Now this concept of a thousand year day was nothing new with Peter. This concept can be brought out from the Psalms. In Psalm 90:4 we read – (NIV) “A thousand years in your sight are like a day” where “like a day” is translated from the Hebrew “keyowm”
Now if you are not a “young earther” you are likely to totally reject this line of thinking but follow this through. Lets suppose that the whole of history also reflects a week type much like the week of creation. That’s is, 6 days of work and one of rest. Mapping onto the history of earth we have 6000 years and then 1000 years of millennium. Knowing that Jesus died in the year AD 30-33 we can then counting back 4000 years to creation and counting forward we have 2000 years to the beginning of day seven as the sabbath or millennial reign. (That really gave me an Ah-ha when I learned that!) This paradigm would make the beginning of the millennium in the 2030-2033 range. I’ve seen too much in the world news to totally discount this as a possibility. In the next section will will develop this week concept further as it relates to Jesus and Israel.
This analysis of the mirroring or “harmonizing” of weeks is not a new thing. In fact it can be traced to the early church fathers. One such church father who gets quoted quite frequently is Irenaeus. He was the bishop of Lugdunum and student of Polycarp who was the bishop of Smyrna who was a student under the Apostle John.
From his work “Against Heresies” In Book 5 chapter 28 paragraph 3 he said the following:
3. For in as many day as this world was made, in so many thousand years years shall it be concluded. And for this reason the Scripture say: Thus the heaven and the earth were finished, and all thair adornment. And God brought to a conclusion upon the sixth day the works that He had made: and God rested upon the seventh day from all his works”. Genesis 2:2. This is an account of the things formerly created, as also it is a prophecy of what is to come. “For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years” 2 Peter 3:8. In six days created things were completed: it is evident, therefore, that they will come to and end at the sixth thousand year.
While this is not scripture, it is interesting a gain a glimpse into the “big picture” a prominent early church father had. A piece that fits? Only God knows.
While on the topic of a day as a thousand years we find an interesting prophecy in Hosea 6:1-2 (KJV)
“Come, let us return to the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he has smitten, and he will bind us up. 2 After two days He will revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.”
Knowing that the “us” is the physical nation of Israel, 2 literal days is surely not what it means so then we go more metaphorically speaking. Also, knowing our equation from Psalm 90 and Peter 3, 2000 years seem a lot more reasonable. With the temple torn down in AD 70 that puts revival for the physical nation in AD 2070.
One could argue that Israel really died at Pentecost when they were convicted of their sin by Peter’s sermon and “alter call”. Those people present who had an identity of being both physical and spiritual Israel immediately repented and accepted Jesus and were in a sense “broken off” of the vine and “grafted back in” on the same day following Paul’s Romans 11 analogy. (see section 5) You could argue that they “remained in the vine” but, they had to do something to remain in the vine when they were confronted with the identity of Jesus. Anyway, I didn’t mean to get into a theological rabbit hole but to say, Israel was a literal carcass years before the temple was torn down so the year the nation actually died is debatable.
Are we looking for a strict 1000 years or is it an approximate figure? Can’t be sure. Let’s look at it as just another piece in the puzzle that may bring in some more detail. There are still more directions to go with the biblical week concept and a later section will explore another one of them.