In 2020 I published an article concerning my moving toward the eschatological challenge and in my previous article I mentioned that I am a “free thinking Amillennialist”. For some that statement may leave some unanswered questions in mind? So I thought I’d give a little backstory.
When I was a boy, growing up in church, we didn’t hear much about the end times. I knew about the book of Revelation but I left it alone. Often images would provoke fear and I would see publications of Billy Graham and other preachers saying the end is nigh.
Growing up in the Salvation Army there was no mention of eschatology until my family went to an evangelical church and were suddenly presented with premillennialism. We were told about the rapture and the Antichrist and often fearful things would escape any pause for freedom of thought. Preachers would say Antichrist is going to come and sign a peace treaty in Israel and a great tribulation would begin. We will all be raptured they would say.
There was never any explanation of the complexities of interpreting Scripture or any reference to different views, it was all presented as though all Christian’s are obligated to believe this.
Some years later I read the book of Revelation for myself and I began to enquire what it was all about. Who were the seven churches John was writing to? Where was Patmos? Where is Ephesus? In 2004 I visited Ephesus for myself and by that time I had already begun to see that the seven churches of Revelation were actual historic 1st century churches. None of which exist today. Then I asked myself, why would a man on Patmos write to people in seven churches 2000 years ago about events that were to happen thousands of years later after they were all dead?
Revelation 1: 1 was a wrecking ball for me and here John already lays the foundation, “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him, to show His servants things which must shortly come to pass;”
Note how he says “things which must shortly come to pass” a clear reference to the 1st century when Revelation was first written.
Then I read Revelation 1: 19, “Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and things which will take place after this.”
To me, these verses were a wrecking ball for all I had been taught and showed me that John was not writing to 1st century people about events that would take place thousands of years off in the future but about events that would ‘shortly take place’ at the time of writing.
John was writing to 1st century Christian’s warning them about events that they would have to face in their own lifetime.
Imagine if you were in a war and writing to fellow Christians to warn them about events that were about to shortly come to pass, would you want them to think you were writing about future events that would occur thousands of years later? What would be the point of that? The warning would make no sense.
As I explored I learned that the ancient world loved puzzles and used a lot of symbolism and references to the Old Testament. Then I learned that there are different interpretations of the book of Revelation but I had only been presented with one view. Every Christian I knew was a Premillennialist and they all told me that there would be a rapture and one person would be taken and the other left. Yet as I began to explore I found that the very idea of a premillennial rapture was an 18th-19th century invention and the passages used to justify these rapture theories are more contextually related to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 rather than the end of the world. Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18 was writing about an entirely different subject than Jesus was communicating in Matthew 24: 40. When Jesus said “Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left.” He was talking about Jews being taken into Roman captivity in AD70 and not individuals being raptured up into heaven thousands of years later. The reason many people fail to recognise that is because the preachers already read the rapture into it.
In my opinion, Premillennialism is not a solid contextually verifiable interpretation of the Bible passages it claims to represent. It often takes scriptures way out of context and assumes an interpretation of them as the passages are being read. It ignores the basic meaning of Scripture and fails to reconsider what those passages would have meant to the original writers and 1st century readers.
For this and numerous historic and contextual reasons I have, over this lengthy journey, decided that the A-millennial position is the most reliable and historically correct interpretation of the book of Revelation. The title isn’t perfect and doesn’t perfectly communicate my understanding 100% but unlike premillennialism it realises the implications of Acts 2: 32-36 correctly and does not assume the reign of Christ to begin after His glorious return, but realises that He is reigning from heaven now and has been since His incarnation on earth. Peters sermon in Acts 2 is explicitly clear on that and his words leave nowhere for the premillennial to go.
Though I respect that many godly Christians believe wholeheartedly in premillennialism, I am content to say that I do not. I am happy to know that after such a long and often conflicting journey, I am content to say that I have arrived at my destination and am in good company.
Simon Peter Sutherland 