Life Project Blog

Revelation 21:1-22:5 provide the climax of the entire Apocalypse, a view of the consummated Kingdom of God. For me, this is a climactic section, because more than any other passage I can think of, it shows the full nature of the Kingdom, both now and in the future. Put another way, if we can master this section, we can see the “behind the scenes” aspects of Jesus’ earthly ministry and our life as His followers in the Body of Christ today. With this understanding comes the fullness of all 66 books of Scripture. For convenience, and to avoid undue repetition, I will go through the five main symbols of this section one at a time, citing all of the instances within 21 and 22 in which the symbols appear, at the same time.

1. The consummated kingdom will truly be The Kingdom of God.

The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. (22:3b)

God will fully exercise His authority, rule, sovereignty, dominion and will. This is pictured by the presence of His throne in the “new” city, along with that of the Lamb. Jesus is pictured as the “Lamb” again here because His reign comes by virtue of the fact that His actions on the cross have made all of this possible.

The entire universe will be under God’s dominion, His will is the only will that will be done (Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven). We see this in the fact that we, His servants, will be serving Him who sits on the throne. Jesus, at the Father’s right hand, will be the One calling the shots, for “right hand” symbolizes actions.

2. The consummation of God’s Kingdom will bring about the destruction of all evil and the end of this “present evil age.

for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea… ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away… But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death… Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life… No longer will there be any curse.

Rev. 21:1b, 4, 8, 27; 22:3b

The consummation of God’s Kingdom brings about the end of the curse that came about in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve entered into rebellion against God. It has been in effect ever since, and the only life we have ever known has been lived in an environment dominated by it. Notice that there will be “no sea” (21:1), throughout Revelation the sea has represented the churning chaos of this present world, and in 4:6 we saw a sea of glass, showing that the chaos of this world had been subdued or overcome. Our world will not be present in the consummated Kingdom.

In 21:8 and 27, we see that all evil, impurity, sin… and anything that robs life of its significance, meaning, joy and wonder will be gone and the entire Creation will be restored to its original state of perfection and innocence. In a sense, dear reader, Genesis is not only the beginning, but it is also the end, the goal, the destination, and for this reason, I have often said in these posts that the New Jerusalem will be a lot more like the Garden of Eden than most of us might expect.

When we get back together, we’ll continue with the third symbol; see you then!

Revelation 20:7-15

When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison 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. 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. 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. (20:7-10)

Gog and Magog comprise the fourth apocalyptic element in this section. While there are many thoughts about what these represent (when I first learned this, I was taught they were the Soviet Union) John actually defines them in the text: “the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog”. Remembering our numbers, the nations in the “four” corners of the earth means all of the nations of the earth; Gog and Magog means all of the nations of the earth.

Notice here that there are two images that represent God’s judgment: The first is fire from heaven in verse 9 (cf. Ez. 39:6; 2 Kings 1:9-15) and the second is the lake of fire in verse 10 (cf. Rev. 19:20; 21:8). Thus, what we have in this passage is another vision of God’s final judgment. This passage also has a parallel in Ez. 38-39 that we will discuss in another post (The whole section of Rev. 20-22 is parallel with Ez. 37-48).

To sum up verses 7-10, we have a picture of Satan instigating a move of all of the nations of the earth, using the two beasts from Rev. 13 as his allies, against God’s people, the Church throughout this age, and being judged by God in the final judgment. The judgment description is more vivid in the next paragraph:

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. 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. 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. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. (20:11-15)

Here is Almighty God in His judgment seat, an image so awesome and terrifying that the earth and the heavens flee from the sight; of course this is a figurative way to stress the fact that nothing and ho one can escape God’s judgment. God calls for the record books, and the books are opened; you just can’t read this without think about Daniel 7:9-10:

“As I looked,

“thrones were set in place,
and the Ancient of Days took his seat.
His clothing was as white as snow;
the hair of his head was white like wool.
His throne was flaming with fire,
and its wheels were all ablaze.
A river of fire was flowing,
coming out from before him.
Thousands upon thousands attended him;
ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.
The court was seated,
and the books were opened

(cf. ps. 56:8; Jer. 22:30; Exra; 15; Esth. 6:1; Mal. 3:16 and from Jewish apocalyptic writings 4 Ezra 6:20; 1 Enoch 90:20; 2 Apoc. Baruch 24:10.

