Chapter Twenty

The binding of the dragon in the abyss (1–3); the thousand-year kingdom of those sitting on the throne (4–6). The final condemnation of the devil to eternal torment and the destruction of the peoples of Gog and Magog by heavenly fire (7–10). A vision of the last judgment after the general resurrection, the destruction of death and Hades, and the beginning of eternal torment (11–15).

Revelation 20:1. And I saw an Angel coming down from heaven, who had the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. The visions of the twentieth chapter must be understood not in connection with the preceding chapter, but in connection with the general content of the Apocalypse as a revelation of the history of the Church until the beginning of the eternal kingdom. In the twentieth chapter, the revelation returns again to the beginning of the history of the Christian Church on earth. We encounter the devil again, we see him again in his relationship to the Christian Church, although in a relationship considered from a different perspective—from the perspective of the victorious struggle of Christians against their ancient enemy. Some commentators see Jesus Christ Himself in the angel coming down from heaven, but most consider him to be an ordinary angel as a messenger and executor of the divine will. This is all the more reasonable because the seer has not given him any attributes of glory and majesty. This angel is granted in the fulfillment of his mission only to bind the devil and to confine him in a prison, the abyss.

Revelation 20:2. He took hold of the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, Revelation 20:3. and threw him into the abyss, and locked him, and set a seal over him, so that he would not deceive the nations anymore, until the thousand years were finished; after that he must be released for a short time. The dragon is that very ancient serpent, the devil and Satan, who was already mentioned (in Rev 12:3-4). Now the defeated devil is not only cast out from heaven to earth, but even thrown down and confined in the abyss. The abyss (Rev 9:1) is a special state and condition particular to evil spirits of being bound and restricted, in which they find themselves in their evil activity with respect to humans. Such binding and restriction, which began for evil spirits from the time they were bound with a chain, must continue for a thousand years. In fact, the death of Jesus Christ and His resurrection must be considered the moment when the devil, deprived of his former power over already redeemed humanity, was, so to speak, bound by Jesus Christ and condemned to (relative) fruitlessness of his activity. The symbolic action of the angel binding Satan and confining him in the abyss, as if in a certain prison, must be understood in connection with this time. He was not only bound, not only confined in the abyss, but was also sealed. The seal means the firmness of the guard and indicates that what is sealed cannot be opened without the will and desire of the one who placed it. But how long will this binding of Satan continue? With respect to individual people, the devil is bound only when they use the name of Christ, but he is free with respect to Christians who are wavering and weak in faith. The devil is bound for a specific and definite time only with respect to the “peoples of the earth” as a general deceiver, as the cause of universal idolatry and resistance to God, as the ruler of the darkness of this age. As such, he is bound by God for a thousand years. Only after this time, determined and appointed by God, will the devil be released again and will appear again not only as a corruptor of individual people, but also as a general deceiver of the world. He will then appear as the angel of the abyss (Rev 9:11), as the beast from the abyss (Rev 11:7). How should we understand this millennium? Some commentators consider the years of this thousand years to be a definite number of years determined by God, which should pass from the time of the Lord’s second coming until the time of the general resurrection and general judgment. But such an interpretation contradicts the teaching of the Orthodox Church, based on Holy Scripture, that the Lord’s second coming will be simultaneous with the general resurrection and will directly precede the dread judgment, leaving no interval. Other commentators resolve this question differently, free from prejudiced thoughts. Now, since the time of the death of Christ the Savior and with the spread of Christianity, the devil is bound in his activity as a general corruptor of nations and a guide of earthly idolatrous kingdoms, of which there were six by the time of John. The seventh kingdom, although also not free from the influence of the devil, is affected by him in a very weak degree, to which the deliberate remark of the apocalyptic text alludes, that the seventh king will not reign long (Rev 17:10). But the eighth kingdom will be a complete triumph of the devil. Then, released by the will of God, he will appear again as a world ruler and in the person of the antichrist will manifest his harmful activity to the highest degree. But this freedom will be given to him only for a short time (Rev 20:3), and the kingdom of his representative the antichrist in the antichristian time will be short-lived. In close connection with the described phenomenon of the binding of Satan stands the following vision of the thousand-year reign with Christ of His holy ones and martyrs.

