Revelation 20:1-6 – Free At Last
George Caird was a prominent Biblical scholar of a generation or two ago, and in his commentary on Revelation, he had this to say about Revelation 20: "We come now to a passage which, more than any other in the book, has been the paradise of cranks and fanatics on the one hand and literalists on the other." That’s a mouthful, considering the many other passages in this book that inspire so much speculation and excitement. So consider yourself fully warned!
At first glance, the passage seems pretty straightforward. Jesus defeated Satan in the end of Chapter 19. So now Satan goes to his doom. He’s chained up and tossed into the Abyss (the same Abyss from which the locust army came in Chapter 9). The Abyss is sealed up, and God’s faithful people join Jesus in his glory and authority. And that’s great news! The great deceiver has been locked away, evil has been defeated, and God has vindicated the people who were faithful to him through so much.
Well, yes and no. Yes, God’s final and complete reign begins. And in Chapters 21 and 22 we’ll find a full description of this glory that we live in hope for. And yes, Satan is defeated. But no, it’s not completely finished yet. Things are still provisional and incomplete. Satan is locked away, but only for a thousand years. God’s faithful people are raised up and join in his reign, but only the martyrs who suffered for their faith. The Bible says specifically “those who had been beheaded.” I’m guessing that was the Romans’ favorite way of dealing with Christians. But even the most literal-minded among us would assume that if someone was martyred by stoning, or by being fed to lions, the promise applies to them as well. Do you think that the actual method of execution makes a difference for a martyr’s destiny? But this opens the door to some more questions. Does this promise apply only to people who died for the faith (whether by beheading or otherwise)? Or does it apply to everyone who has suffered for the faith, by bearing testimony to Christ and refusing to accept the standards of the world around us? If this is the case, how much suffering must one experience to qualify? Is it enough to be tortured? To be arrested? To be made fun of? To have to get up early on Sunday to go to church? If you really want to stretch it, you could say that anyone who is faithful suffers in some way for the faith. But that seems to run counter to the plain meaning of this passage. It suggests that those who suffer to the point of death receive special consideration in the afterlife. They are the ones who will rule in heaven with Christ, and will join him in judgment. On the other hand, however, Paul tells us that all Christians will share in the blessing of ruling and judging with Christ in heaven (Romans 8:16-17, 1 Corinthians 6:2-3). So the question remains: who is included in the “first resurrection:” just the martyrs (however you define the term), or all Christians?
And if this isn’t enough to make your head spin, we haven’t even made it to the real bugbear of this passage: the idea of a thousand years. Satan isn’t locked up forever: he’s only given a prison term of 1,000 years. Sure, that’s a long time, but wouldn’t we rather it be a permanent incarceration? Think of criminals convicted of horrible crimes like mass murder or child molestation. It seems as though any possibility of their eventual release is something that irks people. That’s even more true in this case. Why wouldn’t God just throw Satan into the Abyss forever? Instead, we get this description that he will come back out after 1,000 years. And beginning with verse 7, we’ll find out what happens after his release. Speculation into this matter is called “millenarianism,” from the Latin word for a thousand. What is this thousand-year reign of Christ with the saints all about? There are three major viewpoints about it. The first is called “post-millennialism,” which says that Christ will come to earth after the 1,000 years. In general, post-millennialists claim that the church is (or will) rule over the earth during the 1,000 years, and that Christ will come at the end of that period. This, by the way, led to massive frenzy in western Europe in the year 1000, because people thought that the time had come. To be honest, I have trouble accepting that notion, mostly because it assumes that the church is ruling the earth now. Not only is there plenty of evidence to the contrary, but Revelation itself makes a big deal of the fact that evil is running rampant on the earth. If you’re a post-millennialist, the best you can hope for is the time in the future when the church runs the world on God’s behalf. The second theory is “pre-millennialism,” which explains that Christ will return to earth literally, that he will raise the believers, and that he will reign on earth for a thousand years. This is probably the most common understanding of this passage today. A third version is called “a-millennialism,” which argues that there isn’t going to be some thousand-year period of time like this at all. It’s all symbolic.
