THE THOUSAND YEARS A SYMBOLICAL FIGURE
As we read
the book of Revelation figurative or symbolical expressions are met on every
hand. The churches are symbolized by the seven golden candlesticks. Seven
spirits before the throne are used to symbolize the fullness of the one Holy
Spirit. We read of the Lamb having seven horns. We do not expect to see a
literal lamb, nor seven literal horns, but know that this symbolizes the
fullness of the power of Christ. Twelve is the number of the Church, and
wherever the Church is mentioned we have this number or its multiple,-twelve
apostles, twenty-four elders, or the totality of God's people symbolized by
the number 144,000. In the Bible the number ten stands for rounded totals.
Hence we have the moral law summarized in the ten commandments. Ten plagues on
Egypt, each directed at a god worshipped by the Egyptians, showed the complete
superiority of the God of the Hebrews over the gods of Egypt. In the
tabernacle the Holy of Holies, the place in which God manifested His presence,
was ten cubits long, ten cubits wide, and ten cubits high. The cube, with all
sides equal, symbolizes perfection. A thousand is the cube of ten, and
symbolizes vastness of number or time. In Psalm 50:10 the expression "the
cattle upon a thousand hills" does not mean that only the cattle on a thousand
hills are the Lord's but that all of the cattle on all of the hills of the
world are His. When the Lord told Peter that he should forgive his brother
not seven times, but seventy times seven (Matt. 18:22), He did not mean 490
times, but that he should forgive him as many times as he sincerely asked to
be forgiven. The New Jerusalem, of which we read in Revelation 21, is pictured
as a city in the form of a cube, 12,000 furlongs (1500 miles) on an edge, a
figure which symbolizes perfection, grandeur and vastness. "The length and
breadth and the height are equal," says John. The city was surrounded by a
wall 144 cubits high (12 squared), or 216 feet, which to the people to whom
John wrote would symbolize absolute safety. Neither the shape nor the
dimensions of the city can be taken with mathematical exactness, as if it were
a gigantic apartment house.
In Revelation
20 we do not understand John to write of a literal dragon or of a literal
serpent. Nor do we understand him to say that the angel has a literal key or a
literal chain in his hand with which he binds the Devil. The "thousand
years" is quite clearly not to be understood as an exact measure of time but
rather as a symbolical number. Strict arithmetic has no place here. The
term is a figurative expression, indicating an indefinitely long period of
time, a complete, perfect number of years, probably not less than a literal
one thousand years, in all probability very much longer. It is, however, a
definitely limited period, during which certain events happen, and after which
certain other events are to follow.
Concerning
this symbolism of numbers Dr. Warfield says:
"It is
quite certain that the number 1000 represents in Bible symbolism absolute
perfection and completeness; and that the symbolism of the Bible includes
also the use of a period of time in order to express the idea of greatness,
in connection with thoroughness and completeness. It can scarcely be
necessary to insist here afresh on the symbolical use of numbers in the
Apocalypse and the necessity consequently laid upon the interpreter to treat
them consistently not merely as symbols but as embodying definite ideas.
They constitute a language, and like any other language they are misleading
unless intended and read as expressions of definite ideas. When the seer
says seven or four or three or ten, he does not name these numbers at random
but expresses by each a specific notion. The sacred number seven in
combination with the equally sacred number three forms the number of holy
perfection, ten, and when this ten is cubed into a thousand the seer has
said all he could say to convey to our minds the idea of absolute
completeness. It is of more importance doubtless, however, to illustrate
the use of time-periods to the idea of completeness. Ezekiel 39:9 provides
an instance. There the completeness of the conquest of Israel over its
enemies is expressed by saying that seven years shall be consumed in the
burning up of the debris of battle: they 'shall go forth,' we read, 'and
shall make fires of the weapons and burn them, both the shields and the
bucklers, the bows and the arrows, and the hand staves and the spears, and
they shall make fires of them seven years.' It were absurd to suppose that
it is intended that the fires shall actually endure seven years. We have
here only a hyperbole to indicate the greatness of the mass to be consumed
and the completeness of the consumption. A somewhat similar employment of
the time-phrase to express the idea of greatness is found in the twelfth
verse of the same chapter, where, after the defeat of Gog 'and all his
multitude,' it is said, 'And seven months shall the children of Israel be in
burying of them that they may cleanse the land.' That is to say, the
multitude of the dead is so great that by way of hyperbole their burial is
said to consume seven months. The number seven employed by Ezekiel in these
passages is replaced by the number a thousand in our present passage, with
the effect of greatly enhancing the idea of greatness and completeness
conveyed. When the saints are said to live and reign with Christ a thousand
years the idea intended is that of inconceivable exaltation, security and
blessedness beyond expression of ordinary language" (Article, The Millennium
and the Apocalypse, reprinted in Biblical Doctrines, p. 654).
Similarly Dr.
Abraham Kuyper says:
'The
numbers and the indications of persons appearing in this book, are not
actual numbers but figurative numbers. There were more than seven churches
in Asia Minor. We are not to take the number 144,000 as if that was the
number of a man, of those who were saved first. The 1600 furlongs of the
stream of blood which reaches unto the bridles of the horses, is not a
geographical designation. All these figures are to be understood
symbolically" (Article, Chiliasm or Premillennialism, p. 28).
That Calvin
understood the "thousand years" figuratively is clear beyond doubt. He
dismisses the idea with one brief reference:
"Not long
after arose the millenarians, who limited the reign of Christ to a thousand
years. Their fiction is too puerile to deserve refutation" (Institutes, Book
III; Ch. 25; Sec. 5).
We should
point out, however, that in Revelation 20 the "thousand years" of verses 1-3
and the "thousand years" of verses 4-6 do not relate to the same thing. The
Millennium of verses 1-3 relates to a period of the future on earth, during
which time the Devil is bound so that he can no longer deceive the nations.
The Millennium of verses 4-6, during which time the souls of "them that had
been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God" are living
and reigning with Christ, relates to the intermediate state, and for each
individual soul it covers that period between death and the resurrection. That
these "souls" who are living and reigning with Christ are in the intermediate
state is indicated: (1) by the fact that John saw them as "souls," not as
people with bodies; (2) by the fact that they are contrasted with a second
group, "the rest of the dead" (verse 5), hence both groups must be identified
with the dead -- those who have died in the Lord, of which Revelation 14:13
speaks, and those who have died in their sins and who therefore have no part
in the intermediate reign with Christ; and (3) by the contrast between the
expression, "the first resurrection," and another figurative expression, "the
second death" (verse 14). No one understands this latter term literally as
applying to a second physical death. It is commonly understood as referring to
the eternal punishment of the wicked. Similarly, "the first resurrection" is a
figurative expression, and this event (life in the intermediate state) is so
called in order to distinguish it from the resurrection of the body which
occurs later. Some, however, understand "the first resurrection" to refer to
the regeneration of the soul, that is, to the new birth of the believer, which
is followed by a period of sanctification in this life and is crowned by his
being taken to heaven to reign with Christ during the period between death and
the resurrection. In either case the "thousand years" is to be understood
symbolically as relating to an indefinitely long period of time. For the
Old Testament saints and for those who died in the early part of the Christian
era this reign has already continued much longer than a literal one thousand
years.
