A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.
Psalm 90:4
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends:
With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
2 Peter 3:8
What follows is an explanation to the belief, held by some, that God has a 6,000-year plan for man followed by a 1,000-year reign by Jesus Christ (Revelation 20:4). The conviction that this reign is figurative (because so much of Revelation is symbolic) is called amillenialism. Early Church writers like Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Victorinus, and the author of the Epistle of Barnabas, however, believed in the 6,000 years of man. Early Jewish writers did too. This doesn’t mean that their belief is the reality. It’s just a factor worth considering.
Let’s look at some interesting patterns in the Bible that support this belief. God created the heavens and the earth in six days, and on the seventh day He rested (Exodus 20:11). Here are other instances in the Bible that involved six days and a distinct seventh day: Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments (Exodus 24:16), the destruction of Jericho (Joshua 6:13-15), and the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1).
God also instructed the Hebrews to follow certain rules that reflected a similar kind of timeline. Slaves served for six years and were freed in the seventh year (Exodus 21:2). Fields were to be worked for six years and then rested in the seventh year (Exodus 23:10-11). People were to work six days and then rest on the seventh day (Leviticus 23:3).
The verses above state that God sees a thousand years as a day. Is this a way of stating that just as He created the world in six days, so man would rule six “days” or six thousand years?
Within this belief of 6,000 years is that there are three approximate ages: 2,000 years from Adam to Abraham (Age of Chaos/Desolation), 2,000 years from Abraham to Jesus (Age of the Torah), and 2,000 years from Jesus’ First Coming to His Second Coming (Age of the Messiah).
What year are we in now in relation to the possible 6,000 years of man? I don’t believe we can know for sure. It is likely that the 6,000-year clock commenced – not when Adam and Eve were created – but when they sinned and were kicked out of Eden. This would be the beginning of the 6,000 years of man’s self-rule. The Bible does not tell us when this happened. However, it does make one think we are close if this timeline is correct.
