Revelation 20

Today’s Passage: Revelation 20

We come now to the most argued-over chapter in the Bible, and the first thing to say about it is that we are going to walk through it slowly and honestly and we are not going to fight. Fifteen verses. An angel comes down with a key and a chain, and the dragon who has stalked this book since chapter twelve is seized, bound, thrown into the Abyss, shut in and sealed, for a thousand years, so that he cannot deceive the nations. Then John sees thrones, and on them the people the world executed, and they come to life and reign with Christ, and this is called the first resurrection, and a blessing is pronounced over everyone who shares in it. Then the enemy is released for a brief time, gathers the nations for battle, surrounds the camp of the saints, and is finished by fire from heaven in a single sentence, and thrown into the lake of fire forever. And then the sky and the earth themselves run away, and there is a great white throne with One seated on it, and all the dead stand there, great and small, and books are opened, and one of the books is the Book of Life. Christians have read the middle of that in several genuinely different ways for a very long time, and we will lay out the main ones fairly and then leave them open, because that is what this study has promised you from the first day. But do not let the argument rob you of the chapter. Almost everything in it is not disputed by anyone at all, and what is not disputed is the sturdiest ground in Scripture for a frightened believer to stand on.

As you read, hold this: Christians who love Scripture have read the thousand years in several different ways and this study will not settle it, but what the chapter says plainly is enormous: the enemy is bound and then destroyed, the faithful reign with Christ, the dead are raised, and every life is opened before a great white throne where the one book that saves is the Book of Life.

Revelation 20:1–5 (BSB)

¹ Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven with the key to the Abyss, holding in his hand a great chain. ² He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. ³ And he threw him into the Abyss, shut it, and sealed it over him, so that he could not deceive the nations until the thousand years were complete. After that, he must be released for a brief period of time. ⁴ Then I saw the thrones, and those seated on them had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or hands. And they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. ⁵ The rest of the dead did not come back to life until the thousand years were complete. This is the first resurrection.

Before you get to anything contested, look at the scale of what happens in the first two verses, because it is quietly staggering. The dragon has been the terror of this book. He swept a third of the stars from the sky, waited to devour a child, made war on the woman, gave his throne and power to a beast, and the whole earth followed after him. And here, at the end, there is no cosmic duel. There is no struggle at all. One angel comes down the stairs with a key in one hand and a chain in the other, and takes him the way a man takes hold of a dog that has been loose in the street. Count the verbs of custody: seized, bound, threw, shut, sealed. Five of them, in two sentences, and not one of them is contested by anybody. Whatever else you conclude about this chapter, God has never once regarded the devil as an equal, and He never will. Every dualism the human race has invented, every picture of a good power and an evil power grappling on level terms, dies in this verse. The enemy is a creature, and he is handled by a creature, and it takes an angel less than a sentence.

And notice the precision of what he is prevented from doing while he is bound. Not from existing, not from tempting, not from being unhappy: “so that he could not deceive (πλανάω) planaō, pronounced plah-NAH-oh. Strong's G4105, to lead astray, to deceive. Planaō means to lead astray, to cause to wander off the road. It is the word you would use for a shepherd’s animal that has drifted from the flock, and its noun is the ancestor of our word planet, which the ancients called a wanderer because it would not keep to the fixed pattern of the other lights. That picture tells you everything about how the enemy works. He very rarely comes at a soul head on. He gets alongside and nudges, and the road bends by half a degree, and a year later a life is somewhere it never meant to be and cannot easily remember how it got there. Revelation uses this word for him again and again: the serpent who leads the whole world astray, the false prophet who deceived those who took the mark, and here, twice in one chapter, the deceiver of the nations. And it is worth noticing what that implies about his power. He has no authority to command anybody. He can only lie. Which is exactly why the Rider in the previous chapter carries no weapon but the sword out of His mouth, and why an ordinary believer with a Bible open on a kitchen table is not helpless. Truth is the counter to a liar, and truth is what God has given us in abundance. the nations.” That is his trade, and John names it exactly. He is a liar, and the chain is put on the mouth.

