Revelation 20:3

and cast him into the abyss and shut it, and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years should be finished: after this he must be loosed for a little time.

Cast him into the abyss ... shut it ... sealed it ... This merely stresses the effectiveness of the binding and restraint of the devil by divine power. The shutting and sealing are only the inert trappings of the metaphor.

Until the thousand years should be finished ... The gospel age will finally close; and when the last person to accept the Son of God shall have done so, that age will end.

That he should deceive the nations no more ... The contrast between the gospel age and the pre-Christian hardening of the Gentiles, as expounded by Paul in Romans 1, is in view here. Satan has never again achieved the complete mastery over the nations which characterized his domination of the pre-Christian Gentile world. This cannot mean that no individual will ever again be deceived by Satan; it merely means that the blessed knowledge of the truth shall always be available for those who truly desire and will receive it. This cannot deny that many shall be deceived because they reject the truth, not through being deceived, but with their eyes wide open, just like Adam sinned. Having rejected it through a moral decision against it, they will then receive the "strong delusion" of 2 Thessalonians 2:11.

After this, he must be loosed for a little time ... Some respected scholars identify the "little time" here with the whole dispensation, the "loosing" being applied to Satan's operations against the vast majority who reject the truth, and the "binding" being applied to the effectual restraint of Satan as far as the righteous are concerned. The time-periods, a little time, and a thousand years, are therefore qualitative and not relative. However, we believe that the "little time" mentioned here means literally a brief period, beginning at the point after which God shall have finally achieved the full salvation of the total number of the redeemed, and lasting only a relatively very short while. Satan will be "loosed" without any restraint whatever during that brief period. Due to all that is revealed of Satan's nature in the Bible, it cannot be supposed that the race of man, or the whole world, would continue very long after such an eventuality. See more on this in CMY, pp. 129-134. We must point out that in such an interpretation we might indeed have fallen into the constant danger that assails all commentators on Revelation, that of literalism. That some things in the prophecy are literal is certain; but just which are, and which are not, cannot always be accurately judged. Our interpretation of this requires the construction of "little while" in a literal sense, contrary to the generally figurative nature of the whole prophecy. However, there are a number of other examples of the same necessity throughout Revelation. Summarizing our interpretation of Revelation 20:1-3, we have given the following meanings to the symbols:

The abyss is the present abode of Satan on the earth.

The key is the angel's authority from God.

The chain is the word of God.

The dragon and serpent is Satan.

The 1,000 years is the gospel age.

Deceiving the nations no more means that the availability of the truth shall not fail from the earth.

The binding of Satan refers to the limitations imposed upon the devil regarding his hurting the righteous (Matthew 12:29).

The binding of Satan took place in the events of the Incarnation of Christ (Matthew 12:29).

The loosing of Satan "a little while" refers to the ravages of Satan when all men at least finally reject the truth.

Before going on, we shall notice some of the pertinent observations by various scholars on this famous passage:

The millennial theories are merely the revamping of the old Jewish dream that the Jews would dominate the whole world.[12] The origin of millennialism is not Christian, but is to be found in certain Jewish beliefs about the Messianic age which were common after 100 B.C.[13] This chapter describes not a millennium of the saints but the overthrow of Satan.[14] The binding of Satan and the casting of him into the abyss mean that during the gospel age Satan is unable to prevent the extension of the church.[15] This passage is parallel to 2 Thessalonians 1:8, indicating that the binding of Satan extends to the Second Advent.[16] How long will this "little while" be? Merely long enough for Satan to gather his host and for the fire out of heaven to destroy them.[17] John never thinks of Satan as having a free hand. Again and again, "is given" was used when he speaks of any authority to do evil.[18] From these verses we must conclude that we are now in the millennium.[19]

Perhaps the greatest single obstacle to seeing the 1,000 years as a figure of our own age is the consecutive or sequential view of the several sections of this prophecy. To be sure, if Revelation is interpreted as giving a consecutive, chronological series of events throughout history, the fact of our just having had a view of the final judgment at the end of Revelation 19, would then have to mean that this binding of Satan, etc., comes after the judgment. In our interpretation, Satan was cast into hell (the lake of fire) in Revelation 19:20; and that forces the understanding that the events of this chapter took place before that event. If not, will someone kindly explain to us how Satan got out of hell? This same problem exists in all the other sections of this prophecy concluded by visions of the final judgment; and, to us, this absolutely requires us to see not consecutive events in the prophecy, but repeated recapitulations in the seven sections.

Another great impediment to the acceptance of our interpretation of the millennium here was thus stated by Wilbur M. Smith:

If this war-ridden age of anarchy and atheistic communism is the Millennium, then the hopes created by the word of God must be abandoned.[20]

No doubt, many others feel the same way; and we have the utmost sympathy for those who are "hung up" on dreams of a Utopia on earth, where all shall be peace and light for an incredibly beautiful Golden Age; but, if the people who are thus deluded, can bear to hear, there are no promises of any such thing in the New Testament. We must through "many tribulations" enter into the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22); we must "suffer with him" (Romans 8:17); all of the godly "shall suffer persecutions" (2 Timothy 3:12); all who follow Christ must "take up their cross daily" (Luke 9:23), etc. We could cite a hundred other such passages in the New Testament. Where did all this nonsense come from, anyway, that envisions that "Glorious Millennium" with the lemonade pools and the big rock candy mountain? People overwhelmed with such "hopes" did not get them out of the word of God, but out of the vain speculations of men. The very idea that for an entire, literal thousand years Christians shall be exempt from the sorrows, temptations, and tribulations of life is utterly foreign to the sacred Scriptures. The popular view of the millennium leaves out the essential quality of suffering in the Christian life. Back of the popular view of the millennium is a false, carnal view of salvation. The heresy eliminates tribulation by putting it in what they call the Great Tribulation and then rescuing the church from it by means of a so-called Rapture. The whole scheme is ingenious but absolutely wrong. There is no Great Tribulation in this prophecy, or anywhere else in the whole New Testament. There will be great tribulations, of course, many of them; and, in a real sense, the entire gospel age might be called "the great tribulation"; but no isolated event or series of events in history may be so designated.

People unconsciously tend to materialize the blessings in Christ. Some scholars even make the elevation of Constantine the Great to the throne of Rome the beginning of the millennium. Instead, it was the beginning of the inundation of the church by the world and one of the major steps toward the great apostasy and the onset of the Dark Ages. Yes, the elevation of Constantine was a great victory for Christians, but it did not mean that they were through with Satan; it heralded merely a change in Satan's strategy.

[12] R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. John's Revelation (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Augsburg Publishing House, 1943), p. 570.

[13] William Barclay, The Revelation of John (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1976), p. 187.

[14] A. Plummer, op. cit., p. 471.

[15] William Hendriksen, op. cit., p. 226.

[16] Michael Wilcock, I Saw Heaven Opened (Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter-Varsity Press, 1975), p. 190.

[17] R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit. p. 577.

[18] Leon Morris, Tyndale Commentaries, Vol. 20, The Revelation of St. John (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1969), p. 236.

[19] John T. Hinds, A Commentary on the Book of Revelation (Nashville: The Gospel Advocate Company, 1962), p. 272.

[20] Wilbur M. Smith, Wycliffe Bible Commentary, New Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971), p. 1095.