New Creation Millennialism

Book excerpt: New Creation Millennialism is a creative new offering on the same topic as the author's seminal 1992 monograph After the Thousand Years: Resurrection and Judgment in Revelation 20. It introduces a powerful new interpretative approach to chapters 19-21 of the Book of Revelation. Its conclusion--that the thousand years of Revelation 20:1-10 begins at the glorious, world-shattering coming of Jesus Christ and has the new creation as its setting--flows from four observations about the literary design of Revelation: (1) John narrates ten or more visions of the glorious coming of Christ, making a simple chronological reading strategy impossible. (2) John gives clear verbal indications that he understands his vision of a devil-led attack by "Gog and Magog" upon the "beloved city" (Rev. 20:7-9 || Rev. 20:13-15) as representing the resurrection and final judgment of the devil and "the rest of the dead," who, like the devil, are to be incarcerated in the underworld "until the thousand years are ended" (Rev. 20:2-3, 5, 7). (3) John gives clear indications that the new creation and the coming to earth of the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:1-2) attend Christ's coming in glory and are not to be assigned to a place after the thousand years of Revelation 20 (compare Rev. 19:5-9; 21:2, 9). (4) John offers multiple clues that the visions he narrates in Revelation 19-21 cover the same eschatological subject matter as those Isaiah narrated in the Isaiah Apocalypse (Isa. 24-27). This study not only solves the historically perplexing puzzles of Revelation 20 but also points to a new and radical theological understanding of the final fate of the unrepentant. Chapter 1 presents a new exposition of Rev. 19:5-21:8, demonstrating the elegance and explanatory power of the new creation millennialism interpretive paradigm. Chapters 2 and 3 lay out the insuperable difficulties that are faced by historic premillennialism and amillennialism, respectively. Chapter 4 presents a rebuttal to key amillennial arguments against the possibility of a premillennial reading of Rev. 20:1-10. The Conclusion sums up the gains made by the new creation millennialism approach and offers some theological reflections. An appendix introduces a number of ancient and modern interpreters of Revelation that have contributed to the new creation millennium interpretive paradigm.