A Study of Revelation 20 and other related passages
So far as I can see, every Bible passage about the return of Christ is written for a practical purpose – not to help us develop a theory of history, but to motivate our obedience.
John Frame
I want to return to an idea we began to examine in the previous post. The thousand year binding of Satan (Revelation 20:2-3) is not just related to, but the direct result of the thousand year reign of Christ (Revelation 20:4-6). Let’s look at these passages together so that we may be impacted by the five-fold use of this term “thousand years.”
Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while.
And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.
Revelation 20:1-6
Jesus Christ has the key, the chain and the seal. He has all authority in Heaven and on Earth. Jesus, in His millennial reign, binds Satan for those thousand years. We saw that this victorious reign began with Christ’s death, resurrection and ascension. This concept of the binding of Satan due to the reign of Christ is not unique to Revelation 20. Jesus taught occasionally on the matter (Matthew 12:22-30; 13:1-52; John 12:31-33) and so did His apostles (Romans 16:20; 1 Peter 5:8-11).
Consider the correlation of Jesus’ teaching about His kingdom to the defeat of Satan:
But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house. He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad
Matthew 12:25-30 (NKJV)
How does Jesus’ audience know that the Kingdom has arrived in the power of His own person? He casts out the demons. He proves Himself as the mighty man Who binds the strong man. Recall that although no one could bind Legion with chains (Mark 5:3-4), Jesus conquered that storm-tossed sea of demons with a word. No physical chain can stop Satan, but Jesus has a chain that can – His word binds Satan and frustrates him at every turn.
The prince of darkness grim,
Martin Luther
we tremble not for him;
his rage we can endure,
for lo! his doom is sure;
one little word shall fell him.
After Matthew 12 deals with a smattering of Kingdom ideas, we have the famous Kingdom parables of Matthew 13. In these parables Satan does snatch seed off hard packed paths, he does sow tares among the wheat, but he cannot keep the leaven from spreading throughout all the dough. He cannot keep the mustard seed from growing into a tree and keep the birds, the nations, from coming to rest in its branches. In other words, the big difference expressed in Revelation 20, the difference between the prior work of Satan and the present abilities of Satan during the Millennium, is that he can no longer deceive whole nations. The Gentiles are not on the outside looking in. Christ has broken down and broken through (Ephesians 2:11-22). Certainly, folks in every nation are deceived, but the devil’s hold on entire nations is broken. Christ prevails in China, Iran, Russia, North Korea and even Canada!* The nations have been given to Christ as an inheritance. They belong to Him and He reigns.
Although God has always been, in every sense, the authority in the world, Christ’s kingdom has a beginning. The beginning of this kingdom is the beginning of Satan’s binding and Christ’s reigning.
And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.
Daniel 2:44 (NKJV)
The vision of the four grand successive world empires God gave to Nebuchadnezzar is impressively clear and accurate (Daniel 2:31-45). The golden head of Babylon is succeeded by the silver arms and chest of the Medo-Persian empire, succeeded by the bronze waist and thighs of the Greek empire, succeeded by Rome’s iron legs and feet (which are mixed with clay). These empires are the kingdoms of men, so they are shaped like a man, like an idol to be bowed down to and worshiped (Daniel 3:1-7). However, the God of heaven sets up a different kind of kingdom. Note from Daniel 2:44 it is God’s kingdom so it is sometimes called the Kingdom of God. He is of Heaven so it is sometimes called the Kingdom of Heaven. These expressions are used synonymously in the Gospels over seven dozen times. This kingdom is a stone uncut by human hands and hurled from Heaven onto the Roman epoch of the statue (Daniel 2:34-35). This kingdom fills the earth, a mountain into which all the nations come (Isaiah 2:1-4; Micah 4:1-3). This accords with Daniel’s later calendar of the Messiah being revealed 483 years after Artaxerxes decree to rebuild the temple (Daniel 9:24-27). Luke carefully records the date (3:1, 21-22). So the point is made that reign of the Messiah began right where and when God said it would (Acts 2:22-36). Those waiting around for Jesus to reign from a physical mountain and a Jerusalem below are sure to be disappointed (Galatians 4:21-31; Hebrews 12:18-29). Jesus told Pilate that his kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36-37). Like His followers, His kingdom is in the world, just not of it (John 17:9-18). Thus men ought not look for a kingdom with traditional boundaries and politics (Luke 20:20-21). His kingdom hurdles boundaries (Matthew 28:18-20) and greatly disrupts politics (Acts 17:6-8) causing real, lasting and transformative change in the world (Matthew 5:13-16).
Although the Kingdom of Heaven stands forever and Christ’s dominion shall have no end, there does come a time when the age concludes. “At the end of the age” there is a resurrection and Christ hands the kingdom over to His Father and I do not even know the measures of glory and wonder which await. (Matthew 13:39, 49; 1 Corinthians 15:24). Our Savior has gone into a far country to receive for Himself a kingdom and to return (Luke 19:12). The timing of that return is a mystery. When He does return, He really will raise Cain, along with the rest of the dead and He will have His way.
*I use the names of modern “nations” as a rhetorical device. While political nation-states are often organized around a unifying, majority people group, it is vital to recognize that an empire (like Russia, Canada or the United States) contains many nations (just like Rome in Bible times). While the tribes, tongues, peoples and nations of an empire are often carefully delineated in missionary letters, we (as Christians in America) tend to forget these categories when speaking in other contexts. The Bible recognizes nations for the ethnopolitical subunits that they are and does not condemn their distinctiveness. Indeed, the Gospel is preached in the heart languages of far flung people (Acts 2:5-11), and the redemption of the tribes is expressed in that Rosetta Stone of the New Creation, “Hallelujah” (Revelation 5:9-10).
