Christian Eschatology - The Millennium

The Millennium

In the end, according to Revelation, the Lamb and his armies are victorious and the Beast, generally identified as the Antichrist, is captured and thrown into the lake of fire, while his battle casualties are left as food for the birds. Satan, the spiritual driving force behind the beast and his armies, is imprisoned:

I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. And he cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished.

While only Revelation speaks of a period of a thousand years for Christ’s rule on Earth, there are numerous other prophecies in both testaments concerning a future age of peace. Isaiah speaks of such a time and describes it in Edenic terms:

The wolf will dwell with the lamb; the leopard will lie down with the young goat; the calf, and the young lion, and the yearling together, and a little child will lead them. The cow and the bear will graze; their young ones will lie down together; and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The nursing child will play by the cobra's hole; and the weaned child will put his hand in the viper's den. They will not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

Just as the physical bodies of people are changed into spiritual bodies in the resurrection (see above), so Isaiah implies that animals will undergo a transformation which enables them to live in peace with human beings and with each other. There is no more killing, either in the human or the animal kingdoms. God reverses the covenant made with Noah in which he said, "The fear and the dread of you will be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that moves on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea." If the passage in Isaiah is interpreted literally, a return to the vegetarian diet of Eden seems to be a natural conclusion.

Micah expresses similarly lofty thoughts, adding that Jerusalem will be the Lord’s capital in those days:

Out of Zion the word of the law will go forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge between many peoples, and rebuke strong nations afar off. They will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war any more. But everyone will sit under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one will make them afraid.