Date: March 2007 Series: "I Want to be Left Behind" (XXIX) Title: The Apocalypse (concluded)

       (continued from last month)

     (4) The Bowls (15-16) are the judgments that are poured out during the final age - upon unfaithful Judaism (“the household of God first” - 1Peter 4:17) and then upon persecuting Rome.

     (5) Chapters 17-19 are appendices, going back and portraying in detail what was mentioned briefly in vision context in 14:8 (16:5-7; 17-18) and 16:8-12 (19).

     (6) Chapter 20 is a church-oriented heavenly view of this final age - Satan is bound so that the nations/Gentiles do not need to be deceived any longer (vv. 1-3), the souls of the saints come to life and begin to reign with Christ (vv. 4-6), at the end of the age there will be a final Satanically-driven worldwide “encirclement” of the Saints that will end with fire from heaven (vv. 7-9), and then will come the great and final judgment day of God (vv. 10-15).

     (7) Chapter 21:1 - 22:6 portrays the new heaven and earth (Isaiah 65:17-25 & 2Peter 3:13)

     If Revelation 20 does portray the current Church age, then the only real sign that the return of Christ is near is contained in verses 7-9 - the apparent success of a world-wide and demonically-inspired coalition of anti-Christian forces (religions, philosophies, and political systems? - 2Corinthians 10:3-5) that appear to “surround the saints” when Satan is released to deceive the nations (Revelation 20:7-9).  If the “binding” of Satan occurred in connection with Jesus’ first coming (and it did - Matthew 12:28-29) and his power over people “limited” by hearing and believing the message that Jesus is the Messiah, died for our sins, and rose again (and it is - Hebrews 2:14-15), then Satan’s “release” must coincide somehow with suppressing the knowledge of God and proclamation of the Gospel.  Western “Enlightenment” secularism (1800 - present), Eastern Communism (1917 - present), and the spread of radical Islamic fundamentalism (1979 - present) could represent such a satanically orchestrated movement.  Only time will tell.  The book of Revelation tells us that everybody is marked by their master, but God is going to win - so, the saints need to “hang on” and persevere no matter what.

Revelation 20 is the Church Age

     A major eschatological question has to do with the age described in Revelation 20:1-6 and whether Christ’s returns “after” the 1,000 years (Post- & A-millennial) or before the 1,000 years (Pre-millennial).  Two lines of evidence suggest to me that Revelation 20 refers to the current Church Age and NOT an earthly, Jewish kingdom age to follow Christ’s return, as Premillennialism asserts.  The first of these are points in the text that suggest a Church Age interpretation and these we shall consider first.  The second are some statements in the New Testament that portray the current Church Age as the final age for this earth and rule out the possibility of another earthly age between this one and eternity.  First, we will consider the text.

     20:1/ "An angel coming down from heaven . . ." A similar description is found in 18:1.  The Greek word "angelos" occurs in both Revelation 18:1 and 20:1, but the theology and eschatology of the translator can affect the rendering.  "Angelos" occurs elsewhere in the Greek text and can designate either a special type of being or, simply, a "messenger" (Matthew 11:10; Mark 1:2; Luke 7:24,27; 9:52; James 2:25).  Perhaps the English should read "A messenger came down from heaven."  This was exactly what the Great Prophet was to be (Deuteronomy 18:15-19 & Malachi 3:1 with Acts 3:19-26).  This point is emphasized in John’s Gospel - Jesus was a messenger that came down from heaven and brought the words of the Father.^[1]

     Jesus possesses the key to the abyss; He controls death, Hades, and passage.  Demons recognized Him as the One who controlled their destiny (Luke 8:26-31).

     20:2-3/ This "messenger from Heaven" comes down and "binds" Satan, incarcerating him in such a way that "he should not" deceive the nations during this era.  We have already considered why Jesus could be the "messenger from heaven" in comments about the previous verse.

     I associate the "binding of Satan" with Jesus' first coming for several reasons.  First of all, Jesus plainly claimed to have bound Satan in His first coming.  He made this claim when challenged about His casting out of demons and asserted that His doing so was proof that He was not in league with Satan (Matthew 12:22-29).  After reasoning that His actions would be counter-productive if He was, in fact, in league with "the ruler of the demons" (vv. 25-26), Jesus added that the same charge could just as well be leveled against Jewish exorcists (v. 27).  Then, He made two powerful statements.  The first argued that the alternative explanation to casting out demons by Satanic power was that He was doing it by God's power and, if this was the case, then it indicated that God's promised kingdom/rulership had already come.  His second comment was that it is impossible to plunder a strong man's house (in this case, Satan's demonic household) unless you first "bind" or have restraining power over the strong man himself - implying that He had already deployed such power over Satan.  The term used for "bind" here (deo) is the same term used in Revelation 20:2.  Along these same lines, be sure to note what is said in John 12:31; Hebrews 2:14-15; 1John 3:8.

     But "how could this be referring to the Church Age" when Satan has been so obviously continuing to deceive humanity?  Good question, but one that is answered by noting a crucial grammatical point - the "mood" of the statement (its "reality" of action).  An indicative statement speaks of 100% reality; it describes something that is actual reality.  An optative statement expresses a wish, something that is 0% reality - not happening, but someone wishes it would.  Between these, there is the subjunctive mood, expressing a 50% reality factor for the action - conditions are right and it can happen, but some variable stands in the balance as to whether or not it occurs.  Greek identified moods clearly by the spelling of the word, but English requires particular phrases and wording to indicate subjunctives.  (to be continued)