Andrew mistakes me. The interpretation I am  offering of the 1000 years is not, primarily, the church’s victory, but Christ’s victory. This raises an interesting phenomenon concerning the primary focus of various interpretive schemes.

In Andrew’s interpretive scheme, the shaping motifs are the victory through suffering of the persecuted saints, and judgement on Rome. Important as these motifs are, they are less important, to my mind, than the shaping motifs of the death/resurrection and ascension/outpoured Spirit of Christ. The former points to the narrative of the people of God, and invites us to join it. The latter points to Christ himself - dealing with a much bigger problem, which was the consistent cause of Israel’s failure and defeat, and points back to the failure of mankind since Adam.

I don’t wish to polarise the debate, but a narrative which is shaped by a victory in judgement through suffering is not, to my mind, the key shaping narrative which the world is needing. The narrative needed by the world is the narrative of Christ’s victory over sin and death on the cross, his reign as the king of life, and his impartation of that life to the people of God through the Holy Spirit.

There is some missionary significance in the former narrative, but infinitely more in the latter.

So back to the millennium. If we take the a-millennial interpretation, even with a very flexible symbolism, the 1000 years is surely long past by now. And the prospect of a future resurgence of satanic activity, leading to a helpless church beleaguered by satanic forces, is (a) totally irrelevant to the churches which were experiencing satanic hostility in the 1st century, (b) fuels an inherently pessimistic view of the future of the world, which is shared with pre-millennialism, and (c) encourages a retreat into our spiritual ghettoes.

On the other hand, the view that I am proposing brings the focus back to where it needs to be: the victory of Christ on the cross over Satan for all mankind. Take another look. This class will remain behind until it comes up with better and more convincing interpretations than it has exhibited through its work so far.

P.S. Satan was an opponent of God before he was an opponent of Israel. (I take it that he was an opponent of God, as in ‘Job’, before he became specifically hostile to Israel). 

P.P.S. Kenneth L.Gentry has reshaped the debate on the date of Revelation in his seminal ‘Before Jerusalem fell: Dating the book of Revelation: An exegetical and historical argument for a pre-AD 70 composition (1989). The importance of this contribution to the dating of Revelation is accepted by ‘preterists’ and ‘non-preterists’ alike.