“It shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem [in the war of Armageddon] shall even go up [to Jerusalem] from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.”
– Zechariah 14:16
“Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is His Name whereby He shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS [Jehovah Tsidkenu].”
– Jeremiah 23: 5-6
Many Christians think of themselves as Bible literalists but really aren’t, the proof of which is seen in the widespread Christian ignorance or rejection of two important doctrines: the two-house covenant and the Millennial Kingdom.
I addressed the two-house covenant in my last article (and invoked it in my choice of the Jeremiah citation above regarding Judah and Israel). Today I will address millennialism, in celebration of “the great [eighth] day of the feast” of tabernacles/Sukkot (John 7:37-38), which symbolizes the Millennial Kingdom and was the day on which Jesus declared His deity by announcing His authority to direct the anointing of the Holy Spirit – the “living water.” According to the rabbinical holiday calendar for 2022, that eighth day was Oct. 16.
Millennialism is the doctrine which holds that all Creation is a 7,000-year period matching the seven 24-hour days of Creation: six days/millennia of work, followed by a Sabbath day/millennium when God and man will dwell together: the Millennial Kingdom. Importantly, the “Feast of Tabernacles” is the seventh of the biblical feasts of Leviticus 23 and also the name that designates the three-feast fall pilgrimage that serves as a ritual rehearsal for the events of the second coming. (They are Yom Teruah, aka the Feast of Trumpets, Yom Kippur, aka the Day of Atonement, and Sukkot, aka the Feast of Tabernacles.)
Millennial doctrine is implicit in the book of Hosea – the Bible’s key blueprint in allegory form for two-house and millennial prophecy – where in chapter 6, verse 2, it reads, “After two days He [Jesus Christ] will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His presence.”
Peter, writing about the “Day of the Lord” in 2 Peter 3:8, informed us that “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” When he wrote that, four 1,000-year “days” of human history from Adam to Jesus were already completed, and thus, those first “two days” in Hosea 6:2 are the next two 1,000-year “days” of the Christian era – spanning the fifth and sixth millennia. The “third day” is the “Day of the Lord,” the Millennial Kingdom (the third “day” after the advent of Christ, but the seventh “day” of Creation). Indeed, we are now fast approaching that last 1,000 years: Day 7, the Sabbath “Day,” when the King of Kings will literally dwell with mankind on David’s Throne on a redeemed Planet Earth (Matthew 19:28; Ezekiel 37:20-24).
Importantly, changes from one millennium to the next do not occur instantaneously at the strike of a clock but gradually like the transition of the seasons: There is always an overlapping cusp from one to the next. Thus Adam, (who was told by God that in the “day” in which he sinned against Him he would die – Genesis 2:17) lived not 999 years until the stroke of midnight on year 1000, but died on the cusp of the first and second millennia – at the age of 930 years (Genesis 5:5).
The current cusp of the sixth and seventh “day” began as prophesied by Jesus in Matthew 24:32-35, with the sprouting of the fig tree (symbolic of the House of Judah in Jerusalem per Jeremiah 24). Therefore, since the return of the Jews to their inheritance, the Holy Land of Israel, we have been in that cusp, awaiting several essential events including:
A) All the drama prophesied in Christ’s “Olivet Discourse” of Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, including especially:
B) The resurrection/”rapture” of 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 and 1 Corinthians 15:51-52;
C) The “Winepress of God’s Wrath” of Revelation 14:17-20; and
D) The return of Christ as the “Lord of Hosts” of Revelation 19:11-21 (which I intentionally invoked in my choice of the Zechariah 14 citation above because it is a singular event in all of history unequivocally linked to the second coming).
To be sure, some of what I have described above is not, strictly speaking, stated in literal terms, but in allegory or symbolism about events clearly intended to be TAKEN as literally true. Thankfully, the Lord Himself removed all ambiguity about the literal nature of these events in His final word to humanity as given to the Apostle/Prophet John in Revelation 20:1-4. John said in no uncertain terms:
“Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven with the key to the Abyss, holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. And he threw him into the Abyss, shut it, and sealed it over him, so that he could not deceive the nations until the thousand years were complete. After that, he must be released for a brief period of time.
:Then I saw the thrones, and those seated on them had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image, and had not received its mark on their foreheads or hands. And they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.”
This straightforward passage confirms the reality of the Millennial Kingdom, the resurrection/”rapture” of the saints and the co-regency of the saints as literal truth.
Regarding a believer’s fate after death it is commonly said we will “die and go to heaven,” which is technically true, but there’s an essential interim step many Christians ignore/reject because of bad doctrine. Yes, we will spend eternity together in heaven, but (very soon) there is a seventh, final Sabbath “Day” before Eternity: Christ’s Millennial Kingdom.
This is yet one more reason that the forgotten Hebrew cultural perspectives of the Apostles and the Prophets really should matter to Christians. For more on this theme, read my free book “The Prodigal Son Prophecy.”
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