There will be a real, conclusive End to history as we know it. (We need to grasp that!) Here we are shown it!
One day Jesus the King will be revealed in glory, for every eye to see. One day, the long, ruinous experiment of rebellious human independence will be put to a merciful end. God Himself will say ‘Enough’ to all the agony. ‘The Lord himself will come down from heaven’ (1 Thess 4:16) – to judge the dead, to vindicate and reward His people, to destroy those who destroy the earth (Revelation 11:18), and to bring in a glorious future!
Revelation 19 describes the `second coming` for us. From maybe ch8 through to Jesus’ triumphant appearance in ch19, we’ve read of that brief period when God lets us learn what rejection of His reign really means, the ultimate revelation of the cost of our wilful independence: the earth poisoned, horrific slaughter in global warfare, famine, disease, and totalitarian rule by the Animal, the ultimate satanic dictator, whose image must be worshipped on pain of death (13:15). It seems, however, that the Animal’s demands eventually encounter resistance, and ‘the kings of the whole world’ gather, in Palestine, for ‘the battle on the great day of God Almighty’ (16:14). But in chapter 19 God finally says, ‘Enough’; Jesus rides out of heaven, returning to earth as King of kings. At that point the ‘kings of the earth and their armies’ unite under the Animal to fight Him, explicitly and openly; but their rebellion is futile and catastrophic; the Lord reigns (19:19-21)! Hallelujah!
Now, this book is above all the Revelation of Jesus Christ (1:1,2), preoccupied with Christ (`the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy` (19:10)). So we can approach each of its chapters as an aid in learning to worship; so read it will be deeply refreshing (which is not what everyone expects from Revelation!) What fuel then does chapter 19 give us for worship?
Jesus our Lord is `faithful and true` (19:11, cf 3:14); utterly reliable, utterly trustworthy!
`With justice He judges` (19:11): we’ve noticed previously Revelation’s strong emphasis on the righteous nature of God’s judging, eg 15:3-4,16:5,19:2. His total faithfulness means He is the God of impartial, unchanging justice. (Is this totally accurate discernment also the point of His eyes being `like blazing fire` in v12?)
But as He steps in to bring the agony of history to an end, `He is` (already) `dressed in a robe dipped` (literally, `baptized`; cf Luke 12:50) `in blood` (19:13). If this is the blood of Christ Himself (cf 1:5, 5:9), it underlines that (as we know from the gospel) God’s law is kept and justice served even if Christ Himself has had to pay the price…
`His name is the Word of God` (19:13): John in his Gospel likewise focused on Christ as the Word, the ultimate revelation in human form, of God. And as the Word, He speaks, and things happen (cf Genesis 1, John 1:1-3)! But His Word, that which comes from His mouth, is also a `sharp sword`(v13); as it is in Eph 6:17, 2 Thess 2:8, or Isaiah 11:4. Roger Forster suggests attractively that this is not merely force; rather it’s the very revelation of Christ’s glory that destroys evil (cf Isa 33:14 or John 18:5-6, and again the `splendour` in 2 Thess 2:8). (Isn’t this how the `sword of the Spirit` works now?)
He is `King of Kings and Lord of Lords` (19:16); the wearer of `many crowns` (v12); and utterly rightly so!
And yet as we turn each of these things into worship, let’s also remember v12: `He has a name written on Him that no-one knows but Himself!` There is far more to our Lord than we will ever comprehend – though we will have eternity to explore and learn it in!
Wonderful! But then what? Well, then, after Christ’s overthrow of all evil, comes Revelation 20. What do we do with this?
Here we have a secondary doctrine about which godly people disagree! Many Christians like myself see this chapter depicting a time following directly on the previous verses, after Christ’s overthrow of the Animal at His second coming. Now, with evil conclusively vanquished, our world is freed from all Satan’s influence, and for 1000 wonderful years becomes what it was made for: a paradise where the wolf lies down with the lamb, and the earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea!:
`The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
The infant will play near the hole of the cobra,
and the young child will put [its] hand into the viper’s nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea!` (Isaiah 11:6-9, NIV as usual)
All heaven breaks loose! Understood this way, the millennium reveals and vindicates Christ the King on earth; and the earth, this earth!, is filled with the glory of God! The destruction of the planet (11:18) has been thwarted; our world’s original purpose, what it was made for, is fulfilled – God’s work of art here happens despite everything Satan has done – and here, not elsewhere! `Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven`, we pray: now it happens! There is indeed a golden age on earth. And a key part is played by those martyred by the Animal (v4); and it is centred on Jerusalem, the `city He [God] loves`(v9), as promised so many times in the old testament. The Fall is reversed because Christ is present as King! His presence in the gospels had revealed something of His kingdom on earth (eg Matthew 8); but now comes total recreation because of His total presence!
