Original Meaning

The Thousand Years and First Resurrection (20:1–10)

INTERPRETERS OF THIS chapter are divided into three broad schools of thought: premillennialists, who believe Jesus will return to establish a specific thousand-year kingdom; amillennialists, who generally believe that the thousand-year kingdom is symbolic for the present age; and postmillennialists, who believe that Christians help establish the thousand-year kingdom on earth prior to Jesus’ return. Most evangelicals today are premillennialists or amillennialists.

Although amillennialism as a system has more biblical support than many premillennialists will allow, this commentator believes that the present text reads as if the Millennium follows rather than recapitulates the Tribulation period in history (chs. 6–19).1 Such an observation does not settle whether the thousand years is literal or figurative—a matter on which premillennialists themselves are divided—nor does it settle whether amillennialism or premillennialism on other grounds is more likely correct2 (see further discussion on that question under Bridging Contexts, below). But it does affect our approach to the structure of the book of Revelation, which may affect our applications of this passage.

To be sure, as amillennial scholars note, it is difficult to interpret most of Revelation as a continuous chronological account; the seals, trumpets, and vials appear to be parallel in their inception and completion.3 Revelation emphasizes future eschatology, but is not without some “realized eschatology” (implying blessings of the future available in the present; see comment on 22:17). Further, many of the expressions about the end in chapter 20 plainly parallel previous descriptions of the end in Revelation.4 But these parallels may suggest merely that a later end repeats what was unfinished in a former one, if other factors warrant.5 Indeed, other factors do favor reading this thousand years as following the Tribulation in the narrative plan of the book.

(1) The binding of Satan during the thousand years hardly matches Satan’s furious deceptive and murderous activity during the present era (12:12–13; 13:11–15; 20:2–3).

(2) The saints have already been martyred, suggesting that the Tribulation period precedes the Millennium (20:4).

(3) The resurrection of the righteous is parallel to and contrasted with the rest of the dead returning to life after the thousand years (20:4–6), suggesting a bodily rather than symbolic resurrection (the future resurrection rather than our spiritual new birth or natural death or unity with Christ’s resurrection).6 Even by itself, though “come to life” can refer to realized eschatology (e.g., John 11:25; Gal. 2:20), it is also an acceptable euphemism for resurrection (Rev. 2:8; cf. John 5:25; Rom. 6:10; 2 Cor. 13:4; 1 En. 103:4; Sib. Or. 4.187–90); the context here points still more clearly to the latter understanding.

(4) Revelation 20 “presupposes all that has transpired in chapters 12–19.”7 Thus the beast and false prophet are already in the lake of fire before the Millennium (20:10); likewise, the devil cannot deceive “anymore,” suggesting a suspension of his deceptive work that transpired from 12:9 on.

(5) In hindsight we recognize that the period between Jesus’ first and second comings is longer than one thousand years, but in John’s own day such a figure for the intermediate period must have seemed too long (1:3).

The idea of an intermediate, messianic kingdom appears frequently in early Jewish literature, as commentators regularly point out.8 Estimated durations of the period, however, vary considerably in the sources, such as three generations or four hundred years (see 4 Ezra 7:28–29); the same rabbi might provide four different estimates of the period’s duration, based on four different exegeses of Scripture.9 First Enoch allows so many brief transitional periods that the end appears to come gradually (1 En. 91:8–17).

Although not dominant, some of these portraits of the end time employ schemes that use thousand-year periods, sometimes with the seventh thousand years as a final Sabbath period.10 (Thus some premillennialists have suggested that the “thousand years” represents not so much the length of the intermediate kingdom as its character: a period of rest.) One ancient oracle predicted Rome’s collapse at the end of six thousand years, followed by a thousand-year period of peace.11 While John probably employs such background, to some degree he may also be interpreting the events according to their sequence in Ezekiel 36–48: resurrection and kingdom (Ezek. 37); Gog from Magog (chs. 38–39); and the new temple and city (chs. 40–48).12 But the correspondence with Ezekiel is not exact or complete by itself; Ezekiel 37 lacks an explicit millennium, and Revelation 21–22 lacks a physical temple.

Interpreters apply the significance of this traditional intermediate period differently accordingly to their different schemas. Premillennialists find in the typical intermediate period of apocalyptic literature confirmation that John likewise sees an intermediate period here; one can also argue for some delay of the final consummation in passages like Isaiah 24:22 and Daniel 7:12. Amillennialists, by contrast, may suggest that John is not predicting true future events based on a Jewish literary device; John is simply using this literary device to communicate Christian truth after he has demythologized it. But as Caird points out, the Millennium was not an indispensable literary device; many Jewish texts included other durations for an intermediate period or none at all.13 Then again, “one thousand years” could indicate simply great longevity (Jub. 23:26–28; see the Bridging Contexts section, below).

God delegates the “key” to the Abyss to an angel here (20:1), as in 9:1. The idea of “binding” an evil angel (20:2; cf. 9:14) appears regularly in Jewish texts. Thus in one widely read Jewish work, God commands an archangel to bind (and so immobilize) a leader of rebellious angels until he will be cast into the fire on the Day of Judgment (1 En. 10:4–6). Likewise, another Jewish work written some two centuries before Revelation recounts good angels binding evil angels until the final Day of Judgment.14 Jewish texts also speak of “binding” or immobilizing demons in the present (Tobit 8:1–3), following a frequent magical usage attested also in the magical papyri.15

But Revelation draws on the more familiar use in apocalyptic texts, in which a spirit or evil angel is decisively bound until the Day of Judgment. In such texts bound angels can also be thrown into the Abyss (1 En. 88:1). Some early Jewish texts looked forward to end-time deliverance from Satan’s activity.16 Once Satan is bound in the Abyss, the angel “seals” it, preventing any chance of his escape (cf. Dan. 6:17); Satan cannot act during that period as he does in the present.

The martyrs of 20:4 died “because of the word of God” and “because of their testimony for Jesus”; suffering for this cause is such a recurrent motif in Revelation (1:9; 6:9; 12:11) that it constitutes a virtual invitation to John’s audience to participate in paying the price. Beheading the saints who refused to worship the beast or his image (20:4) recalls 13:15. Beheading was the primary method of execution for Roman citizens; after being bound to a post, stripped naked, and whipped, they would be forced to kneel and then be decapitated. During the period of the Republic executioners used axes; in this period, provincial executions employed swords.17

Because John envisions the whole church needing to resist the world system, he can portray the church as a martyr church, though his wording can allow for others who have withstood the beast but were not specifically martyred.18 Recent chapters repeated the refrain of the blood of the righteous (16:6; 17:6; 18:24); Jesus’ followers “conquer” or “overcome” the way he did, through death (3:21; cf. 5:5–6).19 But while the present world executes judgment against the saints, the saints rule the future world (5:10)—both the “thousand years” (20:4, 6) and eternally (22:5). The righteous oppressed sought vindication (6:10); now it has finally come.

In contrast to the promise of the “first resurrection” is the “second death” (20:6; see comment on 2:11); the resurrection to damnation is so horrible that its life is called “death” as opposed to the eternal life inherited by believers. Daniel had predicted a resurrection of the damned (Dan. 12:2), which is followed by some Jewish writers (2 Bar. 51:1–2; cf. tos. Ber. 6:6) and by all early Christian writers who are explicit on the subject (John 5:29; Acts 24:15; cf. Matt. 5:29–30; 10:28; 25:46).

