The Last Battle and the End of Evil (Revelation 19:11—20:15)
REVELATION 19:11—20:15
The Last Battle and the End of Evil
Although scholars generally recognize the various pieces of the sections that bring John’s grand narrative to its conclusion, not all are agreed as to how these various parts are related to one another and thus to the argument as a whole. Some in fact seem to miss the flow of the argument altogether,1 especially the role of the much-abused word of comfort to the martyrs in 20:1–6. This is in large part the result of their being misled by the numbering system noted above, which is helpful for finding things, but in this case has played a rather disastrous role in misleading the reader in terms of understanding what is going on. Primarily on the basis of content, but also in part to help the reader see the actual role that the much abused material in 20:1–6 plays in the narrative, I have chosen to look at it in the context of the narratives that surround it, the Last Battle (19:11–21) and the judgment of Satan (20:7–10).
Part of the reason for this is to help the reader see the place that the well-known (so-called) millennium (20:4b–5) has in the narrative, since a “millennium” as such is so incidental not only to the story as a whole, but even to the paragraph in which the language “a thousand years” occurs. Indeed, were the numbers and interlude not there, the reader could hardly miss the close connection John intended between the two concluding sections that surround it, which together bring closure to the story of evil that has called forth so much of John’s narrative. In any case, the true wrap-up of the narrative begins with the Last Battle (19:11–21), which is followed after the interlude by a set of concluding judgments, first on the Evil One (20:7–10) and then on those who have followed him (20:11–15). And it is only after these judgments are meted out that the final chapter of “God’s story,” which includes God’s people who are true to him, is brought to its eschatological conclusion.
It is especially important for the modern reader to recognize John’s own ways of holding the whole narrative together as one story, since the majority of its recipients could not have read it for themselves, but would have had it read to them. One of the ways he has done this is by means of both transitional and anticipatory moments that are intended to connect things as well as to hold them together along the way. Thus, for example, “the 144,000” are first mentioned in 7:4–8 in anticipation of their standing on Mount Zion in 14:1–5; likewise the earthquake as the sixth seal (6:12–17) anticipates the great earthquake as the seventh bowl in 16:17–21. The same is true of the cry of the second angel in 14:8, “Fallen, fallen,” which looks forward to the dirge and laments in chapter 18.
In the same way the two matters yet to be taken up in the book, the Last Battle and the saints’ “final glory,” have both been anticipated in a variety of ways. Thus the Last Battle was anticipated by the sixth trumpet (9:13–19), with the appearance of a phenomenal cavalry from the Euphrates. This is then picked up again in the sixth bowl (16:12–16), where the place of the battle is named Armageddon. Similarly, and now especially important for the present material, Christ as divine warrior was anticipated by the “sword out of his mouth” in the opening vision in 1:16 (cf. 2:12 and 16), and by the use of Psalm 2:7 in Revelation 12:5, where the Davidic warrior messiah conquers those “kings of the earth” who conspire against God and his king. Likewise Christ’s present treading “the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty” (v. 15) was anticipated by that imagery in 14:19–20, where the passive voice of that narrative is now presented in the active voice.2
THE LAST BATTLE, PART 1: THE BATTLE ITSELF (19:11–21)
Perhaps the most striking feature of the narrative of the Last Battle as such is the fact that here, in contrast to almost everything else that has preceded it, John no longer echoes the language of his Bible, our Old Testament, but language from several places in his own narrative up to this point. Thus, in this single instance in the commentary I have chosen to underline these echoes in the text itself, and then to list them with their corresponding moments earlier in the narrative. In many ways these echoes are a stroke of genius in their own right, since only here in the entire narrative is there scarcely any echo of John’s Bible, our Old Testament. Rather, he now draws together threads from what has preceded in his own narrative and presents them in the lone narrative where the Lamb of God looks much more like the “Lion of the tribe of Judah” (both of which images appear together in the first presentation of Christ in 5:5 and 6).
11I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. 12His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. 13He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. 14The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. 15Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.”3 He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. 16On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:
KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.
