The Old Testament in Revelation 20 (Why are there no "millennial" references?)

[Nihil Obstat]

I'd love to see you develop this thought further. Are you sold on an early date then?

I'm such a wrecking ball right now, you might want to stand back.

[Matthehitmanhart]

I'm such a wrecking ball right now, you might want to stand back.

*bracing myself behind a mattress*

[Arrow]

A day is like a 1000 years.Millennium is spiritul

[Raybob]

A day is like a 1000 years.Millennium is spiritul

A day is only like 1000 years to God, just as 1000 years are like a day to Him. To people, a day is always just a day.

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
(2Pe 3:8)

[Nihil Obstat]

Are you sold on an early date then?

Yes, during the reign of Nero fits best, I think. It would seem then from 17.10-11 that Rome was projected to fall after Nero's successor perished. Which didn't happen.

[Matthehitmanhart]

Yes, during the reign of Nero fits best, I think. It would seem then from 17.10-11 that Rome was projected to fall after Nero's successor perished. Which didn't happen.

I lean towards an early date myself, mostly because of 17:10-11. There are some things that seem to fit better with a late date, though, such as the portrayal of Jesus as holding seven stars in his hand, which is very similar to the portrait on a series of coins minted under the reign of Domitian.

[Nihil Obstat]

I lean towards an early date myself, mostly because of 17:10-11. There are some things that seem to fit better with a late date, though, such as the portrayal of Jesus as holding seven stars in his hand, which is very similar to the portrait on a series of coins minted under the reign of Domitian.

Well, there are lots of coins (from different times and places) that featured seven stars on them. Sometimes the seven stars were depictions of a zodiac sign, with a messenger (a "nomadic star", or planet) passing through it, and other times the seven stars represented the only observable wandering lights in the sky, being seven: Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Rulers who reigned during eclipses and whatnot often minted such heavenly happenings on their coins. That we see Jesus holding these seven "stars" in his hand says to me that he is being pictured here as the king of the cosmos; the king over the heavenly messengers (the angels of the seven churches; 1.20). Mankind had been minting coins for six hundred years by the time John had this vision, and from the very first (that we know of) man has decorated their coins with the movement of the celestial bodies. Domitian was just following tradition.

[Nihil Obstat]

Not to mention, Rome didn't fall after the death of Domitian's successor, either.

[markedward]

Maybe that's not what John was saying?

[Matthehitmanhart]

Maybe that's not what John was saying?

You must elaborate!

[markedward]

The way I see it, there's a few other methods of understanding John's vision of the beast's downfall.

(A) John is looking at a major judgment of 'the beast', which we might certainly say happened to Rome with Nero's suicide, and the subsequent death of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, and that John represents this through hyperbole. We have a few OT examples of this type of approach, such as Isaiah's depiction of the downfall of Egypt at the coming of Yahweh via Assyria. Egypt kept trucking on after this, but they definitely hit rough times under Assyria's influence.

(B) John is depicting the eventual downfall of the Roman Empire (fifth century AD) as proleptically taking placing during Nero's fall (first century AD). Given the similarities to Daniel 7, this isn't terribly out of the question, since the visions of each Daniel 2 and 7 portray historical events through anachronistic lenses. In the vision of Daniel 2, the arrival of the kingdom of God destroys all four of the Gentile kingdoms at the same time, even though Daniel's explanation specifically has the kingdom of God arriving after the succession of one, two, three, four. In the vision of Daniel 7, the judgment of the dread beast (Seleucid Syria) takes place at the same time as the judgment of the little horn (Antiochus IV Epiphanes), while historically AIVE died in 164 BC, a full hundred years before the actual downfall of the Syrian kingdom.

(C) John isn't identifying the downfall of the Roman Empire as taking place during Nero's (or Domitian's) reign, he's simply compressing the chronological details. One writer pointed out that John refers to 'the five' (Julius through Claudius) and 'the one' (Nero) and 'the other' (Galba), but then leaves out the definite article when referring to '[an] eighth'. This writer sees the numeric symbolism of 'eighth' as referring to Empire itself, rising out of that death throes that Nero (and the other three) brought. So in this way, the Empire itself rises up, but it will eventually 'go to destruction', which took place several centuries later.

[Nihil Obstat]

But I see a difference between what John wrote would take place and what actually took place. In other words, I don't think that John collapsed five centuries into five years; I think he honestly expected Rome to fall "in one hour" underneath the power of God's kingdom, like Sodom.

[markedward]

What do you think he was saying, then? Well, you think he was saying Rome would fall in his immediate future, but that that didn't happen. So... what do you make of that thought?

[Nihil Obstat]

What do you think he was saying, then? Well, you think he was saying Rome would fall in his immediate future, but that that didn't happen. So... what do you make of that thought?

The same way I've been inclined to take other prophetic / historic "mishaps", allowing my particular brand of Open Theism / Futurism to step in and save the day. I think God actually intended to do all that He showed John, but over the course of a few years, He went another direction, not destroying Rome, but Jerusalem by Rome. A prophet can only "do" so much; most rests upon how the masses respond to his message from the Lord. Honestly, I think that this is the most healthy way to understand God and His promises. It keeps us from resting (and falling asleep) on some word we've received, encouraging us to act accordingly, and reveals God to be a good father, near to His children, and fully aware of and ever responding to our life-conditions. The word of the Lord is living and active, rather than life-like and pre-set. I'll have to come back to this later though; I close tonight and open tomorrow. I don't have it all figured out by any means, so I welcome responses.

[markedward]

What would your response be if someone considered that 'false prophecy', as the Law states of prophecies that simply don't happen (excusing, I would say, conditional ones)? Would you see the Revelation's prediction of the fall of Rome as being conditional, but only implicitly so?

(And didn't you see the fall of Jerusalem as being a part of the Revelation to begin with? Maybe I'm mistaking what you're saying here, but it sounds like you see the Revelation concerned with the fall of Rome and not Jerusalem, which turned 'another direction' as the fall of Jerusalem by Rome. If you saw the fall of Jerusalem by Rome to begin with, how would that be 'another direction'?)