Then the thrones, and here is where you must slow down and look at who is sitting on them. Not the emperors. Not the men who signed the death warrants and went home to dinner. “The souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image.” The executed. The ones who lost every visible contest, who were led out of a courtroom and never came back, whose families were told to be reasonable and who would not be. God puts them on thrones and gives them authority to judge, and says they came to life and reigned with Christ. Read that to somebody who is paying a real price for following Jesus and watch what it does. History’s verdict on the martyrs was that they threw their lives away for a superstition. God’s verdict is that they reign. And verse five adds a phrase that has become the hinge of the whole argument about this chapter: “This is the first resurrection (ἀνάστασις) anastasis, pronounced ah-NAH-stah-sis. Strong's G386, resurrection, a standing up again. Anastasis is a plain word made of a preposition meaning up and a verb meaning to stand. A standing up. In ordinary Greek it could mean simply getting to your feet, but in the mouths of the apostles it had come to carry one enormous thing: the bodily rising of the dead, because that is what happened to Jesus on the third day and that is the fact the whole church was built on. Paul stood in Athens and preached Jesus and the anastasis, and the philosophers laughed, because the Greek hope was to be rid of the body and this was the opposite. Christian hope has never been about a soul escaping. It is about graves emptying. Now, whether the phrase the first resurrection here means a bodily rising or a coming to life of another kind is precisely one of the things Christians have disagreed about, and it will not be settled on this page. But the word itself is not in doubt, and neither is where it points. There is a standing up coming for everyone who belongs to Christ, body and all, because He stood up first and we are joined to Him. Whatever you decide about the thousand years, do not let the argument talk you out of the empty tomb, or out of the graveside hope that rests on it. .”

Now let us deal honestly with the question every reader is carrying, and then set it down. What is the thousand years? Christians who love Scripture and tremble at it have answered that in three main ways, and each has real strength, and each deserves to be heard as its own best advocate would put it.

The first says that Christ returns before a real, future, thousand-year reign on the earth. On this reading the order of the book is the order of events: the King rides out in chapter nineteen, and then chapter twenty follows, with the enemy bound and Christ reigning over a restored world for a long and definite season before the final judgment. Its advocates point out that this is the plainest way to take the sequence as John has laid it down, that the binding described here is total and absolute in a way that does not seem to describe the world any of us live in, that verses four and five appear to set two comings to life on either side of the same span and would naturally be read the same way, and that the Old Testament prophets are full of a coming age of peace on this earth, with the wolf and the lamb and the child by the viper’s den, which has to land somewhere.

The second says that the thousand years pictures the whole present age, the long stretch between the first and second comings of Christ, and that the number is a symbol of fullness rather than a measurement, as numbers throughout this book so often are. Its advocates point out that the binding is specified with unusual precision, not that the enemy is inactive but that he cannot deceive the nations, and that this is exactly what changed at the cross: the gospel broke out of one nation and went to all of them, and it is going still. On this reading the souls John sees are those who have died in Christ and are reigning with Him now, which is why the scene shows souls and thrones, and the loosing at the end accounts for a final hostility before He returns.

The third says that the thousand years pictures a coming era of gospel success on this earth before Christ returns, a long season in which the preaching of the Word so spreads that the nations are discipled and the enemy’s grip on them is broken, after which comes a last outbreak of rebellion and then the end. Its advocates point out the promises that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea, that the mustard seed becomes a tree and the leaven works through the whole batch, and that the Great Commission was given with all authority behind it and a promise of success, not merely of effort.

There. Three readings, each held by faithful Christians for centuries, each with texts it honors well and questions it finds harder. Manna Praxis does not rank them, and this study will not settle it for you, and it would be a kind of dishonesty for us to pretend the case is closed when the church has been at it this long. Hear this plainly, and please believe it: your standing before God does not depend on which of those paragraphs you find most convincing, and neither does your place at this table. If you came to this chapter carrying somebody’s chart, or carrying a quiet embarrassment that you never understood the charts, you may set it down right now. You are released. And now let us spend the rest of the day on the parts of this chapter that nobody argues about, because they are enormous, and they are where the comfort and the seriousness both live.