17And I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in midair, “Come, gather together for the great supper of God, 18so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and the mighty, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, great and small.”
19Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against the rider on the horse and his army. 20But the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who had performed the signs on his behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped his image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. 21The rest were killed with the sword coming out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh.
a white horse (6:2)
Faithful and True (1:5; 3:14)
eyes like blazing fire (1:14)
treads the winepress of the fury of his wrath (14:19–20)
King of kings and Lord of lords (17:14; in reverse order)
an angel cried in a loud voice (18:2)
the beast (17:3ff.)
the kings of the earth (17:12–14)
the mark of the beast (13:16–17)
worshiped his image (13:15)
lake of burning sulfur (14:10)
sword coming out of his mouth (1:16)
In this final wrap-up of the story presented in the Revelation, the reader once more senses the tension that exists in the narrative in terms of John’s positioning himself for what he is about to see and hear. The Last Battle itself, of course, is to be understood as taking place on earth. Nonetheless its primary combatant, the risen Christ, has been located in heaven since chapter 5. But here is a case where, by the very nature of things apocalyptic, there is sometimes a fine line to be drawn between heaven and earth. The reason for this has to do with the story itself. What John is about to narrate is the Last Battle, which can only take place on earth where the evil powers are; yet the one who engages the enemy and wins the battle is now in heaven. So what happens is that John simply sees heaven standing open for a second time (cf. 4:1), and this so that the Incarnate One, himself now in heaven, may lead the divine forces on earth for the Last Battle, but without John’s ever making a point of his actual location.
The same tension exists regarding the location of John himself, because what he saw was “there before me,” implying not a vision seen from a distance, but activity that is now taking place right in front of John. Since the next two occurrences of the recurring phrase “and I saw” in verses 17 and 194 take place on earth, one must assume that all the rest of the narrative (including chs. 21 and 22) takes place on earth as well. What this means further is that even though John regularly takes considerable (apocalyptic) license in terms of his various mentions of location, the final pictures of a “new heaven and a new earth” envision a renewed and restored earth, not a transportation to heaven. In that vision heaven and earth eventually become a single reality, which is located on a renewed earth.
So John begins this narrative with there before me was a white horse. At this point the modern reader, who reads silently (which ancients never did), must “hear” what the original recipients would have heard as it was read aloud to them. Since the present identification can refer only to Christ, this is almost certainly a deliberate, intentional recall of the parody of Christ in 6:2, where the Empire/emperor was pictured as riding a white horse. Now at last is the real thing,5 made clear by the further identification of the rider as the One who is called Faithful and True, language that sets off the divine warrior in complete contrast to the Roman emperors responsible for the martyrdoms to come. What occurs next is a deliberate recall of the angel in charge of the waters in 16:4–6. There John made his point with an especially unusual elaboration, by way of an angelic declaration, regarding the divine justice involved in the judgment to be meted out on the Empire. John now puts that poetry into plain prose: With justice he judges and makes war. One must hold firmly to this sentence, since very little in the book to this point has prepared us for what comes next. Nonetheless, the careful reader will recognize that John has in fact done so in his opening vision of Christ in chapter 1. Ultimately at issue is justice itself, in a world where justice was dictated altogether by the Empire, and in which their “beneficent dictatorship” held the final trump card. What Rome will now have to face is divine justice.
In the rest of this opening paragraph, and in typical fashion with regard to his telling of the story, John goes on to describe Christ once more, but now with imagery depicting him as the divine warrior. Part of the description picks up the imagery from 1:13–16, much of which echoed Daniel 7:9 and 10:5–6. This time John starts with language from 1:14 regarding Christ’s eyes, that they are like blazing fire, which presumably is imagery regarding his ability to see through everything and everyone in a thoroughly penetrating way. Only then does John note his royalty, that on his head are many crowns, imagery that works fine in terms of intent (that Christ is King of kings), but less so in terms of ones trying to draw a mental picture of it.6 But John’s own purpose seems clear enough. Earlier in the narrative (12:3) he had pictured the dragon (Satan) as having seven heads and seven crowns, which was followed in 13:1 by a similar picture of the beast (the Empire) with seven heads and ten crowns. These represented a false, demonic royalty. Now the true king of the universe comes on the scene, wearing “many crowns.”
