QUESTIONS against PREMILLENNIALISM

 

1.       From where do the nations of Rev 20:3, 8 come from? Are they unbelievers who escaped the destruction which took place at the second coming of Jesus (Rev 19:17-21)? If so, how can we explain that “all men, both free and bond, both great and small” is destroyed at the second coming of Jesus (Rev 19:18)? We see in Rev 19:21 that “the rest were slain”? Also Rev 13:8, 16 identifies the “all men” (of Rev 19:18, 21) who are destroyed as all unbelievers who does not have their name in the book of life. If so how any unbeliever could escape the judgment at the second coming of Jesus and be present in the millennial reign of Christ?

2.       Does it make sense that Rev 20:1-3 is describing an action designed to prevent the Satanic deception of the very nations who had already been deceived (16:13-16) and consequently destroyed (19:19-21)?

3.       If unbelieving nations are present (?) in the millennium after the second coming of Jesus, they are seeing the savior of the world. Also if I am right, many premillennialists believe that these nations will multiply during the millennium. If so, can they come to the saving faith during the millennium? If they could become saved during the millennium, how can any unbeliever can be saved from the wrath of God after the glorious second coming of Jesus Christ?

Reference:

2 Peter 3:9, 10: The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. ¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

2 Thess. 1:6-10: “…….God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, ⁷ and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels ⁸ in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. ⁹ They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, ¹⁰ when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.

1 Thess 5:2-3: For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. ³ While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 

Matt 13:40-42: Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. ⁴¹ The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, ⁴² and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.   

Rev 11:18: “The nations raged, but your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.”

More: Matt. 25:31-46; Rev. 6:12-16: Rev 19:17-21

4.       How the unbeliever (if present?) could continue to live in the presence of our glorious Jesus Christ without themselves changing (either to glorification or to damnation)?

Reference:

1 John 3:2: “Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”

Rev. 16:15: ““Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!” “

Rev. 6:15-17: “Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, ¹⁶ calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, ¹⁷ for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”

Malachi 4:1-3: “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. ² But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. ³ And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.”

1 Cor. 15:50, 51: “ I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. ⁵¹ Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed”

5.       If any unbeliever believes in Jesus Christ in the millennium and gets saved (?), what happens to their unresurrected body? Will they taste death? When will their resurrection be? Will they resurrect with unbelievers after the millennium (as premillennialists say) or will they be glorified at the instant they believe? Will they be resurrected instantly when they die? If that is the case, numerous resurrection or glorification experience will be happening during the millennium. Does Bible support this notion that even after the second coming of Jesus, the people of God is having a corruptible unresurrected body? (1 Cor 15: 54 says death is swallowed up in victory when believers are resurrected)

Reference:

1 Corinthians 15:25,26: “For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. ²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”

1 Corinthians 15:54, 55: “When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” ⁵⁵ “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

6.       In Rev 19:17-18 the angel announces the coming destruction of beast through the same imagery found in Ezek 39:17-20. Doesn’t it imply that Rev 19:17-21 is speaking about the defeat of Gog and Magog since Ezekiel 38, 39 is about the defeat of Gog, king of Magog (Ezek. 38:2,3)? If so, isn’t it the case that Rev 19:17-21 is speaking of the same war as portrayed in Rev 20:8-10 (which is identified as battle involving Gog and Magog in Rev 20:8)? Doesn’t it seem that Rev 19:17-21; Rev 20:7-10 and Rev 16:12-16 are complementary portrayals of the second coming of Jesus?

7.       In Revelation 19:18 all men are the enemies while in Rev 20, the nations that are at the four corners of the earth are the enemies. They are all specifically gathered together for “the war” (ton polemon) (Rev 19:19; 20:8; 16:14). Doesn’t it tells us that a specific, well-known, single war that is in view?

8.       Where are these “thrones” (Rev 20:4) upon which the saints sit? Is it in heaven or on earth? In Revelation thronos refers to a throne in heaven (about 40 times), except when it is said as Satan’s throne, throne of the beast. It also refers to God’s throne on the new earth when it comes down from heaven (21:3, 5; 22:1, 3). Can you see the similarity of the setting of Rev. 20:4 and Rev. 6:9? Doesn’t it imply that the scene of Rev. 20:4-6 is also in heaven?

