<p>20:2 <i>And he laid hold of the dragon, the old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan- </i>This description is found only in Rev. 12:9, where this entity is cast out of 'Heaven', i.e. a place of power and rulership, at the time of the establishment of God's Kingdom on earth at Christ's second coming (Rev. 12:10). This is precisely the picture here- that when the thousand years the Kingdom is established AV &quot;fulfilled&quot;, then the dragon is bound and then released for a short time. At the time of the second coming of Christ, this dragon / serpent / evil / satan entity has &quot;but a short time&quot; (Rev. 12:12). This is the &quot;little time&quot; which the dragon is released for in 20:3. Revelation 12 has left us with the dragon deposed from power but about to get madly furious for a little time. Now Revelation 20 is explaining the details; that final mad fury of the dragon is in fact precisely under Angelic control. And that will be a great comfort to those who live through that period of the dragon's madness; things are not at all out of control, he has been bound and now briefly released by the Angels of Heaven. If we ask <i>why</i> it has to be this way- perhaps we are to conclude that the releasing was in order&nbsp;to give the dragon an opportunity to repent. Because throughout Revelation, we encounter this amazing hallmark of Divine activity with even the most desperately evil of men and systems: He wishes to give them every chance of repentance. But in this case, the dragon abuses it, and meets his rightful end in total destruction.<br /><i><br />And bound him</i>- The chaining of the devil/ dragon/ serpent in 20:2 probably refers more to the binding of the manifestation of sin in the political devil/ dragon/ beast/ serpent of 12:7 than to abstract sin. Revelation is a message from the Lord Jesus. He had earlier spoken of binding and burning the sons of the Devil at His return (Mt. 13:38,39). He uses the same words here- the Devil will be bound and burned. But that binding and burning envisaged in Mt. 13 clearly speaks of events at His return, and not at the end of a Millennium. The Lord uses the same figure of &lsquo;binding&rsquo; to describe how the condemned <i>people</i> at the final judgment will be &lsquo;bound hand and foot&rsquo; by the Angels and then destroyed (Mt. 22:13)- at His return, not at the end of a Millennium. Notice that Satan&rsquo;s deceit of the nations and all of his powers were totally in control of God (Rev. 20:2,3,7). Satan is not a free agent to act as he wishes, without regard for God. Rev. 20:1&ndash;3 is surely based upon Is. 24:21,22, which prophesied that the kings of the earth / land will be gathered together, imprisoned in a pit and punished. It is these very human &ldquo;kings of the earth&rdquo; who are described in the more figurative language of Revelation as &ldquo;Satan&rdquo;. Isaiah 24 is talking about the time of the Lord's return to earth, and not any scene at the end of a Millennium.</p><p>The idea of shutting up in the abyss is taken from Is. 24:22,23: &ldquo;And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth. And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days, they shall be visited. Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of Hosts shall reign in mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.&rdquo; The context refers to the events of the Lord's coming, and not 1,000 years after it.</p><p><i>For a thousand years</i>- Most numbers in Revelation are symbolic, so it seems unwise to think that this number is literal. I have earlier, elsewhere argued for a literal Millennium, but closer reflection on Revelation 20 has led me to question that view. Because the allusions to other parts of Revelation and other Scripture all speak of these events happening at the Lord's return to earth, not to anything at the end of a 1,000 year period. Further, the Bible was written <i>for </i>us and not directly <i>to</i> us; it was written <i>to </i>its primary audience and in their language. The Jewish audience first receiving this message would have understood the &quot;thousand years&quot; as a reference to the eternal Kingdom of God on earth, and not to a limited Millennial reign of Messiah for 1,000 years. See too my comments on :5 <i>The first resurrection</i>, which happens when the &quot;thousand years&quot; are &quot;ended&quot;, or as the Greek better means, 'established'. This is a stubborn problem of interpretation for those who hold the traditional Millennial reign view. The figure of 1,000 may be connected with the size of the Most Holy Place, 10 x 10 x 10 cubits, which is alluded to in the description of the new Jerusalem: &ldquo;The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal&rdquo; (21:16).</p><p>I suggest that here again we have an example of Scripture alluding to contemporary incorrect ideas and deconstructing them. The Jews until about 150 B.C. believed that Messiah would return and establish His Kingdom on earth. But influenced by their humiliation under the Romans, they came to believe that the world was too evil for Messiah to return to, and that it required a 1000 year period of purification by the Jews before Messiah could return. Slavonic Enoch 22&ndash;23, which has been dated at around 50 A.D., stated this specifically. Revelation was therefore written with this idea current in the surrounding Jewish world. I suggest that this incorrect view is being alluded to and deconstructed, by stating that Messiah will come at the <i>beginning</i> of the 1000 years and &lsquo;purify&rsquo; the earth forcibly by figuratively &lsquo;chaining&rsquo; Satan. Thus Messiah is to come and purify the earth Himself, rather than the Jews having to purify the earth for 1000 years before Messiah could come.</p><p>The following difficulties with the classical view of a Millennial reign are taken from Harry Whittaker:</p><p>(a)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The prophecies of lasting peace in the kingdom of Christ are quite explicit: &ldquo;they shall learn war no more&rdquo;.