The “Book of Life” represents a record of the names of those who remained faithful to God through Christ and is also mentioned in Rev. 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:12, 15; 21:17. When the great day of judgment comes, if your name is found in the Book of Life, you are “free to go” for that is all the record there will be about you; your sins are long gone. “Hades” is the Greek “place of the dead” that place beyond the River Styx where dead souls were said to go. Every human being who ever lived is present at the judgment, people who are in the Book of Life are excused, and the records of deeds are opened; do you see how this is working? As a follower of Christ, you have had your sins removed completely; they aren’t even in the records anywhere; they are gone as if they never happened…

In the end, even death itself is thrown into the “lake of fire” symbolizing the fact that death itself will be abolished completely. As the chapter closes, we have Satan, the two beasts, everyone who refused to accept God’s grace, death and the place of the dead all in the lake of fire. This is not necessarily to say that they fry for all eternity in torture and torment in burning sulfur, for the lake of fire is a symbol for God’s judgment. What it does mean is that God’s final judgment is FINAL and will never change or be rescinded. My guess is that’s why it’s called the “final” judgment, by the way.

Traditions, teachings and scholars disagree about all of this of course, but my conclusion about the lake of fire and God’s judgment of “Gog and Magog”, the nations of the earth, is that they will cease, terminated forever, and not that God will torture them forever. The reasons are the figurative nature of the passages in which they are mentioned, and the fact that we have just seen that two things are thrown into the lake that are not living things; death and Hades. How does one torture death? How does one burn and torment the place of death? you don’t; it doesn’t even make sense, for you cannot torment eternally an inanimate or conceptual thing (it isn’t really even a “thing”). Thus, by combining the inanimate with the living beings in the lake, it seems clear to me that John isn’t intending us to believe people are literally cooked alive for all eternity.

Next time, we’ll have a look at the New Jerusalem…

…They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. 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 4b-6

The Thousand Year Reign of Christ is the third apocalyptic element of this passage; an unusual concept for certain. We have in this passage two deaths and two resurrections, a unique way of looking at things to be sure, but which makes perfect sense in light of the scope of Christian Apocalyptic Theology. The first death is the death of the mortal body which all of us will experience sooner or later. It is the death of say, a martyr, who has been “beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus” (20:4a). The second death is illustrated by the symbol of being cast into “the lake of fire”, it is eternal damnation, condemnation or judgment, and it is nothing that will affect a follower of Christ, for we will not “be hurt at all by the second death” (Rev. 2:11).

The first resurrection is the resurrection of Christian martyrs referred to in 20:4-6, a special privilege of being raised to reign with Christ for His thousand year reign before the rest of the church is raised. The second resurrection is when all of the dead, both Christian and non-Christian are raised at the Second Coming.

The concept of eternal damnation (the second death) is referred to often in the New Testament, however John’s mention of two resurrections, one for martyrs and one for everyone else is unique in the Christian canon. The notion of a temporary earthly reign of the Messiah prior to the final judgment appears in Jewish apocalyptic writings (cf. 4 Ezra 7:26-33) but nowhere in the Christian Bible apart from Revelation 20:1-6, and thus we are faced with the interesting task of trying to determine John’s meaning for this image. As we might suspect, there are theories on this subject, each with its adherents. All of them have their strong and weak points, but very few are harmonious with the rest of the New Testament. For the purposes of this study, let’s just think about the subject anew, forgetting what we may have heard and see what we come up with. I’ll give you my conclusions, and then the rest is entirely up to you.

God has always reigned as King of the Universe, exercising ultimate control over the Creation. As we know, Satan entered the picture in Genesis 3 and began to introduce evil into God’s wondrous creation; our world became Satan’s kingdom; God allowed Satan and other malcontents and evildoers to do their dirty work to a certain degree. However, at no time has God ever ceded to Satan His ultimate control. With the coming of Christ, God began to do away with evil and re-establish the good to the earth. Jesus began the work of destroying Satan’s kingdom and building the Kingdom of God by healing the sick and chasing out demons. He called on people to turn away from their old lives and commit to following God’s ways, and by His death on the cross He paid the price for sin, established the New Covenant and made it possible for Man to be reconciled to God by faith in Christ. The result was that both Jew and Gentile could have a covenant relationship with God, receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and enter the “family” of God’s household.

Between the first and second comings of Christ, the two kingdoms coexist on the earth. God’s Kingdom, the Church has a mission to spread the Good News of redemption and reconciliation, and the kingdom of Satan, under attack, fights back in an attempt to hold on to its world dominance. This is John’s notion of Satan “making war” on God and His people, the “tribulation” in which Christians may undergo intense persecution in various forms; “labor pains”. Satan’s allies in this “war” are the beast from the sea and the beast from the earth of chapter 13, Babylon the prostitute from chapter 17 and those men who bear the “mark of the beast” as we have already seen.