Revelation 20:4. And I saw thrones and those sitting on them, to whom judgment was given, and the souls of those beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, who did not worship the beast nor his image, and did not receive the mark on their forehead and on their hand. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. John sees thrones and those sitting upon them. Those sitting on the thrones of judgment are first and foremost the apostles, as the first preachers of Christian truth, the divine word. After the apostles, among those sitting on the thrones we must see their closest co-workers and other Christians who became known for their work in Christian preaching. Nevertheless, it is impossible to determine precisely the identities of those sitting or their number. The apostles first and foremost, by their preaching, helped bind Satan in his impious activity. The judgment (judgment, discernment) of those sitting on the thrones concerns the work itself of spreading Christian preaching: they contemplate its successes; and, seeing them, take part in suppressing evil and in the triumph of Christianity and virtue. The souls of those beheaded also enjoy this glorification. This means that the victory of Jesus Christ must serve as consolation for the beheaded, who need it above all. The souls of all the beheaded, as well as all those who have suffered and will suffer in the future from the devil, from his servants, and especially from the beast-antichrist and his false prophet (those who did not bow to the beast)—all of them will not lose their reward: they will be alive and will reign with Christ for a thousand years. The last expression is sometimes taken by commentators as the basis for the teaching of chiliasts about the thousand-year kingdom of Jesus Christ with righteous people; but this is completely incorrect. If chiliastic teaching was based on Holy Scripture at all, it was based on the Old Testament, not the New. The origin of this teaching goes back to the first time of Christianity. Even the heretic Cerinthus expected that Christ, when He would establish His thousand-year kingdom, would restore Jerusalem in all its beauty, and the happiness of the participants in this kingdom would consist in all sorts of pleasures. But some Christian fathers and teachers held chiliastic views as a private opinion. Thus, Papias, according to Eusebius of Caesarea, spoke of the fact that after the resurrection of the dead the kingdom of Christ would come on this very earth bodily and would last a thousand years. Saint Justin the Philosopher taught the same. Saint Irenaeus discusses the question of the thousand-year kingdom more extensively. But both he and others do not seek the proof of their opinion in the Apocalypse and do not cite our passage (Rev 20:4-5), but seek it in the prophecies of the Old Testament and refer to Isa 26:19; Jer 23:7-8; Ezek 37:12-14 and others. According to some modern commentators, the thousand-year kingdom will also consist mainly in the preliminary glorification of holy Christians, which will precede the general resurrection. The teaching about the thousand-year kingdom both as the teaching of heretics and as an opinion of the fathers is in contradiction with other passages of Holy Scripture. We find clear indications that, first, there will be only one general resurrection of the dead on the last day (Matt 13:37-50; John 5:28), second, there will be only one more coming of the Lord and moreover with the direct purpose of immediate judgment over all people without exception (Matt 25:31-33), and third, there are only two kingdoms, the present kingdom of grace (1 Cor 15:23-26) and the future eternal kingdom of glory (Luke 1:33); there is no middle kingdom between these either in time or in content. Therefore, chiliasm, the teaching about the thousand-year kingdom, was also condemned by the Second Ecumenical Council. Besides this, the text itself of verse 4, taken by itself, says nothing about an earthly thousand-year kingdom. We read here: the beheaded lived—properly speaking, were alive before the eyes of the seer. On earth they died, but here, in heaven, in the vision John sees them alive. Specifically, to comfort all who are persecuted for faith in Christ, it is said that their death is limited only to the earth and the body, while their souls live, and moreover live in heaven before the throne of God. Together with Jesus Christ they will reign, that is, they can appear as guides and helpers to those struggling on earth as Christians, and in this find for themselves a new source of joy and blessedness. This blessed reigning will last a thousand years. The thousand years is that same thousand for which Satan was bound in his activity (Rev 20:3). Therefore the blessed reigning will end when, after the brief rule of the antichrist on earth, the day of the Lord’s second coming arrives, the day of general resurrection. After this, a new eternal kingdom will come, when the blessedness of the righteous will be increased by the fact that their glorified bodies will participate in it. As for why the number thousand is used, the answer to this must point to other passages of Holy Scripture, where this same number is used to denote multiplicity and fullness (Deut 5:10; Jer 32:18; Ps 89:5; 2 Pet 3:8).

