sandwiched as a  parenthetical statement between verses 4 and 6 which both speak of the life that is inherited by the participants in the first resurrection.  When do the wicked worshipers of the beast ever come to this sort of life? Unless one is a universalist, this never happens.

The New Jerusalem

The previously mentioned interpretation of this 1,000 years is consistent with the application of 1,000 used in the dimensions of the New Jerusalem in the following chapter. Both hinge on the symbolism embodied in the number 1,000. To keep this post fairly brief, I’d like to save some of my exposition on the number 1,000 for a later post. However, discussing the New Jerusalem here will present a nice transition point into the summary of my view on the 2nd Death later.

The 12 x 1,000 stadia cube that represents the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:16) symbolizes that it expands a distance of “all possible” units in each of the given directions. That is, its volume expands infinitely. The other measurements of this city are called out as being in units man would use (Revelation 21:17). That is, they were not symbolizing purely spiritual things. They measured something physical. Therefore, I believe what’s represented here is the New Jerusalem filling the physical universe. The physical universe is being recreated.

Having the distance in each direction being multiplied by 12 magnifies the level of symbolism here. Just as there are twelve lunar cycles in a solar year, the twelve here highlights that no portion of this new creation would lack the radiance of the new Sun [i.e. God and His Messiah] (Isaiah 19:18; 30:26; 41:25; 45:6; 55:19; 58:8-10; 60:19-20; Malachi 4:2; Luke 1:78; 23:45; Revelation 12:1; 21:23; 22:5,16). This is important as this depiction parallels the Lake of Fire.

The 2nd Death

In this view of the New Jerusalem, the 2nd Death/Lake of Fire being outside this city (Revelation 14:20; 19:15,20; 21:8; 22:14-15) is thus representative of exclusion from the remade physical universe. The devil, the beast and the false prophet who end up in it are described as being tormented in the presence of God and His holy angels “forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10). Compare to Revelation 22:5 where the burning sun is replaced by God and He and His blazing servants will reign “forever and ever“. This figurative language suggests that the efforts of those who would bring corruption into our physical existence will be rendered completely ineffective by Christ and his servants … literally … permanently … forever. This is consistent with my understanding of the destruction of the 8th king of Revelation 17 and his permanent replacement by the Queen of ‘Seven’ from the Sign of Jonah.

I see this Lake of Fire being symbolically comprised of Christ and Christians themselves. That’s not to say that the New Jerusalem can’t be comprised of Christians too. That the two are really the same demonstrates the main point here. It’s impossible to be anywhere but inside the city as it’s consumed all available space! The statement that evildoers would be outside the city is again an exaggerated, non-literal description of a location that does not exist. As the New Jerusalem has filled all the space there is, it’s impossible to be literally outside of it, even though the text describes it that way. This aspect of the new creation is even seen in the lack of any place for heaven and earth to hide from God (Revelation 20:11). They fled from His presence but couldn’t escape it. He was everywhere. It’s after this in chapter 21 we see the New Heaven and New Earth filling the void left by the old ones.

Therefore, the Lake of Fire is revealed as an alternate view of the New Jerusalem. This is consistent with the biblical depictions of God and His armies as consuming fires. This also fits the description of the New Jerusalem being ablaze with the Sun-like glory of God.

Further, if the above interpretation is correct, the 2nd Death is a very appropriate name for this Lake of Fire. We’ll now explore why.

A Dual Death

In the view above, this Lake of Fire (being the New Jerusalem) is the physical universe. In this universe, the inhabitants will have swallowed up death in victory (1 Corinthians 15:54; Isaiah 25:8 cf. Revelation 21:4).

It’s reasonable to ask, which death did they swallow? Several types of death exist (at least in the metaphorical sense). One victim would be non-physical death, for sure. But it’s hard to see a convincing explanation as to why the agent of non-physical death would be given the title of “2nd Death”. The lost are already dead in some sense (Isaiah 25:7-8; John 5:24; Ephesians 2:1,5; 4:17-18; Colossians 2:13; 2 Corinthians 3:6-8,12-16; 1 John 3:14). This would seem to be the First Death. Then they die physically. That would be the Second Death. The death following physical death would then more properly be called the Third Death, not the Second Death. Yet, John calls this Death the second. Some might argue that there is really only one kind of death and that is physical death. Any other kind of death before the final judgment must be used metaphorically and is therefore not a legitimate kind of death. This would make physical death the First Death and further punishment after our initial physical death would be the Second Death. However, the available evidence does not support this very well. Further, whether non-physical death currently exists apart from metaphor is actually irrelevant to the point. Even the Second Death is likely used symbolically. This means even metaphorical death is a viable candidate for one of the “deaths” that the Second Death is being positioned against.

Rather, it seems quite natural to me that the ultimate death that was swallowed up in victory was the 2nd death implied in God’s statement to Adam, “in that day you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17 cf. Genesis 3:4). In a limited sense, Adam died the very day he ate of the forbidden tree, just as God said. This was signified by his becoming aware of good and evil, being sentenced to difficult toil to bring forth produce from the earth, having feelings of shame, being covered with the skins of sacrificial animals and being prevented access to the Tree of Life (Genesis 3:22-24). The only consequence included in the warning given to Adam and Eve was death, therefore, any consequence of disregarding this prohibition can be expected to constitute some form of death. Some of these consequences likely took place the very 24-hour day that Adam ate of the forbidden tree.

