Rev. 20:1-3: Satan’s Incarceration: In the Abyss, for One Millennium!

Of God Almighty, The Son

At this juncture, another successful mission will have been accomplished; the fighting (in terms of actual battles between Creator and creatures) will have ceased, the birds (vultures and other scavengerous birds of prey) will have had their fill of whatever flesh will be left following the Lord’s Day of slaughter—while 1000 years of a mix of bliss and cold war linger in the wings.

Satan’s Incarceration

Chapter 20, Verse 1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.

Verse 2, And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,

Verse 3, And threw him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

To inaugurate the Millennial Reign, John watches as an angel descends from Heaven carrying a great chain and having in his hand the key to the abyss (the bottomless pit, from which the creatures called locusts, and the ‘beast’ will have ascended earlier in the Apocalypse). This angel proceeded to lay hold of the dragon (Rev. 12:3, 4, 7-9), also known variously as the serpent of old, the devil and as Satan, binding him with the chain in his hand. He will then take Satan, and throw him bound into the abyss, where he will remain for the duration of the Millennium (the 1000 Year period in which Christ will lead the world, on earth, from Jerusalem!). In this capacity, he will not be able to influence the nations anymore, at all, to any degree (rebel human souls a-plenty, notwithstanding!), until the one thousand years are ended. Also, in this capacity, the rebel nature of men over which the Christ and His saints will rule with “…rods of iron…” (19:15), cannot be blamed on him (no one will be able to say, “the devil made me do it!”). There will be no residual effects of his influence to contend with, as the incarceration will affect a sealed environment, creating a barrier of isolation, which will completely isolate man from the devil’s reach and leading (this means that his demonic forces will also be shut down; humanity’s natural rebel nature will be open and above board, albeit, constrained, absolutely unable to express itself in the least). Thus, the active Millennium rebellion will be purely man-centered—that is, it will be powered and sustained for one thousand years solely by the stubborn, unrepentant, unyielding spirit of man’s unaided will.

Why a Thousand Years?

But one may well be wondering, why the Millennium? What is the purpose? What is the point? Why must the devil be imprisoned for that long, and why must the Christ rule the world for precisely that amount of time? Both rebel man and rebel demon having been vanquished and subdued, why not just throw them all into hellfire and brimstone, and move from here on into a period of white clouds, harps and eternal bliss, leaving bygones, to be bygones?

In the absence of any “official” argument for the Millennium, one might consider the following: