Revelation 20

Section 7.  Chapters 20-22.  The Judgment upon the Dragon followed by the New                              Heaven and Earth; New Jerusalem.

REVELATION 20

     20:1-15.  In the entire Bible, surely there is no passage the devil hates more than Rev. 20.  It details his doom (10).  Since he cannot unwrite God’s word, he does what he does best.  He leads and deceives men, who are often earnest and well-intentioned, to teach and write such absurdly grotesque fiction about it that unbelievers understandably use it to mock God’s people as gullible fools, which is difficult to refute, “end times” book sales being brisk as they are.

     As in the preceding six sections, section seven covers the entire NT age.  Chapter 20 begins at the first advent of Christ, and ends with the final judgment at his second advent, which is followed in the concluding two chapters by the inheritance of the saints and the eternal glory to follow.

     20:1-3.  Satan is Bound for a Thousand Years (the millennium).  As outlined, we follow the view of this passage that sees the thousand years not as a literal thousand years, but as a symbol (as is perhaps every number in Revelation cf. Deut.7:9; Ps.105:8).  “The number ten is the number of completeness or perfection with regard to earthly matters.  Ten cubed is a large perfect number.  It is the time during which God perfectly fulfills His purposes in this world.  Paul tells us the same thing in Ephesians 1:9-10”  (Dennis Prutow).

     “He [the Father] made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him [the Son] with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in heaven and things upon the earth” (Eph. 1:9-10).

     Christ is the keeper of the keys (cf. Is. 22:22; Rev. 1:18; 3:7).  The word of God is the key of heaven and the abyss, of life and of death.  The authority over these things has been given to Christ (Mt. 28:18), and he gives this spiritual power to his angel (1) to bind the dragon, the old serpent deceiver, the devil (accuser), Satan (adversary).  (Cf. Mt. 12:29).  Christ has also given the keys to his disciples, who use the keys of the kingdom of heaven to bind and loose (Mt. 16:19).

     In what respect is Satan bound?  Obviously, he still has many willing servants abroad in the world.  But no longer is the light of the knowledge of God restricted almost entirely to one nation.  “The power of the devil to keep men and women in pagan darkness is broken.  The gospel advances….  Now [the Word of God] spans the globe.  To this extent, Satan is bound” (Prutow).  It must be understood, I think, that there is a terrible price to pay for any nation (or individual) that rejects the gospel, especially so for those who were once greatly influenced by it.  Those who play the Judas must join Judas and his master in their headlong fall (cf. Lk. 10:10-18, a key passage).

     When God’s purpose is fulfilled at the end of the “thousand years”, he has decreed that Satan be released for a short time (3; cf. Lk. 18:8; 2 Thess. 2:3 ff.).

     20:4-6.  What is the result of the binding of Satan?  Here we get a glimpse of his powerlessness.  Satan and all his puppets are unable to do anything of lasting effect to the souls of those who have believed the testimony of Jesus and the word of God.  Even when they are beheaded, they come to life and sit enthroned with the risen Savior, and judgment is given to them!  They and all those who die in the Lord from now on live and reign with Christ throughout this entire millennial age (4, 6; cf. 1 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 6:9; 14:13).  This includes all those who belong to the Lord who have not yet died in the flesh, for the first resurrection pertains to any living sinner who dies with Christ in faith, and is raised together with him, as is signified in baptism (cf. John 5:24-25; Eph. 2:1-6; Col. 2:11-13; Rev. 1:5-6; 5:10).  The first resurrection is regeneration; i.e., being born again (Jn. 3:5 ff.).

     20:5.  This verse is confusing, because the first sentence is parenthetical (as in the NIV).  It interjects the unhappy coming to life of all those who die outside of Christ for final judgment at the end of the age.  Then, the concluding sentence unites the thought of v.4 with v.6.  In other words, the rest of the dead have no part in the first resurrection, but they will not find death a convenient escape from judgment.

     20:7-10.  Satan’s “Little Season” (3, KJV), and His Eternal Doom.  The figures used here are drawn from Ezek. 38 and 39, which is Ezekiel’s prophecy to Israel, still in Babylonian captivity, of a time after their restoration when they would be attacked by Gog of the land of Magog (Ezek. 38:2).  Gog would lead a vast army composed of a confederation of nations from the four corners of the earth (nations from east, south, west, and north are listed in Ezek. 38:5-6).  The tribulation that followed was to be severe, but brief.  God would bring about a victory that was very sudden, complete, and unexpected.  Most scholars see the fulfillment coming during the time between the testaments, when the Seleucid ruler Antiochus Epiphanes (Gog), whose capital was in northern Syria (Magog), invaded Israel and corrupted the temple worship of the Jews.  During a revolt led by a priestly family, the Maccabees, the temple was cleansed, and after Antiochus (IV) died (163 BC), the Jews gained independence for a time.

     These prophecies from Ezekiel are thus applied as an OT type of the attack of Satan upon the embattled camp of the saints, in which the church is surrounded on every side by the world led by the forces of antichrist, “the man of lawlessness” who “takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God” (2 Thess. 2:3-4).

     We have seen the great final battle of Har-Magedon described before (cf. 16:13-16; 19:19 ff.).  In a real sense, God’s people are always locked in this battle while in this world.  It waxes and wanes in hearts and churches.  But the final such battle will come in God’s time, and there is no doubt of its outcome (9-10; cf. Ps. 2 and Ps. 110).  God gathers all the multitudes of the nations into the valley of decision (cf. Joel 3:2, 14), and the enemy shall be utterly defeated.  The devil, joining the beast of antichrist government power and the false prophet beast of antichrist religion and culture, will be thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, the place of everlasting torment (see Appendix III).  

     20:11-15.  In this part of the vision, John sees the final judgment of both the righteous and the wicked before the judgment seat of Christ.  We have seen the spiritual resurrection of the blessed redeemed (4, 6).  But this is the bodily general resurrection and judgment of all men at the last great day (5a, 12-15; Mt. 25:31 ff.; John 5:28-29; 11:24; Acts 24:15).

     The great white throne (11) is the same throne of God mentioned often in section two, chapters 4-7.  The Lamb appears before it to the praise of all creation (5:13), and breaks the seven seals.  At a point in God’s redemptive plan exactly parallel to 20:11, just before the breaking of the seventh seal, we find that the Lamb is now in the center of God’s throne (7:17), for all judgment has been given to him (see John 5:22).  It is called a white throne because his judgments are true and righteous altogether.  At the judgment, the old earth and heaven have fled away because there is now no place for them, but only a place for the new creation (cf. 21:1).

     The small and the great will be judged without partiality before the throne according to what they have done (12).  The sea (13) is probably once again a symbol for the multitudes of people living in the turbulent waters of the nations.  Or, if one were this once to take it literally, it would be an assurance that no matter what has happened to the body, we shall stand before Christ once more in the flesh (cf. Job 19:26).  “Death, the separation of soul and body, and Hades, the state of separation, now cease.  Neither in the new heaven nor upon the new earth nor even in Hell will there ever be a separation between body and soul after Christ’s second coming unto judgment.  Hence, symbolically speaking, Death and Hades — now personified — are hurled into the lake of fire!”  (Hendriksen).

     Those whose names were in the book of life, having taken part in the first resurrection, have nothing to fear from the second death (6, 14).  All the rest are thrown into the lake of fire (15; cf. 10), “the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mt. 25:41; cf. Mt. 10:28).