Revelation 20:7–15

"After these things he must be loosed for a little time." A group of connected events comes before the loosing of Satan. "After these things" refers to more than the imprisonment in the abyss. He is "loosed for a little time" only after a long list of events: the destruction of Babylon, the marriage of the Lamb, the war on earth, and the complete rout and destruction of the Beast, the False Prophet and their armies. His release also follows the binding of the dragon, the sealing of the abyss, and Satan's long captivity of a thousand years. There are two brief periods in the coming crisis connected with the career of Satan, in both of which he shows unusual activity. First, from his expulsion from Heaven until he is chained in the abyss; second, from his release out of the abyss until he is cast into the lake of fire.

The thought in the minds of many is that if the millennium came in, then of course everything would be fixed and settled for ever. But it is not so. There is a fixed and limited period during which the blessed Son of Man will have His mediatorial reign over the earth. But it comes to a close. When it ends, the first thing we find is this: Satan is loosed out of his prison.

When the thousand years are finished, Satan is let loose again. He comes up on the earth, but he never gets up to heaven again. But the nations are tested by his temptation. No mere means can make the heart of man dependable — not even seeing Christ and enjoying the fruits of His glory. Men fall into Satan's hands as soon as they are tempted, in number as the sand of the sea. They enjoyed blessing while unfaithfulness would have cost them at once, and nothing tempted them. They prove unfaithful as soon as they are tempted, as soon as the heart is tried. It was the last and needed trial of man; needed because they could not have finally enjoyed God with natural hearts.

Even the age of visible glory cannot change the heart of man. With the enemy gone and the great King present and in control, people obeyed for a long while — but the obedience was pretended. The kingdom can govern and bless but not convert man. Even the preaching of the grace of God is powerless unless the life-giving power of His own Spirit brings it home. In short, nothing is enough — no testimony, no work, power, or glory — without the word of God applied by the Spirit of God. But this shows something important: the true nature of the kingdom, or millennial reign. "That day" does not mean a time when everybody will be converted, but when the Lord Jesus will govern righteously.

There will be great numbers at the end of the millennial reign who are not born of God. Some will have entered the Millennium unconverted. Psalm 18:43-45 speaks of strangers cringing before Messiah, obeying Him out of fear, not faith. Great numbers born during that time will also refuse to bow the heart to the Lord Jesus. They will submit outwardly, because circumstances of every kind will be pleasant and favourable. The loosing of Satan at the end will serve to make clear what is really in their hearts.

The dragon was first cast out of Heaven, then shut up in the abyss, and now cast into the lake of fire. As the dragon he is shut up, as Satan he is loosed, and as the devil he is cast into the lake of fire.

In Revelation 20:8 we also read of Gog and Magog attacking "the camp of the saints and the beloved city," Jerusalem. But do not confuse this with the prophecy in Ezekiel. Here they come out of "the four corners of the earth," and the two battles happen at different times. In Ezekiel the attack comes before Israel is settled in the land for good, as the context shows. In Revelation it comes after the thousand years... The names in Ezekiel are surely in view here. "Gog and Magog" are symbolic names, used for all the proud and powerful armies of the time after the thousand years. Satan will gather them from every quarter to attack the kingdom of the Lord Jesus as set up on earth, but fire from heaven will devour them. When Satan is loosed, he still cannot raise up an empire against the Lord.

Those armies before the thousand years came only from Russia and nearby Eastern countries. But here they come from "the four corners of the earth." From east, west, north, and south, Satan brings against Palestine everyone who is set against the Lord Jesus Christ. Once again he manages with ease to "deceive the nations." It is his old trade. He was a deceiver from the beginning, and he carries his character right on to the close.

God's judgments will greatly thin out the peoples of the earth. Large numbers will be saved. But many will give only pretended obedience to the King who reigns over the earth. It is not the obedience of faith. It is forced submission under the iron rod, obedience squeezed out of them by fear... One more thing fully explains the countless crowds Satan gathers from all parts of the earth. Death, even among the unsaved, will be the exception and not the rule. Besides this, the earth will go on being filled with people as before.

Such is man, and such is Satan. A thousand years shut up in the bottomless pit have not changed the character of the deceiver. A thousand years of blessing under Christ's rule have not changed the nature that greedily listens to the deceiver's voice.

