Ten Visions of Christ Triumphant

6. Vision 10. The Thousand Years

The culmination of the whole Bible story, its history, prophecy and theology, is reached in the 20th chapter of Revelation where John sees the triumphant Lord, having vanquished all enemies, seizing and rendering impotent the arch‑enemy of God and man, the Devil, and then ascending the throne of the earth, in company with his Church, and reigning over the nations for the predicted thousand years, the Millennium. The result of this reign is the conversion of all who can be persuaded of those who formerly had been alien from God, the passing out of life of any who reject the opportunity, and the entry of mankind into the eternal state in a condition of complete unity with God and Christ. Unrighteousness and death will no longer exist; the whole creation in which man is concerned will have attained the position towards which God has been working from the start, and his human creatures will inherit everlasting life in complete peace and contentment.

Here in the vision John first saw a mighty angel descending from heaven with a great chain in his hand (Rev.20:1), proceeding to lay hold on "the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan" and bind him for the thousand years. Having thus bound him, he "cast him into the bottomless pit (abyss), and shut him up...that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled." This, obviously, is an essential preliminary to the resurrection of the dead and their induction, with the then living, into the new order of things in which the outward practice of evil is completely restrained, which is characteristic of the Millennial reign of Christ. Nothing shall hurt nor destroy, says Isaiah, speaking of that blessed time (Isa.11:9) and again "the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever." (Isa.32:17) Such condition of society can only obtain when the powers of evil have themselves been eliminated or restrained by a superior power for good. The 19th chapter of Revelation pictures the annihilation of all man‑made systems of evil at the end of this Age; there remains only the Devil himself to be dealt with and then the evangelical work of the next Age, the Millennium, will be able to proceed without let or hindrance.

That there is such a malevolent spiritual intelligence actively moving in the affairs of men is plainly inferred in the Scriptures and that this intelligence, the spirit of evil, irrevocably antagonistic to God and to every element of right‑doing, is to be annihilated at the end, is indicated. The story of man’s creation and the Garden of Eden, with which Bible history opens, is founded upon the principle that man was created perfect, upright, sinless and undying, that an evil and hostile intelligence from beyond man’s world persuaded our first progenitors into sin, and that death came upon men as a logical consequence. The reason why God has permitted the coexistence of sin and evil with right‑doing and good throughout human history until the present is one for thought and discussion but the Bible is clear that this permission is for a wise purpose and will not endure forever. A time is to come in the progress of the Divine Plan, and before that Plan has come to its consummation so far as man is concerned, when the Prince of all evil, and all his works, will perish together.

This final judgment is not pictured here in these first three verses of Rev.20. The chapter goes on to cover the whole duration of the Millennium and it is only at its close that the restraints on the Prince of evil are relaxed. He is shown then to be still unrepentant and rebellious, and so comes to his final end. When it is remembered that the thousand‑year Millennial Age is appointed by God as the final period and opportunity for conversion and acceptance of the way of life for all mankind—and incidentally for the rebellious angels of Gen.6 also—(see Acts 17:31; 1 Cor.6:2‑3) it would seem logical that even the one who was responsible for the introduction of evil into the world and has fostered it ever since should have the same opportunity. It is always and gloriously true that our God is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." (2 Pet.3:9) It was to Ezekiel that the Lord uttered the immortal words "Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?" (Ezek.18:23) But there is a definite inference in the Old Testament that the Most High, in the exercise of his supreme foreknowledge, does know that this particular creation of his own hands will at the end prove impervious to his persuasion and his goodness and will go deliberately into the darkness rather than acknowledge and practice that which is good and right. The two well‑known passages in Isaiah and Ezekiel which are taken to be allusions to his career and destiny (Isa.14:4‑20; Ezek.28:12‑19) "thou shalt be brought down to hell (Sheol), to the sides of the pit"[Isa.14:15;] "I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth...and never shalt thou be any more" [Ezek.28:18‑19] have a terrible finality about them which can hardly bear any other interpretation.