After the thousand years, Satan will be loosed to rouse Gog and Magog against the camp of the saints (20:8–9); in accordance with his nature (cf. John 8:44), he “gathers” the nations for war again (16:16; 19:19). This army is numerically “like the sand on the seashore” (20:8), a common figure in the Hebrew Bible for saying a group of people are innumerable, although most of these texts are plainly hyperbolic.20 This is larger than even the earlier armies of the East (two hundred million, 9:16), certainly overwhelming again the (figurative) number of God’s servants (7:4, though cf. 7:9).

John draws this image from Ezekiel, but whereas in Ezekiel Gog is ruler of Magog, here Gog and Magog together merely symbolize all the nations, the nations “in the four corners of the earth.”21 Given other early Jewish commentators’ use of Ezekiel, it is not surprising that Gog and Magog had become familiar in Jewish texts about the end time.22 In many Jewish texts Gog serves a mythical function; in some various evil oppressors fill the role of the final Gog if God intends that as the end time.23 Jewish writers typically used the invasion of Gog to predict the gathering of all nations against God’s people, and Revelation likely employs this image the same way.24

Some commentators have suggested that this event represents a mock “parousia” or “second coming” of Satan; if so, in God’s providence it becomes merely a stage for Satan’s final defeat (20:9–10). “Fire … from heaven” is a familiar punishment employed by particular prophets (11:5; cf. 2 Kings 1:10, 12; Luke 9:54), but here the fire obliterates the entire enemy host, as in the case of Sodom (Gen. 19:24–25). Revelation may draw on the warning that God will cast fire on Magog in Ezekiel 39:6, and especially draws on the threat of 38:22, that God will cast fire, hailstones, and burning sulfur on this army. This description portrays the fate of end-time Magog like Sodom (or to a lesser degree Egypt; cf. Rev. 11:8). Some other early Jewish texts reflect a similar fate for Israel’s final enemies.25 The point in Ezekiel is that God will be glorified through their destruction (38:16, 23) and will defend his people (38:14–16).26

The holy city will be unwalled; otherwise, the inhabitants would spill out of the walls because there will be so many of them (Zech. 2:4); thus God himself will be a “wall of fire” around her (2:5; cf. 9:8). But the language of a “camp” of the saints (Rev. 20:9) probably suggests more than that the inhabitants spill out beyond city walls; rather, it alludes to Israel’s experience in the Exodus or as a unit of war.27 This reminds John’s audience that even during the thousand years God’s people must remain vigilant until their final victory, a reminder that invites even greater vigilance for the saints in the present time.

Bridging Contexts

VIEWS OF THE MILLENNIUM. Reviewing the history of interpretation helps us understand where our views come from so we can take adequate account of them and try to hear Scripture objectively by reducing (insofar as possible) our bias in interpretation. Revelation 20 has been the subject of considerable debate over the entire span of church history. The earliest church fathers believed in a literal, future, thousand-year reign of Christ.36 Papias, for example, is said to have reported that the apostle John promised a material, agricultural paradise to come, in a Millennium after the resurrection of the righteous.37

The mid-second-century Christian philosopher Justin Martyr accepted a literal, future, thousand-year reign of Christ in a rebuilt Jerusalem after the resurrection of the righteous, though he admitted that some Christians held other views; he proves his case from Isaiah and Revelation.38 Irenaeus, a late second-century bishop, tends to interpret many biblical prophecies literally, including those in Revelation, and warns against allegorizing them.39

By the time of church historian Eusebius in the fourth century, however, nearly all Christian leaders assumed that the Millennium represented the present era. Thus Eusebius reported that, in contrast to many hard-hearted heretics, some premillennialists proved more teachable; shown their “error,” they became amillennial.40 The Council of Ephesus in 431 condemned belief in a literal Millennium as superstition.41

The amillennial viewpoint dominated most of subsequent church history: Augustine, Calvin, Luther, and many prominent church leaders cited by evangelicals on other issues today were amillennial.42 Perhaps recognizing arguments for more than one position, Wesley reportedly believed in two millenniums, a heavenly and an earthly one.43 For the first thousand years of church history, amillennialists generally believed in a literal present Millennium; after a thousand years followed the church’s deliverance from Rome without Christ’s return, amillennialists generally reinterpreted the Millennium as the present period but the thousand-year duration as symbolic.

Some amillennialists interpret this “millennial” period not as the whole course of the present Christian era but as the period after the Roman persecutions; this view allows for a distinction between the “Tribulation” as a time of Roman oppression and the Millennium. A serious problem with this distinction is that the church suffers in many parts of the world today no less seriously than under imperial Rome.44 Others, probably the dominant amillennial position today, interpret the Millennium as the entire period between the first and second comings of Christ, the way many interpret the “Tribulation” period in Revelation (12:5–6).45

In recent centuries premillennialism has gained considerable ground, especially around the beginning of the twentieth century when dispensational premillennialism, originating with John Nelson Darby in the 1830s, began to take hold in evangelical thought.46 Concerned with the legalism he perceived in the church and associated with its adherence to parts of the Bible addressed specifically to Israel, Darby sought to distinguish which parts of the Bible addressed national Israel and which addressed the church. He argued that God dealt with Israel until the church age and would again deal with Israel during the final Tribulation, after the church’s Rapture to heaven; for the most part early dispensationalists accepted only the New Testament letters as directed primarily toward the church. The original form of dispensationalism has changed considerably over the years, however; today’s “progressive dispensationalism” is a far cry from (and a more biblical model than) Clarence Larkin’s charts, Scofield’s original reference Bible, or Darby’s teaching in 1830.47

Most nineteenth-century American evangelicals held a view that few people today advocate, and their view actually helped motivate them to evangelize the world.48 They were postmillennial: They believed they would establish the kingdom on earth to prepare the way for Jesus’ return. Like premillennialists they embraced a future Millennium; like some amillennialists, they believed in a reign of peace before Jesus’ return but following the time of persecutions. This postmillennial view fueled the activist faith of nineteenth-century evangelicals in the United States as they evangelized and worked to abolish slavery. Leading figures of the Great Awakenings like Jonathan Edwards (often noted for his influential theology) and Charles Finney (a prominent voice in a revival in which hundreds of thousands of conversions occurred) were postmillennial. This view provided excellent motivation for mission, but eventually shattered against the hard reefs of reality: Christian devotion, no matter how sincere, cannot fully establish God’s kingdom without God’s direct intervention.49

This survey of views has been so brief as to risk misrepresenting the greater diversity of views that stands behind it, but it should illustrate the point that committed Christians have held many different views about the end-time, yet retained God’s blessings. That postmillennialism was the dominant view of nineteenth-century American evangelicals and helped fuel the missions movement should give us pause. Most of us hold views about the Millennium that we “know” are right because we move in circles that share the same views we do. I know many Christians who could not imagine their view being wrong, because every passionate believer they respect in their circles holds that view. But if we had been in Jonathan Edwards’ or Charles Finney’s circle, we might have taken postmillennialism for granted no less.

