Questions about the millennium

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Particular Baptist

Puritan Board Freshman
As someone who grew up in a dispensational enviroment, I'm currently still working out my eschatology. A few questions I have about the Historic Premill view are

1. Where are the people going to come from in the Millennium if Christ has conquered and slain all the unbelievers on earth?

2. Is there going to be a renewed system of sacrifice in this kingdom?

3. Why are the thrones in Revelation 20 on earth when every other throne mentioned in Revelation is in heaven?

4. Why are the resurrected in Revelation 20 mentioned as just being souls and not full bodies?

5. Will the temple be rebuilt pre-second coming or during the millennium or at all?

6. Why, in Isaiah 65, does the New Heavens and New Earth come after the defeat of Gog and Magog? If I believe right, the premill position holds that this reference in Isaiah 65 is to the conditions in the earthly reign of Christ and not to the New Heavens and Earth stated after the defeat of Gog and Magog in Rev. 20.

Some questions for the Amillennial perspective I have are:

1. What is your interpretation of Ezekial 40-49? Why is this section in the Bible if the temple will never be rebuilt?

2. Why are there people dying in the new heaven and new earth in Isaiah 65?

I would also like to the Postmill answers to these as well. I'm just wanting to see how everyone answers these questions that I've been having as of recently.

Thanks
 
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Particular Baptist;

I'm finding that this is a sore subject here on the puritan board. Which was a little disappointing to me.

The short answers are these, but I'm also on the same journey so I don't claim to have them all or even any of them. I'm just offering you what I see, and what others that I trust have said, that SEEMs to make sense.

Amillenialist view is probably most accurate for a reformed theology
Premillialism is just unsupported in the reformed view. I used to be a premil pretrib and once I really started digging into scripture, I discovered, either you would never know that you were in the trib, till the end or at some major point, but still not being sure, or it's not true as described by Darby and other premil's.

Also, some of your questions are answered, maybe not satisfyingly, but answered just the same with some research. I find that reformed theologians tend to want you to research for yourself...since it might have been not doing that, that led us astray before?? I dunno, that was the case with me.

try monergism.com that's a good one has some good insights about your questions.

Sorry this wasn't more helpful.
 
Some questions for the Amillennial perspective I have are:

1. What is your interpretation of Ezekial 40-49? Why is this section in the Bible if the temple will never be rebuilt?

2. Why are there people dying in the new heaven and new earth in Isaiah 65?

Well I cannot answer from the Dispensational point of view, other than to say that some of the questions you asked rightly identify the absurdity of the position.

Re: your questions for the Amillennial:

1. It takes a great deal of study regarding the historical context and genre of Ezekiel before it is fitting to answer this question. It seems to me that you've already presupposed a dispensational hermeneutic by asking the question "Why is this section in the Bible if the temple will never be rebuilt?" That is, it seems you are already presupposing that the text is speaking of a literal temple. But to skip all this and directly answer your question, my friend wrote a blog post on this issue, and I found it helpful, found here. His closing paragraph:

"Ezekiel’s vision of a temple represents something real through figurative language. I believe the reason Ezekiel spends so much time walking through and measuring the temple is impress us with the majesty of what the temple will be, not to lay out blueprints for it. That kind of writing is the best way he had to demonstrate the grandeur of what God will do when he restores his people. It is like the vision of the dry bones coming to life (37) and the stony heart of his people being replaced with a fleshly one (36:26-27) and washing them with clean water (36:24-25). If we understand Ezekiel’s temple in the context of this section of his writing, it is speaking of the restoration and purification of his people and that is exactly how we see the New Testament speak of the Church."​

2. The same could be said regarding this question. You must understand the type of literature here, a style that we really have no parallel to in the English language, before trying to answer the question. Otherwise, you're going to interpret it as if the book was written to 21st century Americans, living in a post-enlightenment, post-scientific revolution world, rather than to a tiny, largely uneducated, pre-historic nation of Hebrews.

In both texts, the author is using imagery, graphic at times, to symbolize realities --he is not trying to define these realities down to a 't'.
 
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