All of these arguments avoid the real question of the passage: why is there a thousand-year period at all? Even if you’re an a-millennialist who says that it’s symbolic, what is it symbolic of? If you’re a pre-millennialist, what’s the point for Christ to reign on the earth for this period of time, instead of just going straight to the glory of heaven? And why is Satan let loose again?
It’s just as Professor Caird said. There has been so much speculation about this passage, which has led to so many different theories, that it makes your head spin. The reason for all this confusion is simple. First, we aren’t given much information to work with, so we have to guess at what’s really going on. And second, we don’t understand what this thousand years is all about. I’m inclined to understand the thousand years as a symbol for a really long time (just like the 144,000 elect of Chapter 7 are an immense number of God’s people and not a specific number). But I don’t have a clue why there’s an end to it.
Here’s my best guess, but I’m not going to stake anything on it. Satan is penned up for a while, and God raises all of the faithful to join in Christ’s glory and authority. Because they are going to be judges with Jesus, they need to be resurrected first. It’s only after they’ve been raised and have had some time to enjoy the blessings of life with Christ that the final judgment takes place. And since Satan is one of the ones to be judged, he has to be released for “sentencing.” The rest of the passage explains what happens to Satan and to those who had not accepted Christ’s gift. So in this case, Satan’s time in the Abyss is like a criminal’s incarceration before trial. God is putting together the elect to serve as judges with Christ. And once he does so, court is in session and Satan gets what’s coming to him. (As it turns out, being trapped in an Abyss is too good for him. But that’s a topic for the next section.)
Instead of focusing on the arcane and mysterious stuff about the millennium and the first and second resurrections, I’d like to look instead at the main theme of the passage. And it’s pretty straightforward and simple: Satan is locked away, and those who are faithful to God are vindicated. All of the suffering and deprivation that they went through came to an end, and the hope that they had based their life upon came true. To put it crassly, the faithful are like the children who have been good all year, in hopes that Santa would bring them the goodies that they put on their lists. All the hard work of doing chores and being polite to adults finally paid off with lots of packages under the tree.
I’d like to look at it somewhat differently, and a lot less selfishly. Our world, and each of us individually, has suffered. Satan and the forces of evil have taken their toll on us all. Misery and distress surrounds us in all sorts of ways: warfare, disease, poverty, injustice, violence, ignorance, famine…. The list goes on and on. It’s on the news every night and in the newspaper every day. It’s almost impossible to be cynical when someone claims to have an answer to the problems that we face. Generally, we assume that they’re just trying to take advantage of us and make themselves a little bit less miserable by making the rest of us more miserable. But when we’re really honest with ourselves, we realize that the problem isn’t just “out there” among all of those rascals that cause problems. It isn’t even just plain dumb luck that strikes one person with cancer and crashes a hurricane into a particular coastline. The forces of evil aren’t just around us; they lie within us as well. Some of us are so painfully aware of the brokenness and trouble within our lives that we can barely function. Others of us know it’s there, but do our best to soldier on in spite of it all, and hope that maybe we can accomplish enough good to make up for the bad that we cause. Still others of us refuse to acknowledge fatal flaw within us. Maybe we’re so proud that we don’t even recognize our own faults. Or maybe they frighten us so much that we don’t want to acknowledge that they exist.
The good news for us, and the hope that moves us, is that this sorry state of affairs isn’t the final chapter in the story. A time will come when evil will be wrapped up in chains, locked up, and thrown into a bottomless pit. The brokenness and the pain that we suffer, and that we cause, will be removed. We’ll finally be released from all that makes life miserable, and we’ll be able to enjoy the glory and the joy that God wants for us all. At times, it may seem like it’s a long way off. And we can’t imagine how the time could possibly come, or the problems could possibly disappear. But that’s our hope, and that’s what keeps us going. Even if we face something as horrible as beheading, the time will come when God will free us from the chains that evil and suffering have wrapped us in.
