Monday, June 6, 2016

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 any more until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time. 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 for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.   - Revelation 20-1:4

Over 100 years ago, Victor Hugo, the French novelist and author of Les Miserables, wrote these words:

In the twentieth century war will be dead. The scaffold will be dead. Hatred will be dead. Frontier boundaries will be dead. Dogmas will be dead. But man will live. He will possess something higher than all these: a great country, the whole earth, a great hope, the whole of heaven.

Here we are in the 21^st century and we have to say, "How mistaken Hugo was!" Or was he?  Those words reflect the hope that has been burning in men's hearts for centuries - the dream that there would someday, somehow, come a golden age upon the earth, a time when peace would spread throughout the whole world, a utopia, where men would live in unbroken peace and abounding prosperity.  This has been the promise of every politician since governments began, but they have never been able to bring it to pass.  It is a hope that is yet unrealized.

Three times in this passage from Revelation 20 we see the phrase "a thousand years." It actually occurs six times throughout the whole chapter.  The word "millennium" comes from the Latin mille annum, which means "a thousand years."  This is the passage that teaches about a millennium of peace yet to come upon the earth. This passage is one of the great battlefields of Scripture.  There are various competing views about what the millennium actually is and when it will occur.

Some take this passage literally and believe that there is coming a thousand-year reign of Christ upon the earth in the future.  Some believe that the millennium does not refer to a literal thousand years, but to the expanding reign of Christ and His Kingdom upon the earth throughout history.  Still others believe that the thousand-year reign of Christ is a heavenly reality and not an actual earthly reign.

This passage also talks about the binding of Satan.  Here again, sincere Christians who love the Lord disagree over the meaning of what it means and when it happens.  Some say the binding of Satan took place at the cross when Jesus overcame Satan, and he has been bound ever since throughout the history of the church.  Others, while agreeing that Jesus overcame the powers of Hell on the Cross, believe that this actually refers to a future event where Satan will be totally restricted from tempting or deceiving anyone.  I recall reading one theologian who held this view who said that if Satan is bound today it must be with a very long chain! 

When we look at the world around us, it is sometimes hard for us to see where the Kingdom of Heaven on earth is taking hold.  Regardless of the differences in our interpretive positions about when and how it will happen, all Christians can agree that the only hope we have for an end to war, poverty, corruption, oppression, etc. is the reign of Jesus Christ our King! 

Jeff Frazier