Millennium

The Millennium (from Latin mille annum, a thousand years) refers to the period described in Revelation 20:1–7, during which Satan is bound in the abyss, the martyred saints reign with Christ, and the first resurrection takes place. The passage has generated three major interpretive traditions: premillennialism, which understands the thousand years as a literal future reign of Christ on earth after his return; postmillennialism, which sees the millennium as a golden age of gospel expansion before the second coming; and amillennialism, which interprets the thousand years symbolically as the entire church age between Christ's resurrection and return, during which Satan is already bound (in the sense of limited power over the nations).

All three traditions affirm the final defeat of Satan, the resurrection of the dead, and the last judgment at the end of the thousand years. The debate concerns the sequence and nature of these eschatological events. The term millennium does not appear in the Old Testament, though the prophetic hope for a transformed earth, universal knowledge of God, and messianic reign (Isaiah 11; 65; Micah 4) provides the OT backdrop for the NT concept.