The Millennial Reign of Christ (Rev. 20:1-6) - Paul M. Williams

Revelation 20:1-6 When the disciples asked Jesus; "...Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6), what did they mean?  If one was to ask such a question today in the vast majority of the theological colleges across the Western world, one would receive an answer that would be far from adequate in explaining the true nature of the disciple's inquiry.  You see, for many today, the concept of a millennial kingdom does not even figure into their eschatological thinking.  For the amillennialist, the future kingdom of God is the present kingdom of God, and any hope of a golden age of righteousness and peace upon the earth is certainly not realised in some distant event, but in the last 2000 years of Church history as the gospel has been being preached in all the world.  For the postmillennialist, they would acknowledge a coming golden era of some arbitrary length, but they would argue that this "millennium" of triumphalism will be ushered in by the Church and not the Lord Jesus at His Coming!  Both groups would undoubtedly, deny that God has any future purposes for Israel during this time, which runs totally contrary to what the disciples thought when putting the question to Jesus, "...Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?"     In this teaching, we examine the position of premillennialism in light of Revelation 20:1-6, and try to understand the role of the Church and the place of Israel in this coming future kingdom, over which shall rule Messiah at His Second Coming.