But, interestingly, words rooted in death (H4191 – muwth) occur here twice in immediate succession in the Hebrew. On its own, that may not seem like it would be that significant as this structure forms a common Hebrew expression often translated as “surely die”. However, other considerations make it very clear that this is hardly an insignificant little detail. These verses where both God and the Serpent use the phrase “surely die” have the same words rooted in death doubled-up like this. However, in the same context, when Eve inaccurately repeats what God said, she conspicuously uses it singularly (Genesis 3:3). This suggests that the phrasing with the dual reference to “muwth” in God’s original language was somehow key to the statement being entirely accurate.

It’s also suspicious that, while ‘muwth‘ occurs singularly in many other contexts in Genesis, the only other places in Genesis that it occurs doubly like this is in two separate accounts involving Abimelek, the Philistine king of Gerar.

The first occurrence is in chapter 20 of Genesis. Notice some significant parallels between this account of Abimelek and the subject matter of the fall of man:

These passages are clearly alluding to consequences of the fall.

Abimelek is an interesting character in and of himself. He pops up again in the next chapter where he makes a treaty with Abraham at Beersheba (i.e. 7 wells aka 7 sisters), an eschatologically significant place as I demonstrate in several other blog posts.

The second account of Abimelek containing this doubled-up reference to ‘muwth‘ is Genesis 26:11, a few chapters later. This time, it’s in reference to Isaac and Rebekah. Oddly, the account sounds very much like an abbreviated version of the account of Abimelek, Abraham and Sarah from above as it has most of the same parallels listed – including the 7 wells of Beersheba! An interesting difference is that immediately after this verse, the number 100 occurs (i.e. another power of 10) instead of 1,000. Other than the seven implied in Beersheba, this 100 is the only number mentioned in this particular account of Abimelek.  It is therefore quite significant that it’s a parallel to the power of ten from the previous account of Abimelek.

Stranger still, yet another man named Abimelek shows up in Judges 8:31 with definite eschatological connections of his own. I’ll not go into the details here but some key points to notice are these from chapter 9:

  • he is repeatedly associated with the number 7 (the murder of his 70 brothers, he paid his followers 70 shekels, his father Gideon was the 7th judge)
  • he killed 1,000 people in the tower of Shechem (Judges 9:49)
  • he died after a woman in the tower crushed his skull with an upper millstone (Judges 9:53 cf. the fate of the Serpent in Genesis 3:15)

It seems clear that God repeats these thematic elements of the fall in connection to dual references to death as a way of emphasizing in a subtle but detectable manner that there is an intentional aspect of duality in Adam’s death and it has great eschatological significance.  This element of duality is evidenced in other interesting ways later in Scripture as it concerns the “Day of the Lord” judgement events of which, the death of Adam was the very first prefigurement.

A Dual Day

Further, as is demonstrably the case with many other narrative statements of God, His warning here was a play on words.  There were two perspectives from which these statements were intended to be understood.  They contained a reference to a second day. A day as measured by God (figuratively). A day that was 1,000 man-years long (Psalm 90:4; 2 Peter 3:8). The day within which Adam and all the pre-flood descendants of him through Seth ceased to live biologically. Some patriarchs came really close to a 1,000 year lifespan but they never quite made it. They all failed.

In fact, several reached ages that were prophetically significant in the number in which they fell short of 1,000 years (e.g. Adam, Enoch and Jared). Adam in particular died at the age 930 years (Genesis 5:5). This is true in all available manuscripts of Genesis. The Masoretic Text, Septuagint and Samaritan Pentateuch disagree on the milestone ages of several of Adam’s pre-flood descendants but in the case of Adam’s death, they all agree. The target age he was approaching is not specified explicitly but it’s a fairly obvious observation that this age is only 70 years short of 1,000. Given the messianic significance of multiples of seven, this difference seems unlikely to be coincidence and is probably meant as an indication that Adam’s target lifespan was 1,000 years.

We also have very powerful and direct evidence of this beyond simple inference. The ancient witness of the Book of Jubilees actually attests to this understanding. Jubilees is a non-authoritative but well-known Jewish writing dating from at least 100 B.C. and recent scholars date it as early as 165-160 B.C. Jubilees 4:39-40 tells us outright that Adam’s life fell 70 years short of 1,000 years and says that “he did not complete the years of this day” because of his disobedience to God regarding eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I believe all the patriarchs were actually intended to live beyond this 1,000 years. Forever in fact. But, prophetically speaking, 1,000 was simply a limit that God placed on man’s dominion on the earth to set the stage for symbolism that would later find its fulfillment in the 1,000 years of Revelation. Being a number of years representative of “forever”, this was a reflection of man’s lost immortality. Adam not only lost his immortality, he did not even succeed in living out a number of years symbolic of forever.

Christ on the other hand, as the Last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:22,45; Romans 5:14; Luke 3:38), has and will continue to do what the first Adam and his descendants could not. Christ conquered physical death in His resurrection and reigned physically over a physical creation for 1,000 years … and will continue to do so forever.

Christ swallowed up physical death, the 2nd Death. He took its place. Like Him, His servants will also swallow up death. Including physical death. They will be united and stand together in the place of the original 2nd Death. They will become this Death, ironically fulfilling its former purpose in a new and reformed way.

More to come.

References

  1. Cushman, S.; Cavanagh, C.; Ramazani, J.; Rouzer, P. (2012). “The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics: Fourth Edition” p. 9″