The millenium--1000 year reign

If you expect to completely understand the 1000 year reign from reading this post, you will be disappointed. The only place where this is discussed in the Bible is in Revelation 20; and scholars disagree wildly on what this means. It starts this way: "Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while." To demonstrate the confusion over the passage, there are postmillenialists who believe that Jesus will come to earth after the 1000 years, premillenialists who believe He comes before the 1000 years, and amillenialists who believe that the 1000 years isn't literal and Jesus isn't coming to reign on the earth.

Here are some things to consider:
Virtually all of Revelation is not literal. It is figurative, symbolic language which seems to have been more understood in the 1st century than it is today.
The book of Revelation was written to give confidence and hope to the persecuted Christians who desperately needed to know that God would triumph over Satan. This is the primary point of Rev. 20.
Rev. 20 does not mention:
The second coming of Christ.
A bodily resurrection.
A reign of Christ on earth.
A literal throne of David.
Palestine or Jerusalem.
Christ on earth.

Many people today have drawn conclusions from this chapter that simply are not stated. There are a lot of passages in other places in the Bible that discuss the Kingdom, the reign of Christ, but none talk about Jesus coming back the earth for an earthly reign. Here are a few key passages if one wants to search this out: Isaiah 2, Daniel 2, and Joel 2 talk about the coming kingdom. Acts 1 says that Jesus will come back in the same way as He left (in the clouds). Acts 2:33-41, especially vs 35 quotes David where he said that the Lord said "to my Lord (Jesus), sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool" (destruction of Satan). And Hebrews 10:13 references this. 1Corinthians 15:20 on, especially 24-26 discuss the end times. And 1Thessalonians 4 & 5 do also. A quick study of these passages will give a good deal of enlightenment to what is coming. But in all of this, one will not find reference to Jesus coming back to the earth for a physical reign. And a final thought is that many passages would indicate that Jesus is already reigning in heaven, at the right hand of the Father (note especially Acts 2). And Colossians 1:13 says that "He has ....conveyed us (Christians) into the kingdom of the Son of His love." It would seem that Jesus is already reigning, and Christians today are in the kingdom.

I hope this helps. God bless you.