<br />(b)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Also, there is to be lasting godliness: &ldquo;At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord, and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart&rdquo; (Jeremiah 3: 17). &ldquo;Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders&rdquo; (Isaiah 60:18). &ldquo;Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end&rdquo; (Isaiah 9:7).<br />(c)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Rebellion against immortals is so palpably silly. By comparison modern nuclear armament, which every Bible reader can see to be a lunatic policy, has calm reason on its side. For, armed with the big bombs, there is always a thin chance that you will devastate the other half of the world before it does the same to you. But for nations, who have had a thousand years&rsquo; experience of divine power and immortality, to calculate that their puny strength can win against God presupposes a mental deterioration to kindergarten level during the millennium.<br />(d)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The practical problem insists on obtruding itself - where will these rebel nations get their weapons from? Swords will have all been turned into ploughshares.<br />(e)&nbsp;&nbsp; &ldquo;He must reign until he hath put all enemies under his feet&rdquo; (1 Corinthians 15: 25). The words imply a steady progress towards complete godliness. The idea of a great boil-up of rebellion at the end is surely most difficult to reconcile with this.<br />(f)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A massive rebellion at the end of a thousand years would stamp the reign of Christ as a failure. To think that the end of all his efforts in teaching, guidance, personal influence and benign rule (to say nothing of the immortal aid of men like Moses and Paul) is to be &ldquo;We will not have this man to reign over us&rdquo; - this is just incredible to any who settle down to consider it seriously. Jesus accomplished his work as Prophet, Sacrifice and High Priest perfectly. Can anyone be happy that his work as king is to end in failure? - for can a long, long reign which ends in turbulent rebellion be reckoned as a success?<br />(g)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A rebellion such as is described in Revelation 20 does not arise in five minutes. Even a triviality like the Suez episode in 1957 called for weeks of detailed organization, which could not be kept secret from the rest of the world. Nevertheless one is asked to believe that Christ and his immortals will know nothing at all of this mighty Gog-Magog uprising until it bursts upon the world. The only alternative seems to be that, knowing all that is being secretly concocted, they will pretend to ignore it, so that the rebels may be lured to their own destruction. Would any reader be happy about the morality of such a proceeding?<br />(h)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It is sometimes postulated that if the visible authority of Christ were to be withdrawn for a time, then - human nature being what it is - rebellion would be almost certain to ensue within a short while. But does Scripture speak of any such withdrawal of the Messiah&rsquo;s authority? This seems to have been invented specially to cope with a big difficulty. On the other hand, Isaiah is explicit that &ldquo;thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light&rdquo; (60:20).<br />(i)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The coincidence of the names Gog and Magog in Revelation 20 with that of the leader of the great confederacy of Ezekiel 38 does not seem to have been given its proper weight. With any other Bible problem such a coincidence would shout for the two to be equated with each other. Then may it not be said that any interpretation which does line up these two prophecies as having the same fulfilment has a much stronger claim to acceptance than one which severs all connection between them and instead inserts a gap of a thousand years? or is &ldquo;Interpret Scripture by Scripture&rdquo; to stand as a sound principle everywhere except in Revelation 20?<br />(j)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Revelation 15:1 R.V. The Vials are described as &ldquo;the seven plagues which are the last, for in them is finished the wrath of God.&rdquo; The logical conclusion from these words is that the judgement of the Gog-Magog rebellion takes place before the outpouring of the Vials is concluded.<br />(k) &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Has the difficulty ever been properly faced that this amazing rising against all that is good and beneficent is spoken of in Scripture in one place only? Are Christadelphians to copy Mormons, &ldquo;Jehovah&rsquo;s Witnesses&rdquo; and such, in their disreputable habit of confidently basing major beliefs on one passage of Scripture? Have we, the people of the Book, not yet learned the elementary lesson of mistrust in our own powers of Bible interpretation? We believe what we believe about our &ldquo;First Principles&rdquo; not because of one text of Scripture but because of the massive over-all testimony of many passages. Shall we then go back on this thoroughly sound attitude here, and this, concerning verses in the Book of Revelation, of all places, the book about the interpretation of which there is less room for dogmatism than any other in the Bible?</p><p>To these I would add the fact that 21:4 says that death shall be no more. The passage in Rev. 21 is full of reference to descriptions of the establishment of the Kingdom at Christ's return, when the bridge meets the bridegroom (21:2). If death itself ends when the bride and groom meet at the Lord's return, then this settles the issue. There will be no more concept of death after that. It cannot be that there will be no more death if a mortal population still exists. Death is ended by death being thrown into the lake of fire here in chapter 20. This is the same as death being no more.</p><p>As to what Revelation 20:4 does not mean, in terms of those who wrest it to support the idea of a cosmic satan literally existing; see my comments in <i>The Real Devil</i>.</p>