However, other sisters and brothers (`amillennialists` rather than `premillennialists`) interpret the chapter very differently, as a picture of our reign, the Church’s reign now, since Christ’s triumph through the cross. They mostly see Revelation as doubling back at this point (which it probably does elsewhere, eg at 12:1), and relate the binding of Satan in 20:2 to Matthew 12:28-29, where Christ explains that to liberate Satan’s captives He must first ‘bind the strong man’; and then to the indisputable effects of His triumph over Satan during His ministry on earth, and above all through Calvary (John 12:31; Colossians 2:15; Hebrews 2:14; Luke 10:18); so that Satan is now on a `long chain`. (However we might note that it’s an angel, not Jesus, who does the binding here in Rev 20:2; and if this is talking about the cross, it’s perhaps very odd that the cross isn’t mentioned.) But so 20:4 (‘I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshipped the beast’ [the Animal] ‘or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years’) is a glorious picture of the Church’s authority in Christ now that Satan is bound (or ‘driven out’, John 12:31, which could parallel Satan being ‘locked’ out in Revelation 20:3); now that ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to’ Jesus (Matthew 28:18; cf Eph 1:20-22), and hence to us as we share His throne (Revelation 3:21). (Those of us who take a different perspective should pause to taste the sheer glory of this interpretation!) In the PS to this post I’ve tried to set out briefly why I find the former approach much the most convincing. But either possibility offers us tremendous encouragement. Triumphant Jesus, I worship You!
But more about that in the PS. Let’s move on again. What cannot be in dispute is the reality of ultimate judgment at the close of chapter 20. 20:8 is very sad; a perfect environment, yet humankind rebels in numbers like `the sand of the seashore` (the final disproof, incidentally, of marxism). The evil heart rejects God even when experiencing all the blessings of Christ’s direct rule, as gloriously manifested in eg Isa 11:6ff and 65:20ff; our planet’s story ends as it began, just like Adam and Eve rebelling in paradise.
And so `earth and sky fled… and there was no place for them` (20:11), in preparation for the new heavens and new earth of 21:1. Watchman Nee comments, `Some consider this fleeing of the earth and heaven as only a divine act of re-making, but… “and there was found no place for them” [AV], clearly shows that the old heaven and earth are completely destroyed`; which seems clear from numerous other parts of Scripture too – Rev 6:14 and Heb 1:12; 2 Peter 3:12-13, Matt 24:35, Isa 51:6 or Psa 102:25-26. But what’s more crucial for us is how Revelation presents the gospel forcefully to us its readers as it draws climactically to a close (as it will yet again in 21:6-8 and 22:17). `I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books… Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire` (20:12,15). The nature of the gospel, salvation by faith, is clear: it’s not what is recorded about us in the books of works that is decisive for our eternal destiny; what matters is whether our name is written, not in those books, but in `another book` totally outside the works issue, `the Lamb’s book of life` (21:27).
And here, now, comes the stark alternative: eternal heaven or eternal hell. And heaven will be wonderful: God proceeds in the next verses, the Bible’s two closing chapters, to give us some glorious glimpses of this – next week’s post! But right here let’s go back and absorb 19:6-9: `Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting:“Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and His Bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.”(Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.)` (That is, our works in this life don’t determine our salvation, as we’ve just noted; nevertheless God cares about them greatly, and honours them enormously!) `Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” ` Let’s absorb that; blessed indeed!
