Thousand Years

 A Thousand Years

By Richard P. Joseph

2 Peter 3:8 New King James Version (NKJV)

8 But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

When I was young someone asked me “when was the war of 1812?”  I can’t rightly remember if I got it right or not but most people have to stop and think for a while and end up saying “I’m not sure”.  Then they feel embarrassed when they find out it was in 1812.  Of course it lasted a few years but the joke goes on.  That leads me to my question; “How long is 1,000 years”?   

Whenever I talk to futurists (those that believe that the return of Jesus is in the future) they inevitably go to 2 Peter and say that a thousand man years are equal to one day in God years, as if this is some sort of mathematical equation.  Well, maybe this question will help us figure it out; “How many cattle does God own”?    Psalm 50:10 reads; For every beast of the forest is Mine, And the cattle on a thousand hills. 

So, all you would need to do is use this mathematical equation to figure out how many cattle God owns:

How many cattle can fit on a hill X 1,000 = the amount of cattle God owns.  

Or you can google it and use the equation that I found there:

The phrase “the cattle on a thousand hills” conveys God's ownership of all creation and His limitless resources.

It is sad when google has a better biblical understanding than what most Christians do.  

In Revelation 20:2 John tells us that:

 He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years;

So, was Satan bound for exactly one thousand years?  

Even though the number thousand appears many times in scripture it can mean different things.  It can mean an exact number but is used more as an estimate, and many times as the number of “an undisclosed period of time in which something needs to be completed”.  For example, God owns all of the cattle, or in other words, God needs nothing from us because he is complete and has an abundance of what he wants.  As far as 2 Peter is concerned, God is not bound by time limits like we are.  It has nothing to do with the number of years when Jesus would return.  When the work that the apostles needed to complete then Jesus will return, which happened in 66-70 AD.  Satan was bound at some point in the first century until God’s plan was completed for him (or it).  Then he would come out and wreak havoc to complete the plan.  The idea of one thousand is arbitrary.  It is the idea that God is in control of all things and is sovereign over all.  

Numbers, in ancient Hebraic culture, don’t always mean “amount”, it can mean other things and that is why we must attempt to understand 1st century Middle Eastern culture before we can rightly divide the scripture that was written at that time.  Therefore, Peter was not saying that the second coming was thousands of years hence, he was simply telling the scoffers of his day that the Parousia will happen exactly when God planned it to happen and that God is not on our timetable.   It did happen and God’s plan was completed exactly when He said it would be.