Pointing to Jesus (Revelation 20)

Summary:

Revelation 20 depicts the binding of Satan for a symbolic “thousand years,” during which the souls of martyred saints reign with Christ in a spiritual sense, emphasizing God’s sovereign protection of His church. 

This millennium represents the current gospel age, inaugurated by Christ’s resurrection and ascension, where Satan is restrained from fully deceiving the nations, allowing the spread of the gospel worldwide. 

At the end of this period, Satan is briefly released, leading to a final rebellion of the nations (Gog and Magog), which God swiftly crushes with fire from heaven. 

The devil is then cast into the lake of fire eternally. 

The chapter culminates in the great white throne judgment, where all humanity is judged according to their works, with the unrighteous joining death and Hades in the lake of fire, while the righteous inherit eternal life through Christ’s redemptive work. 

This underscores God’s absolute sovereignty over history, evil, and salvation, with no literal future earthly kingdom but a present spiritual reign leading directly to the final consummation and new creation.

Pointing to Jesus:

Revelation 20 centers on Jesus Christ as the victorious King who accomplishes God’s eternal decree of salvation. 

The binding of Satan echoes Christ’s triumph over the powers of darkness through His atoning death and resurrection (cf. Colossians 2:15; Hebrews 2:14), where He disarms the devil and limits his influence, fulfilling the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15. This restraint enables the elect—drawn by irresistible grace—to hear and respond to the gospel, highlighting total depravity overcome by Christ’s substitutionary work. The saints’ reign with Christ symbolizes the believer’s union with Him (Ephesians 2:6), where the justified, through faith alone, participate in His royal priesthood and victory over sin and death, all by God’s unconditional election and perseverance of the saints. The final judgment reveals Jesus as the righteous Judge (John 5:22-23), whose book of life contains only those redeemed by His blood, not by works, underscoring sola gratia and solus Christus. Ultimately, the defeat of evil and the casting out of death point to Christ’s comprehensive redemption, securing eternal life for His people and glorifying God in the new heavens and earth.

How Dispensational Theology Has It Wrong

Dispensationalism, particularly its premillennial variant, errs by imposing a hyper-literal hermeneutic on Revelation’s apocalyptic symbolism, treating the “thousand years” as a future chronological earthly kingdom after Christ’s second coming, often involving a rebuilt temple, animal sacrifices, and a distinct role for national Israel separate from the church. This divides God’s redemptive plan into rigid dispensations, undermining the unity of Scripture and the Reformed emphasis on covenant theology, where the church is the fulfillment of Israel (Romans 9-11; Galatians 3:29). It diminishes Christ’s finished work on the cross by implying future sacrifices for sin (contradicting Hebrews 10:1-18) and introduces a “parenthesis” for the church age, as if God’s plan for Israel was interrupted, which questions divine sovereignty. Furthermore, it fosters speculation on end-times timelines (e.g., pretribulation rapture), distracting from the gospel’s present power and the amillennial focus on Christ’s ongoing spiritual reign. Biblically, this approach ignores the symbolic nature of numbers in Revelation (e.g., 1,000 as completeness) and the New Testament’s portrayal of the kingdom as already/not yet (Luke 17:21; Colossians 1:13), leading to a fragmented eschatology that Reformed theology rejects in favor of a Christ-centered, unified hope.