a study by Rev. Paul A. Bartz

The opening words of this chapter: "And I saw another angel . . . " would seem to suggest that we have here yet another vision. One may take this as yet another "Reel," or one may take this as another vision in Reel Eight, explaining how the judgment explained in Rev. 19:17-21 came about. That it is another vision seems obvious, but "reel" designations are not a matter of doctrine, so Christians may think of these divisions in the most convenient way.

20:1-2a -- This angel, an agent of God's action, has been given the power ("key") to bind Satan -- the devil -- by Jesus Christ! In Revelation 1:18 Christ Himself says that He has these keys. Note that having been given the authority by Christ, even an angel is able to imprison Satan. The "Abyss" here is hell.

20:2b-3 -- The binding of Satan for a thousand years -- The Church has always seen this era of peace as described by Isaiah (for example, Isaiah 11:1-11), as beginning with Christ's life on earth -- when He was born of Mary. In fact Scripture Itself pinpoints the declaration of this peace in Luke 2:14 with the birth of Christ.

So, just as the binding of the spiritual creature, Satan, must be spiritual, so the age of peace is spiritual -- peace with God through Jesus Christ. This does not make what is being explained here any less "real" -- those who know the peace of God in Christ realize that it is spiritual as well as undeniably real.

What does it mean that Satan is bound? Satan is bound like a dog on a chain, no longer able to run free among unbelievers. He is never able to run free among believers, but during this period he is bound so that he might not deceive the people of the world, and thus the Gospel might have free course. "The nations" is a "Greekism" for the Hebrew term "non-Jew (goy or goyim)." During this period described here he cannot deceive even unbelievers so that the Church may grow. This is not to say that unbelievers may not deceive themselves -- a task we can complete well, but not as well as with the devil's help.

A good example of the principle and specifics offered in the above paragraph may be found in Job 1:6-12. Satan is bound with regard to Job, though he is free to roam the Earth. Then, to test Job, God allows Satan a limited authority over Job. Satan may act but he is bound to a pre-defined limit.

Likewise, this binding of Satan is like binding a dog on a chain. The dog is not able to run free, but he is free to operate within limits defined by God. But anyone who wanders within the reach of the chain God has set on Satan since the birth of Christ can expect to be molested by Satan. To understand that this is a total disabling of Satan is to misunderstand what the Bible has to say about how the devil works both in the Old and New Testaments.

A proper understanding of this principle not only helps us understand this text, but also helps us to understand how our own spirituality works, and helps us to understand what is wrong with the millenialistic approach to this text.

"1,000 years" -- The usage of the term "1,000 years" here is consistent with the usages of such numbers we have seen elsewhere in Revelation. As we have already pointed out, the ancients were smarter than we are in recognizing that such a large time cannot be fully comprehended. So they didn't pretend that they could. For them, this was a figure of speech, such as when we say, "I've told you a million times not to slam that door" -- a large, but finite period of time.

The idea of the millennium is rejected by the early church as a "Jewish opinion." The Lutheran Confessions make the same reference to millennialism, rejecting the concept as a "Jewish opinion." The idea that Christ would return to earth to rule the earth for 1,000 years before the judgment does indeed seem to have its roots in the early Jewish Christians who could not shake the idea that somewhere along the line the Messiah had to be a political ruler. But the Church has always rejected the idea as unBiblical. In modern times millennialism was resurrected in the 19th century by groups that rejected both Roman Catholic and Reformation theology.

The reason that the historical Church has refused millennial ideas is that they contradict other teachings of Scripture. These interpretations often disagree with the wider context of the passage (rule #5, page 2), the entire approach as well as specific millennial teachings disagree with other teachings of the Bible (rules #2 & #7), they often confuse figurative language with literal language, despite textual indications otherwise (rule #11), and they often go beyond the point of comparison offered by figurative language (rule #12).

Belief in a millennial reign of Christ contradicts Scriptural teaching on the following points:

• Millennialism teaching two future returns of Christ. Scripture teaches only one return of Christ after His incarnation in Hebrews 9:28: "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation."

• Millennialism teaches two resurrections of the dead, but Christ taught only one in John 6:40: "Everyone which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up on the last day."

• Millennialism subverts Scripture's teaching of the Christian hope. It teaches Christians to look for a worldly hope of an earthly kingdom. Our Lord and the Apostles mention no such kingdom, but rather speak of tribulation in this life, leading to our eternal reward in passages such as Acts 14:22, Philippians 3:20-21 and John 16:33.

• In that millennialism takes Romans 11:26: "And so all Israel will be saved . . . " out of context, it teaches that all biological descendants of Abraham will be saved. This contradicts the context of that passage (see Romans 11:1-32, especially compare verse 14), which is further explained in Romans 4:11-12. It also violates the Scriptural truth that we have but one life here and then the judgment, as well as the Scriptural teaching that we are saved only by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, since millions of Abraham's biological descendants have already died without faith in Christ.

So, to summarize, the "thousand years" is the long but finite time which begins with the birth of Christ and ends with the growth of the "Church age."

Since Satan seems to be running freer in our modern age, and we are seeing assaults on believers as never before, many Christians have become convinced that we are living in the last times when Satan has again been released to be free to deceive!

For more information on what is wrong with belief in a millennium, see Does Revelation 10 Teach a Millennium? from Concordia Publishing House.

