Leaving aside the question of the timing of the millennium for this article, though it is related to this issue here, amillennialists, such as Sam Storms, adduce a common objection against premillennialism.
He and other amillennialists cite 1 Cor 15:25–26 as evidence for amillennialism:
“For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be eliminated is death.” (1 Cor 15:25–26)
The amillennial argument goes something like this: Paul in 1 Cor 15:25–26 is speaking of the second coming (parousia) of Christ when the resurrection occurs and when death will be no more. Therefore, when Jesus returns all things will be consummated and there will be no need for a millennial period where death continues to exist. The millennial period is the church age and when Christ returns that is when death is finally eliminated, not one thousand years later.
This may be a persuasive amillennial argument against pretribulational and posttribulational premillennialism, but it does not work against prewrath premillennialism. Pretribulationists and posttribulationists view the second coming (parousia) as happening in a very brief period of time, perhaps in a day, that point in which the millennial period begins. So since Paul says that death will be no more at Jesus’s second coming as he does in 1 Cor 15, then, deductively for pretrib and posttrib premillennialists, they will have difficulty explaining the amillennial objection, because their conception of the parousia is a simple event and does not extend into the millennial kingdom.
But the amillennial objection does not work with the prewrath-premillennial, interpretative framework of the millennium. Prewrathers do not view the future parousia of Christ as some instantaneous, simple event. Rather, prewrath eschatology conceives the parousia as a complex-whole, where God will fulfill a variety of purposes, beginning with the revelation of Christ in the sky displaying his shekinah glory and power to the whole world, resurrecting and rapturing God’s people, followed by the day of the Lord’s judgments upon the ungodly and Antichrist’s kingdom, restoring Israel to salvation, and then culminating in Christ’s earthly reign for a thousand years, after which the final judgment occurs, including the elimination of death.
“Then I saw a large white throne and the one who was seated on it; the earth and the heaven fled from his presence, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. Then books were opened, and another book was opened—the book of life. So the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to their deeds. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each one was judged according to his deeds. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death—the lake of fire. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, that person was thrown into the lake of fire.” (Rev 20:11–15)
In other words:
1. 1 Cor 15:26 states that Christ will reign until the destruction of death.
2. Rev 20:7, 14 states death is thrown into into the lake of fire after the thousand year period.
Therefore, death will exist during the millennial period.
This notion of death in the next age (albeit not like this age, but prolonged for inhabitants of the kingdom) is also corroborated by Isa 65:20: “Never again will one of her infants live just a few days or an old man die before his time. Indeed, no one will die before the age of a hundred, anyone who fails to reach the age of a hundred will be considered cursed.”
The amillennialist at this point is probably demurring, “But you have not proven that the millennial period is future!” Again, as I stated at the beginning, that question is not my point here. I answered a common amillennial objection to the premillennial view that death will ultimately be eliminated at the end of the thousand years after Jesus returns—an objection that does not work with prewrath premillennialism.