Revelation 20:6–10 (BSB)

⁶ Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection! The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years. ⁷ When the thousand years are complete, Satan will be released from his prison, ⁸ and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—to assemble them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the seashore. ⁹ And they marched across the broad expanse of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. But fire came down from heaven and consumed them. ¹⁰ And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, into which the beast and the false prophet had already been thrown. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

Verse six is the fifth of the seven blessings in this book, and it is worth having by heart. “Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection! The second death (θάνατος) thanatos, pronounced THAN-ah-toss. Strong's G2288, death. Thanatos is simply the word for death, and the New Testament writers use it in a way no Greek moralist ever did: not as the natural end of things, and not as a friend, but as an intruder and an enemy that entered the world through sin and will one day be destroyed. John here does something remarkable with it by putting a number in front of it. If there is a second death, then the one everybody fears is only the first, and the first is not the worst thing that can happen to a person. That reframes everything. A believer standing at a graveside is looking at an enemy, and it is right to grieve, and Jesus wept at exactly such a place. But he is looking at a defeated enemy and a temporary one. The Lord who holds the keys of death and Hades said so in the first chapter of this book. And notice the phrasing here: the second death has no power over those who are Christ’s, no authority, no jurisdiction, no legal claim. It is not that they will scrape past it. It has no standing to touch them at all, because the one who owns that authority has already died their death and risen. Say that to yourself the next time the fear of dying wakes you in the night. has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him.” Three things are said over these people, and all three are gifts. They are out of reach of the second death, and that is stated as a settled fact and not as a hope. They are priests, which means they have access, they stand before God without a mediator between them and Him because Christ is the mediator, and they carry others in prayer. And they reign, which the world would find laughable when it looks at them. Beheaded people. Tradesmen who lost their livelihoods. Priests and kings, says God, and He is not flattering anyone; He is telling them what He has actually made them.

Then the release, and the last rebellion, and again notice how little space John gives to a battle. The nations gather from the four corners of the earth, a number like the sand of the seashore, and they march across the whole breadth of it and surround the camp of the saints and the beloved city. It sounds like the end of everything. And it takes John eleven words to finish it: “But fire came down from heaven and consumed them.” That is all. No struggle, no doubt, no close-run thing. The pattern of this book holds to the last: evil looks enormous right up until God stands up. And about the names in verse eight, be careful and be plain. Gog and Magog is a phrase out of Ezekiel used here for the whole massed hostility of the nations, and it is not a code for any modern country, and nobody reading this page should ever be told otherwise. That kind of identification has done real harm, and we will not add to it.

And then verse ten, which must be read soberly and slowly and with no relish whatsoever. The devil who had deceived them is thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had already been thrown, and there they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. This is a terrible sentence and Scripture states it without softening it, and so must we, and John does not gloat over it and neither may we. What ought to steady you here is not the fire but the finality. The liar who has been loose since a garden, who ruined the human race with a question and a half-truth, who accused God’s people day and night, does not get the last word, and he does not get a second chance to deceive anybody, ever. Notice that God said so at the very beginning, in the first pages of the Bible, spoken over a serpent while the first man and woman were still standing there in their shame.

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”" Genesis 3:15 (BSB)

That promise is older than every kingdom that has ever risen, and here at the end of the Book it is kept. The heel was struck at Calvary. The head is crushed here. Blessed be God, who does not forget what He has said.

Revelation 20:11–15 (BSB)

¹¹ Then I saw a great white throne and the One seated on it. Earth and heaven fled from His presence, and no place was found for them. ¹² And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. And books were opened, and one of them was the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their deeds, as recorded in the books. ¹³ The sea gave up its dead, and Death and Hades gave up their dead, and each one was judged according to his deeds. ¹⁴ Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death—the lake of fire. ¹⁵ And if anyone was found whose name was not written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

Now everything else falls away and there is only a throne. Look at how John describes it before he describes anyone standing at it: “Earth and heaven fled from His presence, and no place was found for them.” The mountains cannot stay in the room. The sky cannot stay in the room. The whole created order, which has felt so permanent to every generation that ever lived on it, picks up and runs, and there is nowhere for it to go. That is the holiness of God, stated as an event rather than as a doctrine. And the throne is white, which in this book is the color of purity and of vindication, so that everything about the scene says the same thing: there will be nothing partial here, nothing bought, nothing spun. Daniel saw this same court convened centuries earlier, and John is writing with that vision in his ear.

