One of the most debated discussions within Christianity is the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ. In an exclusive interview with Charisma Media, author and pastor Max Lucado discussed the exciting and mind-boggling topics of the thousand-year reign of Christ, the Great Tribulation and the rapture.
Speaking about Revelation chapter 20, Lucado says, “There are a variety of ways that passage is interpreted, but for the sake of simplicity, I think there’s two buckets. One is that person who says that’s all symbolic language; we’re living in the Millennium right now. The other is the person who says no, that’s not symbolic; that’s literal language, and that Millennium is yet to come.”
Lucado says he has personally moved from the Amillennial viewpoint, which holds the thousand-year reign of Jesus to be more symbolic than literal, and now holds a pre-Millennial point of view.
“I think you can make a better case for the fact that there is truly going to be a thousand years in which Christ will be crowned, in which Satan will be bound, and we will reign with Christ for those thousand years,” says Lucado.
“I think it’s important that of the early church fathers for the first 300 years the church was overwhelmingly pre-Millennial. There were a few exceptions, but overwhelmingly the early church fathers including one who studied with the apostle John spoke of the literal Millennium. And then lastly there’s two resurrections described in the teaching of Revelation 20. One at the beginning, one at the end of the thousand year reign. How can you have two resurrections if there is not a Millennium to separate them?” Lucado says.
Lucado also points out that how you see the Millennium transforms your perspective on how you view the end times. Lucado believes the next big event we can expect to see is the Rapture.
“The next major event on the prophetic calendar is, in my estimation, the Rapture,” he says. “That God will rapture the church, and He will deliver us from the wrath that is to come and the wrath that is to come is that period of Tribulation. And then the Tribulation is concluded by Christ returning to earth, and we will return with Him and He’ll set up His Kingdom on earth.”
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Lucado believes when you take the Millennium out of the prophetic timeline of the events that are to occur during the last days, it leaves many questions about this timeframe unanswered.
Lucado says that the term “rapture” means “snatched up,” or “taken away.”
“It seems the best interpretation of these Scriptures, to me, is that Christ will rapture His church to deliver us from a coming wrath, and that wrath is the Tribulation. And the rapture is when He will come and rescue the church, take us into paradise with Him, and we will enjoy conscious fellowship with Him. We will be recognized by Christ, rewarded by Christ, wedded to Christ. And while that’s happening, that’s when the Tribulation will break out on earth,” says Lucado.
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Abby Trivett is content development editor for Charisma Media.
James Lasher