There are a number of other reasons why the millennial reign of Christ and His saints in Revelation must lie in the future:
1) The reign of Christ and the saints in Revelation 20 follows the events of the return of Christ given in chapter 19. In Revelation 19:11 the words “and I saw” introduce a sequence of events, linked at verse 17 (“and I saw”) and verse 19 (“and I saw”) with the complete overthrow of the beast and the false prophet (v. 20) and the destruction of the remainder of those who oppose Christ (v. 21). In Revelation 20:1 “and I saw” continues the sequence and deals with the complete removal from the world scene of the ultimate enemy, Satan himself. Following that event comes the next stage of the drama: “And I saw thrones and they sat upon them…” (Rev. 20:4).
2) The reign of the saints with Christ depends on a resurrection (Rev. 20:5). The noun “resurrection” (anastasis) occurs some forty times in the New Testament. In every case (apart from a special use in Luke 2:34) it refers to a real resurrection of dead people to life, not a “resurrection” from the life of sin to life as a Christian (as amillennialism has to argue). It would be both unnatural and inconsistent to think of anything but the real resurrection of the dead in Revelation 20:4.
3) John described a real resurrection and not a figurative one by saying that the occupants of the thrones “came to life” after being beheaded. The core of the millennial passage reads: “I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded…and they came to life…This is the first resurrection.” People are not beheaded at conversion, but they may die as martyrs. The “coming to life” of those “who had been beheaded” cannot by any stretch of the imagination describe conversion! Yet amillennialism has to deal with these words in this extraordinary way in order to avoid a literal resurrection.
4) In Revelation 20:3 Satan is bound “so that he can no longer deceive the nations.” Earlier in the same book John describes Satan as “the one [now] deceiving the whole world” (Rev. 12:9). Here in Revelation 20:3 he is bound and prevented from “deceiving the nations any longer.” It is beyond question that Satan cannot at the same time be “deceiving the whole world” and “deceiving the nations no longer.” Yet the whole “amillennial” school is committed to that contradiction.
Amillennialism teaches that the period of time in which Satan “no longer deceives the nations” (note: “the nations,” not the Church) is the same as the period in which he is now “deceiving the whole” world. It would be hard to think of a more unsatisfactory method of reading the Bible! Amillennialists, we fear, are driven to these extremes by their dislike of the idea of a Messianic Kingdom of God, ruled by Christ and the saints.
5) In Revelation 12:12, 13 the Devil is thrown down from heaven into the earth. This, as all agree, is at a time prior to the Second Coming. However, in Revelation 20:1-2, Satan is banished entirely from the earth and sent to the abyss. This banishment into the abyss, which coincides with the beginning of the millennial reign, must lie in the future. Satan cannot be both confined to the earth and banished from the earth into the abyss at the same time.
6) Satan is represented as extremely active and powerful in the present evil age (Gal. 1:4). John describes Satan as now exercising power over the whole world: “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (I John 5:19). II Corinthians 4:4 sees Satan as “the god of this age.” To grasp the New Testament view of the present activity of Satan the following passages should be examined: Luke 22:3; Acts 5:3; II Cor. 4:4; 11:14; Eph. 2:2; I Thess. 2:18; II Tim. 2:26; I Pet. 5:18: “Your enemy, the Devil, is prowling around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”
Yet in our passage we have a description of the total cessation of the influence of Satan over the nations. He is removed from the scene, banished and sealed in the abyss. We urge our readers to abandon a view which makes Satan’s present deceptive activity over the whole world (Rev. 12:9) compatible with a time when he is bound and unable any longer to deceive the nations (Rev. 20:3).
7) It is evident from Revelation 20:10 that Satan is finally cast into the lake of fire after the thousand years [millennium] (plus a “little season”). Thus a thousand years separates his binding and sealing in the abyss (Rev. 20:3) from his casting into the lake of fire. It is equally clear that the beast and false prophet are already in the lake of fire when Satan joins them a thousand years later (Rev. 20:10).
In John’s vision a thousand years separates the casting of the beast into the lake of fire and Satan’s arrival there. If, as the amillennial school holds, the thousand years began at the crucifixion, or the conversion of the individual believer (opinions vary), what is the meaning of the casting of the beast and false prophet into the lake of fire a thousand years earlier than that time? What John obviously describes is the ruin of the beast and false prophet at the Second Coming, Satan’s banishment to the abyss at the same time, and his casting into the lake of fire to join the beast and false prophet a thousand years later. The thousand-year reign thus follows the Second Coming — which is premillennialism, a recognition of the future Messianic Kingdom.
8. Amillennialists sometimes argue that the present freedom of Satan (assuming the premillennial scheme that he has not yet been bound) contradicts the effects of the crucifixion. They admit, however, that Satan must be let free for a little season (Rev. 20:3). This period of freedom would equally contradict the effects of the cross. The biblical facts are that Satan has already been defeated, but his sentence is put into effect when his authority as god of this age is finally removed by banishment, first into the abyss and subsequently by being cast into the lake of fire — a two-stage punishment.
9) Satan cannot possibly already be “deceiving the nations no longer” (as amillennialism has to say). In Revelation l9:15 Christ at His coming strikes the nations precisely because they have been so disastrously deceived by Satan into opposing the Messiah at His arrival.
10) Nearly all agree that the “rest of the dead” (those not included in the first resurrection) came to life literally at the close of the thousand years (Rev. 20:5, 12). Yet amillennialists deny that the “coming to life” of those in the first resurrection is a literal resurrection. The same Greek word describes the resurrection of both groups, and the same words “came to life”24 occur in two consecutive sentences.