But if the preceding imagery is easy enough to recognize, what comes next is decidedly not so, in terms both of what is actually said and what it means. Thus (literally) he has a name written … that no one knows but he himself. Two matters here create difficulties for the later reader. First, what is lacking in this description is the location of the name, which is usually placed variously in the translations as on him in some way, and which some get around by simply rendering the verb as “inscribed,” thus not needing a location. Second, and even more puzzling, is the note that “no one knows” his name, since in fact he is named in this passage, first as the one who “is called Faithful and True,” second as “the word of God,” and then finally as “KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS” (v. 16). In the end, therefore, this remains one of the truly puzzling moments in the book; it is intentionally cryptic, and without an adequate explanation or discernable reason, unless it is a Johannine way of keeping alive the contemporary Jewish refusal to name God at all lest the name be taken in vain.7
What follows is an especially brief description of his garment, in which the interest is not in what he wore as such (a robe) but in its present condition: dipped in blood. Whereas many knowledgeable Christian readers are likely to view this in terms of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, it seems far more likely in this case to be imagery pointing to the soon-to-be bloodbath of those who remain faithful to his name. Thus even as the leader of the cavalry, which is described next as “the armies of heaven [that] were following him,” the risen and exalted Christ is recognizable, since in the context of this imagery he continues to bear the marks of his incarnation and crucifixion, but now for a different reason.
Just in case his readers might not get it right, and especially because of the importance of getting it right at this point, John goes on further to identify Christ with language familiar to later readers from John’s Gospel: and his name—besides “Faithful and True”—is the Word of God. This last descriptor is the clear evidence of the close relationship between the present Revelation and the Fourth Gospel, which also historically (and almost certainly correctly so) bears the name of John. Understandably, given the emphases in the present description, the heavenly cavalry that Christ is leading were also riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Here is the certain evidence that John’s present interest is not on the coming battle as such, but on the character of the divine combatants, since warriors go into battle arrayed in heavy armor, not “fine linen.” And since the description of the combatants here so clearly echoes verse 8 above (“fine linen, bright and clean”), one would be hard pressed indeed to see the present cavalry as anything other than the redeemed—the bride of the Lamb—as now joining the Warrior Christ in the Final Battle.
What follows this identification is a set of two sentences that describe Christ as the divine warrior, the “Lion of the tribe of Judah” who has triumphed (5:5), and who now leads the heavenly host in the Last Battle against Satan and his earthly minions, the Empire and its allies. First, and picking up imagery from his opening presentation of Christ in 1:15, the reader is told that coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword, whose purpose is to strike down the nations. This plural, “nations,” is a reminder that Rome was not alone in this enmity against God and God’s people. Thus one is taken back to chapter 13, where the beast that came out of the sea (Rome and its Empire) had seven heads and ten diadems, images picked up again in chapter 17, and referring to the various kingdoms (Egypt, Babylon, etc.) under Roman dominion. Now in the Last Battle Christ leads the heavenly forces that will “strike them down.” To emphasize this point John cites from Psalm 2, which had long held special meaning for the beleaguered Jewish communities worldwide as they looked for a Messiah who would come and deliver them from their former (Babylonian) and current (Roman) enslavement. This is followed in turn by one of the rare moments in the book, where John actually cites an Old Testament text so that his readers will recognize Christ’s coming defeat of the Empire as fulfillment of Psalm 2:7. Thus John prophesies that as a result of the Last Battle, Christ will rule them [the nations] with an iron scepter.
Then, reaching back to the proleptic imagery presented at the end of chapter 14 (vv. 17–20), John concludes his description of Christ the divine warrior by announcing that he treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. With these words Christ is now identified as bringing fulfillment to Isaiah 63:3:
I have trodden the winepress alone;
from the nations no one was with me.
