The One Thousand Years by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 23, 1871

The One Thousand Years.

By Uriah Smith

ONE of our Adventist exchanges remarks: “We have followed the current of events as laid down in the Scriptures till we arrived at the period when we found the saints reigning ‘with Christ’ ‘on the earth,’ during the period intervening between the first and second resurrections.”

In what part of the Scriptures proof is found that the saints reign on the earth during the 1000 years, between the first and second resurrections, many students of prophecy have yet to learn. The saints are to reign with Christ a thousand years. This is plainly stated. That they are to reign on the earth, during this time, is only a supposition; and there are considerations which destroy all ground even for that.

1. The saints are taken to Heaven. Rev. 7: 9; 14: 2, 3; 15: 2 (compared with 4: 1, 2, 6). And we have no evidence that they leave this place till the end of the 1000 years. For when taken to Heaven they are taken to the Father’s house which hath many mansions, which Jesus has gone to prepare. John 14: 2, 3. There can be no question that this house of many mansions is the city of God, the New Jerusalem on high. The saints, once taken to this city will not of course return to this earth till the city itself comes down; and that is not till the end of the 1000 years. Rev. 21: 1, 2.

2. But the greatest embarrassment under which the theory before us labors, is the fact that after the saints, with Christ at their head, have held possession of the earth for one thousand years, the wicked dead are raised from its surface, and, led on by Satan, force Christ and his people to retire to the city and endure a siege by their ungodly hosts. Thus the wicked come up with their polluted tread upon the fair surface of the new earth. They ravage its delightsome provinces. They find themselves in the very heart of the kingdom of Christ and engaged in a siege of its capital city. Away with so execrable and unscriptural a view.

This embarrassment is seen and felt, and efforts are made to avoid it. The last attempt is the view that only a little portion of the earth, that is, Palestine, is cleansed when Christ commences his reign here on earth at the beginning of the 1000 years. And this, in utter defiance of the laws of type and antitype, and contrary to analogy, and Scripture, is called the cleansing of the sanctuary. So in this cleansed sanctuary Christ and his saints reign a thousand years—reign over an earth still polluted with the curse!

But how is this? When Christ establishes his kingdom on the earth, when the tabernacle of God is with men, is not the curse removed? Are not all tears wiped away? Are not the former things passed away, and all things made new? Rev. 21: 1–5.

Where is the evidence of a mixed millennium, or mortals and immortals on this earth, during the thousand years? Or, if the wicked living are all destroyed when Christ comes, and the wicked dead are not raised till the end of the thousand years, where is the evidence that Christ reigns for a thousand years over a limited portion of this earth, unscripturally called the sanctuary, the rest lying in ruin and desolation? And where is the evidence that it is this little kingdom which Christ delivers up to the Father?

But, says the article under notice, when the wicked are raised at the end of the 1000 years, and come up around the camp of the saints and are destroyed, then “the Saviour will have completed his work, and the time will have come for him to deliver ‘up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power’ (1 Cor. 15: 24); and will himself become ‘subject’ to the Father, that God may be all in all.”

This writer must certainly be laboring under a misapprehension of the Scriptures; and he seems even to misapprehend his own position. For what, according to this view, does Christ do during the thousand years? Nothing except to reign with his people in renewed Palestine. And when the wicked are destroyed at the close of that period, it is by fire from God out of Heaven. There is, then, no special work brought to view which Christ completes. And moreover the putting down of all rule and all authority and power, is not the work of Christ, but of the Father. God does this work in behalf of his Son. “Sit thou at my right hand,” says the Father, addressing the

Son, “until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” Ps. 110: 1. But, again, is not the kingdom which Christ has upon earth, his own kingdom, or the throne of his father David? If so he never gives it up; for of that kingdom there is to be no end. Luke 1: 32, 33.

Look at the following order of events, and compare it with the Scriptures:

1. When Christ triumphed in the work which he came to do at his first advent, the Father raised him to his own right hand far above principalities and powers, and every name in this world or the one to come. Eph. 1: 20, 21; Heb. 1: 3; 8: 1; 10: 12; 12: 2; 1 Pet. 3: 22. And this has been his position, ever since his ascension, associated with his Father on the throne of universal dominion, Rev. 3: 21, as priest-king. Zech. 6: 12, 13.