At first glance, the passage seems pretty straightforward. Jesus defeated Satan in the end of Chapter 19. So now Satan goes to his doom. He’s chained up and tossed into the Abyss (the same Abyss from which the locust army came in Chapter 9). The Abyss is sealed up, and God’s faithful people join Jesus in his glory and authority. And that’s great news! The great deceiver has been locked away, evil has been defeated, and God has vindicated the people who were faithful to him through so much.
Well, yes and no. Yes, God’s final and complete reign begins. And in Chapters 21 and 22 we’ll find a full description of this glory that we live in hope for. And yes, Satan is defeated. But no, it’s not completely finished yet. Things are still provisional and incomplete. Satan is locked away, but only for a thousand years. God’s faithful people are raised up and join in his reign, but only the martyrs who suffered for their faith. The Bible says specifically “those who had been beheaded.” I’m guessing that was the Romans’ favorite way of dealing with Christians. But even the most literal-minded among us would assume that if someone was martyred by stoning, or by being fed to lions, the promise applies to them as well. Do you think that the actual method of execution makes a difference for a martyr’s destiny? But this opens the door to some more questions. Does this promise apply only to people who died for the faith (whether by beheading or otherwise)? Or does it apply to everyone who has suffered for the faith, by bearing testimony to Christ and refusing to accept the standards of the world around us? If this is the case, how much suffering must one experience to qualify? Is it enough to be tortured? To be arrested? To be made fun of? To have to get up early on Sunday to go to church? If you really want to stretch it, you could say that anyone who is faithful suffers in some way for the faith. But that seems to run counter to the plain meaning of this passage. It suggests that those who suffer to the point of death receive special consideration in the afterlife. They are the ones who will rule in heaven with Christ, and will join him in judgment. On the other hand, however, Paul tells us that all Christians will share in the blessing of ruling and judging with Christ in heaven (Romans 8:16-17, 1 Corinthians 6:2-3). So the question remains: who is included in the “first resurrection:” just the martyrs (however you define the term), or all Christians?
And if this isn’t enough to make your head spin, we haven’t even made it to the real bugbear of this passage: the idea of a thousand years. Satan isn’t locked up forever: he’s only given a prison term of 1,000 years. Sure, that’s a long time, but wouldn’t we rather it be a permanent incarceration? Think of criminals convicted of horrible crimes like mass murder or child molestation. It seems as though any possibility of their eventual release is something that irks people. That’s even more true in this case. Why wouldn’t God just throw Satan into the Abyss forever? Instead, we get this description that he will come back out after 1,000 years. And beginning with verse 7, we’ll find out what happens after his release. Speculation into this matter is called “millenarianism,” from the Latin word for a thousand. What is this thousand-year reign of Christ with the saints all about? There are three major viewpoints about it. The first is called “post-millennialism,” which says that Christ will come to earth after the 1,000 years. In general, post-millennialists claim that the church is (or will) rule over the earth during the 1,000 years, and that Christ will come at the end of that period. This, by the way, led to massive frenzy in western Europe in the year 1000, because people thought that the time had come. To be honest, I have trouble accepting that notion, mostly because it assumes that the church is ruling the earth now. Not only is there plenty of evidence to the contrary, but Revelation itself makes a big deal of the fact that evil is running rampant on the earth. If you’re a post-millennialist, the best you can hope for is the time in the future when the church runs the world on God’s behalf. The second theory is “pre-millennialism,” which explains that Christ will return to earth literally, that he will raise the believers, and that he will reign on earth for a thousand years. This is probably the most common understanding of this passage today. A third version is called “a-millennialism,” which argues that there isn’t going to be some thousand-year period of time like this at all. It’s all symbolic.