Perhaps our spiritual predecessors would have questioned whether we were truly evangelicals had we doubted postmillennialism! To be sure, it is easy for us today to recognize that postmillennialism does not fit enough of the biblical evidence. But because any system of thought looks consistent from within the system (whether the views of Jehovah’s Witnesses or our own), we should not rest so easily that our own views fit all the evidence unless they have been tested in dialogue with Christians who can challenge them.

Apart from Billy Graham and perhaps Luis Palau, Bill Bright, and some others like them, few of us today have had the direct impact that John Wesley, Charles Finney, or D. L. Moody had on their generations: yet all three of them held quite different views about the end times. It seems clear, at least to many of us, that God does not dispense his blessings based on our views about the end time, and that we ought to learn from his example a lesson about charity toward those who hold other views on this matter.

Literal or symbolic? The two millennial views most widely held in different sections of Christendom today are premillennialism and amillennialism. Each has more arguments in its favor than advocates of the opposing position generally recognize. In favor of premillennialism is the most natural reading of Revelation 20, outlined above: The thousand years begins with the resurrection of those killed during the Tribulation that preceded it and closes with the devil being hurled into the same place of torment where the beast and false prophet of the Tribulation have been for the duration of the thousand years. In addition, some see clues to the Millennium in other texts, such as 1 Corinthians 15:23–24 (although this passage by itself is not sufficient to argue for an intermediate period between the present and eternal future).50

Some premillennialists (especially those who are also dispensationalists) also find abundant references to the Millennium in the Old Testament. If one takes both Ezekiel and Revelation literally, Ezekiel’s new temple (Ezek. 40–43) cannot occur after the Millennium (Rev. 21:22), but it is not impossible that it could occur during the Millennium. In the eternal future, God’s servants serve him before his face (22:3–4), so it is reasonable that the descriptions of earthly, agricultural blessings (e.g., Amos 9:13–14) take place during an interim period before that eternal future reign (though cf. Rev. 22:2). Such a means to reconcile diverse pictures of the end time in the Prophets would have made sense to John’s contemporaries.51 Dispensationalists who find in Old Testament prophecies promises of the restoration of national Israel and yet find in Revelation 21–22 the eternal hope of the church, can seek to harmonize the two by affirming both: One occurs during the Millennium and the other afterward.52

Such views can be challenged. The eternal future in Revelation 21 is no less rooted in the church’s heritage in Israel than is Revelation 20: Though the holy city of chapter 21 descends from heaven, it is still a new Jerusalem, founded in the twelve tribes of Israel (21:12) as well as in the twelve apostles of the Lamb (21:14). Further, many of the Old Testament descriptions of the future are clearly symbolic images, meant to graphically convey the future hope in terms that made sense to ancient Israelites. In their day beating swords into plowshares (Mic. 4:3) symbolized peace; today we might prefer the image of melting down guns or disarming missiles.

But if the images are symbolic, they also do not have to be fully harmonized on a literal level—which saves us some embarrassments from which even the most traditional dispensationalism could not rescue us.53 It is possible that Revelation includes a Millennium to allow us to harmonize some major portraits of the end time in the Old Testament prophets; but we would need more than a single Millennium to harmonize all the different pictures of the end in the Bible! Some texts speak of the ingathering of Gentiles at the end (e.g., Isa. 2:2, 4; 11:9–10; 42:6; 49:6), others of their subjection and bringing of tribute (Isa. 11:14–15; 49:22–23; 54:3; 60:6–14; 66:18–20), and others of their destruction (Isa. 29:5–8; 30:27–28; 34:2–3).

But the function of most of these texts is to promise Israel’s restoration and exaltation among the nations that once ridiculed her; thus, to force these poetic images into contradictory molds is to misunderstand them. They do have implications for the salvation of Gentiles who embrace Israel’s heritage in Jesus and the lostness of the rest of the world, but these implications become clear only in the light of the rest of biblical theology.

Even in the eternal future, if one takes Revelation 21:24–26 literally, one questions whether the outsiders are non-Christians that do not face eternal punishment, or Gentile Christians kept outside the new Jerusalem as spiritually second-class to Jewish Christians—or is this simply a symbolic way of describing the exaltation of God’s people? Neither of the first two alternatives fits the rest of New Testament theology.

Further, one gets the distinct impression from Paul (Rom. 2:5–9; 2 Thess. 1:7–9) and Peter (2 Peter 3:10) that all non-Christians will be destroyed when Jesus comes back, an event that would not leave anyone on earth to enter the Millennium.54 A premillennialist can argue in response that Paul and Peter are speaking in general terms, whereas Revelation provides a more detailed chronology of events. This response is a legitimate one, but it illustrates our interpretive problem: We simply cannot take all the texts completely “literally,” nor are we meant to do so. If one spends much time actually reading Isaiah, Ezekiel, or the other prophets, clearly they use a variety of symbolic images to convey the future promise, and these prophets would not have been interested in harmonizing them all on a literal level.

Amillennial interpreters usually point to the preponderance of passages like those in Paul or Peter as against the single, clear assertion of a future thousand years in Revelation. (Many premillennialists counter by appealing here to “progressive revelation.”) Since we must interpret some passages symbolically anyway, amillennialists note, and since Revelation is full of symbolic language, does it not make more sense to interpret Paul’s letters and the rest of the New Testament literally and Revelation symbolically, rather than the reverse? Thus amillennialists point to various New Testament passages in which Paul or other interpreters appear to apply Old Testament promises about the future kingdom to the present era of faith in Christ (e.g., Acts 2:17; 15:15–18; Rom. 9:24–25). If the apostles interpreted such Old Testament promises spiritually, should we not follow their example?

As to national Israel, many amillennialists today will acknowledge that Paul allows for the return of the final generation of Jewish people as a whole to faith in Jesus (Rom. 11:26); but they contend that ethnic Jewishness does not imply a Jewish nation-state or a spiritual distinction between Jewish and Gentile Christians.55 Amillennialists from Augustine onward have often suggested that John adapted the traditional intermediate kingdom of Jewish apocalypses but reapplied it in a symbolic way, the way we have elsewhere argued he reapplied the Tribulation image (12:5–6).56 Less persuasively, many (going outside Revelation) interpret Satan’s binding in 20:2 in light of Matthew 12:29. But although Revelation elsewhere draws on the Synoptic Gospel tradition, it may demand too much of John’s readers to presume their knowledge of that text as against the widespread Jewish tradition about binding demons, and even if they did know the text, it is not clear that they would have applied it the same way.

Strong arguments are available for both millennial positions and tend to rise or fall on how one reads the rest of the Bible. In general, if one starts with Revelation 20, one will be premillennial; starting from that premise, those so inclined can also apply many promises about national Israel to that period in a literal manner (although Rev. 20 itself does not demand that we attribute those promises to that period). If one starts with most New Testament passages about the end time, one will probably be amillennial and then need to determine what to do with Revelation 20. Each view makes sense on its own presuppositions, but often sounds like special pleading to one who starts with different presuppositions.57 Because it would take a survey of all Scripture to test such presuppositions, we cannot engage such a test here. But we can point out the reasons why Bible-believing Christians have come to different convictions on the matter and invite us to greater charity toward others who differ.