2. To this position which he now occupies, Ps. 110: 1 applies, God bidding him thus remain on his right hand until he [God] makes his [Christ’s] foes his footstool.

3. God has undertaken in behalf of his Son, to subdue all opposing powers; that is, all which would stand in the way of Christ’s securing the position which the Father has decreed for him; namely, to reign on the throne of David over a redeemed earth surpassing in loveliness and beauty the glories of Eden, and over a class of subjects all righteous and all immortal. In order to this, all sinners and evil angels, who oppose the work of Christ must perish, and death which holds myriads of the saints under its dominion must be destroyed. Hence we read, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” 1 Cor. 15: 26. And this is spoken in reference to Christ and his people. The last thing that stands in the way of the redemption of those for whom Christ died, is death. When that is removed, the work is accomplished. And death is destroyed so far as it affects the people of God, at the first resurrection when they are released forever from its power. That this language must have reference to the righteous, is evident; for as it pertains to the wicked, it never is destroyed. It receives them into its fatal embrace in the second death, and holds them there to all eternity.

4. In connection with this putting down of all opposing powers on the part of the Father, the Son gives up his position as priest-king; that is, he ceases his work as great High Priest, and delivers back to the Father the kingdom he received when he entered upon that work, or when at his ascension his Father gave him a joint position with himself upon the throne of universal dominion, according to the texts already referred to.

5. Then Christ takes his own throne, the promised throne of David, and proceeds to establish his own kingdom which is to be without end. He then returns to this world for his saints, and takes them to the Father’s house, according to his promise, John 14: 2, 3, where they reign with him a thousand years. Rev. 20: 4. Here, and here only, we find a place for the fulfillment of those portions of John’s vision in which he saw the great company of the redeemed before the throne; the throne having previously been located in Heaven where God now is. And here only, also, we find a place and time for the fulfillment of 1 Cor. 6: 2, 3, which declares that the saints shall judge the world and angels. Here, during the thousand years they do judge the wicked of the earth, then sleeping in their graves, by examining the records of their deeds done in the body, and assigning the degree of punishment suitable thereto; and they judge the evil angels by apportioning their retribution in like manner.

6. During this thousand years the earth lies in a desolate condition, Jer. 4: 23–27; and is called the bottomless pit (ἄβυσσος), Rev. 20: 1, as in its original chaotic state. See Septuagint of Gen. 1: 2. In this place Satan is confined during the thousand years. Rev. 20: 2, 3.

7. At the close of the thousand years, the city comes down and is located upon the earth. The wicked dead are raised out of the earth yet unpurified. They come up over its desolate surface, and surround the camp of the saints, the beloved city. They behold the saints, those they had despised, scoffed at, persecuted and destroyed on the earth, safe in that secure and glorious abode. Then are fulfilled the words of Christ to the wicked Jews: “There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and ye yourselves thrust out.” Luke 13: 28.

8. Fire comes down from God out of Heaven and destroys the wicked. With this fire the elements are melted, and even Satan and his evil angels are unable to endure its infinite intensity. They all perish together. Thus this earth, where Satan has wrought his ruin, and succeeded in marring for a time the handiwork of God, becomes for a thousand years his gloomy prison house, and at last his eternal grave. Upon the new earth which is then formed from the purified elements of the old, the saints go forth and enjoy an inheritance of everlasting loveliness and purity and peace.

Thus when the wicked are cut off, the righteous behold it, as the psalmist declares. Ps. 37: 34. They look upon those who have transgressed against God, as they are consuming away, according to the testimony of Isaiah, 66: 24. They tread down the wicked as ashes under their feet, as Malachi predicted; Mal. 4: 1–3; and both the righteous and the wicked are recompensed in the earth, as Solomon affirms. Prov. 11: 31.

With this view there seems to be a “place for everything and everything in its place;” but in no other that we have ever seen upon this subject, are we able to discover either harmony or beauty.

U. S.