Introduction To This Work

The plan of these commentary notes is to begin with chapter 4, where visions in the Temple in Heaven begin. Then, when the end of the Book has been reached, the plan it to return to the first chapter, to the vision of the Mashiach himself and the vision of the seven gatherings of the people of Mashiach in the exile. The reason for this plan it to show how that the people of Mashiach are to be understood as seen in the Divine View of the Revelation once it has been fully given, then, with this level of understanding to return to see the vision of the seven gatherings in chapters 2 and 3, together with the vision of the glorified Mashiach who holds them as lights in his hand. After this, it will be possible to gain a new depth of reading chapters 4-22. This can then be attained by those "who have ears to hear what the Spirit says to the gatherings".

Concerning the Schools of Thought About The Millennium

As is well known, in the history of the interpretation of this book there have been three contending schools of thought, the Amillennialists, the Postmillennialists and the Premillennialists schools.  The briefest way of saying what these different schools believe is that Amillennialists do not believe that there is any literal millennium at all.  Postmillennialists  believe that Christ | Mashiach will return after the millennium.  and Premillennialists believe that he will return before the millennium.  They all have in common a view that this is an either or matter.  However, when correctly understood, without the confusions introduced through a replacement theology distorted view of the Good News of God, just the opposite can be seen to be the truth.  They are all correct.

Again, this is not to say that these three schools of thought are all correct in terms of how they defend and explain themselves.  They all are built upon and hold to replacement theology.  Therefore they define their thinking in terms of what they call "the church age".  They each see and define "the church age" differently.  Once what is being understood as "the church age" is understood only as the age of the Gelut, the exile of Israel, the complicating factors of replacement theology that enter into the thinking about the millennium, as being either  a literal or figurative number, as revealed in the text, disappear.  The related problems around the dependent specific ideas about the interpretation of the judgments, the trumpets and the bowel judgements, etc., also disappear.  All of this will be seen at certain points in the following notes.

To be clear, the reading of Amillennialists that remains valid when all replacement theology is taken away, is that the revelation itself, including all its blessings and judgments, pertains to all times, that is, to the present time and to every age since the coming of Jesus Christ | Yehoshua HaMashiach.  This can, when properly understood, be read as true without contradicting the idea that all the very same blessings and judgments might also be concentrated into a period of some few years just before the appearing of Christ | Mashiach from Heaven.  And therefore that all these ages are a figurative thousand years and that there is a literal thousand years to follow can both be true.  Also the view that  Christ | Mashiach comes before the thousand years and at the end of the thousand years can also both be true, if these views are rightly interpreted.  That right interpretation must begin by correctly asking and correctly answering the question, What does it mean to say he comes?  

First, accepting that there is both a figurative and a literal thousand years,* and that the same elements of the same revelation pertain to both of these measures of time, but in different ways, it can be stated up front that his coming is of a different nature to those who are his and to the world.  To those who are his, his coming is in a sense really always only once.  He never truly leaves them.  To them he is come.  But to the world it is as though he has not come at all.  The true meaning of his coming and his coming again is in relation to Jerusalem.  And it is in relation to Jerusalem that it can be seen that he is not fully come again until the New Jerusalem is come.  This is at the end of the literal thousand years.  Nevertheless, it will be shown clearly that in order for the New Jerusalem to come Mashiach must first come for her, after that she repents and is ready to receive him, and rule the nations for  her sake, fora literal thousand years upon the earth.

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* What is meant by this will be further explained at certain points in the text.