The Basis of God’s 7000 Year Plan

Scriptural Basis

God's 7000 year plan is based on the seven days of the creation week. The seventh day of creation, which God blessed as his sabbath, is equated with the 1000 year reign of Christ and the saints in the seventh millennium (Revelation 20:6) "Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years."

This is based on the analogy of one day equating to 1000 years (2 Peter 3:8) "But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

The millennial reign of Christ and the saints on the earth is the promised "rest" or sabbath for the people of God, Hebrews 3:14-4:10.

Hebrews 3:14-19 - the example of the Israelites in the Exodus being denied entry to the promised land because of their unbelief and disobedience is used as an example of the unfaithful being denied the “rest” of God, Psa 95:7-11.

Hebrews 4:1-2 - the promise of entering God’s rest still stands for those faithful to the good news of the Gospel.

Hebrews 4:3-5 - the rest of God is equated with the seventh day of creation week when God rested.

Hebrews 4:6-7 - there is a certain day in which the faithful will enter God’s rest.

Hebrews 4:8-10 - this day of God’s rest is the sabbath rest of the people of God which equates with the seventh day of creation week. This is God’s salvation from sin and death when the people of God shall rest from their works. Revelation 20:6.

Historical Basis

The millennial reign of Christ and the saints on the earth was certainly the belief of the first-century Christians as attested by their writings and various historians. Edward Gibbon in The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, writes;

“The ancient and popular doctrine of the Millennium was intimately connected with the second coming of Christ. As the works of the creation had been finished in six days, their duration in their present state, according to a tradition which was attributed to the prophet Elijah, was fixed to six thousand years. By the same analogy it was inferred, that this long period of labor and contention, which was now almost elapsed, would be succeeded by a joyful Sabbath of a thousand years; and that Christ, with the triumphant band of the saints and the elect who had escaped death, or who had been miraculously revived, would reign upon earth till the time appointed for the last and general resurrection. … The assurance of such a Millennium was carefully inculcated by a succession of fathers from Justin Martyr, and Irenæus, who conversed with the immediate disciples of the apostles, down to Lactantius, who was preceptor to the son of Constantine. Though it might not be universally received, it appears to have been the reigning sentiment of the orthodox believers; and it seems so well adapted to the desires and apprehensions of mankind, that it must have contributed in a very considerable degree to the progress of the Christian faith. But when the edifice of the church was almost completed, the temporary support was laid aside. The doctrine of Christ’s reign upon earth was at first treated as a profound allegory, was considered by degrees as a doubtful and useless opinion, and was at length rejected as the absurd invention of heresy and fanaticism.”