The Imprisonment of the Dragon, or Satan The thousand-year interval is used in two connections in this passage: the imprisonment of Satan in the Abyss and his subsequent release (vv. 1-3, 7-10) and the reign of God's martyrs and saints (vv. 4-6). Although the view of J. A. Bengel (1877:5:368-69) that the text pointed to two distinct thousand-year periods, one after the other, cannot be sustained, we are dealing here with two distinct (though closely related) visions. If verses 4-6 were left out, a reader could move directly from verses 1-3 to verses 7-10 with scarcely a clue that anything was missing.

John gives Satan a very formal introduction as the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan (v. 2), almost exactly as in 12:9. The additional phrase in 12:9, "who leads the whole earth astray," is echoed here in the statement that Satan was imprisoned to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore (v. 3). This is part of a pattern of correspondence and contrast between this passage and 12:7-12. There the dragon was thrown down from heaven to earth (12:9, 12); here he is thrown from earth into the Abyss. There it was for only a short time (12:12); here it is for a thousand years. There his downfall meant deception and woe for the earth (12:12); here it means freedom from deception, and therefore peace and rest for the earth. Chapters 12 and 20 neatly frame the dragon's career. Chapter 12 marks the beginning of his activity on earth, chapter 20 its end. ** Two things are important in this connection. First, the language of verses 1-3 presupposes all that has transpired in chapters 12-19. The dragon is imprisoned so as not to deceive the nations anymore (Greek eti, v. 3). Second, there is an explicit recognition that the thousand-year imprisonment of the dragon is not quite the last word. Verse 3 (that is, after this he must be set free for a short time) anticipates verses 7-10 with their renewed outburst of activity and the dragon's final judgment in the lake of fire. This is a hint that the dragon is going to disappear from the scene in two stages rather than one.**

The vision of the millennium begins when John sees an unidentified angel coming down out of heaven, like others he has seen before (10:1; 18:8). The angel, like the fallen star of 9:1, holds the key to the Abyss, not to release powers of evil (as in 9:1-11), but to seal up the terrible place with the source of all evil bound within (vv. 1-3). This first stage of the dragon's disappearance marks a time of temporary relief for the troubled earth. The battle is over. The beast and the false prophet are gone (19:20). But otherwise we are told nothing about this worldwide utopia. John knows only that God is in control. Later, in connection with the second stage, we will learn that "the camp of God's people" and a "the city he loves" are on earth during the thousand years (v. 9), but for now all we know is that Satan and his cohorts are gone and the nations are no longer being deceived.

Revelation 20 The Thousand Years 20

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.

What if this is what is being reference to that Lin Wood has to unlock whatever damning evidence there is?

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[a] 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.

The Judgment of Satan 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.

The Judgment of the Dead 11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

The Millennium

Nine times out of ten, when people ask, "How do you interpret the book of Revelation?" what they mean is, "How do you interpret Revelation 20:1-10?" They want to know whether an approach is "premillennial," "amillennial" or "postmillennial," to use the jargon by which some evangelical institutions (and even individuals) define themselves. Although how we interpret these verses says little or nothing about how we interpret the book as a whole, our interpretation of them tends to become the litmus test by which our interpretation of the whole book is measured and classified.

The three terms come from the word millennium, meaning a period of a thousand years understood as a kind of utopia. Pre- and postmillennialism divide over the question of whether the second coming of Christ will take place before or after the thousand years mentioned repeatedly in this text (vv. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). Because there is a coming of sorts described in the previous chapter (when the rider on the white horse comes with his armies and destroys the forces of evil) and there is no discernible coming of Christ in chapters 20 or 21, it seems fairly clear on first reading that the coming is "premillennial" as far as John is concerned. The conqueror comes first (chap. 19), and the thousand years follow (chap. 20). But postmillennialism argues that what comes in chapter 19 is not Jesus personally, but simply the triumph of "the testimony of Jesus" in the world, so that the millennium of chapter 20 is the result of the church's efforts in proclaiming the Christian gospel. This leaves us with no actual "second coming" of Jesus anywhere in the book--this in spite of repeated promises that "I am coming soon." Instead, we move from the triumph of the gospel to the destruction of evil and "the new heavens and new earth" without Jesus ever coming at all.

The third position, "amillennialism," should mean there is no such thing as a "millennium." But this makes no sense of the text as it stands because John claims, not once but six times, that he saw (or became aware of) a thousand-year period. Therefore most amillennialists do not deny the notion of a millennium. They argue instead that John's "millennium" is just another name for the age in which we now live, in which Jesus reigns as Lord by virtue of his resurrection and ascension. According to this scenario Christ will return after, or at the end of, the present age. Consequently, this "amillennial" view is a variation of postmillennialism.

Where does all this leave us? Above all, it demands that we distinguish carefully between what John experienced long ago in his vision on Patmos and what the world will experience someday in the near or distant future. Within John's vision, there is little doubt that his perspective was premillennial. It is only when his visions are viewed as a scenario for the actual future of the world that differing interpretations come into play, often because a literal premillennial reading is judged (rightly or wrongly) to conflict with conclusions derived from other parts of the Bible. Because of this, it is wise to deal with the text first of all simply as John's vision before attempting to explore its possible bearing on how our world is actually going to end. Such an approach is "premillennial" because this is the framework in which John saw the vision. The second stage of interpretation--the text's implication for our own future--can be addressed only afterward, and much more briefly, because less can be said about it with certainty.

**What are we to think of a vision in which the seer is conscious of the passing of one thousand years? We are way beyond "half an hour" here (8:1), and the other longer periods of time mentioned in the book ("three and a half days" in 11:9, 11; "five montes" in 9:5; "1,260 days" in 11:3 and 12:6; "42 montes" in 11:2, 13:5) are periods John is told about or infers from his visions, not periods he actually sees or experiences. But in this vision he is given a taste of time travel, in that he is fastforwarded and allowed to see what happens when the thousand years are finished (vv. 7-10). **

Does this answer timing with Pompeo tweets? "42 montes" - Q has been dark for 42 days?