I trampled them in my anger
and trod them down in my wrath;
their blood spattered my garments,
and I stained all my clothing.
Many people, especially those who live in democratic societies, find this language very difficult to handle with regard to a God of love and mercy. But a God who simply tolerated evil would hardly be a God of love at all. Righteousness and justice call for a proper recompense on evil doers, especially so of the propagators of such intense evil and slaughter of the innocent that was to be the Rome of the second and third centuries. And in the present case John will not allow his readers to mistake who it is who carries out this judgment; thus the present descriptor is followed by the ultimate identifier, namely, that on his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS, thereby recalling the remarkable moment in the imagery of 17:14 where the Lamb will triumph over the Empire and its minions “because he is Lord of lords and King of kings.”
Finally, one should note that this description of Christ as the divine warrior takes up almost half of the narrative of the Last Battle,8 thus indicating where John’s own interests, and therefore emphases, lie. What follows is first an invitation to the carrion-eating birds to gather in anticipation of the defeat of the beast and the kings of the earth (vv. 17–18), and second, a description not so much of the battle itself but of its outcome (vv. 19–21). It is of interest to note that in this second half of the picture, where the concern is altogether with the demise of the evil triumvirate (the beast, the false prophet, the kings of the earth), Christ is now mentioned sparingly, but at the three crucial moments: as the one against whom they make war (v. 19), as the one who captures the beast and false prophet (v. 20, by way of a passive verb), and as the one whose sword has slaughtered the “rest” (v. 21).
What comes next is thus typical of John’s narrative style. Whereas ordinary narrative logic would go on to describe the battle and its outcome, John turns the whole scene into a meal for the carrion-eating fowl—vultures, eagles, buzzards. He begins, typically, with another angel, this time an angel standing in the sun, who presents the invitation, again in a loud voice. The recipients of the invitation are all the birds flying in midair, who are invited to come, gather together for the great supper of God. At this point the reader must do a double take, since this is the second invitation to a meal, and it comes shortly after the first one, which is to believers, “who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb” (v. 9). But the present supper, “the great supper of God,” is not for people but for the vultures, who will get to “gorge themselves” (v. 21) on human flesh. Their fare in turn will be those who are to be defeated in the Last Battle, starting with the royals (kings), then the military brass (generals), then all others of political and economic importance (the mighty), then the cavalry (horses and their riders), and finally the whole populace (the flesh of all people, free and slave, great and small).
Since this invitation to the carrion-eating fowl is a giveaway as to its outcome, John’s interest is obviously not on the battle as such; nonetheless it is described briefly in verse 19 as the next thing John saw, namely, the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies. These kings and their armies are now pictured as gathered together to make war on Christ and the “armies of heaven.” But that is obviously a futile move, since the rider on the horse and his army, whoever the latter might have been perceived to be in John’s own mind, are the clear and certain victors in this battle. Hence the rest of the narrative takes the reader back to chapter 13, where the beast first appears. Now we are told that the beast was captured, as was the second beast, where the imagery as such is now dropped in favor of plain language regarding the cult of the emperor: the false prophet who had performed the signs on his behalf.
From the Johannine perspective—and one must take seriously the probability that “magic” was indeed a part of the repertoire of these early magicians—their “signs” had been responsible in part for having deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped his image. One should note here how closely tied together John once more saw “receiving the mark of the beast” with the cult of the emperor. Most likely, people “worshiped” the “image of the beast” by offering some form of religious devotion at the shrine of the emperor. But for John the time for their deluding people would be brought to a decisive end, as the two of them (the beast and false prophet) were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. But this fate was not for all those who opposed God and the Lamb; the rest, meaning “the kings of the earth and their armies,” were killed with the sword, the same one noted earlier as coming out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and so they became the ultimate meal for the vultures. Thus John concludes by noting that all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh. And with that gruesome picture the basic story of God’s judgment of the Empire comes to an end.