His temptation puts the nations to the test. They had seen Christ and enjoyed the fruits of His glory, and even that was not enough. No outward means can make the heart of man safe, if that heart is to be trusted. Men fall into Satan's hands as soon as they are tempted, and their number is like the sand of the sea... This was the last trial of man, and it was needed. It was needed because they could never have enjoyed God at last with natural hearts. And the natural heart had never been tested in a place where owning a present, visible, glorious Christ brought blessing right away.

Even an age of visible glory cannot change the heart of man. With the enemy shut away and the great King holding everything in check, people gave a pretended obedience for a long time. The kingdom can govern and bless but not convert man. Even the preaching of the grace of God has no power unless His own Spirit brings it home with life-giving force... "That day" does not mean a time when everyone will be converted. It means a time when the Lord Jesus will rule in righteousness.

In Revelation 20:8 we also read of Gog and Magog attacking "the camp of the saints and the beloved city," Jerusalem; but do not confuse this with the prophecy in Ezekiel. Here they come out of "the four corners of the earth," and the two battles do not happen at the same time. In Ezekiel the attack comes before Israel is settled in the land for good, as the context shows. In Revelation it comes after the thousand years of the millennium, and the final overthrow of God's enemies, led on by Satan, follows it. "Gog and Magog" are symbolic names for all the proud and powerful hordes of the time after the millennium. Their number is "as the sand of the sea." Satan will collect them from all quarters to attack the kingdom of the Lord Jesus as set up on earth.

They crowd and cover the earth in its entirety. They come from north, south, east, and west. They gather under one leader, swayed by one deadly impulse of hatred, and to one centre. The nations have lived for one thousand years under Christ's good rule. Satan has been restrained for one thousand years, his freedom cut short. Yet the nations make the mad attempt to crush the camp of the saints and to destroy the beloved city, Jerusalem. The nations converge upon Jerusalem. Christ does not intervene. It is a matter for God to take up… All is silent in the camp and city. The apostate nations march into the jaws of death.

The beloved city is Jerusalem; the camp of the saints is a larger circle and includes all of Israel and those Gentiles who, being converted, refuse Satan's deceit. They flocked to that centre. This is a clear contrast with the state pictured in the field of wheat and weeds in Christendom at the end of this age. Wheat and weeds grow together until judgment separates them. At the end of the millennium the righteous and the wicked form two clearly separate groups. … But the good and bad were not mixed together as they are now.

While Satan was restrained, the evil was there, but held down and hidden. He gives it energy and daring. The beloved city is of course the earthly Jerusalem. The "camp of the saints" seems to be the camp of the heavenly saints, who are the Lord's host around it. The city of course cannot be taken. The rebels are caught in open hostility to God and His people, and judgment is swift and complete: "fire came down from heaven and consumed them." The wicked are wiped off the earth.

Here we are taken to the end of the reign of Christ to learn that the flesh never alters. Before the flood men filled the earth with violence and corruption. Under law, man broke God's commands and fell into idolatry. Under grace, men reject God's offer of salvation completely, and Christendom falls away from the faith. It has been well said, "Such is man, and such is Satan. A thousand years' confinement in the bottomless pit has not changed the character of the deceiver. A thousand years' blessedness under Christ's rule has not changed the nature which greedily listens to the deceiver's voice."

All human theories about better surroundings changing man will be proved false. In Eden, in the best possible circumstances and conditions, man failed: so it will be under the favoured conditions of the millennium.

They surround the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but not a sword is drawn nor a gun fired. God acts in His own sovereign rights as God, and fire comes down from heaven and devours them. This is Satan's third battle with God — first at Calvary's cross, then in the second heaven, and finally at the beloved city Jerusalem; but all in vain. In this last scene we see his power utterly crushed and broken.

For the first time in the history of the race (from Genesis 3 to Revelation 20) we have an earth without a single sinner on its surface. Satan now has to be dealt with. He is allowed to see the end of all his heartless scheming. He is foiled and defeated. His doom was fixed seven thousand years before it was carried out (Genesis 3:15). His head is bruised by the woman's seed.

The dragon was first cast out of heaven, then shut up in the abyss, and now cast into the lake of fire. As the dragon he is shut up; as Satan he is loosed; and as the devil he is cast into the lake of fire. Satan, which means adversary, is the open and declared enemy of God, of Christ, of the saints, of Israel… But as the devil, the deceiver and tempter of men, he is cast into everlasting torment.

