The Meaning of the Millennium Quotes

“The idea of the Church as spiritual Israel is seen in other passages. Abraham is called "the father of all who believe" (Rom. 4:11); Abraham is "the father of us all" who "share the faith of Abraham" (Rom. 4:16); "It is men of faith who are the sons of Abraham" (Gal. 3:7); "And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise" (Gal. 3:19). If Abraham is the father of a spiritual people, and if all believers are sons of Abraham, his offspring, then it follows that they are Israel, spiritually speaking.”
― George Eldon Ladd, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“Ladd understands ezesan in verses 4 and 5 as meaning bodily resurrection in both instances. In support of this interpretation he points to two other passages in the book of Revelation whereezesan has this meaning: 2:8 and 13:14.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“However, I understand the word as it is used here to mean not regeneration but the transition from physical death to life in heaven with Christ during the time between death and the resurrection (pp. 170-71).”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“I have tried to show that the binding of Satan in Revelation 20:1-3 can be understood to mean that Satan cannot prevent the
spread of the gospel during the present age, that he cannot gather Christ's enemies together to attack the church, and that this binding takes place during the entire era of the New Testament church (see pp.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“binding of Satan described in verses 1-3. He does not tell us exactly what he thinks this binding means nor precisely what he understands by "deceive the nations no more." He does not relate the binding of Satan spoken of here to passages in the Gospels which speak of such a binding as having already begun at the time of Christ's first coming (see pp. 161-64 of my essay).”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“But I do not agree that what is described in chapter 20 necessarily follows chronologically what is described in chapter 19, any more than what is described in chapter 12 (the birth of the man-child) follows chronologically what is described in the last verses of chapter 11 (the judging of the dead and the giving of rewards to the saints). The reasons why I believe that Revelation 20:1 takes us back to the beginning of the New Testament era are given in my essay, pages 156-60.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“I agree that the church is often spoken of in the New Testament as spiritual Israel and that the basic dispensationalist principle of an absolute distinction between Israel and the church, involving two distinct purposes of God and two distinct peoples of God, has no biblical warrant.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“What Paul termed the "dividing wall of hostility" between Jew and Gentile has been broken down, and it is never to be raised up again. Christ performed his work equally for men of all nationalities and races.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“Since the Messiah has come and has fully performed his work of atonement, this special role assigned to the Jews has been fulfilled. Hence there remains no reason whatever for reviving or re-establishing any one or more of the elements of the old system.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“In accordance with this the entire system of Judaism has been abrogated, brought to an end and abolished. And in its place the New Covenant has become the authoritative and official instrument for God's dealings with his people, the church.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“God's plan of salvation for a lost world was that he would provide a Redeemer through whose life and death redemption would be worked out.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“But now that the Messiah has come and God's revelation
to mankind has been completed, written in a book and made available to the people of all nations with nothing more to be added, there is no further need for a separate people or nation to serve that purpose.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“There is no hint of coming back to the earth before the time of the new heaven and the new earth of the eternal state. Our natural bodies cannot enter the heavenly kingdom, and we may be sure that the resurrection bodies of the saints
would be equally out of place if brought back to live again in this environment.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“feet as though dead" (Rev. 1: 16-17). If such glory was so overpowering that the beloved disciple John fell at his feet as though dead, how much less shall ordinary mortals, sinners, be able to stand before him!”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“That condition, semiheavenly and semiearthly, with Christ reigning-apparently-in Jerusalem, with two radically different types of people (the saints in glorified, resurrected bodies and ordinary mortals still in the flesh mingling freely throughout the world for the long and almost unending period of one thousand years) strikes me as so unreal and impossible that I wonder how anyone can take it seriously. Such a mixed state of mortals and immortals, terrestrial and celestial, surely would be a monstrosity.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“practical value "to enable God's people to live in the present in light of the future (2 Pet. 1:19)" (p. 39). Nowhere in any formal sense does the New Testament expound the theology of the millennium. But men are made aware of the fact that there is a new order of revelation and control during the kingdom.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“there is a progressive triumph of Christ's kingdom as set forth in 1 Corinthians 15:23-26, in which Christ completes the subjugation of his enemies.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“During the millennium Christ will rule over all the earth including Gentiles as well as Israel. But this rule, contrary to Ladd's view, will be in direct relation to the earth. This rule will be personal, earthly, visible, real and spiritual.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“He insists that Christ is now exalted to the high position of Lord and Christ, is exercising his power, and
is reigning from heaven as God's vice regent.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“The dispensationalist interprets the New Testament in the light of the Old, whereas the nondispensationalist, it seems, comes to the New Testament with a system of interpretation which is not derived from the Old Testament and superimposes this upon the New Testament.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“Dispensationalism forms its eschatology by a literal interpretation of the Old Testament and then fits the New Testament into it. A nondispensational eschatology forms its theology from the explicit teaching of the New Testament”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“But he refuses to understand that the Old Testament is not complete apart from the New Testament and that the New Testament cannot be comprehended apart from the Old Testament.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“Not one view of the millennium in this book is without some arrangement of dispensations; it is impossible to interpret the Bible apart from some arrangement of dispensations; and most certainly the very mention of an eschatological millennium imposes another dispensation.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“It is the dispensational view that the final company of the saved is resurrected at this time, thus completing the first resurrection.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“The fathers of the church from the second century on have not held this view, and this therefore does not establish its validity.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“The presentation of each of the millennial views in this book centers on the hermeneutic or principle of interpretation adopted by each writer.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“We have argued above that Christ began his Messianic reign at his resurrection-ascension; but his present reign is invisible, unseen and unrecognized by the world, visible only to the eye of faith. The order of the Age to Come will involve a new heaven and a new earth, and will be so different from the present order that we can speak of it as beyond history”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“The main purpose of prophecy is not to answer all our questions about the future but to enable God's people to live in the present in light of the future (2 Pet. 1: 19).”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“It should not trouble us that the New Testament for the most part does not foresee the millennial kingdom any more than the fact that the Old Testament does not clearly predict the Church Age.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views

“The apocalypses use highly symbolic language to describe a series of
events in history; and the main concern of apocalyptic is the end of the age and the establishment of God's kingdom.”
― Robert G. Clouse, The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views