The fact is that if you inquired, you would find that some religions hold that the millennium is not a literal 1,000-year period during which Christ will rule. Another common teaching is that the millennium is but a symbol of Christ’s reign starting almost 2,000 years ago and still continuing.

SECTARIAN VIEWS OF THE MILLENNIUM

In the century after the death of the apostle John, the view developed that for the millennium Christ would rule on earth, perhaps from rebuilt Jerusalem. Historian J. Mosheim suggests that this idea may have come from a merging of the Christian hope of “our Saviour’s kingdom of heaven” with a prevailing Jewish hope of “an earthly kingdom of the Messiah.” The sect of the Montanists sprang up in Asia Minor, teaching that Jesus would reign there from Phrygia. They, and others, taught that many fantastic things were going to happen when Christ and his joint heirs were ruling on earth during the millennium. For example, such rulers supposedly would enjoy sensual pleasures of all sorts, including those between the sexes. And they would have material bodies ‘more excellent and ethereal than ours.’ Such extreme views came to be thought of as typical of those believing in the millennium. As a result, ‘the whole doctrine of the millennium lost its reputation,’ reports Dr. A. Neander.

A second view developed that added to the confusion. According to it, the “thousand years” were merely symbolic. Probably the most influential teacher in this regard was Catholic theologian Augustine. The Encyclopædia Britannica tells us:

“After his conversion to Christianity, Augustine, a former bon vivant, consistently favoured a world-denying and ascetic style of life. In fact, his disillusionment with worldly values was more thorough than that of the millenarians [or Chiliasts], for he rejected as carnal any expectations of a renewed and purified world that the believers could expect to enjoy.”

The New Catholic Encyclopedia reports that Augustine “advanced the theory that the millennium had actually begun with Christ’s nativity.” The fact that you may not have heard much about the millennium likely is related to this development, for the Catholic Church now holds that the “1,000 year reign of Jesus [is] a symbol for the entire life span of the Church . . . The chaining of Satan during this same period signifies that the influence of Satan has been notably reduced.”