Revelation 20:1 Commentary and Bible Study

The closing verses of chapter 19 have brought us to the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the judgment of the beast and the false prophet, and the end of the world. Babylon is fallen and earth’s history is surely finished, or is it? If these events were chronological, we would expect chapter 20 to describe a scene in heaven or at least on a glorified earth, but instead something quite different appears. The devil is not yet consigned to the lake of fire. John sees the souls of departed saints, still not united with their resurrection bodies. A period of a thousand years – not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible – is referred to again and again. The saints are still living on earth and their camp is surrounded by the armies of the nations. Temptation is still possible and Satan is still active. These chapters are not chronological. Rather, we have come to the seventh and last scan of the gospel age, and this is about the final conquest of Christ and the church over the enemy.