With this book, Waymeyer presents a premillennial response to many of the strongest arguments that have been put forward by ammillennialists over the past ~100 years. In particular, as the subtitle suggests, he attempts to respond to the two-age model that has taken a prominent place as the premier systematic defense of amillennialism.

Waymeyer is careful to properly represent those he is arguing against. I found very little to critique in this regard. Probably the worst thing I can say on this point is that Waymeyer overlooks an important minority view within the amill camp regarding the 1st resurrection of Rev 20. That he is familiar with Sam Waldron’s book The End Times Made Simple is evident from his first footnote which references the book. But Waymeyer does not mention or deal with Waldron’s position that the “first resurrection is Christ’s resurrection that issues in His triumphant millennial reign” (Waldron, 104), thus seeing the resurrection as bodily. Though this is an admittedly a minority position within amillennialism, it is not subject to Waymeyer’s critiques of the other amillennial takes and thus, even if the reader accepts his critiques, he fails to demonstrate that Revelation 20 must be interpreted according to the premillennial view. Other than this apparent oversight, Waymeyer does an excellent job of fairly presenting the amillennial arguments before he responds to them.

Nevertheless, I found Waymeyer’s arguments to be largely ineffective. As there are so many points to consider and several other, excellent reviews of this book, I’ll only mention a few of what I consider to be the more major points.

Waymeyer opens his book with an introduction to the two-age model and then proceeds to posit that his “critique must begin in the realm of hermeneutics” (8). Disappointingly, his hermeneutical beginnings cover all of two pages and consist entirely of Waymeyer discussing the clarity of Rev 20 and the amillennial insistence on using clear passages to interpret unclear passages. He does follow up with another five pages of further hermeneutical thought, but he entirely fails to interact with any of the hermeneutical arguments brought forward by those he is debating; these pages largely consist of assertions (without biblical evidence!) of a premillennial hermeneutic. This includes an implicit rejection of systematic theology and the rule of faith (p11 – “Rather than using an interpretive grid, the best way to honor the divine authority of every passage. . . is to trace the doctrine of the coming kingdom throughout biblical revelation.”).

Waymeyer gives no biblical reasons why, as he claims, we must view Rev 20 as clear nor does he consider any arguments against his view. Ironically, this opens him up to the very critique he seeks to level against the amil position when he argues that the error of using clear to interpret unclear “is the subjectivity involved in deciding which passages belong in which category” (9). How do we know that Waymeyer’s insistence of the (relative) clarity of Rev 20 is not merely his own subjective understanding? He mentions the abundance of detail given in the book and appeals to the chronology, but these appeals are merely begging the question; if Revelation is clear, then its details and chronology are clear but it is necessary to first establish the clarity in question. If, however, Rev 20 is one of the (relatively) less clear passages, then Waymeyer’s approach of reading that passage back into the rest of the New Testament is flawed from the outset. Rather than addressing this issue head on, Waymeyer simply declines to enter the discussion. In light of the arguments that amillennialists offer to prove that we must take Rev 20 as one of the less clear passages, Waymeyer’s failure to even consider these arguments undermines his thesis. If the amill position on this point is correct, everything Waymeyer argues falls on its face because his argument is predicated on the assumption that Rev 20 must be 1) read in a straightforward manner (8) and only then 2) harmonized along with the rest of Scripture into a systematic understanding of the whole (9).

Waymeyer seeks to use the Old Testament to show that an earthly, millennial reign of Christ is a necessity. In doing so, he reverses the historic position of the Church that the New Testament interprets the Old. Here again Waymeyer’s arguments suffer from his failure to address the hermeneutical arguments. Further, Waymeyer’s attempts to take the Old Testament passages and read them as both literal and allowing for (or even requiring) an earthly millennium leads to contradictory statements. Regarding Isaiah 11, Waymeyer argues that “as the Messiah reigns over this coming [millennial] kingdom, He will . . . slay the wicked with the breath of His lips (v.4d)” (28). Waymeyer argues that this (and the preceding actions of judging the poor and defending the afflicted) indicates a continued existence of wickedness in the millennium and a continued action by the Messiah in these ways. However, when dealing with Zec 14:16-19, Waymeyer argues that the millennium will include some who live in open rebellion to Christ; “some will refuse to make [the] annual pilgrimage to worship the King, and consequently God will punish them by withholding rain and bringing drought upon their land” (55-56). How can there be openly rebellious enemies of Messiah in the Millennium who suffer anything less than death? Waymeyer’s argument from Isaiah 11 requires Messiah to continually be “slaying the wicked” throughout the Millennium but there must also be open rebellion that is punished by mere drought. If Christ does not kill those who are in open rebellion to his reign during the millennium which wicked does he kill? This goes directly to the larger problem of an earthly reign of Christ in which sin continues; does Christ reign perfectly, with a rod of iron (Rev 19:15) slaying the wicked with the breath of his lips (Isa 11:4) or does he rule as other, merely human, rulers, imperfectly and allowing sin and wickedness to continue?

The final argument I will mention in this review is Waymeyer’s attempt to blunt the point of the two-age model. First, Waymeyer seeks to establish the meaning of the ages from outside of Scripture and pits this extra-biblical evidence against the plain words of Scripture. He says “[since] the two-age model of first-century Judaism included an intermediate kingdom between the present age and the eternal state, one should be slow to conclude that the New Testament’s use of the very same terminology precludes the possibility of such a kingdom, and one should require clear and compelling evidence before reaching this conclusion. Passages indicating the direct succession of the two ages–such as Matthew 12:32 and Ephesians 1:21–do not meet this burden of proof” (94-95). Here, Waymeyer abandons the ultimate authority of Scripture in favor of the doctrines of the apostate Judaism that our Lord so scathingly rebuked.

In response to the amillennial understanding of Luke 20:34-36 (that Jesus tells us the age to come is characterized by the resurrection and the absence of marriage), Waymeyer argues that this interpretation is pushing the passage too far and ignoring the context. He says that Jesus speaks only of those in the age to come who have been resurrected, not of the age generally–“because the question of the Sadducees focused exclusively on those who were resurrected, this was also the exclusive focus of the response of Jesus. . . . to make distinctions irrelevant to the argument of the Sadducees would not only fail to bring clarity to the issue, but it might also distract or confuse His listeners in the process” (105). Therefore “the focus of Jesus is not on everyone who attains to the age to come, but on everyone who attains to ‘that age and the resurrection from the dead’ (Luke 20:35)” (104, emphasis is Waymeyer’s). At first glance, this argument seems to demolish the strength of the two-age model. But upon examination it actually proves the amillennial case. The Sadducees did specifically ask about the case of a woman who attains the resurrection (Luke 20:33); critically, they did not ask anything about the age to come. Why then does Jesus bring it in to the discussion? If Jesus’ answer regarding the resurrected woman is not characteristic of the age to come, then hauling the age in to the discussion would, to quote Waymeyer, “not only fail to bring clarity to the issue, but it might also distract or confuse His listeners in the process.” It is Jesus who brings up the two ages and he contrasts “this age” with “that age” purely on the basis of marriage and resurrection. Jesus views “that age” (v35) as synonymous with “the resurrection” (v33) or else he would not be speaking of it. Clearly, Jesus understood the coming age itself to be characterized both by resurrection and a cessation of marriage.

These problems are only some that plague any attempt to shoehorn an earthly millennium into Scripture which never speaks of one. Though Waymeyer raises several important difficulties with some specifics of the various amillennial arguments, he fails to convince that the system as a whole, and the two-age model specifically, is in any way contrary to Scripture.