What remains to be told is the judgment of Satan himself (20:7–10) and the final judgment of all who have died prior to the coming of Christ (20:11–15). But that story must wait, because John is compelled to remind his current readers that the present “war” is not over, and that there will be many more martyrs before God brings the story to divine conclusion. Thus he presents yet another interlude vision, intended to offer those already martyred and yet to be martyred that God has not only not forgotten them, but that they have a special place in God’s overall design.
THE LAST BATTLE: AN INTERLUDE—THE BINDING OF SATAN AND THE REIGN OF THE MARTYRS (20:1–6)
1And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. 2He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. 3He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time.
4I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because they held to the testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 5(The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. 6Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.
In this passage, one of the more famous, if not infamous, in the Revelation, John’s own interests have often been largely ignored by a great many later interpreters. Whatever else, John is not at this point interested in a time period as such, known as “the millennium,” even though the term “a thousand years” appears a total of four times in these few sentences. Rather the two paragraphs, both of which begin yet again with the verb “I saw,” are best understood together as an interlude between the divine overthrow of the unholy triumvirate (Satan, the Empire, the cult of the emperor9) delineated in the preceding section (19:11–21), and the final judgment of all evil, both demonic and human, in 20:7–15. Again, as throughout, judgment itself is not the last word. So the book concludes in turn with “a new heaven and a new earth” (21:1–8), and a “new Jerusalem” (21:2, 9–26), which evolves into a restored Eden (22:1–5)!
In typical fashion, therefore, John is here again offering what turns out to be yet another interlude. This time, sitting as it does between the two parts of the Last Battle, its overall intent appears to be a final word of comfort to those who are yet to be martyred for their devotion to Christ rather than offering unqualified allegiance to the emperor. The interlude itself comes in two clear parts, marked by the paragraphing in the Greek text and followed by the NIV and others (NRSV, NAB). The first part (vv. 1–3) describes the descent of an angel whose sole purpose is to incarcerate Satan in the Abyss (from whence he came; v. 11) for “a thousand years.” The second part (vv. 4–6) then offers the singular reason for this thousand-year hiatus to assure the martyrs that they are not forgotten in the divine scheme of things.
Thus the narrative begins with yet another and I saw,10 which in this case turns out also to be another angel coming down out of heaven.11 John follows this by picking up from the preceding account of “the angel of the Abyss” (Satan himself) from 9:11. In that passage Satan came out of the Abyss so as to torture people; here he is now reassigned to the Abyss while the martyrs are pictured as “reigning with Christ” for “a thousand years.” Thus the present angel is presented as having the key to the Abyss, while at the same time holding in his hand a great chain. What follows, therefore, is a deliberate reversal of what Satan was allowed to do in the earlier scene, and which exists in this case not as an attempt to offer a specific time period in the future, but to indicate that the martyrs themselves have a special place in the divine economy—God’s way of reassuring the living that those who die because they bear Christ’s name are not forgotten.
So the angel then seized the dragon, who is now also given his other biblical designations, beginning with that in Eden, and thus the reason for the imagery of a dragon, who first appeared in John’s narrative in chapters 12 and 13, beginning with 12:3. The dragon, of course, as noted earlier, is none other than that ancient serpent who makes his first appearance in the biblical narrative in Genesis 3:1, as the malevolent opponent of God and therefore of all that is good. But for the sake of his Gentile readers, who may miss the imagery, John at this point makes sure that no reader will mistake the dragon’s identity. Thus recalling the identifiers in 12:9, the great enemy of humankind is further designated by his descriptive title, the devil, and then by his name, Satan. What follows, however, is the clause that has led to seemingly endless moments of speculation in the years that followed John: and bound him for a thousand years. This phrase “a thousand years” is then repeated three more times in the brief paragraph. Thus it appears twice with regard to the binding of Satan, and twice to note the time the resurrected martyrs will reign with Christ.
