A Futile Revolt

The millennium will be a time of unprecedented peace and prosperity. Christ will rule over the earth from His throne in Jerusalem. All the saints from every age will be resurrected and enjoy the rule of their King. But as good as the millennium will be, it won’t last forever.

Before the new heavens and new earth, which do last forever, Satan is set free on earth one last time. “When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison” (Revelation 20:7).

As we previously saw, Satan and his demon hordes will be imprisoned in the abyss for the duration of the millennium, when the Lord Jesus Christ will rule with unopposed sovereignty. They will not be permitted to interfere in the affairs of the kingdom in any way. Satan’s binding will end, however, “when the thousand years are completed” and he is released from his prison to lead a final rebellion of sinners.

The Population of the Millennium

To review briefly, Scripture teaches that no unsaved people will enter the kingdom. Only the redeemed from among the Jewish (Revelation 12:6, 13–17; Romans 11:26) and Gentile (Revelation 7:9–17) survivors of the Tribulation will go into the kingdom in their normal, physical bodies. The perfect environmental and social conditions of the millennium, coupled with the lengthened lifespans of those physically alive (Isaiah 65:20), will cause their children to proliferate.

Though the initial inhabitants of the millennial kingdom will all be redeemed, they will still possess a fallen human nature. And as all parents have done since the Fall, they will pass that depravity on to their offspring. Each successive generation throughout the thousand years will comprise sinners in need of salvation. Many will come to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But amazingly, despite Christ’s personal rule over the most moral society the world will ever know, many others will choose to love their sin more and will reject Him (cf. Romans 8:7). That is, even the utopian conditions of the millennium will be unable to change the sad reality of human depravity. As they did during His incarnational presence on earth, sinners will refuse and reject the grace and lordship of the King of all creation. The issue regarding salvation is never lack of information (cf. Romans 1:18–20); it is love of sin (John 3:19). Those who openly rebel will face swift judgment (Revelation 2:27; 12:5; 19:15; Psalm 2:9), specifically including the withholding of rain on their land (Zechariah 14:16–19). But enough unrepentant sinners will be alive at the end of the millennium for Satan to lead a worldwide uprising.

When Satan is loosed, he will provide the cohesive supernatural leadership needed to draw to the surface all the latent sin and rebellion left in the universe. He will pull together all the insurgents, revealing the true character and intent of those Christ-rejecting sinners—and thus demonstrating that God’s judgment of them is just. Satan’s desperate wickedness and violent hatred of God and Christ will not be altered by his thousand years in the abyss. When he is released, he will immediately set about fomenting his final act of rebellion.

The Revolt of Society

The dramatic scene of Satan’s release is recorded in Revelation 20:8–10,

[Satan] will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war; the number of them is like the sand of the seashore. And they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them. And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

At the end of his thousand-year imprisonment, Satan “will come out to deceive the nations” (cf. vv. 3, 7; 12:9). Again, Satan’s imprisonment cannot alter his God-hating nature. In fact, he will hate Christ more than ever. And again, Satan will find fertile soil in which to sow his seeds of rebellion. All of the unsaved who were born during the millennium will join in this final assault on Christ. They will be as unmoved by the peace, joy, and righteousness of the kingdom as Tribulation sinners were by those devastating judgments (cf. 9:20–21; 16:9, 11, 21).

The actual strategy and method of Satan’s deception is not revealed, but it will succeed in duping the unregenerate people of the world into revolting against the Lord Jesus Christ (Revelation 20:8). The devil’s deception, however, will fit within God’s purpose, which, as previously mentioned, is to manifest His justice when He destroys those who defy His righteous rule. Satan’s actions are always under God’s sovereign control (cf. Job 1:12; 2:6), and his gathering together (Revelation 20:8) of these wicked rebels will be no exception.

Satan will amass the deceived nations from “the four corners of the earth”—an expression referring not to a flat earth, but to the four main points of the compass: north, south, east, and west (cf. 7:1; Isaiah 11:12). In other words, the rebels will come from all over the globe.

John gives these enemies of the King of kings the symbolic title “Gog and Magog” (Revelation 20:8), naming them after the invasion force that will assault Israel during the Tribulation (Ezekiel 38–39). Some believe that Ezekiel 38 and 39 describe this battle at the end of the millennium. Significant differences, however, argue against equating the two events. Ezekiel 39:4 and 17 describe the invaders perishing on the mountains of Israel, but Revelation 20:9 says the rebels at the end of the millennium will be destroyed on a “broad plain.” Also, the language of Ezekiel 39:17–20 seems to be describing the same event depicted in Revelation 19:17–18. Finally, the events of Ezekiel 38–39 fit chronologically before the description of the millennial temple given in chapters 40–48, while the battle depicted in Revelation 20:7–10 takes place after the millennium.