Personal perspective. Here I can only summarize the results of my own attempt to pull together my understanding of the larger biblical picture.58 First of all, we should interpret each text in its context and on its own terms. Note, then, that the Old Testament prophets had a message for their own generations as well as for us. Their generations would have taken little solace in an interpretation of prophecy that claimed: “I am divorcing Israel and replacing her with the church”; they expected a genuine restoration of Israel.59 At the same time, the early Christians understood these promises in light of Jesus’ triumph, and their interpretation provides guidelines for our own. Whatever the literal blessings in the future kingdom, we experience the spiritual benefit of Christ’s kingdom in the present (Gal. 3:14; Eph. 1:3).

Further, the Old Testament prophets themselves (e.g., Isa. 19:22–25; 56:3–8), confirmed by the New Testament writers (Rom. 16:25–26), affirmed that the future of the covenant people included more than people genetically descended from Abraham. In the Old Testament Gentiles routinely joined the covenant people (e.g., Josh. 6:25; Ruth 1:16; 2 Sam. 8:18), whereas many Israelites broke covenant with God (e.g., Ex. 32:10; Ps. 95:8–11). In the first century, Judaism still regularly accepted Gentiles as converts into their faith and people.60

To be sure, no one expected such a large influx of Gentiles into God’s people that they would end up outnumbering the Jewish remnant, but Paul is clear that the final generation of Jewish people as a whole will turn to faith in Jesus (Rom. 11:26–27; otherwise he is changing the meaning of “Israel” from 11:25 to 11:26 without warning). Paul was not radical for saying that Gentiles could become part of the people of God (a view shared by most of his Jewish contemporaries); he was radical for saying that they could do so without circumcision—that is, without becoming ethnically or culturally Jewish. At the same time, it is doubtful that even Paul anticipated the utterly non-Judaic character of most of today’s church, mostly alienated from its Jewish roots (11:18).

Perhaps the final turning of Jewish people will come only as Gentile Christians rediscover their spiritual heritage in Israel’s history (cf. Rom. 11:14). Then, instead of claiming to be a corporate “replacement” for Israel per se, we can recognize that Gentile Christians have been grafted into Israel’s faith meant to bless the world. Perhaps today’s Jewish Christians (Messianic Jews) can help Gentile Christians find the way back to this perspective.61

On this basis, I am skeptical of a future promise for national Israel that excludes ethnically Gentile Christians who have been grafted into Israel’s heritage and hope (cf. Rom. 2:29; 9:6–13; Gal. 3:29). (Such a scenario may prove an especially traumatic choice for Jewish Christians: Would they share the destiny of the church or of ethnic Israel?) At the same time, I cannot think that the Old Testament prophets intended a “replacement” of Israel now unrelated to her historical heritage. Perhaps the whole biblical picture suggests a future grounded in the history of the patriarchs, David, and the prophets, but one in which Gentile Christians share fully as those grafted into the covenant—and who should recognize (better than most do now) their spiritual heritage.

Nor do I believe that this hope grounded in Israel’s history is limited to the Millennium; the very fact that the eternal city of Revelation 21 is called the new Jerusalem grounds our future hope in our spiritual history. I recognize that such a solution will appeal neither to some traditional dispensationalists nor to some traditional covenant theologians; I offer it merely as my own attempt to synthesize the diverse array of biblical portraits of our future hope. The Bible is a big book, and few of us have mastered it well enough to think we are beyond learning more.

In the end, some scholars argue that our contemporary millennial debates miss the point of Revelation entirely. As one evangelical commentator points out, John’s vision occurs within a premillennial framework; yet the real debate among millennial views arises when we ask whether to press his vision as a literal plan for the future.62 Revelation does have a future Millennium, but the book presents not a chronologically sequenced series of future events, but various images that weave together different threads of end-time expectation. Revelation places complementary visions of the end side-by-side, in a manner analogous to the diverse Old Testament portrayals of creation. These scholars suggest that we have misunderstood the point of Revelation because we have misread its literary genre.63

While this approach seems in many ways the most sensitive to the nature of the prophetic genre that Revelation develops, it comes as no surprise that it has eluded many interpreters through history. Many of Revelation’s first readers, like many of the earliest church fathers, probably never caught the nuances of this approach; it often seems more natural to us to take everything literally—until confronted by other prophecies that on the literal level contradict the ones we started with, forcing us to at least consider such questions. The complexity of these issues thus calls for much charity toward those with whom we may disagree on millennial details.

Identities in Revelation. We should briefly touch on at least one more issue before leaving this section. The proposed identities of various players in this narrative have shifted according to the headlines of the day, many generations assuming their list of evil empires to be the final one. Luther and many Reformers saw the Pope as the Antichrist and the Turks as Gog, allies of the Antichrist.64 Somewhat more up to date is one etymologically strained line of interpretation of some modern prophecy teachers that identifies Gog with Russia. In this line of thinking Meshech and Tubal (Ezek. 38:2–3), for example, are Moscow and Tobolsk!65 But Gog and Magog had specific meaning for the first audience of Ezekiel, and for Revelation’s audience they connoted the people of the final battle mentioned in Ezekiel.66

Some views demonstrably contradict the text. Greg Beale may well be correct, however, that Revelation recycles the image precisely because after Ezekiel the image could simply apply to the end-time enemy, hence to any enemy of God’s people (the way we would speak of someone being a “Hitler” today).67

Consistency in our interpretive method is important. Working from particular logical constructs, Jehovah’s Witnesses expect the resurrection of the righteous to occur in stages, allowing the raised opportunity to get enculturated.68 But the text itself declares a first resurrection that leaves all “the rest of the dead” only for the raising of the lost for judgment at the end of the Millennium (20:4–6). The view itself is not so surprising as the inconsistent hermeneutic behind it, because on many points Jehovah’s Witnesses interpret Revelation quite literally (such as the number 144,000), but here would criticize a literal interpretation as pedantic!

Contemporary Significance

PASTORAL APPLICATION. Those who interpret the Millennium of Revelation 20 as symbolic for the present age will find in it an encouragement that believers in the present have been raised with Christ, share a role in Christ’s kingdom in the world, and will be spared from the horror of a final judgment without Christ.

We have argued above that in context the passage most naturally suggests a future Millennium and therefore a future hope. This suggestion does not begin to solve the interpretive problems: One can argue that the Millennium, like many other portraits of end-time hope, is merely symbolic. One can argue that it borrows from a fairly common apocalyptic image of an interim kingdom and does not describe a literal interim between the present and future ages. Thus, not everyone who affirms a future Millennium in Revelation 20 may affirm a literal thousand-year interim reign in practice!

