If you have trouble telling the difference between these two eschatological models, it's not just cause they seem effectively the same to us Pre-Millenialists, even unbiased scholars are unsure which of these best describes the Eschatology of Augustine of Hippo.
The gist is, Amillenials believe there is no Millennium, while Post-Millenial means you believe the Parusia(Second Coming) happens after the Millennium. Both however have a tendency to involve believing the Thousand Years of Revelation 20 are not literally that exact period of time. And both tend to involve not taking the Chronology of Revelation at face value thus putting them in direct conflict with the premise of this Blog.
My belief that the Resurrection is a literal physical bodily resurrection of the Flesh is core to my understanding of The Gospel itself. And that is why I have long been opposed to any model saying the first 6 verses of Revelation 20 are already fulfilled.
But, I have recently become aware that some people feel you can believe in both.
Some believe the General Resurrection at the White Throne Judgment at the end of Revelation 20 is bodily, but Revelation 20:4 can be read as defining itself as of Souls not Bodies sitting on those thrones. And I have been giving this view a very open-minded assessment.
That argument involves citing passages where Paul says we die in Christ and then are Risen in Christ when we become Believers, symbolically pictured in Baptism. So believers have a spiritual Resurrection before we even die. Which is why Revelation 20:4 isn't really describing the Resurrection event itself. Basically Unbeleivers Spirits/Souls aren't resurrected before their bodies but Believers are.
This overlaps with a view on the Second Death that exists among Evangelical Universalists. In the past I've taken the tactic of saying the Second Death is the death of death, but I've come to realize that only really fits one of the three verses to use the term. I've now seen it argued by supporters of Universal Reconciliation that the Second Death is when unbelievers become Dead to Sin, which for Believers happened during our mortal life so that's why the Second Death has no power over us.
The first issue is that I'm only open to an argument for Post-Millenialism that doesn't play games with the chronology of Revelation. You're not going to convince me that Apollyon and Satan are the same entity. The Book Revelation defined itself as a clear chronology.
Secondly even if I could accept that interpretation of Revelation 20:4. Revelation 11 is still clearly depicting the Resurrection of the Two Witnesses as bodily, you're not going to convince me that is merely symbolic. The various Preterist views on the Two Witnesses account for their Deaths but not their Resurrection.
And then there is the mater of the Rapture of The Man-Child which I've shown isn't Jesus but The Church, and the 144,000 being described as already Redeemed from the Earth and as Firstfruits in Revelation 14. And the Armies following the Rider on the White Horse in Revelation 19.
And the fact remains that it isn't the White Throne Judgment but various events between the 7th Trumpet and first Bowl that resemble how The Olivte Discourse and the Thessalonian Epistles describe The Paursia.
Revelation 20:4 also defines itself as being specifically those Martyred for not taking The Mark. So it could be they are not Physically Resurrected yet because they were Post-Rapture Believers.
On the subject of rejecting The Millennium altogether. I've read some anti Premilennial articles expressing how the face value chronology of Revelation 20 conflicts in their view with the plain reading of other passages on the Resurrection and the Parusia like 1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Peter 3.
The whole Premise of my Blog is how Revelation right from the first Chapter defines itself as explaining what was unclear before. The very first verse says that what even The Son didn't know before is being Revealed to us now, from Matthew 24 we know the timing of events is specifically what that was. So whenever there is an apparent conflict between other passages and Revelation on Chronology, Revelation is the one to be taken at face value.
What's interesting is that Pre-Augustine those uncomfortable with the very idea of the Millennium simply rejected Revelation altogether, wanting to say Revelation was really the work of Cerethius or John the Presbyter. Pre-Nicea that was mostly a fringe minority, as the Muratorian canon shows Revelation's canonocity was not in question. And from Tertulian to Ireaneus to Hippolytus to Methodius of Olympus, everyone to speak on Eschatology in the Pre-Nicene Church was clearly Pre-Millennial. They had other areas of disagreement, but they were all Pre-Millennial.
But post Nicea this Anti-Revelation camp got a prominent supporter in Eusebius of Caesarea. In his discussions of what books to consider Canon what he says on Revelation is schizophrenic because of how his personal bias infests it. He acknowledges it as being universally accepted as Canon by all Churches, not even disputed the way Jude, 2 Peter or Hebrews were. But he also talks about it under spurious books because that's how he viewed it for no good reason.
It was Augustine of Hippo who introduced the idea that you can simply allegorize The Millennium away, along with a lot of other bad doctrines.
Before him everyone who considered Revelation Scripture, (which was the vast majority of Christians, especially who weren't part of some alternative Gnostic or Ebonite cult) believed in a Millennium. They of course were wrong when they predicted it to begin in the 500s AD, but that date setting mistake was the product of other bad assumptions and shouldn't be blamed on the Millennium doctrine itself.
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