The name “Gog” appears to be used in Scripture as a general title for an enemy of God’s people (the Septuagint uses it to translate “Agag” in Numbers 24:7). In Ezekiel 38–39, the name “Gog” describes the final Antichrist of the Tribulation. Most likely, then, “Gog” is used in verse 8 to describe the human leader of Satan’s forces. Some believe the people known as “Magog” to be the descendants of Noah’s grandson of that same name (Genesis 10:2). They later became known as the Scythians and inhabited the region north of the Black and Caspian seas. Others identify them with a people who lived farther south in Asia Minor. Whoever the historical people known as “Magog” may have been, the term is used in this passage to describe the sinful rebels from all the nations who will assemble for history’s final war.

Amazingly, John saw that “the number of [the rebels will be] like the sand of the seashore”—a figure of speech used in Scripture to describe a vast, uncountable multitude (e.g., Genesis 22:17; Joshua 11:4). Once again, given the millennium’s ideal conditions coupled with its inhabitants’ long lifespans, the globe will witness a massive population explosion. And incredibly, vast numbers of those people will join Satan in his final act of mutiny.

The earth’s topography will have been drastically reshaped by the catastrophic events of the Tribulation (cf. 16:20; Zechariah 14:4, 9–11). That will allow the evil forces to “[come] up on the broad plain of the earth and [surround] the camp of the saints and the beloved city” (Revelation 20:9). The Greek word for “camp” here is used six times in Acts to describe a Roman military barracks (Acts 21:34, 37; 22:24; 23:10, 16, 32). The saints will be encamped around “the beloved city” of Jerusalem (cf. Psalm 78:68; 87:2)—the place of Messiah’s throne and the center of the millennial world (cf. Isaiah 24:23; Ezekiel 38:12; 43:7; Micah 4:7; Zechariah 14:9–11)—enjoying the glorious presence of the Lord Jesus Christ (Isaiah 24:23; Jeremiah 3:17) when the attack comes.

Like Armageddon a thousand years earlier (Revelation 19:11–21), this “battle” will be, in reality, an execution. The apostle John saw that as the opposition forces moved in for the attack, “fire came down from heaven and devoured them” (Revelation 20:9). This is swift, instant, and total annihilation. Sending fire down from heaven is one way God indicates and executes His judgment upon sinners (cf. Genesis 19:24). Satan’s forces will be exterminated physically, and their souls will go into the realm of punishment, awaiting their final sentencing to eternal hell which follows shortly thereafter (Revelation 20:11–15). Nor will their evil leader escape his fate: “The devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone” (Revelation 20:10). There he will join his cronies “the beast and the false prophet,” who by then will have been in that place of torment for a thousand years (19:20).

Hell is a place of conscious mental (Daniel 12:2; Matthew 8:12; 13:42, 50) and physical agony (Revelation 14:10–11; Matthew 25:41; Mark 9:43–44). Those sentenced to that terrible place “will be tormented day and night.” There will not be a moment’s relief—“forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10). Scripture explicitly teaches that hell is eternal. That same Greek phrase is used in Revelation 1:18 to speak of Christ’s eternity; in 4:9–10, 10:6, and 15:7 of God’s eternity; and in 11:15 of the duration of Christ’s reign. Unbelievers “will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; they have no rest day and night” (Revelation 14:10–11). Jesus taught that the punishment of the wicked is as eternal as the eternal life of the righteous (Matthew 25:46). He also taught that hell is a place of “unquenchable fire” (Mark 9:43), “where their worm does not die” (Mark 9:48). Second Thessalonians 1:9 affirms that the destruction of the wicked in hell stretches throughout all eternity.

This is the final blow to Satan’s influence in the world. His time in the abyss will be temporary, but he will dwell in hell for all eternity. And all of unbelieving humanity will meet him there (Revelation 20:15).

The New Heaven and New Earth

But those who hope in Christ await another destination: the new heaven and the new earth. Revelation 21:1–7 describes this glorious reality.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.

And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” Then He said to me, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son.”

Here Scripture promises that heaven will be a realm of perfect bliss. Pain and sorrow will have no place whatsoever in the new heaven and new earth. It is a place where God’s people will dwell together with Him eternally, utterly free from all the effects of sin and evil. God is pictured as personally wiping away the tears from the eyes of the redeemed.

Heaven is a realm where death is fully conquered (1 Corinthians 15:26). There is no sickness there, no hunger, no trouble—no more tragedy. Just absolute joy and eternal blessings. It is frankly hard for our minds, which have known nothing but this sinful life and its calamities, to imagine.

The saints’ eternal state will be in a kingdom ruled by Christ, the great and perfect King, free of Satan, death, mourning, pain, or sin. This is the everlasting paradise that awaits every Christian.