3791 - The Millennium by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 25, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 25.

3791 — The Millennium

By Editor

Is the millennium the thousand years mentioned in Rev. 20:5? What was God's intention of having the wicked lying on the earth a thousand years?

"Millennium" means "thousand years." We could speak of the last millennium, or the first millennium, or any other millennium, meaning simply a thousand years; but "the millennium" is generally understood as applying to the period of time mentioned in Revelation 20, during which time Satan will be confined to this earth, the wicked themselves will be dead, the saints will be in heaven, sitting in judgment with God. We do not suppose that the wicked lie on the earth during the thousand years. They are destroyed and go back to dust. At the end of the thousand years, they will be raised again. During the thousand years, the cases of the wicked will come before the righteous, according to 1 Cor. 6:2, 3. Evidently that time itself may be needed for the consideration of the cases of the wicked. Then, too, just as Palestine was desolate for seventy years because of the sins of Israel for 420 years, so this old earth will be desolate for a thousand years because of the sins of the world for the six thousand years. It will be the Sabbath of the earth, during which time it will rest. Men have rejected God, and have refused to keep His Sabbath, and the Lord will let the earth keep its Sabbath.