Revelation 20:4-6 And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them… Scripture reveals to us, in a great many prophecies, that a time will come when the whole earth shall know God our Saviour: that is what it calls, in its figurative style, the reign of Christ. It does not follow from this, however, that all men will from the heart be converted to the gospel: the expressions of the prophecy go not so far; they speak only of the knowledge of the Lord as about to cover the whole earth; and we know that knowledge may co-exist with an unconverted heart. One of the features characteristic of that glorious period is that the gospel, by that very means through which it will have become dominant, will have penetrated to the most elevated classes and to the rulers of the nations. Governments will be inspired by the gospel, administrations will be Christian (Psalm 138:4, 5). Jesus Christ shall then continue to reign in this sense, that His gospel will be seated on the throne in the person of sovereigns converted to the Christian faith. Then the religion of Christ will no longer be a mere political instrument in the hand of governments; it will no longer cover, as with a sacred mantle, the views of a profane ambition; it will be the sincere expression of the moral life of states. Among the blessed results which the gospel will necessarily produce in the world when submissive to its laws, one of those which Scripture puts in the first class, and to which it reverts most readily, is the abolishment of war and the establishment of a universal peace. Just as in consequence of the progress of civilisation and the softening of manners we no longer comprehend legal torture, just as we no longer comprehend slavery, so a time will come when men will no longer comprehend that there could ever have existed a thing so odious, so horrible, so absurd as war. At the same time that enmities will be appeased among nations, they shall also cease among individuals. Hatred, vengeance, personal violence, will come to an end; the most unyielding characters will be softened; concord, charity, sincerity will preside over all the relations existing among men; natures the most opposed to one another will learn to draw near and love one another. At the same time that the gospel having become dominant, it will produce quite naturally another blessed consequence, which at first view does not seem to depend on its influence. I mean a considerable diminution of physical and moral suffering. Without doubt there will still be trials, but every person will then make an effort to alleviate the sufferings of those who surround him. In a word, the temporal happiness of mankind will increase beyond calculation, and will realise the most characteristic descriptions of prophecy (Isaiah 65:18, 19). At the same time that suffering will decrease, and always by a natural consequence of the benefits attached to the gospel, the duration of human life will be increased; it will reach the utmost limit which nature assigns it; neither vice, nor despair, nor violence, will any longer abridge the days of man (Isaiah 65:20-22). The extension of human life in duration will necessarily be accompanied by an extraordinary increase of the population. It is easy to understand how much more rapid that increase would be if wars, vice, intemperance, selfishness, poverty, and the want of confidence in God, did not come and put obstacles in the way. We may conclude that the number of men who will live on the earth during the millennium will go beyond that of the men who will have lived during all the preceding ages; so that the portion of mankind which shall be saved will be infinitely more numerous, taken altogether, than those who shall be lost; and that thus" grace will abound over sin" (Romans 5:20, 21). That extraordinary increase of population is moreover a characteristic feature of the prophecies relating to the millennium (Psalm 72:16; Isaiah 60:22). Another feature of the glorious period when the gospel which has the promise of the life that now is as well as of that which is to come, shall prevail, is an unprecedented scope being given to industry and to the arts and sciences. Commerce will no more have for its spring selfishness, nor for its means fraud: consecrated to the general good of humanity, it will freely exchange the produce of all nations, and enrich them, the one by the other (Isaiah 9:17, 18). However marvellous the prospects which we have unfolded may appear, all these blessings are the natural and necessary consequences of the gospel having become dominant in the earth. Let the time only come when the whole earth shall be covered with the knowledge of the Lord, and all the wonders of the millennium are not only possible, but they are in some sort unavoidable. The whole question then reduces itself to knowing if it is really possible that a time should come when all the nations of the earth will be converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Observe, in the first place, that the gospel, from that very consideration that it is the truth, ought of necessity to make progress in the world, and gain little by little upon error. In its struggle against paganism the gospel cannot be overcome: it never has been, it never will be. The conversion of the heathen world can then be only a question of time. Observe, in the second place, that, in the very nature of things, the progress of the gospel in the world proceeds of necessity with a perpetually increasing rapidity. The result of each new year is not the same as that of the preceding one; but it is double, treble, or fourfold. The conversion of the heathen world is therefore sure after a given time, and everything announces that this time need not be very considerable. Let them come then after all, and tell us that the work of missions is useless; that the evangelisation of the world is a chimera; that the sacrifices made for the conversion of the heathen are lost; that all these efforts are but a drop of water which loses itself in an ocean. We know on what to depend. We know that missions are a work, not only appointed by God, but reasonable, productive, and full of prospect; we know that the millennium is not only a brilliant ideal created by prophecy, but that it will be the natural, regular, unfailing consequence of what passes now and henceforth under our eyes. A last question might remain for examination on the subject of the millennium: we do not attach great importance to it, for it is more curious than useful. What conjectures may we form as to the period in the future when the millennium should commence? Let us remark, in the first place, that from the present state of the world, and the progress which the gospel has made since the commencement of our century, it is to be presumed that the millennium ought not to be very far distant. A century and a half ought to suffice, according to all human probabilities, to bring about the conversion of the world. It is thus that the creation of the world was accomplished in six days, or rather in six periods; the seventh day, or seventh period, is a sabbath or rest. The ceremonial purifications ordained by Moses were continued during six days, and were terminated on the seventh. In the sacrifices offered for grievous sins, the sprinkling of blood was made seven times, on the seventh sprinkling the atonement was accomplished. In the visions of the Apocalypse, the Apostle St. John sees a book sealed with seven seals, each of these seals represents a period in the future of the Church. Since then it is a character, which seems essential to the dispensations of God, that they should continue during seven periods, and never beyond the seventh, we may suppose, by analogy, that the present world is to continue during seven periods of a thousand years, the last of which would be the millennium. That supposition acquires especially a high degree of probability when we compare the present dispensation, considered in its successive phases, with the account of creation. According to a very ancient tradition, and one found already among the Jews, the six days of Genesis would be six periods of a thousand years — a supposition which is confirmed by two passages of Scripture, where it is said, in speaking particularly of the creation, "That one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." This moral creation, like the physical creation, is to be accomplished in six days, or in six thousand years. In the physical creation there is a progressive gradation from beings less perfect to beings more perfect; there is the same in the moral creation, where humanity goes on perfecting itself from age to age, and from one thousand years to another. The end of the millennium will be the signal of the events which are to mark the end of the world. "When the thousand years shall be accomplished," the prophet has told us, "Satan will be loosed from his prison, and he will afresh seduce the inhabitants of the earth." But that last seduction will continue but a moment, and will bring with it the final defeat of all the powers of darkness; the dead shall rise to appear in judgment, and the economy of time will give place to that of eternity. (H. Monod.) Parallel Verses KJV: And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. |
    |