But then there’s the other side, which this section highlights in its close: ‘If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire’ (20:15). Jesus Himself spoke so often of this, in Matthew 13:50 for example, and in the sermon on the mount (Matt 5:29-30). Lennox notes that there are no less than four times when these chapters draw our attention to those who don’t get into heaven: 20:15, 21:8, 21:27 and 22:15. This, above all, we surely need to remember. Lord, it’s a fact my mind flees from. But I do believe Your Word. And this is what You died for. May it shape how I relate to everyone around me …
PS, going back to a very different topic: As I’ve said above, it makes sense to me to see Rev 20 describing a golden age in this world, centred on Jerusalem (Rev 20:9), after Christ’s victorious return. Satan then doesn’t win even in this world; on this planet, and not only by the coming of a new earth, the triumph of God will be made fully manifest. ‘God didn’t create the earth to simply screw it up like a piece of paper and throw it away’, writes charismatic father-figure Roger Forster, explaining why he is ‘staunchly pre-millennialist’. Satan will never be able to say to Christ, ‘But that beautiful world, at least, I ruined permanently; you never got it back.’ No: this earth, this one, will become a paradise! – one where the wolf lies down with the lamb, and the earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. When Jesus comes back as King, all heaven breaks loose!
I’ve sought to set out the reasons for thinking this in https://petelowmanresources.com/our-future4-what-happens-after-jesus-returns-whats-this-about-the-millennium/ . It’s not just because of Revelation20; there are also the many old testament promises about God’s purposes for ethnic Israel and its land – promises made by God precisely in the context of serious sin and failure on Israel’s part (see Jer 31:37). I’m struck too by Romans 11, which describes the time when ethnic Israel’s ‘hardening’ comes to an end and they are used by God to bring ‘life from the dead’ (Romans 11:15 – think about that phrase), because ultimately ‘God’s gifts and His call’ to them are ‘irrevocable’ (11:29). These many passages deserve very serious attention; please see https://petelowmanresources.com/our-future3-so-how-does-ethnic-israel-fit-in/ . But let me focus on why Revelation 20 seems to me to be about a golden age after Christ’s return.
1. Firstly, accepting that Revelation’s narrative does sometimes ‘double back’, surely it is not doing so here. The people who ‘[come] to life and [reign] with Christ for a thousand years’ (20:4) are specifically those who had not worshipped the Animal or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands; which means we are looking at a time later than the horrific end-time events of chapter 13 (and 2 Thessalonians 2:4), a time later than the emergence of the Animal for (13:5) the final crisis of history. (It’s worth noting here that even such strong proponents of the amillennial approach as Kim Riddlebarger (A Case for Amillennialism, pp146,155,272) and Sam Storms (Kingdom Come, pp36,546-47), while recognising the ‘repeated manifestation’ of what the Animal represents throughout history, see also its embodiment in the rise of a specific, ultimately evil end-time dictator.) When Revelation 20 comes that final crisis is over, and the Animal has been finally defeated, with Christ’s open return as King in 19:20; 20:4 seems to make clear that it’s after that climax of the End time that the believers the Animal had martyred come to life and reign for a thousand years.
(I do find it hard to see this `coming to life` as the regeneration of new birth, as some amillennialists do; 20:4 says that they have been slaughtered after they have believed and given `their testimony for Jesus`.)
2. Again, Revelation 20:10 clearly follows on and completes the judgment of Revelation 19:20. In 19:20 the Animal and his false prophet have been thrown into the lake of fire, and then in 20:10 we’re explicitly told that Satan joins them there where they ‘had been thrown’ (emphasis mine); the two judgments aren’t simultaneous. The first two evil beings are judged at the time of Christ’s open return as King in 19:20, but the final judgment of Satan himself takes place significantly later; and Revelation 20 surely reads as if the millennium happens between the two.
3. Why are there the repeated references to the ‘thousand years’ at all (vv2,3,4,5,6,7), if they refer to our present era? It has no obvious symbolic meaning. The respected amillennialist writer Hoekema sees these references as standing for ‘a very long period of indeterminate length’. But given how important it seems to be that we shouldn’t know how long our present era is, and how long the time before the second coming may be (so that even Jesus chose to share our ignorance, Matthew 24:36), what sense would it make (what would it add) to state any length for it at all? Unless, of course, that 1,000 years is quite literal?
4. An amillennialist like Storms who sees the millennium as our present Church age must therefore see the events of 20:7-9 as the final crisis of our present era. But are we to see all the horrific judgements of the forty-two month crisis, described throughout Revelation, happening during these verses? Also, this means that Satan’s being released from the abyss in 20:7 equals his being cast out of heaven (likewise triggering the start of that crisis) in 12:8-9,13. Being released from the abyss equals being cast out of heaven – that seems very odd indeed.