But on the level of pastoral application, such interpretive distinctions between a literal or symbolic future period do not affect the most important points. Whether in a temporary intermediate kingdom or in the new heavens and new earth, we will be with Christ.69 Revelation 20 is a promise of future hope, particularly relevant to those who have suffered (like the martyrs of 20:4). Jesus will raise those who have suffered for him, and they will be rewarded by reigning with him (cf. 2 Tim. 2:12).70

The devil cannot act without God’s permission (Rev. 20:2–3), which in turn encourages us not to be afraid of his present activities, including his persecution (12:12). When God deems the time appropriate, it will take only one angel to imprison the devil (20:1)—as Luther’s hymn puts it, “one little word shall fell him.” If Satan’s return after the Millennium represents a “mock parousia,” as some have argued, the passage may remind us that though he sometimes “comes back” after what seems to be the final “knock-out punch,” his final defeat is secure, as is the preservation of the church (Matt. 16:18).

Those who do not actively submit to Christ’s lordship, even if they have been in settings where they were rarely tested, remain susceptible to the devil’s deceptions (20:8) and will be banished to eternal torment at the final judgment (20:14). In the final analysis, the questions of future curiosity we ask about this chapter are often the least important questions for today’s church. Without understanding all the details about the future Millennium, one has more than enough preaching material in this passage to encourage believers to persevere and fulfill Christ’s purposes in the world!

The Millennium fulfills another important theological function in Revelation. Earlier judgments failed to bring repentance (9:20–21; 16:9, 11, 21), and now the deceiver finds human hearts receptive to rebellion despite his thousand-year absence. “The millennium proves, then, that humans cannot blame their sinfulness on their environment or circumstances.” This exposes human evil; even where corporate sin is abolished, individual depravity will remain, frustrating God’s corporate redemptive activity until the final end.71 One may compare C. S. Lewis’s parable of human depravity in The Great Divorce, where he suggests that most of the damned remain unrepentant. On a literal level, the damned will surely regret their course; but Lewis’s primary point seems to be that unregenerate humans prefer sin to God’s righteousness.

If the saints must remain vigilant even during the thousand years (see comment on 20:9), on our reading this should summon us to ever greater vigilance in the present. While I find unusual many practices currently countenanced in the name of “spiritual warfare,” they may be less disconcerting than the more prevalent attitudes in much of Christendom that virtually acts as if powers hostile to our mission do not exist!

The triumph of God. God’s defense of a city that embodies the heritage of his people from David’s time forward (20:8–9) points to his love and faithfulness toward his own people. The passage also reveals that we may be outnumbered (20:8; cf. 7:4), but in the end God’s purposes will triumph, and he will keep the church from being ultimately defeated by the world’s evil oppressors. We can stand firm against evil even when the battle appears futile; victory belongs to the Lord! As the entire Bible and our Christian experience reminds us, however, we cannot triumph against this world’s odds apart from his help.

The presumption of nations gathered against God is immediately revealed when he destroys them (20:9). Through much of history, God allows the suffering of his people; but this is a sign of his merciful restraint and sovereign purposes, not of his impotence. When he wills, he can slay his enemies in a moment. Thus a third-century rabbi understood God’s response to Magog in Ezekiel: “O you evil ones, do you rouse yourselves to war against me?”72 As Joel 3:9–12 notes, such actions of the end-time Gentile forces against God’s people will prove futile. Revelation also teaches what some other Jewish traditions declare: God himself will overthrow Gog and Magog, too powerful for Israel to defeat in its own strength (cf. Ezek. 38:11–12, 14).73

Some skeptics have charged Christians with a hope that is merely “pie in the sky,” that is, with living for an uncertain hope while neglecting issues of pressing concern in the present life. Biblical hope, however, summons us to lives of holiness in the present (Titus 2:12–13; 1 Peter 1:13–16; 1 John 3:3). The heavenly books in this passage (Rev. 20:12) remind us that the deeds we do in this life really do matter in an ultimate sense.

This passage, like most others in Revelation, provides preachers and teachers an adequate transition for what many nineteenth-and twentieth-century evangelicals have called an “altar call.” The knowledge of final judgment calls all to repentance in the present, for someday—when it is no longer possible to ignore God and his perfect way—it will be too late to repent.

Original Meaning

Final Judgment (20:11–15)

THE SCENE OF battle judgment gives way to the Final Judgment before God’s throne. Jewish traditions often describe this day; the time for mercy and patience are over (4 Ezra 7:33), and the wicked will be ashamed (1 Enoch 97:6).28 That there is “no place” for earth and sky (Rev. 20:11; cf. 12:8) reveals how dramatic is God’s appearance as Judge, and it paves the way for the new heavens and earth (21:1). No one can see God in his glory and live (Ex. 33:20), and the sight of God will banish creation; but in the new creation, his servants will see his face (Rev. 22:4–5).

The “books” also contribute to this picture of dread for the wicked (20:12). In some Jewish traditions, angels report human misdeeds before God’s tribunal immediately after the earth’s destruction and before the resurrection of the wicked (cf. Sib. Or. 2.215–16). Commonly Jewish texts depict heavenly books of judgment reporting people’s works, ready to be produced in the Day of Judgment.29 The books here reflect those of Daniel 7:10 (cf. likewise 4 Ezra 6:20).30

Here both “death and Hades” are judged. “Hades” (20:13–14) is the realm of the dead, and those remaining in it are those not raised at the first resurrection (20:4–6), hence the damned.31 The idea that Hades will return what has been entrusted to it fits Jewish pictures of the resurrection of the dead for judgment (1 En. 51:1; 4 Ezra 7:32; Ps-Philo 3:10).32 That the sea also must give up its dead answers the concern of many people in antiquity, including some Jews contemplating the resurrection, concerning the fate of the unburied.33

The stark picture of the banishment of the wicked to a place of fire is meant to grip the hearer’s attention, but it would not surprise an early Jewish-Christian reader.34 Jewish tradition recognized that God will banish the fallen angels, Gentiles, and disobedient Israelites to the Abyss of fire (1 Enoch 90:24–27), but Revelation prefers a more graphic, oxymoronic picture of a “lake of fire” (Rev. 19:20; 20:10, 14–15; 21:8), over which the saints have come victorious (15:2; the “lake of fire” may reflect the “river of fire” in Dan. 7:10). Although fire can communicate instant annihilation rather than eternal torment, earlier Christian tradition portrayed an unquenchable burning (Matt. 3:12; Mark 9:43; Luke 3:17), and Revelation elsewhere speaks of eternal torment (14:10–11), implied also in this context for the lake of fire (20:10).35

Bridging Contexts

VIEWS OF THE MILLENNIUM. Reviewing the history of interpretation helps us understand where our views come from so we can take adequate account of them and try to hear Scripture objectively by reducing (insofar as possible) our bias in interpretation. Revelation 20 has been the subject of considerable debate over the entire span of church history. The earliest church fathers believed in a literal, future, thousand-year reign of Christ.36 Papias, for example, is said to have reported that the apostle John promised a material, agricultural paradise to come, in a Millennium after the resurrection of the righteous.37

The mid-second-century Christian philosopher Justin Martyr accepted a literal, future, thousand-year reign of Christ in a rebuilt Jerusalem after the resurrection of the righteous, though he admitted that some Christians held other views; he proves his case from Isaiah and Revelation.38 Irenaeus, a late second-century bishop, tends to interpret many biblical prophecies literally, including those in Revelation, and warns against allegorizing them.39

By the time of church historian Eusebius in the fourth century, however, nearly all Christian leaders assumed that the Millennium represented the present era. Thus Eusebius reported that, in contrast to many hard-hearted heretics, some premillennialists proved more teachable; shown their “error,” they became amillennial.40 The Council of Ephesus in 431 condemned belief in a literal Millennium as superstition.41

The amillennial viewpoint dominated most of subsequent church history: Augustine, Calvin, Luther, and many prominent church leaders cited by evangelicals on other issues today were amillennial.42 Perhaps recognizing arguments for more than one position, Wesley reportedly believed in two millenniums, a heavenly and an earthly one.43 For the first thousand years of church history, amillennialists generally believed in a literal present Millennium; after a thousand years followed the church’s deliverance from Rome without Christ’s return, amillennialists generally reinterpreted the Millennium as the present period but the thousand-year duration as symbolic.