All of these arguments avoid the real question of the passage: why is there a thousand-year period at all? Even if you’re an a-millennialist who says that it’s symbolic, what is it symbolic of? If you’re a pre-millennialist, what’s the point for Christ to reign on the earth for this period of time, instead of just going straight to the glory of heaven? And why is Satan let loose again?
It’s just as Professor Caird said. There has been so much speculation about this passage, which has led to so many different theories, that it makes your head spin. The reason for all this confusion is simple. First, we aren’t given much information to work with, so we have to guess at what’s really going on. And second, we don’t understand what this thousand years is all about. I’m inclined to understand the thousand years as a symbol for a really long time (just like the 144,000 elect of Chapter 7 are an immense number of God’s people and not a specific number). But I don’t have a clue why there’s an end to it.
Here’s my best guess, but I’m not going to stake anything on it. Satan is penned up for a while, and God raises all of the faithful to join in Christ’s glory and authority. Because they are going to be judges with Jesus, they need to be resurrected first. It’s only after they’ve been raised and have had some time to enjoy the blessings of life with Christ that the final judgment takes place. And since Satan is one of the ones to be judged, he has to be released for “sentencing.” The rest of the passage explains what happens to Satan and to those who had not accepted Christ’s gift. So in this case, Satan’s time in the Abyss is like a criminal’s incarceration before trial. God is putting together the elect to serve as judges with Christ. And once he does so, court is in session and Satan gets what’s coming to him. (As it turns out, being trapped in an Abyss is too good for him. But that’s a topic for the next section.)
Instead of focusing on the arcane and mysterious stuff about the millennium and the first and second resurrections, I’d like to look instead at the main theme of the passage. And it’s pretty straightforward and simple: Satan is locked away, and those who are faithful to God are vindicated. All of the suffering and deprivation that they went through came to an end, and the hope that they had based their life upon came true. To put it crassly, the faithful are like the children who have been good all year, in hopes that Santa would bring them the goodies that they put on their lists. All the hard work of doing chores and being polite to adults finally paid off with lots of packages under the tree.
I’d like to look at it somewhat differently, and a lot less selfishly. Our world, and each of us individually, has suffered. Satan and the forces of evil have taken their toll on us all. Misery and distress surrounds us in all sorts of ways: warfare, disease, poverty, injustice, violence, ignorance, famine…. The list goes on and on. It’s on the news every night and in the newspaper every day. It’s almost impossible to be cynical when someone claims to have an answer to the problems that we face. Generally, we assume that they’re just trying to take advantage of us and make themselves a little bit less miserable by making the rest of us more miserable. But when we’re really honest with ourselves, we realize that the problem isn’t just “out there” among all of those rascals that cause problems. It isn’t even just plain dumb luck that strikes one person with cancer and crashes a hurricane into a particular coastline. The forces of evil aren’t just around us; they lie within us as well. Some of us are so painfully aware of the brokenness and trouble within our lives that we can barely function. Others of us know it’s there, but do our best to soldier on in spite of it all, and hope that maybe we can accomplish enough good to make up for the bad that we cause. Still others of us refuse to acknowledge fatal flaw within us. Maybe we’re so proud that we don’t even recognize our own faults. Or maybe they frighten us so much that we don’t want to acknowledge that they exist.
The good news for us, and the hope that moves us, is that this sorry state of affairs isn’t the final chapter in the story. A time will come when evil will be wrapped up in chains, locked up, and thrown into a bottomless pit. The brokenness and the pain that we suffer, and that we cause, will be removed. We’ll finally be released from all that makes life miserable, and we’ll be able to enjoy the glory and the joy that God wants for us all. At times, it may seem like it’s a long way off. And we can’t imagine how the time could possibly come, or the problems could possibly disappear. But that’s our hope, and that’s what keeps us going. Even if we face something as horrible as beheading, the time will come when God will free us from the chains that evil and suffering have wrapped us in.
posted by Rev. Peter de Vries, Old Union Presbyterian Church @ 4:47 PM
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