"As I continued to watch, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took His seat. His clothing was white as snow, and the hair of His head was like pure wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. A river of fire was flowing, coming out from His presence. Thousands upon thousands attended Him, and myriads upon myriads stood before Him. The court was convened, and the books were opened." Daniel 7:9–10 (BSB)

Then “the dead, great and small, standing before the throne.” There it is a third time, that phrase, and this time it means there are no exemptions. Every arrangement human beings make to keep some people out of certain rooms has failed here. The one who could afford the best defense and the one nobody ever listened to are standing in the same place on the same footing, and there is no back door and no waiting list. And the sea gives up its dead, and Death and Hades give up theirs, which is John’s way of saying that not one person is missing. Everyone lost at sea and never found, everyone buried without a name, everyone the records forgot: God knows exactly where they are and they are all present. That is a fearful thought and it is also, for anyone who has lost someone into an unmarked grave, a strangely tender one.

“And books were opened.” Sit with that for a moment before you decide how you feel about it. Nothing has been lost. Nothing has evaporated. Every word said in a locked room, every cruelty performed by someone who was quite certain there would never be a reckoning, every arrangement that made a poor man’s life shorter for a richer man’s convenience, all of it is written down. Human justice is a leaky vessel; most of what happens in this world is never even reported, let alone put right. If you have been wronged in a way that no court on earth would ever hear, this verse is for you. God forgot nothing. And the same fact cuts the other way with equal force for every one of us, because the books do not only record what was done to us. They record what we did.

And then, in the middle of that list of ledgers, John names one more, and it is a different kind of book altogether: “and one of them was the Book of Life (βίβλος) biblos, pronounced BEE-bloss. Strong's G976, a book, a scroll. Biblos is simply a book, a scroll, from the name of the papyrus plant that the pages were made of, and it is the word that gives us Bible. What matters here is what is written in this one. The other books are records of deeds, and a record of deeds can only ever accuse. This book contains names. That distinction is the whole difference between the two halves of the human race in this scene, and it is stated with total clarity in the last verse of the chapter: the question that decides everything is not whether the ledger balanced, because for every one of us it does not, but whether the name is there. And how does a name get written in it? This book has already told us, in the song that is its beating heart: because the Lamb was slain, and by His blood He purchased for God those from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. Not one name in that book was earned into it. Which means that for a believer, the Book of Life is not a source of dread but the deepest comfort in Scripture. The Lord Jesus told His disciples not to rejoice in their spiritual successes but to rejoice that their names are written in heaven, and He never told anybody to rejoice in something they had reason to fear losing. He holds His own, and no one snatches them out of His hand. .”

"Nevertheless, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”" Luke 10:20 (BSB)

Then two sentences that must be read exactly as John gives them, without softening and without a trace of relish, because they are the most solemn words in the book. “Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death.” And: “And if anyone was found whose name was not written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” Scripture says this, plainly and more than once, and no Christian is free to explain it away, and there is nothing here to feel clever about and nothing whatever to enjoy. Anyone who can speak about final judgment with a light heart has not understood it. God Himself takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked; He says so through Ezekiel, and He tells us through Peter that He is patient, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance. Read this verse the way you would read it standing beside someone you love. Say it, because God said it. Do not linger over it, and do not decorate it. And let it drive you, and everyone you can reach, straight to the Lamb, because the reason this is in the Book at all is that the invitation is still open while there is breath.

And do not miss the sheer relief buried in verse fourteen, because it is easy to read past it. Death itself is thrown in. The enemy that has taken every single person you have ever loved is not merely restrained or managed; it is destroyed, and the grave is emptied out and then abolished. Paul saw the same thing and said it in six words.

"The last enemy to be destroyed is death." 1 Corinthians 15:26 (BSB)