All of this is further complicated by the explanatory addition that is our verse 3, where the reader is told first that the angel threw Satan into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, and that the reason for this, second, was to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. On this note all later millennial speculation has been based. It is not, of course, that this matter is otherwise easily resolved; but it does seem unfortunate that so many would take this one number, in a book of so many other symbolic numbers of a variety of kinds, and build an actual temporal millennium on it. Not that one should not take the number seriously as such; rather, there are two interpretive questions that need to be asked: first, what is the role of this passage in the narrative as a whole, since what follows makes it clear that this paragraph is not related to the Final End as such; and second, what then is the meaning of the concluding clause, after that, he must be set free for a short time?
The answer to the first question is the more complex, since Jewish apocalypses (after Daniel) regularly have such a moment in them, although this is the only instance of “a thousand years” as such. Millennial ideas, for example, can be found in 2 Baruch 29–30 and the Psalms of Solomon 17; but neither of these specify a thousand-year time period, rather they look forward to a time of messianic bliss on earth. However, in neither of these cases is there also a final “heavenly” existence as well. Thus, whatever millennial ideas may have preceded John, the present passage is remarkably his own, and has specifically to do with the special place Christian martyrs have in the divine economy.
An answer to the second question is even more difficult to come by, but is most likely related to what has already been suggested, that John’s major concern here is not with time as such, but with the special place God has reserved for those who have been killed by the state simply because they were followers of the once slain, now risen Lamb. In any case, John’s obvious concern lies with the second paragraph (vv. 4–6), and thus not with the time period as such. The picture itself is ultimately about the role of the martyrs during the thousand-year period. And even though there is no specific geographical location given, John seems clearly to have planet earth still in view. This is made certain by the language about “the nations” in verse 3 and the picture of the resurrected martyrs “reigning” with Christ, plus the reality that it is literarily sandwiched between the Last Battle in 19:11–21 and the release of Satan to “deceive the nations” in 20:7–10. This “geographical” matter is most likely brought forward here because John’s interest is altogether on the role of the martyrs during the thousand years. This is made clear by what is first up: I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge, who, we are then told at the end of the verse, came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But everything between these two clauses indicates where John’s real interest in them lies, namely, with the fact that they had been beheaded, and the twofold reason for it.
First, returning to language with which the book began, John again describes the martyrs as those who held to the testimony about Jesus. Thus with this language John notes their relationship to himself. Whereas he is currently in exile for the same reason (see on 1:2), John here pictures those who will “reign with Christ” during the “thousand years” as having been martyred for their “testimony” and also because of the word of God. While this makes for easy reading, it does not necessarily lead to immediate understanding. That is, “the testimony about Jesus” seems easy enough, but what did John intend further by the phrase, “because of the word of God,” since this rather ubiquitous “of” phrase can mean either a word from God or a word about God? As suggested in the discussion of the phrase in 1:2, in this book John almost certainly intends the former. But at this point in the narrative the immediate significance of this language lies with the rest of the description, which takes the reader back to the narrative in chapter 13: they had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. Thus with these two clauses John ties together the basic concerns in the preceding narrative, their adherence to Christ and his gospel, and thus their refusal to join in emperor worship.
What follows, therefore, is further explanation for the sake of the reader that John has been dealing only with the martyrs up to this point. Thus he goes on to explain that the real resurrection, that of the rest of the dead, will not take place (they did not come to life) until the thousand years were ended, which he concludes with yet a further explanation that this is the first resurrection. The passage then concludes with a beatitude: Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. This fits the concern of the passage easily enough, but in light of the further explanation of the “first resurrection” in 20:14 and 21:8, one is not quite sure of John’s overall intent by including here that the second death12 has no power over them, since one might expect their escaping this to be their special provision. But as it turns out, according to the explanation of the “second death” in 21:8, the reality of escaping it exists for all of God’s people, not just for the martyrs.
