Let's start with how Jesus promised The Twelve Disciples they would sit on Twelve Thrones ruling the Twelve Tribes of Israel at the Last Supper. I've seen that applied to The Millennium multiple times, but The Twelve don't come up in Revelation 20.
Revelation 21:12-16 refers to Twelve Gates for the Tribes of Israel on which are named the Twelve Tribes and by them are Twelve "angels" and also Twelve Foundations in the Walls with the names of The Twelve Apostles. I've already explained how "Angels" can refer to human believers but even without that detail I'd still conclude that this is where the promise of the Twelves' Thrones is fulfilled. In the ancient Near East leaders of a city were often seated by the gate, this custom is alluded to in Ruth 4.
Outside Revelation allusions to The Millennium are much more rare. But I maybe see it in Daniel 7:12. When it comes to things like where Zechariah 14 ends or Isaiah 19 I'm far from decided. But at least one other possible TNAK reference to the Millennium will come up later.
However the big passage I want to discus is Isaiah 65-66, chapter 65 verses 17 and 22 are what Revelation 21 verse 1 is practically directly quoting. And verses 18-19 refer to New Jerusalem though without using the word "new" as explicitly, and Isaiah 66:1(as interpreted by Stephen in Acts 7:44-50) is possibly the reason New Jerusalem is said not to have a Temple.
But verse 20 is thrown around as proof this can't be The New Creation because people still die. Isaiah is very poetic in style, and considering what I explained on my other blog about how to interpret Scripture Impressionistically rather then Lexically, It feels to me like it should be blindingly obvious Isaiah 65:20 is actually saying the opposite, that this is his poetic way of saying people will not die and there will be no sin.
People abuse what Jesus said about people neither "Marrying or giving in marriage" in The Resurrection "Like the Angels in Heaven", to prove that there is no Biological Reproduction going on in the New Heaven and New Earth. Jesus said that in the context of refuting the Sadducees trying to discredit The Resurrection by implying the Levirate Marriages will create Polyandrous situations. It's marriage as redefined in Genesis 3:16 that will end, marriage as a hierarchy, not the Marriage of Genesis 2:23-24. In New Jerusalem we will ALL be Married to Jesus and each other. So to me this was Jesus way of saying Yes some people will be living Polyandrously and that's not a problem.
But on the other hand the verse in Isaiah 65 taken to imply new people being born is the very same poetic passage taken to imply some people will die. Still I believe The Resurrection is the restoration of The Pre-Fall conditions, and so I lean towards suspecting painless childbirth will be an option.
The Patristics often didn't distinguish between The Millennium and New Jerusalem at all. And while today they are distinguished by all Pre-Millennialists, there is still a desire to make The Millennium far more Utopic then it actually is. The New Heaven and New Earth will be a Communist Utopia, The Millennium is more complicated and I felt that way even when I was still Pre-Mill liking to compare it to Marx's conception of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
For one thing The Saints are NOT ruling the entire world, we have a Camp which is also called the Beloved City. And based on Revelation 20 alone there is no proof that Camp is Jerusalem. The Thousand years strictly speaking refers to the time Satan is bound not the Kingdom itself which will have no end.
The involvement of Animal Sacrifices in Ezekiel 40-48 is under Christian Theology a problem for seeing it being literally fulfilled as described in a still yet future time period at all. The Epistle to The Hebrews is clear that Jesus Himself was the last legitimate Sacrifice period, no room for a temporary return. Meanwhile Ezekiel 40-48 even specifically refers to Sin offerings and Trespass Offerings.
But I'm amused when I see people use the Sacrifices here agaisnt it being the New Creation and for it being the Millennium while at the same time thinking Isaiah 65-66 is the Millennium when that prophecy explicitly says there will be no Sacrifices. Revelation 20 doesn't refer to Sacrifices one way or the other any more then 21-22 does.
And yet the nature of this passage by my own Impressionist standards does not permit it all being symbolic, it's simply too detailed, and Ezekiel is really not as poetic in style as Isaiah.
Which is why the view that it was a Constitution that Israel was meant to implement at the return from the Babylonian Captivity but rejected is the most sensible one to me as regards to it's original intent. I recommend this article on that subject.
However to the extent that Ezekiel is used as source material by The Revelation it is clearly chapters 21 and 22 that are drawing on this section, not chapter 20 which is instead connecting itself to Ezekiel 38 and perhaps also 37.
I already mentioned some Revelation 21 imagery that comes from Ezekiel, New Jerusalem like YHWH-Shammah has Twelve Gates for the Twelve Tribes.
The size is seemingly different, yet the shape is the same (usually interpreted as squared but I view it as a circle or dome), meaning the size difference could be a mater of perception. Remember John and Ezekiel were trying to express their 3 dimensional senses' experience of a condition when we will no longer be limited to only 3 dimensions.
Revelation 21 says there is no Temple and yet also calls New Jerusalem the Tabernacle of God, every Hebrew word for "Temple" used in Ezekiel 40-48 is also used of the Pre-Solomon Tabernacle elsewhere, and Ezekiel 41:1 uses the word "Ohel" which literally refers to a Tent more then Mishkan does. The fact is chapter 20 doesn't mention an earthly Temple or Tabernacle at all, that subject is only relevant to New Jerusalem. And back in chapter 3 the message to Philadelphia established New Jerusalem and God's Temple as synonymous concepts.
Ezekiel 44:25 and 31 are the two verses that seem to refer to death. Only 25 uses the Hebrew word Adam making it seemingly a clear reference to human death, verse 31 seems to be implying pure Vegetarianism is the new dietary law but that seems incompatible with having Sin offerings and Trespass offerings which were supposed to be eaten. Verse 25 is simply echoing back to the Torah's own laws about unclean things not being allowed in The Tabernacle, and in that context does have parallels in Revelation 21-22. Actually both verses are drawing on commands from the Torah.
These verses are about things that aren't happening, the priests aren't polluting themselves by touching dead bodies or eating dead things. They are being brought up this way not so much because it's still theoretically possible but because it's being stressed that this is a true realization of The Torah.
I have considered in the past that these offerings are just the Blood of Jesus, ceremonial reenactments that won't actually kill anything.
There is also the sense in which maybe this part of Ezekiel isn't even claiming to be a Prophecy, maybe it's another vision of the Heavenly realm he's being shown, that this Temple is the same Heavenly Temple mentioned at the beginning and end of Revelation 11. Hebrews also talks about how The Tabernacle was based on a Heavenly original. These ideas are sometimes abused by those who want to make the Platonic Theory of Forms Biblical. 1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Corinthians 5 foretell how the Heavenly/Spiritual will be united with the Bodily/Carnal, and that is fully fulfilled when New Jerusalem descends in Revelation 21.
So there are layers to how we could apply this.
Some historians now think The Golden Gate on Jerusalem's eastern wall was first sealed off during the Byzantine period (as opposed to the more popular mythology that Muslims did it), which suggests the possibility that they saw Ezekiel 46 as already fulfilled.
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