Chapter 20 – One God Translation

Revelation

   20 Then I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, holding in his hand the key of the abyss and a huge chain. 2 He seized the Dragon — the original Serpent,[1659] who is the Devil and Satan — and bound him for one thousand years. 3 The angel threw him into the abyss, shut it, and sealed it, so that he could not deceive the nations any longer,[1660] until the thousand years were finished. After that he must be freed for a short time.
    4 Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those who had been given authority to rule. And I saw those persons who had been beheaded because of the testimony of Jesus and because of the Gospel-word of God.[1661] They had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead or hand. They came to life and began to reign as kings with the Messiah for a thousand years. [1662] 5 The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. [1663] 6 Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection. Over them the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of the Messiah, and they will reign with him for one thousand years. [1664]
   7 When the thousand years are finished, Satan will be released from his prison, 8 and he will go out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the battle. In number they are like the grains of sand of the sea. 9 They went up on the broad plain of the earth, and surrounded the camp of the saints[1665] and the beloved city. But fire came down from heaven and completely devoured them. 10 And the Devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown earlier.[1666] They will suffer an anguished destruction lasting day and night to the ages of the ages. [1667]
    11 Then I saw a large white throne and the One who was seated on it, from whose presence the earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. [1668] 12 And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. Then books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life. So the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to their works. [1669] 13 The sea gave up the dead in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead in them, and each person was judged according to his works. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 If anyone was not found in the book of life, that person was thrown into the lake of fire. [1670]

Revelation

[1659]

“Serpent” is the vivid “code word” for the Satan/Devil who tempted the first human pair. This was certainly no “non-responsible” animal as wrongly taught by Christadelphianism. The original murderous lie came from this “serpent” (compare for a similar code name “that fox” Herod, Lk. 13:32), and he was fully responsible for the lie and punished for it by God. Satan thus fell into condemnation (1 Tim. 3:6). If the serpent was not responsible, the awful blasphemy would be implied that God was the author of the lie! John Thomas wrote that the serpent “was incapable of moral intention. It did not intend to deceive; but it did deceive; therefore it was a deceiver. It did not intend to lie; but it did lie; and therefore it was a liar and the father of a lie…It became the spiritual father of all intentional liars, deceivers, unbelievers and man-killers, who are styled ‘the serpent’s seed’” (Elpis Israel, p. 90).

[1660]

In 12:9 the Devil is deceiving the entire world. Here his deceptive activity is brought to a complete end. This demonstrates clearly that the millennium is a future period of time to begin when Jesus comes back. It is the first stage of the future Kingdom of God on earth.

[1661]

This by no means teaches that only martyrs can be in the first resurrection. Such an idea would contradict the whole NT. John was not martyred and would be excluded! John singles out certain distinguished ones among all those appointed to reign with Messiah, which is the goal of the Christian life.

[1662]

It is a considerable nonsense to try to read this “coming to life” as other than a real resurrection from death to life. The ones who “come to life” and “begin to reign” (ingressive aorist) with Messiah for 1000 years are those who had been beheaded! This is not conversion or “spiritual” resurrection! “Come to life” in both v. 4 and 5 is a literal resurrection from literal death. There is an exact grammatical parallel with John 11:44: “the one who had died came out” (cp. the same word to describe the resurrection of Jesus in 2:8: “came to life”). All the promises in the NT of governorship as the reward of the saints are in the future. Saints are expressly not ruling now. To imagine otherwise is strongly condemned by Paul in 1 Cor. 4:8.

[1663]

This resurrection includes unarguably a resurrection of decapitated people, i.e. a literal, physical resurrection. The rest of the dead are to be resurrected only at the end of the 1000 years. The amazing nonsense which was made of this passage by Augustine involved the attempt to place the first resurrection in the first century AD. The Church was then said to be already ruling, and conversion marked a first “resurrection.” Peake’s Bible Dictionary on Augustine’s fatal mishandling of the words of Rev. 20 needs to be made public everywhere: “Since the age of Augustine, however, an effort has been made to allegorize the statements of Revelation and apply them to the history of the Church. The binding of Satan refers to the binding of the strong man by the stronger, foretold by Christ. The thousand years is not to be construed literally, but represents the whole history of the Church from the Incarnation to the final conflict [the amazing theory known as amillennialism]. The reign of the saints is a prophecy of the domination of the world by the Church. The first resurrection is metaphorical, and simply refers to the spiritual resurrection of the believer in Christ. But exegesis of this kind is dishonest trifling…To put such an interpretation on the phrase ‘first resurrection’ is simply playing with terms. If we explain away the obvious meaning of the words, then, as Alford says, ‘There is an end of all significance in language, and Scripture is wiped out as a definite testimony to anything.’” Peake’s Bible Dictionary goes on to dismiss the whole millennial teaching as a Jewish and alien concept foisted on Christianity! So much for the teaching of Jesus! The strong warnings of Jesus in 22:18-19 should be taken with the utmost seriousness.

[1664]

Fulfilling the Kingdom program as described in Dan. 2:44; 7:14, 18, 22, 27; 1 Cor. 6:2; 2 Tim. 2:12; Rev. 5:9-10; 2:26; 3:21 and note especially the amazing prophecy of Jesus in Matt. 19:28. Cp. the parable of the nobleman in Luke 19:11ff.

[1665]

Showing that the saved believers are on the earth, having inherited it as Jesus promised (Mt. 5:5; Ps. 37:9, 11, 18, 22, 29).

[1666]

At the arrival of Jesus in 19:20, his Parousia.

[1667]

I take the word “torment” here to mean a sudden, disastrous destruction which is irreversible. In 18:7-8 Babylon is tormented but this is described as destruction “in one day,” and being consumed by fire. Holy angels have immortality (Lk. 20:36), but evil, sinning angels (2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6) can have their life removed at any point God chooses. Cp. the destruction from which there is no recovery in Ps.92:7; Job 20:7.

[1668]

Suggesting a new system.

[1669]

Salvation is everywhere in the NT based on the “obedience of faith” (Rom. 1:5; 16:26; Heb. 5:9; Jn. 3:36, etc).

[1670]

There is no reprieve or recovery or resurrection from the second death, which is final extinction, annihilation. In the second resurrection, not everyone is destroyed. This implies a first opportunity of salvation for some persons rising in the second resurrection. Rom. 2:14-16 speaks of “Gentiles who did not have the law doing some of the things of the law by nature,” or instinct, operating under the constraints of their conscience. Since God wants “all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4), it follows that those living before the time of Christ who had no opportunity of obeying Jesus will have this at some time in the future. In John 15:22, 24; 16:9 Jesus implied that judgment is on a “sliding scale” and responsibility is based on what could reasonably be known. The final revelation through Jesus, which we now have, and with modern technology and the availability of Bibles on a scale hitherto unheard of, renders the whole human race more responsible for heeding the words of Jesus.