Some amillennialists interpret this “millennial” period not as the whole course of the present Christian era but as the period after the Roman persecutions; this view allows for a distinction between the “Tribulation” as a time of Roman oppression and the Millennium. A serious problem with this distinction is that the church suffers in many parts of the world today no less seriously than under imperial Rome.44 Others, probably the dominant amillennial position today, interpret the Millennium as the entire period between the first and second comings of Christ, the way many interpret the “Tribulation” period in Revelation (12:5–6).45

In recent centuries premillennialism has gained considerable ground, especially around the beginning of the twentieth century when dispensational premillennialism, originating with John Nelson Darby in the 1830s, began to take hold in evangelical thought.46 Concerned with the legalism he perceived in the church and associated with its adherence to parts of the Bible addressed specifically to Israel, Darby sought to distinguish which parts of the Bible addressed national Israel and which addressed the church. He argued that God dealt with Israel until the church age and would again deal with Israel during the final Tribulation, after the church’s Rapture to heaven; for the most part early dispensationalists accepted only the New Testament letters as directed primarily toward the church. The original form of dispensationalism has changed considerably over the years, however; today’s “progressive dispensationalism” is a far cry from (and a more biblical model than) Clarence Larkin’s charts, Scofield’s original reference Bible, or Darby’s teaching in 1830.47

Most nineteenth-century American evangelicals held a view that few people today advocate, and their view actually helped motivate them to evangelize the world.48 They were postmillennial: They believed they would establish the kingdom on earth to prepare the way for Jesus’ return. Like premillennialists they embraced a future Millennium; like some amillennialists, they believed in a reign of peace before Jesus’ return but following the time of persecutions. This postmillennial view fueled the activist faith of nineteenth-century evangelicals in the United States as they evangelized and worked to abolish slavery. Leading figures of the Great Awakenings like Jonathan Edwards (often noted for his influential theology) and Charles Finney (a prominent voice in a revival in which hundreds of thousands of conversions occurred) were postmillennial. This view provided excellent motivation for mission, but eventually shattered against the hard reefs of reality: Christian devotion, no matter how sincere, cannot fully establish God’s kingdom without God’s direct intervention.49

This survey of views has been so brief as to risk misrepresenting the greater diversity of views that stands behind it, but it should illustrate the point that committed Christians have held many different views about the end-time, yet retained God’s blessings. That postmillennialism was the dominant view of nineteenth-century American evangelicals and helped fuel the missions movement should give us pause. Most of us hold views about the Millennium that we “know” are right because we move in circles that share the same views we do. I know many Christians who could not imagine their view being wrong, because every passionate believer they respect in their circles holds that view. But if we had been in Jonathan Edwards’ or Charles Finney’s circle, we might have taken postmillennialism for granted no less.

Perhaps our spiritual predecessors would have questioned whether we were truly evangelicals had we doubted postmillennialism! To be sure, it is easy for us today to recognize that postmillennialism does not fit enough of the biblical evidence. But because any system of thought looks consistent from within the system (whether the views of Jehovah’s Witnesses or our own), we should not rest so easily that our own views fit all the evidence unless they have been tested in dialogue with Christians who can challenge them.

Apart from Billy Graham and perhaps Luis Palau, Bill Bright, and some others like them, few of us today have had the direct impact that John Wesley, Charles Finney, or D. L. Moody had on their generations: yet all three of them held quite different views about the end times. It seems clear, at least to many of us, that God does not dispense his blessings based on our views about the end time, and that we ought to learn from his example a lesson about charity toward those who hold other views on this matter.

Literal or symbolic? The two millennial views most widely held in different sections of Christendom today are premillennialism and amillennialism. Each has more arguments in its favor than advocates of the opposing position generally recognize. In favor of premillennialism is the most natural reading of Revelation 20, outlined above: The thousand years begins with the resurrection of those killed during the Tribulation that preceded it and closes with the devil being hurled into the same place of torment where the beast and false prophet of the Tribulation have been for the duration of the thousand years. In addition, some see clues to the Millennium in other texts, such as 1 Corinthians 15:23–24 (although this passage by itself is not sufficient to argue for an intermediate period between the present and eternal future).50

Some premillennialists (especially those who are also dispensationalists) also find abundant references to the Millennium in the Old Testament. If one takes both Ezekiel and Revelation literally, Ezekiel’s new temple (Ezek. 40–43) cannot occur after the Millennium (Rev. 21:22), but it is not impossible that it could occur during the Millennium. In the eternal future, God’s servants serve him before his face (22:3–4), so it is reasonable that the descriptions of earthly, agricultural blessings (e.g., Amos 9:13–14) take place during an interim period before that eternal future reign (though cf. Rev. 22:2). Such a means to reconcile diverse pictures of the end time in the Prophets would have made sense to John’s contemporaries.51 Dispensationalists who find in Old Testament prophecies promises of the restoration of national Israel and yet find in Revelation 21–22 the eternal hope of the church, can seek to harmonize the two by affirming both: One occurs during the Millennium and the other afterward.52

Such views can be challenged. The eternal future in Revelation 21 is no less rooted in the church’s heritage in Israel than is Revelation 20: Though the holy city of chapter 21 descends from heaven, it is still a new Jerusalem, founded in the twelve tribes of Israel (21:12) as well as in the twelve apostles of the Lamb (21:14). Further, many of the Old Testament descriptions of the future are clearly symbolic images, meant to graphically convey the future hope in terms that made sense to ancient Israelites. In their day beating swords into plowshares (Mic. 4:3) symbolized peace; today we might prefer the image of melting down guns or disarming missiles.

But if the images are symbolic, they also do not have to be fully harmonized on a literal level—which saves us some embarrassments from which even the most traditional dispensationalism could not rescue us.53 It is possible that Revelation includes a Millennium to allow us to harmonize some major portraits of the end time in the Old Testament prophets; but we would need more than a single Millennium to harmonize all the different pictures of the end in the Bible! Some texts speak of the ingathering of Gentiles at the end (e.g., Isa. 2:2, 4; 11:9–10; 42:6; 49:6), others of their subjection and bringing of tribute (Isa. 11:14–15; 49:22–23; 54:3; 60:6–14; 66:18–20), and others of their destruction (Isa. 29:5–8; 30:27–28; 34:2–3).

