Kalev Creative

11/16/2025 and 12/7/2025

We’re reading through Revelation along with NT Wright’s Revelation for Everyone. These notes include discussions of topics of additional interest and attempt connections with more Old Testament material.

20

An angel descends from heaven with a key to the abyss and a chain to bind the dragon/serpent/devil/the satan. The angel binds and confines the satan for a thousand years, yet he will be released for a short time.

We discussed possible interpretations. Most commentators agree that, like the many 7s that have come before in Revelation, the 1000 (10^3) is a representative number, indicating an indeterminate long period. N.T. Wright describes a common interpretation that the thousand years is intended as the period between Jesus’ first coming and his second. In this view, Jesus demonstrates mastery over demons in interactions with the demon-possessed as their prior master has been confined.

Others view the thousand years as a future yet to come.

Then John sees thrones (plural) occupied by those with authority to judge. This is an apparent echo of Daniel 7:

        While I was watching, 

thrones were set up, 

and the Ancient of Days took his seat… 

Many thousands were ministering to him; 

many tens of thousands stood ready to serve him. 

The court convened, 

and the books were opened.

We discussed the ambiguity of the passage. We expect that the Father and Son have thrones, possibly the Elders, even the martyrs, but, given passages in which Jesus declares his followers will judge the tribes of Israel (Matthew 19:28) and Paul that the devout will judge the world and the angels (1 Corinthians 6:2-3), we keep an open mind about how many thrones there might be and who occupies them.

John sees the souls of those who’ve been beheaded. N.T Wright speculates this may be a detail that would have meaning to an original audience as Roman citizens would be executed by beheading, perhaps suggesting citizens of God’s kingdom who were martyred are the ones in view.

One possible interpretation of this resurrection is Jesus’ apparent descent into Hell/Sheol to, in one view, free the captives there (Ephesians 4:8-9 and 1 Peter 3:19 suggest this idea but leave a lot of room for interpretation). Another could be the forgiveness Jesus provides through his death and resurrection. Some interpreters assess this resurrection is a future event. A firm, well-supported interpretation remains elusive. 

After the thousand years, the satan is released to deceive the nations and bring them together for battle.

In his commentary Revelation Through Old Testament Eyes, Tremper Longman considers the meaning of Gog and Magog:       

This reference to Gog and Magog comes from Ezekiel 38–39. . . In Ezekiel, Gog is a person and Magog is a place. God instructs Ezekiel to “set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshek and Tubal; prophesy against him” (Eze 38:2–3). In Revelation both Gog and Magog are place names (Rev 20:8). This apparent discrepancy could be disturbing if we thought of Ezekiel 38 and 39 strictly as a prophecy of the final judgment against Satan, but that is not the best way to think about the relationship between the two passages. As explained in the commentary at 20:8, Magog in Ezekiel either represents Babylon or what [S. L.] Cook calls a “mythic-realistic entity” that represents those forces that are hostile toward God and his people. By alluding back to Ezekiel 38–39 in this way the book of Revelation uses the imagery of the book to communicate the certainty and the definitiveness of this final battle against Satan and his minions.

John apparently uses Gog and Magog as another way of referring to Babylon and/or ongoing city-associated corrupt spiritual powers including Rome, ascendant in his day, and others before and since.

Recalling 2 Chronicles 32, the accuser’s armies surround Jerusalem, but, as with Sennacherib’s army, God destroys them without a fight. As at Sodom and with Elijah, he sends fire from heaven. The final battle involves no fighting. God is sovereign in judgment.

”And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet are too, and they will be tormented there day and night forever and ever.”

After the rebellious spiritual powers are confined to torment, John sees the large white throne and the one sitting there. No one can stand in his presence.

Books are opened, then another book – The Book of Life. It seems significant that God, enemies defeated, in full control, chooses to emphasize life.

The books contain things the dead did during their lives, and the dead are judged by what is written. The sea, Death, and Hades are all named as places the dead remained. They now give up the dead to be judged.

Death and Hades are thrown into the lake of fire along with anyone whose name was not entered in the book of life. Unlike the devil, beast, and false prophet, we are not told “they will be tormented there day and night forever and ever.” This passage is silent on a time frame, and it isn’t clear whether we should infer similarity with or difference from the earlier one.

For additional context, here are passages we find elsewhere that discuss final judgment and Hell (all from the NET translation):

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. - Matthew 10:28

The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. - Matthew 13:49-50

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels! For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not receive me as a guest, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they too will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not give you whatever you needed?’ Then he will answer them, ‘I tell you the truth, just as you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for me.’ And these will depart into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” - Matthew 25:41-46

They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might. - 1 Thessalonians 1:9

If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. - Mark 9:43

But false prophets arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. These false teachers will infiltrate your midst with destructive heresies,even to the point of denying the Master who bought them. As a result, they will bring swift destruction on themselves. And many will follow their debauched lifestyles. Because of these false teachers, the way of truth will be slandered. And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation pronounced long ago is not sitting idly by; their destruction is not asleep.

For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but threw them into hell and locked them up in chains in utter darkness, to be kept until the judgment, and if he did not spare the ancient world, but did protect Noah, a herald of righteousness, along with seven others, when God brought a flood on an ungodly world, and if he turned to ashes the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah when he condemned them to destruction, having appointed them to serve as an example to future generations of the ungodly, and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man in anguish over the debauched lifestyle of lawless men, (for while he lived among them day after day, that righteous man was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard) —if so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from their trials, and to reserve the unrighteous for punishment at the day of judgment, especially those who indulge their fleshly desires and who despise authority. - 2 Peter 2:1-9

Now I desire to remind you (even though you have been fully informed of these facts once for all) that Jesus, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, later destroyed those who did not believe. You also know that the angels who did not keep within their proper domain but abandoned their own place of residence, he has kept in eternal chains in utter darkness, locked up for the judgment of the great Day. So also Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring towns, since they indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire in a way similar to these angels, are now displayed as an example by suffering the punishment of eternal fire.

Yet these men, as a result of their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and insult the glorious ones. But even when Michael the archangel was arguing with the devil and debating with him concerning Moses’ body, he did not dare to bring a slanderous judgment, but said, “May the Lord rebuke you!” But these men do not understand the things they slander, and they are being destroyed by the very things that, like irrational animals, they instinctively comprehend. Woe to them! For they have traveled down Cain’s path, and because of greed have abandoned themselves to Balaam’s error; hence, they will certainly perish in Korah’s rebellion. These men are dangerous reefs at your love feasts, feasting without reverence,  feeding only themselves. They are waterless clouds, carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit —twice dead, uprooted; wild sea waves, spewing out the foam of their shame; wayward stars for whom the utter depths of eternal darkness have been reserved. - Jude 5-13