Thus "Babylon is fallen, to rise no more at all:" all the visible enemies of the Lord and his Anointed are cut off from the face of the earth: and it remains only that he who originated the rebellious conspiracy be put under necessary restraint.
CHAPTER XX.
1. And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
2. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years.
3. And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that, he must be loosed a little season.
Vs. 1-3.—"And I saw an angel." This angel is the Lord Christ, (ch. x. 1.) The key is the symbol of authority. (Is. xxii. 22; chs. i. 18; iii. 7.) The dragon had been previously cast down from heaven, (ch. xii. 9;) by the Reformation, and during the "short time" of his liberty, he persecuted the woman and the remnant of her seed, on the earth. Now, however, his career is arrested. "Seizing, binding, casting into the abyss, shutting up, and setting a seal upon that old serpent," (ch. xii. 9,) are strong figurative expressions, by which his secure confinement is signified. Thus is the devil to be restrained from deceiving the nations for a "thousand years." That this period is to be taken in a proper, and not in a mystical sense, appears thus. If we multiply one thousand by three hundred and sixty, as some fancifully do, the resulting number of years, three hundred and sixty thousand, would be out of all proportion to the past duration of the world, as well as the well-defined period of 1260 years. Add to this, that when by Daniel and John definite duration is symbolically mentioned, it is by "months, days; time, times and a half a time," or "the dividing of time,"—never by "years."
At the expiration of the thousand years, Satan will be loosed a "little season,"—little, as compared with the thousand years; so little, as not to be deemed worth estimating.
4. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands: and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
V. 4.—"And I saw thrones." Here there is no mention of heaven being opened. Nothing henceforth obstructs John's vision. "The darkness is past, and the true light now shineth."—"At evening time it shall be light." (Zech. xiv. 7.)—"And they sat on them." Who?—There is here what may be termed a remarkable chasm in the language of the text. There is no visible or proximate antecedent. Who are they who "sit on thrones?" Did Millenarians only put this question, and patiently search for the solution in the context, agreeably to the allegorical texture of this whole book, all their hallucinations might be easily and happily obviated. The inspired writer assumes, of course, that the reader will readily identify these persons, who are thus promoted to honour, now that Antichrist is no more, and society is to be reorganized.—Daniel furnishes a satisfactory answer to our question. "I beheld till the thrones were cast down." (Dan. vii. 9.) The Roman imperial thrones of civil despotism were subverted. Again,—"But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end." (v. 26.) The Roman imperial throne of ecclesiastical domination shall be destroyed. Then when Messiah "shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power," of both sorts of tyranny, "the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions, (rulers) shall serve and obey him," (v. 27.) The "saints of the Most High," according to Daniel, are to be exalted to civil rule, and these are the same whom John saw "sitting on thrones." Now, the effect of the seventh trumpet becomes a fact in history.—"The kingdoms of this world," which had been controlled by the beast, and bewitched by the sorceries of the lewd woman, "are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ."—For in the millennial state of the world, there will be a plurality of kingdoms.—Hence a very common petition of pious but ignorant people,—"That the kingdoms of this world may soon become the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," neither will, nor ever can be answered.—Under the righteous and benign administration of the saints, "kings shall be nursing-fathers, and their queens nursing-mothers to the church:" for "the nations and kingdoms that would not serve her, have perished; yea, those nations have been utterly wasted." (Is. xlix. 23; lx. 12.)—The souls which the apostle saw under the altar, whose cry for vengeance he heard, and who were directed to rest for a little season, till the roll of their martyred brethren should be completed, are here presented in quite a new position, "sitting on thrones," (ch. vi. 9.) Although they are not the same identical persons physically, they are the same morally; for the life of the two witnesses is commensurate with the reign of Antichrist,—twelve hundred and sixty years. These "lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years; that is, in their successive generations: for otherwise they would over-live the age of Methuselah!—Souls are here evidently persons, and not souls as distinct from bodies, as some needlessly argue against Millenarians: for "foreheads" and "hands" are attributed to them: but foreheads cannot be literally ascribed to those who had been "beheaded." Their living is to be understood of their succeeding to the same scriptural position occupied by their predecessors, as well as succeeding them in the order of natural generation. The Holy Spirit says, "Levi, who receiveth tithes, paid tithes in Abraham." (Heb. vii. 9, 10.) Elijah reappeared in the person of John the Baptist. (Matt. xi. 14.) Jezebel and Balaam were recognised in their wicked successors, (ch. ii. 14, 20.) But this is the very structure of the Apocalypse, being composed of hieroglyphics, that the free agency of the wicked might be left untrammelled, and the diligence of God's people might be tested in "searching the Scriptures."