It was the shining out of His coming that destroyed the beast and the false prophet. They were taken and both cast alive into the lake of fire… But it was not yet the time for the last and most terrible judgment of Satan. God's testing of the world was not quite over.

Into it the beast and the false prophet were cast as the millennial age began, and now at the end of that age we read that there they still "are," and not that they were. The fire had not destroyed them.

Two human beings were cast alive into the lake of fire a thousand years before. At the close of this long period they are found there, still in existence! How clear it is that this fire is not like material fire, but something completely different! What can remain a thousand years in the lake of fire unconsumed may remain, as far as one can see, forever. Some object that no verb stands here: the sentence reads simply, "where the beast and the false prophet." Fill the gap with "were cast," they say, and it tells us nothing about how long they stay. But what of the closing words? "They" — the word is plural — "will be tormented day and night forever and ever."

Here that meaning is impossible. At this very time the world comes to an end… These words stand at the door of a boundless eternity. No measuring line of dates and periods reaches across it. In that eternity Scripture declares that God, who exists of Himself, lives "for ever and ever." In that eternity Scripture says the torment of the lost lasts "for ever and ever." Those saved by grace should not argue back against God. We should bow our heads in silence before this mystery we cannot fathom, and adore the goodness that has delivered us by such a ransom from so fearful a doom.

Somewhere in the universe of God there will be a restricted area ("a lake"). Evil will be confined and punished there for ever. No sinning can go on there, though hatred of heart towards God and His Son must remain. Neither new birth nor repentance is possible in hell.

We know fire well and what it does to material objects; but as far as we know, it has no effect on spiritual beings. So we judge the phrase to be symbolic, like so much else in this book. Yet it stands as the symbol of God's burning displeasure, His scorching judgment.

The character of the throne itself is the first thing to attract our attention. It is called "great" — great either because it fits the dignity of the Judge, or because it suits the size of the judgment. It is also called "white." This is probably not the colour we know as white, like white linen. Instead, the word really means clear or bright — the "whiteness of light." This expresses the dazzling purity of holiness — whether the holiness of the Judge Himself, or of the standard His judgment will follow. Everything connected with Him must match what He is in His own essential nature: the throne He sits on, and the sentence He pronounces. The Judge is not named here, though John saw the One seated on the throne. But we know from other Scriptures that it is Christ.

Jesus sits upon that throne. He who is now the Saviour must then be the judge. God has put all authority into His hand, once pierced for our sins, and He sits there and wields the sword.

Many people suppose this to be the time of the coming of Christ, and so put the millennium before His coming. But this will not bear the light of Scripture... When the Lord Jesus comes, He comes to the earth from heaven. But that is not the case here. For the Lord sits on a great white throne, and instead of His coming from heaven to earth, both earth and heaven are gone. It cannot be His coming to the earth, for there is no earth to come to. The entire system of earth and heaven as they now are will have vanished from the scene. It will not be annihilated, but destroyed. There is a great difference between those two thoughts.

The earth and the sky the Lord Himself appointed to display His glory and righteousness cannot stay in the glory of His face... "Earth and sky fled away" — they did not pass out of existence, and they were not annihilated. The next clause guards against that unscriptural conclusion — "no place was found for them."... The world of the thousand years passes away, and the eternal worlds come in; both are material. Between the two, the great white throne is set up. This gives profound solemnity to the scene before us. For the throne is not set on the earth, nor in relation to its dispensations and times. It is a scene entirely outside human history. We have passed out of time into eternity. The judgment of the throne is therefore final, and eternal in its very nature.

On what do the dead stand? Not on earth, for that has disappeared... The greatest of the prophets saw a throne with an altar of sacrifice beside it (Isaiah 6). There the altar met and answered the righteous claim of the throne. The throne in the innermost room of the tabernacle of old had blood — the witness of death — sprinkled on it. But the throne before us is great and white, and there is neither altar nor blood. Oh, the horror, the despair, the agony of standing in one's sins, searched by the blaze of divine light! There are no caves, rocks or caverns in which the guilty soul may hide, for these have fled.

