Revelation 20 - Introduction

Revelation 20. This chapter contains three scenes: (a) the binding of Satan and the millennial reign of Christ (Revelation 20:1); (b) the release of Satan and the final conflict (Revelation 20:7); (c) the general resurrection and the last judgment (Revelation 20:11). [J. H. Moulton, Early Zoroastrianism, p. 326, compares from the Bundahish the final unchaining of Aþ i Dahâ ka, the Old Serpent, which prepares for his final destruction, and the detail that he swallows the third part of men and beasts: cf. Revelation 20:2; Revelation 20:7; Revelation 8:7; Revelation 9:15. A. S. P.]

The first scene raises the problem as to the meaning of the millennium. Christ is described as reigning with the martyrs for a thousand years. The interpretation of this statement has caused endless controversy. We must approach the question by discussing the relation of the statements in the Apocalypse to current Jewish thought. The view, which was originally held, and which is strongly advocated in Daniel, maintained that the Kingdom of God which was to be established on earth would be everlasting (cf. Daniel 2:44; Daniel 7:27). Gradually, however, this gave way to the belief that the Messianic kingdom would be of limited duration. Various periods are allotted to the kingdom by different writers. The first reference to 1000 years is found in the Slavonic Book of Enoch, which dates from A.D. 1- 50. The idea of a millennium arose from a combination of Genesis 2:3 and Psalms 90:4. Six millennia of toil were to be succeeded by a millennium of rest. In other writers, however, we find other estimates of the length of the Messianic reign. 4 Ezra, for instance, puts it at 400 years. It is obvious, therefore, that Rev. simply incorporates an idea which was current at the time, and belonged to the ordinary panorama of apocalyptic belief. The reign of Christ and the martyrs is simply an attempt to Christianise the eschatological tradition in vogue at the time. Since the age of Augustine, however, an effort has been made to allegorise the statements of Rev. 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 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. It ignores the fact that the reign described in this chapter is not a reign of the saints, but a reign of the martyrs, all others being definitely excluded, and even the martyrs are so clearly described as to leave no doubt whatever that the reference is to the martyrs of the writer's own day. Besides, 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. The only course open to the honest student of the book to-day is to regard the idea of a millennium as an alien conception which was foisted upon Christianity by the Jewish Apocalyptic of the first century. There is no support to be found for it in the teaching of Jesus, or in the rest of NT.