<You wrote: “The belief in a Messianic Kingdom does not rest on this [Rev.20] passage, but is based on the numerous prophecies of the Old Testament prophets.”
I know. Like Cerinthus, only Darby and his “spiritual” descendents (La Haye, et.al.) have the “key” to Revelation which unlocks “the secret”. How “special” they are and how non-Christian everyone else is who doesn’t agree with their tortured “construct” .
Read again what I posted above here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2716739/posts?page=226#226
[snip]
“...The thousand year reign of Christ is another image for the kingdom of Christ. After all, it is the KINGDOM that is prophesied by the Old Testament prophets; it is the kingdom that is declared by Christ and the Apostles. Neither the Old Testament prophets nor the New Testament apostles speak of a “millennium” (except in the single, debated, figurative passage in Revelation). AND the thousand year reign of Christ is most definitely a “kingdom,” in that Christ “rules and reigns” in it.
Why is the millennium not the kingdom prophesied in the OT and declared in the NT? Why not the very kingdom that Christ himself established in the first century?”
The keys for me are Israel and the Bible.
Once you are born again you enter the kingdom. I am already in the Kingdom.