Revelation 20:5. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. The rest of the dead—these are clearly those who are not among those named in Rev 20:4; the first resurrection, which John calls his vision of living souls, will not touch them. Moreover, this resurrection is not a reuniting of dead people with their bodies, but a resurrection as if a first, special one. By the first resurrection one must understand that state of the souls of the dead which the seer beheld. It can be considered as a transition (rising) of the devout from earthly life to life in heaven, from humiliation and suffering to glory before the throne of God. This resurrection is called first because it precedes and points to the general resurrection, which will be followed by the blessed life of the righteous in their bodies as well. This fate belongs not to all; many (the rest of the dead) Christians and non-Christians will not be deemed worthy of glorification after their earthly life and, separated from the body, will remain far from the divine throne with their souls. Therefore John does not see them alive (resurrected) before the divine throne and near those sitting on the thrones. John calls the participants of the first resurrection not only blessed, but also holy, that is, perfect. Perfection, being a condition of the blessedness of Christians after their earthly death, after the separation of body and soul, will also serve as the foundation for their deliverance from the second death. The second death, as is clear from Rev 2:11, is eternal torment, which comes upon each person after his condemnation at the dread judgment. Bodily death is the separation of soul from body, and no one avoids it. But there is also spiritual death, which consists in depriving a person of divine grace, which gives life to his soul. The righteous, however, by virtue of their holiness and purity, even after their bodily death remain in the closest communion with God. They become priests of God and Christ (cf. Rev 1:6), that is, people very close to God, become certain mediators between Him and earthly people. And as now they reign with Christ for a thousand years, that is, until the general resurrection, so they will reign even after this resurrection, forever, since nothing can deprive them of grace and through this subject them to the second eternal death, eternal torment.

Revelation 20:6. Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection: over them the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years. Revelation 20:7. When the thousand years are finished, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations which are on the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, and to gather them for battle; their number is as the sand of the sea. The section of chapter XX, verses 7–10, is communicated by John not in the form of a vision, but in the form of prophecy. It was revealed to John’s prophetic vision that after the thousand years for which Satan (the devil) was confined in the abyss, he will be released again from this prison, from his state of being bound in his activity. The devil is called here Satan, which name characterizes him from the side of his enmity toward God, from the side of his constant striving to prevent people from receiving divine grace. This eschatological moment of the release of Satan from the abyss must be understood (cf. Rev 9:1-11) as that very activity of the devil that he will manifest before the end of the world, when for greater success he will use the person of the antichrist and his false prophet. Satan comes out, that is, openly manifests himself as a deceiver of earthly nations (cf. Rev 9:11). In verse 7, the nations being deceived are called Gog and Magog. We encounter the names Gog and Magog both in Holy Scripture and in the Holy Scripture of the Old Testament. Magog is the name of one of the sons of Japheth (Gen 10:2) and of a country (Ezek 39:6), whose king was Gog (Ezek 38:15-16). The names Gog and Magog should be understood as an indication of representatives of nations that were an instrument of divine punishment, and they should speak to us of the warlike nature and cruelty of these peoples. They are depicted as being at the four corners of the earth; this means all the nations of the universe, which the devil will use through the antichrist in his enmity toward God. The impious nations of the last time, stirred up by the devil and guided by the antichrist, will gather for battle against the camp of the saints and against the beloved city. The camp of the saints is the Church of Christ, the community of truly believing Christians of the last time in their opposition to the followers of the antichrist. In the same way, the beloved city is the same Church, the community of believers persecuted but firm and glorious by divine help, faith in God, who dwells among them as if in His beloved city.

Revelation 20:8. And they went out on the breadth of the earth, and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. Revelation 20:9. And fire came down from heaven from God and devoured them; Christians must form a kind of military camp and in this sense always fight and be ready for battle with the devil; but, according to the expression of the Apocalypse, fire will fall from heaven and destroy all the godless army. This fire will undoubtedly be sent by God as an obvious proof and expression of divine help for the saints and of divine wrath toward sinners (cf. Gen 19:24). This fall of fire from heaven points to the same eschatological moment of which Rev 19:21 speaks (cf. 2 Thess 2:8) and which affirms the truth that all people before the dread judgment must undergo a change in their body—torturous for the impious, as if an anticipation of eternal torment. For the devil, who deceived the nations, eternal torment will come earlier than the general judgment and without judgment. His lawlessness and his enmity toward God are fully obvious, and therefore judgment over him, as over the antichrist and the false prophet, is unnecessary (Rev 19:21). For the devil, as one condemned from ancient times, from eternity the fiery Gehenna was appointed (Matt 25:41).