9.       Where is the mention in Revelation 20 that the millennial reign of Christ is upon a renewed earth? Are we reading into the text of Revelation 20 some foreign ideas? Many Premillennialists links the millennium with Christ reigning in Jerusalem and giving Israel their land. But why doesn’t there any hint of this anywhere in Revelation 20?

10.   Many Premillennialists seem to understand the terms “the camp of the saints” and “the beloved city” (Rev 20:9) as the city of Jerusalem and the state of Israel which consists of ethnic, biological descendents of Abraham. How could that idea do justice to Revelation (Rev. 1:6; 2:9-10; 3:7-12; Rev. 7:4, 9, 14; 14:4, 4; Rev. 12:1, 2, 6, 17; Rev. 19:7; 21:2, 9, 10, 12-14; 22:14) and the rest of the Scriptures (Matt. 8:10-12; Acts 15:15-19; Rom. 2:25-29; 4:11-16; 9:22-26; 11:17-18; Gal. 3:14, 16, 27-29; 4:21-32; 5:2; 6:13-16; Eph. 2:11, 12, 13, 19; Phil. 3:2-3) which asserts that believing Gentiles are also included with believing Jew in the commonwealth of Israel? From which time onwards our Lord started to count only the biological descendents of Abraham as Israel (Exod. 12:47-49)? Doesn’t the New Testament teach that the Messiah of the Jews expanded the boundary of Israel to include all the believers?

                                                (This question is applicable only to Dispensational Premillennialists)

Reference:

Exodus 12:47-49: “All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. ⁴⁸ If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. ⁴⁹ There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.”

11.   According to Premillennialism, how many cosmic dissolutions take place? Hebrews 12:26-28 declares that once more the Lord will shake the heaven and the earth. Doesn’t it mean that cosmic dissolutions portrayed in Rev. 6:14; Rev 20:11 are describing the same event.

12.   Premillennialists believe that all believers from all age will reign with Christ on this earth in the millennium? But the New Jerusalem (which is equated with believers of all age: Rev 21:2, 9, 12, 13, 14) is coming down from heaven only at the time of new heavens and new earth (Rev 21:1). Do Premillennialists believe that believers from heaven comes down to earth at the beginning of millennium and then goes to heaven at the end of the millennium and again comes down to the fully restored earth after the completion of the millennium? Isn’t this a duplication of the same events which premillennialists produce to accommodate their system?

13.   What is the character of the first death (implied by the presence of second death) and the second death? Are they same? Are they both physical or both spiritual or one physical and one spiritual? If it is not same in character, how could premillennialists say that the character of first resurrection and second resurrection should be necessarily the same? In other words how could we tell that first resurrection is physical just because second resurrection (which is implied) is physical? Aren’t we able to see the contrast in Revelation 20:4-6 between two deaths and two resurrections which helps us to identify which is spiritual and which is physical?

14.   If all unbelievers are judged at the second coming of Jesus (1 Thess.5:1-3; 2 Thess. 1:6-10; Rom 2:6-16; Acts 17:31; Matt 25:31,46; 2 Pet. 3:7,9; Jude 15; Rev 6:10,16; Rev. 11:18), how could some unbelievers are not resurrected at the second coming of Jesus but only after thousand years? If God judges those who persecuted Christians in the first century at the second coming of Jesus (1 Thess. 5:1-3; Rev. 6:10,16) then they should be resurrected at the second coming of Jesus. Isn’t it?

15.   If the restoration of the creation and resurrection of believers happens simultaneously (Rom. 8:18-23), how could premillennialists say that the old earth with sin, death, corruption continues to exist even after the resurrection of believers? The reason why the natural creation is expecting anxiously the resurrection of the believers is because it is then, their restoration also happens. That is the whole point of Rom. 8:18-23. Doesn’t that mean the new heavens and new earth (or restored earth) will come at the second coming of Jesus (not thousand years after)?