5. But for me, the biggest problem is the most obvious: however can we see our present era as a time when Satan is kept ‘from deceiving the nations any more’, as Revelation 20:3 puts it? ‘Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour’, says 1 Peter 5:8; beware of Satan tempting us, says 1 Corinthians 7:5; Satan is ‘the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient’, says Ephesians 2:2 (emphasis mine); as the ‘god of this age’ (a highly noteworthy phrase in this connection!), Satan has ‘blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel’ (2 Corinthians 4:4). (For other clear examples of Satan’s deceptive activity since the cross see Acts 5:3 or 2 Timothy 2:26.) In Revelation 20:3 in contrast, Mounce notes, ‘The abyss is sealed (cf Dan 6:17, Matt 27:66) as a special precaution against escape’ (emphasis mine); so that as premillennialist Wayne Grudem puts it, Revelation 20:3’s reference to Satan being ‘locked and sealed’ away surely ‘gives a picture of total removal from influence on the earth.’ How then can Revelation 20:2-3 be referring to our present era and our situation now?
But as I say, we do not come to this conclusion merely because of Revelation 20, but because of what we read throughout the Bible. Isaiah 11, the time when God is bringing His people back to Israel ‘a second time’ from the ends of the earth, ‘from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the sea’ (vv11-16), is also ‘that day’ when ‘The wolf will live with the lamb … They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord’ (vv6,9). Isaiah 65:20-25 speaks of a renewed earthly paradise that is yet one where death is rare but possible (unlike the eternal ‘new heavens and new earth’ from which death has vanished, Revelation 21:4). Psalm 72:5-11 describes the messianic King who will rule ‘as long as the sun . . . from the River to the ends of the earth. The desert tribes will bow before him and his enemies will lick the dust. The kings of . . . distant shores will bring tribute to him’; again this doesn’t sound quite like the situation in eternity? (Indeed that question arises in Revelation too: how would Christ’s ruling over the nations ‘with an iron sceptre’ (Rev 12:5; 2:27) fit into the eternal state?). The same is surely true of Zechariah 9:10, where the messianic King will ‘take away . . . the war-horses from Jerusalem, and the battle-bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea’, and Zechariah’s closing chapters, where after the final conflict and His second coming the Lord is reigning, but again sin and rebellion are still possible so there need to be clear sanctions against the ‘survivors from all the nations that . . . attacked Jerusalem’ if they refuse to worship Him there (14:16-19; see also Isaiah 60:10-12). And there are so many other passages – eg Deuteronomy 30, Isaiah 2 and 60, Jeremiah 3, Joel 3, Amos 9, Obadiah, Micah 4 and 7, Zechariah 2, Romans 11 – which present huge blessing to ethnic Israel as a key component of what happens at the End. Most clear of all, perhaps, is the extensive prophecy of Ezekiel 40 through 48; which seems so strange if it is to be spiritualised and only means, ‘God will have a House in the Church and that will be great’; rather than what it actually says, that the temple of the Lord will be restored in Jerusalem (chs 40 through 42), the glory of the Lord will return there physically (chapter 43), and life, a power of literal life, will flow gloriously out of it, life flooding out in rejuvenation to all the dead lands (chapter 47) . . .
In short, then, Revelation 20 surely seems to make most sense as describing what happens after Jesus returns, overthrowing the Animal and starting to reign openly as King, in chapter 19. ‘Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’, we pray: now it happens! There will indeed be a golden age on earth; a key part will be played by those martyred by the Animal (v4); and it will be centred on Jerusalem, the ‘city He [God] loves’ (and that Satan tried to destroy in his final rebellion, v9). See also Isaiah 2:2-4, Jer 3:17, Ezekiel’s closing verse (48:35), and Zec 14:16; Jerusalem will be, as Jesus said, ‘the city of the Great King’. (That is Matthew 5:35; what could He be referring to but this, when He Himself will reign over the earth from there?). And the whole creation, which for so long has been ‘subjected to frustration’ and ‘groaning as in the pains of childbirth’, will be joyfully ‘liberated from its bondage to decay’ into `glorious freedom`, exults Paul (Romans 8:20-22).
Oh yes; hallelujah!; it will be amazing beyond our wildest dreams!