Revelation 20:10. and the devil, who had deceived them, was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Revelation 20:11. And I saw a great white throne and the One sitting on it, from whose face heaven and earth fled, and no place was found for them. Having shown to the end the fate of the antichrist, the false prophet, and the devil himself, condemned to eternal torment, the revelation turns to depict the judgment over the human world (Rev 20:11-15), and after this paints a picture of the future renewed world, on which a new renewed humanity will dwell. John sees a great throne, which is called white to indicate the holiness and impartiality of the Judge sitting on it (cf. Matt 28:3; Dan 7:9). The One sitting on the throne is undoubtedly Jesus Christ Himself, who said of Himself that the Father gave all judgment to the Son (John 5:22). Before Him as the almighty Lord and Ruler lay heaven and earth. Heaven and earth will disappear when the final cosmic upheaval comes, after which a new life of the renewed world must begin. The renewal of the world and the renewal of creation must happen simultaneously with the renewal of humanity, with the change of those remaining alive and with the resurrection of the dead. And only after the upheaval, amid new circumstances, will all people stand before the throne of the Judge.

Revelation 20:12. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged according to what was written in the books, in accordance with their deeds. John calls them dead, but evidently instead of “the deceased”: they have been made alive by the action of divine omnipotence and summoned to render account for their entire earthly life. Here those who will remain alive until the judgment are passed over in silence (1 Cor 15:52-53). But this silence is not a denial of the fact of judgment over those remaining alive. The universal judgment—and here the discourse is undoubtedly about it—will be a judgment over all people without exception, both those who have lived until the Lord’s second coming and those who have died by that time, both righteous and sinners (Matt 25:31; 2 Cor 5:10). All people without exception must stand before the throne of the Judge: both great and small, without any distinction by their former position in earthly society. The Apocalypse depicts the judgment itself under the form of judicial proceedings: the books and the book of life will be opened. This symbolic image must be understood in the sense that by the action of divine omnipotence at the judgment the conscience of each person will be revealed, and in it, as if in a book, he will himself read all that he did in life, and from his own conscience will hear the true evaluation of all his earthly activity. After this, as if after the process of judicial proceedings, each will see another book, common to many—the book of life. This book is God’s foreknowledge, comforting for all those who labor and are burdened in life.

Revelation 20:13. Then the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them; and each one was judged according to his deeds. Supplementing the previous and explaining it further, the revelation goes on to tell of who those dead were and where they came from who appeared before the throne of the Judge. They are those whom the sea, death, and Hades gave up. The sea is the place of death for many people; death is the perishing of people on earth in an unknown manner; Hades is not a place of torment, but in the sense of the interior of the earth, the underworld—all those buried and buried in the ground. This means that all the dead, without any exception, no matter where or how they died, regardless of what happened to their mortal body, all of them will be resurrected and in their renewed bodies will appear for judgment.

Revelation 20:14. And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death. Death and Hades are used here as personifications (Cf. 1 Cor 15:26). Death is the cessation of earthly life of mortal human body, Hades is the state of the souls of people awaiting the time of the dread judgment. But when the judgment has already taken place, then death is already useless, unnecessary. The first death is (apart from bodily death) the first (not final) alienation of the human soul from divine grace; the second death is the final and irreversible condemnation of a person after the dread judgment, when he is completely deprived of hope for any improvement of his state: he is cast into the lake of fire as the place of his eternal torment.

Revelation 20:15. And whoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. “Whoever was not written in the book of life,” that is, all those who, in God’s foreknowledge, proved worthy of condemnation, who were not deemed worthy of eternal blessedness in Christ’s kingdom, all of them were thrown into the lake of fire. * * * Augustine, Book 20, Chapter 8, “The City of God.” Lutardt, Ebrard, Kliefoth, Suller, Oberlin. Andrew of Caesarea, Augustine, Yakovlev, Vinogradov. See explanation of 13:5. Kliefoth, Ebrard, Lutardt, Suller. Augustine, “The City of God,” Book XX, Chapter 11. Augustine, Andrew of Caesarea, Hengstenberg. Cf. Augustine, Book XX, Chapter 15.