Throughout the years, there are have been, and continue to be, three main beliefs concerning the Millennial Reign of Christ.

Revelation 20:1–6 (NLT) Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven with the key to the bottomless pit and a heavy chain in his hand. He seized the dragon—that old serpent, who is the devil, Satan—and bound him in chains for a thousand years. The angel threw him into the bottomless pit, which he then shut and locked so Satan could not deceive the nations anymore until the thousand years were finished. Afterward he must be released for a little while. Then I saw thrones, and the people sitting on them had been given the authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony about Jesus and for proclaiming the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his statue, nor accepted his mark on their forehead or their hands. They all came to life again, and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years. This is the first resurrection. (The rest of the dead did not come back to life until the thousand years had ended.) Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. For them the second death holds no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him a thousand years.


This is the belief that there is no literal 1000 year millennial reign on the earth at all.  Revelation 20, along with most of the book of Revelation is spiritualized and fits somewhere in present day or future history.  The Kingdom proponents say has been here since the cross and we’re now living in the Kingdom Age.  Amillennialists deny that the reign of Christ will be a literal, physical kingdom on earth.   Those that hold to this view do not believe in God fulfilling His promises to the nation of Israel and there will be no restored Israel, no literal throne, no need to fulfill Romans 9-10-11. This is the dominant view of the modern day church made popular by the Roman Catholic Church and many those theologies and churches that emerged out of the Reformation.  The dangerous and false teaching of Replacement theology is birthed through an amillennial lense of prophetic interpretation.


Popular for most of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this is the belief that the entire church will go through the Great Tribulation period and that Jesus Christ will return to the earth at the conclusion of the 1000 years.  This belief developed the thought that man would usher in the Kingdom by the worldwide preaching of the gospel and that there would be a gradual increase in peace and prosperity worldwide.  It’s also known as Dominion Theology as the church takes over the world and overthrows the establishment. Rather than seeing the Millennium as a literal 1000 years, this teaching views a golden age ushered in by the church’s faithful and powerful preaching of the gospel. The reign of Christ is view as spiritual and political. Once the church rules the governments of man, Jesus will return.


This is the belief that teaches Jesus will physically and visibly come to the earth in His 2nd Coming before the Millennium. He will set up his kingdom and bind  Satan.  God promised the Jews a nation where he would regather the Jews to their land and that He would rule them from Jerusalem.  This view holds that the millennial kingdom will be a literal, physical, earthly kingdom of one thousand literal years during which Jesus Christ will rule and reign over the earth from his literal throne in Jerusalem. This was the predominant view of the Early Church.  Church Fathers like, Papias, Tertullian, Clement of Rome, Barnabas, Ignatius, Polycarp, and Justin the Martyr all held to and taught this biblical view of Christ’s return.  This view says that the world isn’t getting any better but is progressively getting worse and worse.  In the end it will get really bad as the final 7 years of history contain the Great Tribulation.

I hold to firmly and without apology to a pre-tribulation rapture, pre-millennial 2nd coming of Jesus Christ!

1 Corinthians 16:22–24 (NLT) If anyone does not love the Lord, that person is cursed. Our Lord, come! May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. My love to all of you in Christ Jesus.