20:4-6 -- This summarizes the spiritual realities of the period from the birth of Christ through the "Church age" up to the release of Satan before the final judgment. The souls who were beheaded for their witness and did not bow down and worship the beast are those who are persecuted to death for their faith. Their earthly lives ended, they are described as "souls" (verse 4), yet note that they are alive and conscious -- ruling with the Lord during this period (end of verse 4).

Our conclusion that this "thousand years" is not an earthly political reign is reinforced by the use of the Greek word here to describe these people. The word for souls (psyche) denotes only the spiritual part of the human being, as opposed to the body/soul combination which we know on earth. Millennialism teaches that this period covers the millennium and that these are resurrected believers. But the Greek makes clear that this is not the case. It also reinforces the Christian doctrine that at death the soul of the believer goes, in a conscious state, to be with its Lord. It should be a great comfort for us to know that, co-ruling with our Lord, who lived this life, are those fellow Christians who also keenly understand what it means to try and live the Christian life on this troubled earth. They rule at least until Satan's release.

"The first resurrection" -- this is a reference to being raised from spiritual death to life in Christ which takes place when one comes to faith in this life. The second death, which has no power over these, is eternal death and condemnation. Those who have saving faith in Christ in this life will be beyond the grasp of eternal death and condemnation.

The first death took place when mankind fell into sin. This is the death which took place when Adam and Eve fell into sin. We are all born dead in this way.

What verse 5 is saying in clear language is that those who died here on earth who were not spiritually alive (they did not have faith in Christ), are powerless to influence earth during the Church, but the saints in heaven rule with Christ.

Millennialists usually teach two material resurrections from the dead on the basis of this verse because they forget the work of God in the tremendous change He causes in us by conversion. The approach we have taken here takes the text quite literally as well as within the context of other references which speak of being raised to new life in Christ.

Verses 4 through 6 paint the picture of a world in which the Gospel is on the move -- a world in which political and financial limitations are minor and can be overcome. Many people, for example, are unaware that within a couple of decades of Christ's ascension, the Gospel had been preached from Britain to India, and from central Europe to Africa. This very well describes the phenomenal growth of the Christian faith until recent times. But today a number of pagan religions are growing much faster than Christianity, which, on a worldwide basis, showed little growth in 1984, and shocking declines in Europe and North America. It is estimated that by the year 2000, one out of every five people on earth will be Muslim.

1986 figures for weekly church attendance show that the most churched people in the world are in Malta where 91 percent of the population is in church at least once a week. On the low end, only 3 percent of the people in Denmark and Iceland attend church weekly. Thirty-eight percent of Americans claim that they are in church at least once a week, but some experts doubt this.

20:7-10 -- But all of this information gets us ahead of ourselves. Verses 7 through 10 describe what many people believe is responsible for what has been described in the last few paragraphs.

At the end of the "thousand years" -- the Church Age -- the devil is released. Verse 8 tells us the nature of his release; in other words, the additional authority or freedom he has been allowed: (1) to deceive the people of the world, and (2) to gather those deceived into a force to war against the believers on earth.

While this battle described here is very real, it is not the guns and bombs war which is usually described by millennialists, a fact which the text itself indicates in a number of ways. Firstly, the description of these forces as spreading over the entire earth to surround the saints and encircle their city (verse 9) makes no geographical sense if taken literally. If we understand that this encirclement takes place when anti-Christian forces target Christians, wherever they are found, we have the very same threatening sense conveyed without the geographical nonsense.

Gog and Magog -- the identification of Gog and Magog further supports taking the text in this sense. The terms "Gog" and "Magog" are only used five other times in Scripture, all in the Old Testament. In none of these cases do these names refer to an identifiable single group of people. Rather, in each other instance these names are used to refer to people who blatantly defy God and His work among men. Letting Scripture therefore interpret what is meant here, our identification of Gog and Magog fits in well with the context: those who, under the deception of Satan, blatantly defy God and His work among men.

This prophecy tells us that when Satan has been released, and the Church Age is over, the devil will stir up unbelievers against Christians. New persecutions will break out and (as other texts also describe this time), there will be an increase in apostasy in the visible church. As the New Testament prophesied, "They will not be able to endure sound doctrine." This situation will continue to grow worse until the end. This great spiritual battle appears to be the same battle as earlier described as Armageddon (chapter 19).

Many Christian teachers believe that this is the time in which we now live. They say, "If it doesn't seem like it yet, just wait. It will be obvious soon enough." One also thinks of the saying current today, "If it were against the law to be Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?" Do you think that those who believe they are Christians, but fit in perfectly with the world, at least to the point of "getting along with it" if not condoning its standards, will be persecuted under these conditions?

20:11-15 -- Here we have the culmination of this last battle against God and His people and of all earthly human history -- the last judgment. Christ appears in the sky and the resurrection of all the dead takes place. All people who have ever lived or will live will be assembled for judgment. Those who are not forgiven, and thus are not written in the Book of Life, are thrown into the lake of fire which is Hell. This wording is important because Hell was not created for people, but as an eternal prison for the devil and those who followed him. Those who have joined him in his goals will therefore share his judgment.

1. The term "1,000 years" appears only two other places in Scripture, Psalm 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8. How do these passages help us understand the use of the term here in Revelation 20?

2. If we are indeed in the times when Satan has been released to deceive with more freedom, as described in these verses, how does that impact our strategy in carrying out the Great Commission?

3. If we are living in those time when Satan has more freedom to deceive, what does it mean in terms of our own personal sanctification?