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I can't find any passages that prove the Premillennialist viewpoint that Christ lives here on earth during the Millennial Reign. I'm a Protestant, and have been taught that he reigns during the millennia, but couldn't that be done from Heaven? I also realize in Revelation that he sets foot down on Mt. Olive, but it doesn't say he stays here. I know he lives on earth when Heaven is established here on earth after the Millennial Reign, so I know he lives here after the Millennia.

What is the biblical basis for the belief that Jesus will physically live on earth during the Millennial Reign?

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    To clarify, the main goal of my edit (just completed) is to prevent a debate in the answers between people who say "yes there is!" and "no there isn't!" By asking for one perspective, we can get objective answers. Hope this makes sense!
    – Nathaniel is protesting
    Feb 23, 2018 at 17:03
  • @Nathaniel Looks great to me. By the way, based on the wiki you provided and the fact that people are divided on this I'm assuming there is no specific scripture that describes Christ living here during the Millennial Reign and that it's being inferred by some. Unlike the description of Christ living on earth after the Millennia that is clearly defined and nobody is debating that.
    – Post Impatica
    Feb 23, 2018 at 17:03
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    Potentially, yeah. But people have different opinions of what is "clear" and what is "inferred." For example, check out what full preterists have to say about Christ living on earth after the millennium =). Very little isn't debated in Christianity!
    – Nathaniel is protesting
    Feb 23, 2018 at 17:09

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The Old Testament is full of references of God reigning from Mount Zion on which Jerusalem sits (2 Samuel 5:7). There are references to the kingdom reign of the Messiah who rules from Zion. These are Messianic Psalms expressing the hope of the people that God will rule with them again:

Psalm 2:6 ("Yet I have set My King On My holy hill of Zion")

9:11 ("Sing praises to the LORD, who dwells in Zion!")

48:2 ("Is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, The city of the great King")

50:2 ("Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God will shine forth")

This is a brief listing of phrases containing "zion;" click here to read of more passages: https://www.blueletterbible.org/search/search.cfm?Criteria=zion&t=NKJV#s=s_primary_0_1

We can infer that Jesus is the one who will be the one reigning there by comparing passages in Zechariah and Acts. Zechariah 14:3-5 reports that the "LORD" will go and fight against the nations (presumably the nations led by the end-times' antichrist figure, which will surround Israel to wipe it out --see the near-and-far-fullfillment of Luke 21:20), and the LORD will stand on the Mount of Olives. Is the LORD the same as the Lord Jesus Christ?

Then in Acts 1:9-11, two men appear before the disciples when Jesus rose up from the Mount of Olives and tell them that He will return the same way He left. Presumably this means He will return to the same place. This links Him to the "LORD" of the previous paragraph, and therefore to the LORD who will reign in Mt. Zion on earth. Revelation 20:6 says that they "will reign with Him a thousand years," so the Lord Jesus stays on earth during that time.

This brief study seems to indicate that the Lord Jesus will indeed physically reign from Zion at Jerusalem. Some theorize that the city of God in Revelation 21:1-2 comes down to earth and intersects with Zion so the Lord reigns in both earthly and heavenly spheres (sorry, I can't immediate recall the source of this idea).

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Adela Yarbro Collins, leading Catholic scholar on Revelation, in her commentary in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (1989), makes an amazingly succinct case for an earthly millenial rule in three sentences. She writes:

The nature of this rule has been debated in Christian tradition. . . It is likely that this rule shoule should be understood as an earthly messianic reign. [Revelation 20:9] presupposes that the saints, at the end of the 1,000 years will be living on earth, in the beloved city (presumably Jerusalem).

This is revolutionary coming from a Catholic writer because amillennialism since the time of Augustine has been the view of the 1,000 year period in the Roman Catholic Church, and can be found in The New Jerusalem Bible (1985) and The New American Bible, Revised Edition (2011).

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