The Great Day of Day of God’s Wrath and the End of the Millennium #3

Definitive Proof that the Millennium Ended in the First Century

As we noted in our first article in this series, the Millennium is a study of great importance for understanding eschatology. All three futurist views of the end times either claim that the Christian age is the Millennium (Amillennialism and Postmillennialism) or, the Millennium will be established at the Second Coming of Christ, at the end of the Christian age (Dispensationalism). Whichever view one considers, the coming of the Lord is invariably posted as future in all three views.

For more on the Millennium, be sure to read my articles on “The Passing of Creation and the End of the Millennium,” found on this site. Here is a link to the first in the series.

This current series of articles is focused on a somewhat similar tenet of the Millennium. A study of Revelation shows, without any doubt, that the Great Day of God’s Wrath is posited at the end of the Millennium. Furthermore, that Great Day of God’s Wrath is tied inextricably to the vindication of the martyrs. If it can be shown that the vindication of the martyrs at the end of the Millennium – and the Great Day of God’s Wrath – are tied directly to the judgment and fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, this will prove several things:

1. The Day of the Lord is past.

2. The destruction of Satan is past.

3. The Great White Throne Judgment is past.

4. The resurrection is fulfilled.

5. The Millennium is over.

6. The New Creation is a present, eternal reality that will never end!

So far, we have examined Revelation 6 and Revelation 11. We turn now to Revelation 12, particularly verse 12f.

Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.

This is the only occurrence of “Wrath” in Revelation that is not a direct reference to “The Great Day of God’s Wrath.” Of course, what should not be missed is that here in Revelation 12 Satan would only have a short time until the Lord’s Wrath on him as the great persecutor of the saints. While the word “millennium” or “thousand years” is not in the text, what is there are the following facts:

1. The past persecution of the saints by the great Adversary, Revelation 12:1-4. This agrees perfectly with Revelation 6 where we find the past persecution and martyrdom of the saints.

2. We find an initial victory – Satan cast out of heaven – just as in Revelation 6 we find the martyrs given white robes and told to rest.

3. We find the threat of more persecution coming: Satan went out to pursue the seed, just as in Revelation 6 the martyrs were told that they were to rest until the number of their brethren, “who should be slain as they were, would be fulfilled.”

4. We find the assurance that the persecution would not be long. Satan knew he had only a “little while” just as in Revelation 6, the martyrs were told to rest for a little while, until vindication came.

5. Satan realized that his fate would be settled very soon, thus, he had great anger. His end was coming in a little while. In Revelation 6, the vindication of the martyrs would be “in a little while” at the Great Day of God’s Wrath. Likewise, in Revelation 11, the Day of the Lord’s Wrath is the time of the vindication and rewarding of the martyrs, the crushing of the Great Persecuting City, “Where the Lord was crucified.”

Equally important, to run ahead in our study a bit, the vindication of the martyrs, at the Great Day of God’s Wrath, is posited at the judgment of “Babylon” the city guilty of killing the prophets (16:6–16; see Revelation 11:15 again). And, to plow ahead in the connection with the end of the Millennium, the destruction of Satan is posited at the end of the Millennium, with Satan cast into the Lake of Fire. This is the fulfillment of Revelation 12.

All of this means that Revelation, in chapter 6, 11 and 12 is describing the end of the Millennium as very near. Watch the argument:

In chapter 12 Satan knew his destruction was coming in “a little while.”

In Revelation 20, his destruction is at the end of the Millennium.

Therefore, the end of the Millennium was coming in a little while.

So, the connections between Revelation 6, Revelation 11, Revelation 12 (& 14, 16-18 as we shall see) and Revelation 20 are clear, firm and undeniable.

In each of those chapters we find the past persecution of the martyrs either explicitly or implicitly stated.

In each, we have the present or impending reality of persecution.

In each we have the promise of imminent vindication for that persecution.

In each that promised vindication and judgment of the persecutor, would be at the Great Day of God’s Wrath, or the Destruction of Satan, or, the judgment of the Great City, “Where the Lord was crucified.” or the Great White Throne Judgment at the end of the Millennium – all being at the same time and event.

So, unless the judgment of Satan, the Great Persecutor of the saints in Revelation 12 is not the judgment of Satan at the end of the Millennium, that means that since his judgment was coming in a little while, the end of the Millennium, when he would receive his fate, was only a little while away.

Where is the evidence that Revelation 6, 11, 12, 16, 18-20 posits different persecutions?

Where is the evidence that the persecutions in these chapters is not the persecution foretold by Jesus and described on the pages of the NT epistles?

Where is the evidence to suggest that Satan was crushed, twice? (And on this note, remember that Paul said in Romans 16:20 that the crushing of Satan was coming soon. It was at hand (en taxei– which never means rapidly as opposed to soon).

Where is the evidence therefore, that the persecution in Revelation and the impending judgment of the persecutor, Satan, the Great Harlot City Babylon, is anything different from the promised judgment and destruction of Jerusalem, the city guilty of all of the righteous blood, of all the righteous shed on the earth (cf. Revelation 18:20-24)?

If one cannot positively establish the distinctions, these dichotomies between Jesus’ teaching, and each of these chapters, then the undeniable reality is that the end of the Millennium, when Satan was crushed and destroyed, was at the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70.

We will continue our study of the Great Day of God’s Wrath when we turn to Revelation 14.

Source: Don K. Preston