There they stand (verse 12), the great and the small, before the throne; but where is it? Just before, in verse 11, we are told the earth and the heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. Then we see, not thrones, but "a great white throne," and the dead stand before it to be judged... At the end of the thousand years Christ does not come. Instead the heaven and the earth that now are depart.

This is clearly not a judgment of living people, like the one in Matthew 25, where people are separated as sheep from goats. No — the passage says clearly that it is "the dead, great and small," who are found here. It is the dead out of Christ, the unsaved dead, and only they... this is not a throne of grace, or sprinkled blood to meet the sinner's need, but of stern unbending judgment and nothing but judgment.

At the sounding of the seventh trumpet, Revelation 11:18 says, "your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants... and those who fear your name, both small and great." Do the objectors themselves take that phrase to include everyone of every age who fears God's name? Of course they do not.

Every responsible soul on earth has his life and history written above. Nothing is forgotten, nothing is too small; God records it all, and never gets it wrong. Infants and those without understanding are the only exceptions. Judgment goes by works, by deeds. People are responsible for what they have done, not for what they are by birth... We cannot help the existence of the evil nature in us, but we are responsible for its activity.

"The book of life" is opened; but there is no judgment for those whose names are written in it by the hand of God's choosing, redeeming love. "The books" are opened too — those dreadful records written in letters deep, broad, and black. They are the terrible lists of the sins of every man, woman, and child, from the beginning to the end of time. There will be no hiding in the crowd. Each one will stand there alone, as a single person, in that appalling moment.

Deeds long since forgotten, and sins that people thought too small to matter and have dropped out of memory — all of them will be brought out as the ground of condemnation. And more than that: the book of life will be opened, and if the names of those brought before this solemn court are not found in it, the sentence is passed... So there are two kinds of evidence, positive and negative. Both condemn, and both shut out every ground of appeal.

The book of life is opened next and searched closely. Not one name of the ungodly is found in its pages. Their names could have been written in that book, but they despised mercy and refused grace, so now judgment and its carrying out must take their course.

People speak as though men were on probation, and the day of judgment would prove how it will turn out with them, whether they will be saved or lost. This is all wrong... the gospel comes to man and addresses him as one already lost, and needing salvation. Men do not have to wait until the judgment to know how it will turn out... Judgment is for my work (Revelation 20:12), and on that ground all are already lost. But salvation is of grace, and is God's work.

This is the "resurrection of judgment" that our Lord speaks of in the gospel of John. It will include all the unsaved, and the unsaved alone. The book of life is there, but there is no sign of any saints to be judged. It is opened to show that the names of those to be judged were not there. So they are condemned on both negative and positive grounds. Their names were not written in the book of life, and their works declared them liable to righteous judgment. So they fall without hope under the everlasting sentence of the lake of fire, which is the second death — a sentence from which there is no appeal and no escape.

Then the book of life is mentioned — but note, not to write anyone's name in it. Could any of their names have been in that book? No. None of those whose names God Himself has written in the book of life appear at this throne. God had raised these saved ones from their graves long before. They had shared with Christ in His reign of a thousand years. So they do not appear at the great white throne at all.

The names of the condemned were not there. So it is not a bare statement, but one of awful emphasis, that he adds, "And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." Not a hint of anyone who was found written there. The book of life matched the books of deeds exactly. Their works called for God's final punishment, and to grace they had been indifferent or actively opposed.

To be written in the "book of life" means to have life in Christ. Not our works, not our character, not our religiousness, not our tears, our prayers or our service can put our names in the "book of life." Grace alone can do it, and grace does it, as we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Reader, is your name written there?

The Lamb's book of life contains names written there before the founding of the world. This is the book of God's counsels and purposes. He knows the end from the beginning. Before human responsibility began its course, He wrote in it the names of all who were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. These are true, born-again believers in Christ. He calls them, justifies them, and glorifies them. He works in their hearts by His Holy Spirit, who has sealed them and marked them off as His own forever. The Lamb's book of life is the record of reality, and out of that book no name is blotted out.

Death and Hades delivered up the dead that were in them: and they were judged each according to their works. And their works condemn them. Not a word is said about them in the book of life, and they are cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. They are raised from their first death to be cast for ever into that place of torment, from which there is no escape.

We may well send up a hymn of heartfelt praise to God that we whose names are written in that book of life can never come into that judgment. And rejoice in these good words of the Lord: "Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life" (John 5:24).