REVELATION 20

 

This intriguing chapter has given the theological world the mysterious concept of the millennium, a period of 1,000 years of relative peace on earth during which Satan is bound. Unfortunately, it has also caused numerous church splits over the years with each party holding fast to its own view.

Thus, the postmillennialists feel that it predicts a prolonged period on earth of ever-increasing devotion to God and peace between people on earth.

Countering that rosy view of the future are the various brands of premillennialists who see increasing warfare and other forms of turmoil on earth until Christ comes in to set up an interim kingdom which will last for 1,000 years until the Last Judgment comes. The dispensational branch of this theology supplements this understanding with a whole host of historical events which they feel will have to happen first.

And finally, the amillennialists treat the whole present time between Christ's first and second coming as the symbolic millennial period in which we are now living. Toward the end of it, and just before the judgment, earthly affairs will probably become direr and direr while at the same time the church will become increasingly purified. This view sees no interim kingdom on earth before the judgment and God's eternal kingdom being immediately established on a renewed earth.

I would like to say that a proper analysis of Revelation 20 settles all these issues, but it really doesn't since each party generally reads into the text what it wants to see and discards what doesn't fit into its preconceived scenario for the future.

But while we might not all agree on the details, a broad overview of this chapter leads to some facts which appear to be incontrovertible. For one thing, the division of Revelation 20 into separate sections is surprisingly agreed upon by practically every English translation. Of the ten modern renderings I consulted, eight of them saw the following verse divisions: 1-3; 4-6; 7-10; and 11-15. And the only two translations which disagreed did so by sub-dividing one or another of these sections into two separate parts. The consensus literary units resulting are shown below along with the key repeated words and phrases in each one.

    Then I saw...heaven (1)

            bound for a thousand years (2)

                    threw him into the pit (3a)

                            deceive the nations (3b)

                                   until the thousand years were ended...he [Satan] must be released (3c)

---

    Then I saw thrones (4a)

                                    Jesus...God (4b)

            reigned for a thousand years (4c)

                                            dead (5a)

            until the thousand years were ended (5b)

                                            second death (6a)

                                    God...Christ (6b)

            reigned for a thousand years (6c)

---

                                   when the thousand years were ended...Satan will be released (7)

                            deceive the nations (8) - who had deceived them (10a)

                    thrown into the lake of fire (10b)

 

Even a cursory glance at the above reveals that all of verses 1-10 can be represented by a fairly symmetrical ABA' structure in which A (verses 1-3) and A' (verses 7-10) share the same language presented in an exact mirror image fashion while unit B in the middle (verses 4-6) is in itself symmetrical around one of the six mentions of “thousand years,” Note also that these six occurrences alternate between talking about “a” and “the” thousand years. Thus, the so-called millennium is the chief subject of this first half of Revelation 20.

By contrast, from the key words in the final section of the chapter (shown below), it becomes obvious that the Last Judgment is its subject. This time there appear to be two parallel sub-sections in it, verses 11-14 and v. 15. That final verse echoes, in the same order this time, four key phrases from the preceding section.

Then I saw a great white throne...heaven (11a)

        not found (11b)

                dead (12a)

                        books (12b)

                        book...book of life (12c)

                                judged (12d)

                dead (12e)

                                        by what was written in (12f)

                        books (12g)

                                        by what they had done (12h)

                dead in it (13a)

                                               Death and Hades (13b)

                dead in them (13c)

                                judged (13d)

                                        by what they had done (13d)

                                                Death and Hades (14a)

                                                        lake of fire (2x)(14b)

                                                                not found (15a)

                book of life (15a)

                                        not written (15b)

                                                        lake of fire (15c)

All of this is not to say that there are no correspondences between Revelation 20:1-10 and 11-15. For one thing, you can see that the two opening “I saw” statements in verses 1 and 4 reference, respectively, “heaven” and “thrones.” Toward the middle of each half, references to “the second death” appear (see vv. 6 and 14). Then at the beginning of the second half of the chapter, John sees “a throne in heaven.”And moving to the respective endings of each half, we find that both conclude with “the lake of fire.”

I doubt that the above has shed any additional light on the question of whether the pre-, post-, a-, or even pro-millennialist view is the correct one, but it does go to show again that the Book of Revelation is not just, as some have characterized it, the uncontrolled ravings of a person who was mentally unbalanced.