“The thousand years” to intervene between the two resurrections, are
regarded by some as a symbol of 360,000 years. There seems to be no
necessity for such an interpretation. When time is symbolized, it is
always proportioned to the duration of the other symbols used. Thus, in
Dan. 8th, when beasts symbolize kingdoms, it would have been incongruous
to have specified the duration of the vision in literal years; for beasts
do not continue during centuries, as the kingdoms symbolized by them have
done. But days are proportioned to years, as beasts are to kingdoms; so
that there is a fitness in symbolizing the years foreshadowed in that
vision, by 2300 days; between which measure of time and the duration of
the existence of beasts, there is a perfect congruity.
In the 4th of Daniel, where the cutting down of a tree is used to
symbolize the loss of the king’s reason, there is no such disproportion
between the duration of man’s existence and that of a tree, as there is
between the life of a beast and that of an empire. And therefore there is
no incongruity if the time specified is a symbol of literal time, _i.e._,
if a time is used to symbolize a year. In this case, the seven years could
not have been symbolized by seven days; for there is no marked
disproportion between the duration of the other symbols in connection, and
the things symbolized; and had days been used, days must have been
understood in the fulfilment.
There might be either 1000 years, or 360,000, between the first and second
resurrections, without conflicting with any other Scripture. But there is
no disproportion between the other symbols and the things symbolized,—the
living again of the martyrs in vision, and their actual resurrection; and
therefore the 1000 years need not, by any parallel usage or law of
language, be understood, to be other than a literal thousand.
The Wicked Raised, and Satan Loosed
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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