Poster #1 (Dan_Defender, right?) “So from that interpretation, we are living in the period of the thousand years with Christ.”
Poster #2 (DaveBj): “. . . except it has been twice a thousand years, and Satan is definitely not confined to the Pit.”
I’ve heard many versions, from literal to symbolic to poetic to mixed. Some would say this detail is literalistic.
What is “literalistic”? See for example
Psalm 50:10, which declares that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. To many people, the most plausible explanation is that “a thousand” means “all of it.” Two possible literalistic alternative explanations are that 1) there really are only 1,000 hills; or, 2) God does not own the cattle on Hill #1001.
See also
The Left Behind series which really does adhere to literal details to the point that its critics have called it literalistic. (And not all of those critics disagree with its general theology. I grew up with Hal Lindsey, who argued that “scorpion locusts” would be attack helicopters mowing down the fleeing masses. But LaHaye (author of L.B.) makes them actual locusts with scorpion-like stings, women’s hair, and they’re about 5 inches long. Lindsey’s followers would have called that literalistic since no such creatures are known to exist outside of Sci-Fi.)
As to the thousand years with Christ, the non-Rapture/Dispensation interpretation I’ve heard is that “a thousand years” is the time that the saints reign with Christ on this earth, but that
that is now. Why would they say that when the earth is still full of enemies? Well, say such teachers, dealing with enemies is
part of ruling.
As to where Satan is, they compare it to a dangerous dog on a chain. It can still injure you if you get too close, but it’s not as dangerous as it was before it was caught. That is, Christ’s death and Resurrection have limited some evil in this world, but there are people who still wander too close to it.
So we’re better off than we were when Jesus had to chase down the demons and rebuke them, but we’re not as well off as we will be when they are gone for good.
[notices this is slightly off topic
]
Anyhow, back to Babylon. For those who care enough to read this far, L.B. solves the problem of
where is Babylon by utilizing all of the candidates. The Big Bad builds a massive modern city on top of the old physical ruins of Babylon, in the desert. He makes alliance with an evil pope, Peter the Second, whose headquarters is in Rome. And he helps to build a Third Temple in Jerusalem – (which, since the Antichrist helped build it, it was created condemned) – and defiles it in a garish fashion. If there were a fourth candidate for Babylon, he probably would have done something icky there as well.
Anyhow, there is one last theory of interpretation called Idealism. This theory is that (except for the end of the world and the Last Judgment, and the advent of Eternity) the story of Revelation comes true in every generation. Thus,
Babylon is the center of evil in any given generation.