So John’s apparent intent here is not to say something special about them, but to make sure that the reader recognizes that what is true for all believers is true for them in particular. That is, since all of God’s redeemed people will experience the first resurrection, it is therefore also true that all of God’s people are thereby “blessed and holy” and will not experience the “second death.” This, however, is especially true of the martyrs, about whom John then concludes, they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years. Here again the reader can hardly miss the high Christology, in which the Father and Son are once more brought together at the Eschaton. What is noteworthy in this case is that the final pronoun “him” is singular, therefore referring to Christ alone. Thus believers will serve as a kind of eternal priesthood before God and Christ, but the special privilege of the martyrs is that they “reign” with Christ (alone) for the thousand-year period allotted especially to them. After all, according to the preceding sentence this privilege does not include “the rest of the dead.”
What all of this together seems to point to, therefore, is not a literal thousand-year reign on earth for a special group, but an intentional reminder to all of God’s people that even though they may expect it to get far worse before it ever gets better, God has not forgotten his own, even though for some it may seem to be so. Rather, whatever else may be true, and as the old children’s chorus has it, all “are precious in his sight.”13
THE LAST BATTLE, PART 2: THE JUDGMENT AND ELIMINATION OF SATAN (20:7–10)
7When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison 8and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. 9They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. 10And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
The next event in the series of concluding moments follows directly from the preceding one. What is pictured here is a final (but failed) attempt by Satan to destroy God’s people who had not otherwise become martyrs. In typical fashion the brief narrative comes in two parts: in verses 7–9 Satan gathers the nations as an innumerable horde to surround God’s people, who are further described as “the city [God] loves,” imagery that will be elaborated in the final scenes of the book; then in verses 9–10 the nations are destroyed from heaven, and Satan himself joins the beast and the false prophet in the lake of fire.
In order to fit this necessary moment into the overall narrative of the book, John places this Final Battle as happening when the thousand years are over; and with this clause all attempts to make things fit into an ordinary time frame seemed doomed from the start. What will have made such a “millennium” possible was the binding of Satan for that period; thus John narrates that at the end of it there will be a final display of intense evil unlike any before it, made possible because Satan will be released from his prison in order to launch the Final Battle, which in turn will lead to his own demise. All of this is portrayed with a rapidfire narrative, which begins with Satan’s release and concludes with his ultimate, necessary demise, so that the future God has prepared for his own people may finally take place. Here seems to be a clear instance where one must take John for his ultimate intent, and not try to make his details “walk on all fours,” as it were.
Thus upon Satan’s “release from his prison,” he will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth, language used in 7:1 to represent the entire known world.” But the further identification of these “four corners” as Gog and Magog presents something of a puzzle. The language itself is taken from Ezekiel 38, where Magog is the chief priest of Meshek, who will come with many nations (“a great horde, a mighty army”) to punish Israel. Picking up on that prophesy, but now with all the godless nations in view, Satan will gather them for battle; and as with Ezekiel’s “great horde,” John prophesies that in number they are like the sand on the seashore. Still using the past tense, he notes next that they marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people. But precisely because the latter are the city God loves, they will not be destroyed; so fire came down from heaven and devoured them (i.e., the “nations” arrayed against God’s people). Thus this great “battle” turns out to be no battle at all, but a divine victory over “the nations,” whom the devil deceived. So the final events of the great eschatological battle entail God’s complete victory over Satan, who was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had already been thrown (see 19:20). But their end is not to be annihilation, but eternal punishment: They will thus be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Nonetheless, the judgment of Satan is not the whole story; indeed it is not the primary concern of the story at all. Rather, John’s concern is with people; first with those who belong to Christ, and then with all the rest—those who have chosen to go the way of Satan. So the final event is the raising of the dead for judgment, an event that is narrated at this point so that John can be done altogether with the Evil One and his followers, and thus move on to narrate the story of the redeemed as the climax of the book.
CONCLUSION OF THE LAST BATTLE: THE RAISING OF THE DEAD FOR JUDGMENT (20:11–15)
11Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and everyone was judged according to what they had done. 14Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15All those whose names were not found written in the book of life were thrown into the lake of fire.