But the function of most of these texts is to promise Israel’s restoration and exaltation among the nations that once ridiculed her; thus, to force these poetic images into contradictory molds is to misunderstand them. They do have implications for the salvation of Gentiles who embrace Israel’s heritage in Jesus and the lostness of the rest of the world, but these implications become clear only in the light of the rest of biblical theology.

Even in the eternal future, if one takes Revelation 21:24–26 literally, one questions whether the outsiders are non-Christians that do not face eternal punishment, or Gentile Christians kept outside the new Jerusalem as spiritually second-class to Jewish Christians—or is this simply a symbolic way of describing the exaltation of God’s people? Neither of the first two alternatives fits the rest of New Testament theology.

Further, one gets the distinct impression from Paul (Rom. 2:5–9; 2 Thess. 1:7–9) and Peter (2 Peter 3:10) that all non-Christians will be destroyed when Jesus comes back, an event that would not leave anyone on earth to enter the Millennium.54 A premillennialist can argue in response that Paul and Peter are speaking in general terms, whereas Revelation provides a more detailed chronology of events. This response is a legitimate one, but it illustrates our interpretive problem: We simply cannot take all the texts completely “literally,” nor are we meant to do so. If one spends much time actually reading Isaiah, Ezekiel, or the other prophets, clearly they use a variety of symbolic images to convey the future promise, and these prophets would not have been interested in harmonizing them all on a literal level.

Amillennial interpreters usually point to the preponderance of passages like those in Paul or Peter as against the single, clear assertion of a future thousand years in Revelation. (Many premillennialists counter by appealing here to “progressive revelation.”) Since we must interpret some passages symbolically anyway, amillennialists note, and since Revelation is full of symbolic language, does it not make more sense to interpret Paul’s letters and the rest of the New Testament literally and Revelation symbolically, rather than the reverse? Thus amillennialists point to various New Testament passages in which Paul or other interpreters appear to apply Old Testament promises about the future kingdom to the present era of faith in Christ (e.g., Acts 2:17; 15:15–18; Rom. 9:24–25). If the apostles interpreted such Old Testament promises spiritually, should we not follow their example?

As to national Israel, many amillennialists today will acknowledge that Paul allows for the return of the final generation of Jewish people as a whole to faith in Jesus (Rom. 11:26); but they contend that ethnic Jewishness does not imply a Jewish nation-state or a spiritual distinction between Jewish and Gentile Christians.55 Amillennialists from Augustine onward have often suggested that John adapted the traditional intermediate kingdom of Jewish apocalypses but reapplied it in a symbolic way, the way we have elsewhere argued he reapplied the Tribulation image (12:5–6).56 Less persuasively, many (going outside Revelation) interpret Satan’s binding in 20:2 in light of Matthew 12:29. But although Revelation elsewhere draws on the Synoptic Gospel tradition, it may demand too much of John’s readers to presume their knowledge of that text as against the widespread Jewish tradition about binding demons, and even if they did know the text, it is not clear that they would have applied it the same way.

Strong arguments are available for both millennial positions and tend to rise or fall on how one reads the rest of the Bible. In general, if one starts with Revelation 20, one will be premillennial; starting from that premise, those so inclined can also apply many promises about national Israel to that period in a literal manner (although Rev. 20 itself does not demand that we attribute those promises to that period). If one starts with most New Testament passages about the end time, one will probably be amillennial and then need to determine what to do with Revelation 20. Each view makes sense on its own presuppositions, but often sounds like special pleading to one who starts with different presuppositions.57 Because it would take a survey of all Scripture to test such presuppositions, we cannot engage such a test here. But we can point out the reasons why Bible-believing Christians have come to different convictions on the matter and invite us to greater charity toward others who differ.

Personal perspective. Here I can only summarize the results of my own attempt to pull together my understanding of the larger biblical picture.58 First of all, we should interpret each text in its context and on its own terms. Note, then, that the Old Testament prophets had a message for their own generations as well as for us. Their generations would have taken little solace in an interpretation of prophecy that claimed: “I am divorcing Israel and replacing her with the church”; they expected a genuine restoration of Israel.59 At the same time, the early Christians understood these promises in light of Jesus’ triumph, and their interpretation provides guidelines for our own. Whatever the literal blessings in the future kingdom, we experience the spiritual benefit of Christ’s kingdom in the present (Gal. 3:14; Eph. 1:3).

Further, the Old Testament prophets themselves (e.g., Isa. 19:22–25; 56:3–8), confirmed by the New Testament writers (Rom. 16:25–26), affirmed that the future of the covenant people included more than people genetically descended from Abraham. In the Old Testament Gentiles routinely joined the covenant people (e.g., Josh. 6:25; Ruth 1:16; 2 Sam. 8:18), whereas many Israelites broke covenant with God (e.g., Ex. 32:10; Ps. 95:8–11). In the first century, Judaism still regularly accepted Gentiles as converts into their faith and people.60

To be sure, no one expected such a large influx of Gentiles into God’s people that they would end up outnumbering the Jewish remnant, but Paul is clear that the final generation of Jewish people as a whole will turn to faith in Jesus (Rom. 11:26–27; otherwise he is changing the meaning of “Israel” from 11:25 to 11:26 without warning). Paul was not radical for saying that Gentiles could become part of the people of God (a view shared by most of his Jewish contemporaries); he was radical for saying that they could do so without circumcision—that is, without becoming ethnically or culturally Jewish. At the same time, it is doubtful that even Paul anticipated the utterly non-Judaic character of most of today’s church, mostly alienated from its Jewish roots (11:18).

Perhaps the final turning of Jewish people will come only as Gentile Christians rediscover their spiritual heritage in Israel’s history (cf. Rom. 11:14). Then, instead of claiming to be a corporate “replacement” for Israel per se, we can recognize that Gentile Christians have been grafted into Israel’s faith meant to bless the world. Perhaps today’s Jewish Christians (Messianic Jews) can help Gentile Christians find the way back to this perspective.61

On this basis, I am skeptical of a future promise for national Israel that excludes ethnically Gentile Christians who have been grafted into Israel’s heritage and hope (cf. Rom. 2:29; 9:6–13; Gal. 3:29). (Such a scenario may prove an especially traumatic choice for Jewish Christians: Would they share the destiny of the church or of ethnic Israel?) At the same time, I cannot think that the Old Testament prophets intended a “replacement” of Israel now unrelated to her historical heritage. Perhaps the whole biblical picture suggests a future grounded in the history of the patriarchs, David, and the prophets, but one in which Gentile Christians share fully as those grafted into the covenant—and who should recognize (better than most do now) their spiritual heritage.

Nor do I believe that this hope grounded in Israel’s history is limited to the Millennium; the very fact that the eternal city of Revelation 21 is called the new Jerusalem grounds our future hope in our spiritual history. I recognize that such a solution will appeal neither to some traditional dispensationalists nor to some traditional covenant theologians; I offer it merely as my own attempt to synthesize the diverse array of biblical portraits of our future hope. The Bible is a big book, and few of us have mastered it well enough to think we are beyond learning more.

