The Bible leaves no doubt that, after this age, Christ will rule upon this present earth for 1,000 years; this is often referred to as “the millennial reign” of Christ. During this time Satan will be bound, Christ and His overcoming believers will rule this present earth in righteousness, and all the promises to the nation of Israel will be fulfilled:

And I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the Abyss and a great chain in his hand; and he laid hold of the Dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and cast him into the Abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, that he might not lead the nations astray anymore until the thousand years should be completed. After that he must be loosed for a little while.
— Revelation 20:1-3; see also verses 4-6

Yet, despite this clear word in the New Testament, so many Christians, it seems, feel we basically pass from this life directly into eternity. Many simply don’t pay adequate attention to the above verses, while others even believe the false, and horribly destructive, teaching of “Amillennialism.” According to that interpretation of prophecy, the words in this passage are merely figurative language, and thus Christ will never actually reign upon this present earth; instead, we will go from this age directly into the new heaven and new earth.

(If you have any questions about that teaching, I encourage you to listen to a podcast series I have done on it entitled, “The End of Amillenialism.”)

Nonetheless, the Scripture itself is very clear on this matter, and if we desire to properly interpret the New Testament passages that speak of the coming reward and discipline of the believers at the judgment seat of Christ (2 Cor. 5:10), we have to keep this 1,000 year period in view. For while the New Testament assures the believers that their eternal destiny is secure, it contains no such promise regarding the 1,000 years. So, this time may be a time of blessing for us to reign with Christ, if we are faithful to follow Christ in this age, or a time of discipline and suffering for us, in varying degrees, if we are not faithful to Him.

This is the main point of what we will be covering as we go on in this series, but as one illustration of this for now, let us briefly consider what the apostle Paul tells us regarding his own running of the Christian race:

Therefore I run in this way: not uncertainly; I box in this way: not as though beating the air; but I buffet my body and make it my slave, lest somehow, having preached to others, I myself should become disapproved.
— 1 Corinthians 9:26-27

The only way to properly interpret this passage is to realize that Paul is not referring here to his eternal salvation—as some falsely claim—and saying that he might be “disapproved” in relation to that; that is not a prize, but a free gift (Eph. 2:8). Rather, he is saying that he might indeed “become disapproved” in terms of gaining the crown (v. 25), that is, the prize (v. 24) of reigning with Christ for the 1,000 years.

So here again we see the principle of “The Two-Fold Nature of Divine Truth,” as we covered in the previous Note in this series, and how important it is for interpreting the Bible properly. On the one hand we can, and absolutely should, have the assurance of the security of our eternal salvation though our faith in Christ, which gives us a strong foundation for our walk with the Lord; but on the other, we cannot yet have the assurance of our “millennial destiny,” and that gives us an incentive to diligently follow Christ in this age; for that is not determined by our initial faith in Christ, but by our day-by-day walk as the believers in Christ.

And as mentioned above, that is what we will go on to cover in this series of Notes, after we have finished considering these basic principles we must keep to understand this matter in a proper way.

P.S.: If you are wondering about the significance of the image used in this email, that is an AI-generated rendering of what Saint Augustine (354-430) might have looked like; it was mainly through his influence that the professing church adopted the teaching of Amillennialism.

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— 14 March 2026 —