So at the beginning of the Millennium the Devil is cast into the abyss. In Jewish lore the abyss was a place, or condition, below and remote from Hades, the abode of the dead, in which contact or communication with the world of the living was impossible. Peter describes the rebellious angels of Gen.6 as being confined, after their sin, in Tartarus ("God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell"—tartarus, the only occurrence of this word in the N.T.—2 Pet.2:4). Tartarus in Greek mythology was a place as far below Hades as Hades was below Earth, the eternal prison of the Titans, the demi‑gods who rebelled against the chief gods—clearly derived from the original Biblical episode of the rebellious angels,—and so the Greek Tartarus is analogous (similar) to the Hebrew abyss. (An allusion to this is found in Luke 8:31 where the demons expelled from the demented man besought Jesus "that he would not command them to go out into the deep," where "deep" is, in the Greek, abyss.) For the entire period of the thousand years, then, the Devil is impotent, unable to influence the world of men in any way, and perhaps able only to observe the beneficent results of the Messianic administration and the life‑giving results which stem from the reign of Christ.

This "binding of Satan" represents a vital turning‑point in the work of the Second Advent. Several of the preceding visions of Christ triumphant in the Book of Revelation picture different aspects of what may be termed the preliminary events of the "days of the Son of Man" and all of these have their place during the closing days of this present Age. The King coming upon a white cloud to reap the harvest of the earth pictures our Lord’s Advent for the gathering of his Church; the angel proclaiming the fall of great Babylon his oversight of the forces which disrupt the present corrupt world order and bring it to ruin; the Rider on the White Horse leading the armies of Heaven into battle against the kings of the earth the final conflict which elsewhere is called Armageddon. But after Armageddon the kingship of this earth passes into the hands of our Lord Jesus Christ and thereafter the world enters an era of peace. It seems logical to expect that this "binding of Satan" is the next event on the programme and perhaps almost immediately following the victorious conflict of Rev.19. Next in order would come the resurrection of the dead and this is where the succeeding verses of Rev.20 have their place.

"I saw thrones," says John (20:4) "and they that sat upon them...and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years."

The "marriage of the Lamb" will have already taken place—that event, which takes place in the celestial sphere is not perceptible on earth, is alluded to in chap.19. Following that climax to the earthly course of the Church comes the descent from Heaven with the Lord himself and the conflict of Rev.19, which leaves Heaven in full control of Earth and Christ the undisputed ruler. It is significant though that nothing is said in that chapter about the Church reigning with Christ; this appears for the first time in chap.20. It is almost as if the de facto reign of Christ, with his Church, does not commence until the last enemy, the Devil, is rendered powerless. From that point, it may be said, the real work of the Millennium proceeds. And all Scripture doctrine as well as prophecy concurs in saying that the Church of Christ, the complete company of his faithful disciples and followers throughout this present Age, are to be actively associated with him in the work of that Age.

What that work involves is more clearly detailed in chaps.21 and 22. The remainder of chap.20 is taken up with a brief summary of the Millennium, leading up to the final judgment at its end. Then John goes back and at greater leisure sketches in the detail of that world which is to be. There is a new world, for the old world has passed away, and God now is going to dwell with men in the persons of his Son Jesus Christ and the members of his Church. There will be no more death, no tears, sorrow nor crying; no more pain. All the former things have passed away and the universal Father in Heaven will make all things new.

In the ecstasy of that revelation John lifted up his eyes to heaven and beheld the resplendent vision of the New Jerusalem descending to earth. Much of the inspiration for that vision must have come from Ezekiel. He too saw the city of God with its central Temple, established in the earth at the time of man’s deliverance from evil. Prophet and Apostle alike experienced the same preview, in symbol, of the then far future Millennial

world. A glorious city, to be the home of redeemed mankind, surrounding a magnificent Throne from which would flow the life‑giving waters of eternal life, a Throne on which were seated the Lord God Almighty, Father and Creator of all men, the Lord Jesus Christ, Saviour and King, and the Church his Bride, all ready for the final phase in the process of human salvation. And John saw what Ezekiel had seen so many centuries before him, a stream, a river, of water of life, issuing forth from the Throne and reaching out into all the world, with trees on its banks, trees of life, whose fruit should be for food and leaves for healing, for the food and healing of the nations, of all mankind.

So this final aspect of the Second Advent, enduring the full thousand years of the Millennium, will abolish sin and death and all unhappiness, introducing in their stead right and life and eternal felicity. "The ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." (Isa.35:10) The purpose for which Christ came to earth, suffered and died, will have been fully and gloriously accomplished, and Christ will be triumphant over all. The closing words of the final vision in the last book of God’s revelation to man come from our victorious Lord and his exalted Church, his Bride. "The Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." (Rev.22:17)

The End

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