In the end, some scholars argue that our contemporary millennial debates miss the point of Revelation entirely. As one evangelical commentator points out, John’s vision occurs within a premillennial framework; yet the real debate among millennial views arises when we ask whether to press his vision as a literal plan for the future.62 Revelation does have a future Millennium, but the book presents not a chronologically sequenced series of future events, but various images that weave together different threads of end-time expectation. Revelation places complementary visions of the end side-by-side, in a manner analogous to the diverse Old Testament portrayals of creation. These scholars suggest that we have misunderstood the point of Revelation because we have misread its literary genre.63

While this approach seems in many ways the most sensitive to the nature of the prophetic genre that Revelation develops, it comes as no surprise that it has eluded many interpreters through history. Many of Revelation’s first readers, like many of the earliest church fathers, probably never caught the nuances of this approach; it often seems more natural to us to take everything literally—until confronted by other prophecies that on the literal level contradict the ones we started with, forcing us to at least consider such questions. The complexity of these issues thus calls for much charity toward those with whom we may disagree on millennial details.

Identities in Revelation. We should briefly touch on at least one more issue before leaving this section. The proposed identities of various players in this narrative have shifted according to the headlines of the day, many generations assuming their list of evil empires to be the final one. Luther and many Reformers saw the Pope as the Antichrist and the Turks as Gog, allies of the Antichrist.64 Somewhat more up to date is one etymologically strained line of interpretation of some modern prophecy teachers that identifies Gog with Russia. In this line of thinking Meshech and Tubal (Ezek. 38:2–3), for example, are Moscow and Tobolsk!65 But Gog and Magog had specific meaning for the first audience of Ezekiel, and for Revelation’s audience they connoted the people of the final battle mentioned in Ezekiel.66

Some views demonstrably contradict the text. Greg Beale may well be correct, however, that Revelation recycles the image precisely because after Ezekiel the image could simply apply to the end-time enemy, hence to any enemy of God’s people (the way we would speak of someone being a “Hitler” today).67

Consistency in our interpretive method is important. Working from particular logical constructs, Jehovah’s Witnesses expect the resurrection of the righteous to occur in stages, allowing the raised opportunity to get enculturated.68 But the text itself declares a first resurrection that leaves all “the rest of the dead” only for the raising of the lost for judgment at the end of the Millennium (20:4–6). The view itself is not so surprising as the inconsistent hermeneutic behind it, because on many points Jehovah’s Witnesses interpret Revelation quite literally (such as the number 144,000), but here would criticize a literal interpretation as pedantic!

Contemporary Significance

PASTORAL APPLICATION. Those who interpret the Millennium of Revelation 20 as symbolic for the present age will find in it an encouragement that believers in the present have been raised with Christ, share a role in Christ’s kingdom in the world, and will be spared from the horror of a final judgment without Christ.

We have argued above that in context the passage most naturally suggests a future Millennium and therefore a future hope. This suggestion does not begin to solve the interpretive problems: One can argue that the Millennium, like many other portraits of end-time hope, is merely symbolic. One can argue that it borrows from a fairly common apocalyptic image of an interim kingdom and does not describe a literal interim between the present and future ages. Thus, not everyone who affirms a future Millennium in Revelation 20 may affirm a literal thousand-year interim reign in practice!

But on the level of pastoral application, such interpretive distinctions between a literal or symbolic future period do not affect the most important points. Whether in a temporary intermediate kingdom or in the new heavens and new earth, we will be with Christ.69 Revelation 20 is a promise of future hope, particularly relevant to those who have suffered (like the martyrs of 20:4). Jesus will raise those who have suffered for him, and they will be rewarded by reigning with him (cf. 2 Tim. 2:12).70

The devil cannot act without God’s permission (Rev. 20:2–3), which in turn encourages us not to be afraid of his present activities, including his persecution (12:12). When God deems the time appropriate, it will take only one angel to imprison the devil (20:1)—as Luther’s hymn puts it, “one little word shall fell him.” If Satan’s return after the Millennium represents a “mock parousia,” as some have argued, the passage may remind us that though he sometimes “comes back” after what seems to be the final “knock-out punch,” his final defeat is secure, as is the preservation of the church (Matt. 16:18).

Those who do not actively submit to Christ’s lordship, even if they have been in settings where they were rarely tested, remain susceptible to the devil’s deceptions (20:8) and will be banished to eternal torment at the final judgment (20:14). In the final analysis, the questions of future curiosity we ask about this chapter are often the least important questions for today’s church. Without understanding all the details about the future Millennium, one has more than enough preaching material in this passage to encourage believers to persevere and fulfill Christ’s purposes in the world!

The Millennium fulfills another important theological function in Revelation. Earlier judgments failed to bring repentance (9:20–21; 16:9, 11, 21), and now the deceiver finds human hearts receptive to rebellion despite his thousand-year absence. “The millennium proves, then, that humans cannot blame their sinfulness on their environment or circumstances.” This exposes human evil; even where corporate sin is abolished, individual depravity will remain, frustrating God’s corporate redemptive activity until the final end.71 One may compare C. S. Lewis’s parable of human depravity in The Great Divorce, where he suggests that most of the damned remain unrepentant. On a literal level, the damned will surely regret their course; but Lewis’s primary point seems to be that unregenerate humans prefer sin to God’s righteousness.

If the saints must remain vigilant even during the thousand years (see comment on 20:9), on our reading this should summon us to ever greater vigilance in the present. While I find unusual many practices currently countenanced in the name of “spiritual warfare,” they may be less disconcerting than the more prevalent attitudes in much of Christendom that virtually acts as if powers hostile to our mission do not exist!

The triumph of God. God’s defense of a city that embodies the heritage of his people from David’s time forward (20:8–9) points to his love and faithfulness toward his own people. The passage also reveals that we may be outnumbered (20:8; cf. 7:4), but in the end God’s purposes will triumph, and he will keep the church from being ultimately defeated by the world’s evil oppressors. We can stand firm against evil even when the battle appears futile; victory belongs to the Lord! As the entire Bible and our Christian experience reminds us, however, we cannot triumph against this world’s odds apart from his help.

The presumption of nations gathered against God is immediately revealed when he destroys them (20:9). Through much of history, God allows the suffering of his people; but this is a sign of his merciful restraint and sovereign purposes, not of his impotence. When he wills, he can slay his enemies in a moment. Thus a third-century rabbi understood God’s response to Magog in Ezekiel: “O you evil ones, do you rouse yourselves to war against me?”72 As Joel 3:9–12 notes, such actions of the end-time Gentile forces against God’s people will prove futile. Revelation also teaches what some other Jewish traditions declare: God himself will overthrow Gog and Magog, too powerful for Israel to defeat in its own strength (cf. Ezek. 38:11–12, 14).73

Some skeptics have charged Christians with a hope that is merely “pie in the sky,” that is, with living for an uncertain hope while neglecting issues of pressing concern in the present life. Biblical hope, however, summons us to lives of holiness in the present (Titus 2:12–13; 1 Peter 1:13–16; 1 John 3:3). The heavenly books in this passage (Rev. 20:12) remind us that the deeds we do in this life really do matter in an ultimate sense.

This passage, like most others in Revelation, provides preachers and teachers an adequate transition for what many nineteenth-and twentieth-century evangelicals have called an “altar call.” The knowledge of final judgment calls all to repentance in the present, for someday—when it is no longer possible to ignore God and his perfect way—it will be too late to repent.