Studies in Revelation: The Millennium (Revelation 20)

With the return of the conquering Christ to earth the present evil age (Galatians 1:4) comes to an end. The age to come has come. It is the age of the Messiah, the age of the kingdom.

^20:1 And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. ² He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. ³ He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time. (Revelation 20:1-3, NIV)

The first order of business is the imprisonment of Satan. Though the antichrist and the false prophet have been cast into the Lake of Fire (hell, 19:20), Satan is bound in the Abyss, where other fallen angels have been bound (2 Peter 2:4, where the Abyss is called by a Greek name, Tartarus; see also Jude 1:6), not the permanent Lake of Fire, because he will play a role at the end of the Millennium. He is bound a thousand years, a millennium.

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 about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. ⁵ (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. 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. (Revelation 20:4-8, NIV)

There are two groups of people who enter and populate the millennial kingdom, the raptured and resurrected saints, and the saints who are saved during the Tribulation and survive. Only the resurrected saints who were martyred during the Tribulation are mentioned here specifically. They probably are all the believers who died during the Tribulation, even if not martyred, as they all faced persecution because they did not receive the mark of the beast. This is the first resurrection, not meaning the only resurrection event that has happened, but the resurrection of the just, that kind of resurrection. When Jesus returns to the air above the earth he resurrects all the believers who had ever died and transforms all believers currently alive (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). Then when he comes all the way to the earth at the end of the Tribulation, he resurrects those who believed and died during the Tribulation period. There are multitudes of resurrected believers who populate the kingdom. Then there are unresurrected believers, those who got saved during the Tribulation (like the 144,000) and did not die during that time. They are not given resurrection bodies.

They reign with Christ one thousand years, many of them ruling as kings over various nations, all of course, under the King of kings, Jesus. They are priests of God, all in special relationship to Jesus and teachers of the gospel. Some of them actually serve as priests in the temple, the new temple that is built to the specifications given in Ezekiel 40-47, located in the city He loves (verse 9), Jerusalem.

⁷ When the thousand years are over, 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—and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. ⁹ They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. ¹⁰ And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. (Revelation 20:7-10, NIV)

At the end of the 1,000 years Satan is released from prison in the Abyss and is once again allowed to deceive the nations, convincing many that they should follow him and rebel against the rule of Jesus and marching with an army on Jerusalem. These deceived ones are not believers, but people who have been born to those believers who enter the kingdom without resurrection bodies. Many people have not believed in Jesus, have not been saved, and are seduced by the Devil. But their rebellion is short-lived, God’s fire coming down on them and destroying them. The Devil is thrown in the Lake of Fire where the antichrist and false prophet are.

God shows by this that the heart of humans is “desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9,10), that no matter how perfect his environment or abundant his receiving of God’s blessings, he is resistant to God’s rule of his life, ungratefully desiring self-rule.