Will there be a great Antichrist just before the Second Coming  will things continue to get worse and worse up until the end?

Not necessarily. John spoke of his concept of “antichrist” in a different way: “It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist…”and “even now many antichrists have come” (1 John 2:22, 18) cf. 4:3). When Jesus spoke of a time of “great distress” He was speaking of the whole period being worse than the age before it. Remember, one thing that Jesus made perfectly clear was that when He returns, everyone will be surprised, because it will be a time of business as usual, see Matthew 25. I’m sorry to have to be the one who keeps saying this, but there will not be a sign just before He comes; it could just as easily be today.

When Jesus returns, He will return to the final judgment, just as we have seen in the other visions we have covered in Revelation; this seems to me to be a logical conclusion. If there is a millennial age to follow our present age, then it should be mentioned by John in those other visions, but it is not. If it is an essential part of the story, then Jesus should have mentioned it, but He did not. If there is another age to come, then the other New Testament writers should have mentioned it, but instead, they refer to this present age as “the last days” multiple times.

Earlier in this study, I wrote a Bonus Post on the significance of numbers in apocalyptic writings, and you will recall that the number 1,000 represents a large but definite number, the complete number, of years of this age, and I must conclude that that is John’s meaning in 20:1-6 just as it is everywhere else, for not to reach such a conclusion would be to take this passage out of its context. The only question left, as I see it, is why John used this image, and I will discuss that after we have completed our look at the apocalyptic elements of this section.

As I mentioned last time, I’ll begin our study of Revelation 20-22 by discussing the apocalyptic elements of the text first, with an emphasis on chapter 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. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. 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. (20:1-3)

The Binding of Satan The first image we find is the binding of Satan, which is an odd image in light of all of the activity we have seen in the first 19 chapters of Revelation. We have already discussed the Abyss, and you no doubt recall that it is the dwelling place of demons as we found from Jewish apocalyptic literature of the period. Satan has been deceiving the nations since Genesis 3 and Jesus called him “a liar and the father of lies” in John 8:44. He has used governmental authorities, false prophets and many other human agents to turn people against Christ and His Church throughout this present age (see Rev. 12:9; 13:14; 18:23; 19:20; 20:8, 10). In addition, Jesus and the Apostles predicted that this would be the case (e.g. Matt. 24:4-5, 11, 24; Mark 13:5-6; Luke 21:8; 2 Thess. 2:11-12; 1 Tim. 4:1-2; 2 Jn. 7).  The angel imprisons Satan in the Abyss “for a thousand years”. We will discuss the “thousand years” next time.

The image of Satan being locked up or bound is one that is fairly common in Jewish apocalyptic writings as illustrated by 1 Enoch 10:4-6…

And again the Lord said to Raphael: ‘Bind Azazel (Satan) hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dudael, and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there for ever, and cover his face that he may not see light. And on the day of the great judgment he shall be cast into the fire.

(cf. Isa. 24:21-22; 1 Enoch 18:12-19:1; 21:1-10; 54:1-6; 67-69; Test. Levi 18:12; Jubilee 5:10)

A Christian example of this kind of image is found in 2 Peter 2:4…

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment

We will discuss this element further when we get to our conclusions.(cf. Mark 3:26-27; Jude 6)

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… (20:4a)

The resurrection of Christian Martyrs. To the image of the binding of Satan, John adds the resurrection of martyrs, the “new Israel” or New Covenant people. These are the ones who have not worshipped the beast or had his mark placed upon them; in short, they have paid a price for resisting the pressure brought to bear against them to abandon their relationship with Jesus Christ. Both Jewish and Christian writers have written about the idea of the faithful being raised up to participate in the final judgment. To illustrate, consider the following from the Wisdom of Solomon:

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was thought to be an affliction, and their going from us to be their destruction;
but they are at peace. For though in the sight of men they were punished,
their hope is full of immortality. Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good,
because God tested them and found them worthy of himself; like gold in the furnace he tried them,
and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them. In the time of their visitation they will shine forth, and will run like sparks through the stubble. They will govern nations and rule over peoples, and the Lord will reign over them for ever. (Wisd. Sol. 3:1-8 RSV)

Consider Jesus’ words in Matt. 19:28…

Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

Paul also commented on this theme:

Or do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life!

1 Corinthians 6:2-3

As you can see, John has followed this tradition with the image of the martyrs being raised to life and reigning and judging with Christ at the last day.  Next time, we’ll pick with the third apocalyptic element of this section, the Millennial Reign of Christ, see you there!