The next (and appropriate) event on the eschatological timetable is the judgment of the dead, a narrative that begins, typically, with emphasis on the Judge. Thus John saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The reason for the throne being described as white is not altogether clear, except perhaps that it is John’s way of emphasizing the purity of this final divine event in the context of so much that is dark.14 In any case, that this event marks the end is further emphasized by John’s noting that the earth and the heavens fled from his [i.e., the One seated on the throne] presence, which is so all-consuming that there was no longer any place for them (“the earth and the heavens”). And all of this because the next scene in the narrative is about “a new heaven and a new earth,” all of which has been dictated by Isaiah 65:17–25.
But the new order appears as the final earthly event in 21:1–8. The present concern is with the final destruction of evil. To get there John very briefly presents the dead as standing before the throne, with emphasis on the fact that it was all of the dead, both great and small, the latter probably referring not to children but to people of seemingly lesser importance on the world’s stage, including slaves. Thus all of the world’s people are here seen as “standing before” God as books were opened, thus echoing Daniel 7:10. The implication of this imagery is that these books, as with those in Daniel, contain the divine judgments on the wicked, since John goes on to narrate that another book was opened, described as the book of life. What lies behind all this, of course, is an understanding that records are being kept in heaven, on the basis of which divine justice will be meted out. Thus in the present scene all the dead were judged according to what they had done, which deeds had been recorded in the books (plural).
Further to emphasize the totality of the present scene of judgment, John repeats what he has just written, but now with the various locations of the dead. First, the sea gave up the dead that were in it; and second, those buried on the land, thus death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, so that, to repeat what he had just written, everyone was judged according to what they had done. And with that, and in order to have nothing like this appear in the final scenes of the book, the final judgment is against death and Hades themselves: they too were thrown into the lake of fire. John then identifies the “lake of fire” as the second death, almost certainly meaning an eternal death following one’s earthly dying. Finally, as the very last word of this kind in the book, John summarizes, All those whose names were not found written in the book of life were thrown into the lake of fire. And with that John can now turn to the glory that awaits the righteous, and thus move on to the “tale of the second city,” the “new Jerusalem [that comes] down out of heaven.”
The question about this material that is often raised by later readers has to do with to what degree is one to take any of this literally—to which question there is no easy answer. The eschatological point is both its certainty and thus the divine justice that is here in evidence; and these are the two realities that those who believe in the inspired nature and divine certainty of Scripture should be happy to cling to.
1. This is due in part to the unfortunate verse numbering in the final several chapters, noted above (p. 244 n. 8) in the preceding section.
2. See the introduction to the final section of the book below (pp. 289–305) for the similar phenomenon with regard to the future of the saints themselves.
3. Psalm 2:9
4. The latter, in keeping with the translators’ philosophy of translation, is rightly rendered in the NIV “then I saw.”
5. To put John’s point in less elegant prose, but understandable imagery: if you’re going to bet on the horses, bet on the second white horse!
6. That is, are they stacked on top of each other, or what?
7. It should also be noted that ancient scribes and later authors also had trouble with the locution, usually adding what were perceived as missing words, so as to make some sense of the grammar. This is very likely one of those rare moments in the history of the transmission of the NT text where a very early scribal error made its way into the text and was not corrected by the scribe himself, so that we are left only with guesses as to what John intended.
8. In the Greek this paragraph comes in 17 lines of text, while the rest of the narrative has 20.
9. On this matter see the discussion of ch. 12 on pp. 161–77.
10. The fourth in the sequence that began in 19:11 (cf. vv. 17 and 19), which follows the sequence of “and I heard” phrases that began 19:1 and 6. This is now the 26th of the clauses in the book that begin “and I saw.”
11. On this see 10:1 and 18:1 above, which together make clear that these angels are sent directly from God to carry out the divine will on earth.
12. For the first mention of the “second death” see 2:16.
13. From the song by C. H. Woolston (words) and G. F. Root (music), “Jesus Loves the Little Children,” whose tune was first written as an American Civil War song, “Tramp, tramp, tramp, the troops are marching.”
14. It is also possible, since so much of this scene is derived from Dan 7:9–10, that John is here picking up Daniel’s imagery of the white clothing and white hair of “the Ancient of Days.”