Revelation: Chapters 18 to 20
Will those thousand years be peaceful during which the dragon Satan is locked up, and the monster and beast are in the lake of fire? How will humans behave without Satan egging them on?
Chapter Eighteen
In chapter 18, an angel declares that Babylon the Great has fallen. And a voice from heaven calls out, “Come out of her, my people, so that you don’t become embroiled in her sins, and so that you don’t receive any of her plagues.”
Note: I’m following N.T. Wright’s Revelation: 22 Studies for Individuals and Groups and his newest book 20th Anniversary Edition with Study Guide, Revelation for Everyone. See my post Prepare for Revelation for suggested materials.
As Babylon the Great smoulders, gone in a single day, the kings of the earth, the merchants of the earth, and the master mariners weep and lament over their lost wealth and luxuries. Meanwhile, God tries yet again to save people from the dragon, the monster, and the beast.
An angel declares that the blood of the prophets, God’s holy ones, and all those slaughtered on earth were found in Babylon the Great, but Babylon the great city will no longer be seen again.
Chapter Nineteen
In chapter 19, we’re back in the throne room where all are praising and worshipping God. And for the first time, we hear about the marriage supper of the lamb. The lamb’s bride is prepared.
Then the rider Faithful and True appears on a white horse. This rider’s appearance duplicates the appearance of Jesus as described way back in chapter 1. The rider throws the monster and the beast into the lake of fire. And with the two-edged sword of the mouth, the rider slays the kings of the earth and the king’s and monster’s armies who’d arrayed themselves against the rider and the rider’s armies.
Popular depictions of Revelation are all so violent, but it’s words that triumph. Not battles with swords and guns, not killing by weapons. Words! Can you imagine?
Chapter Twenty
Chapter 20 opens with a peculiar event. The dragon (the one behind the monster, Babylon the Great, and the beast) is chained and locked into the Abyss for a thousand years. Then the dragon is let out for a short time before also being thrown into the lake of fire. While Satan was locked and sealed and chained up in the Abyss, the ones beheaded for the sake of the lamb reigned with the Messiah. John called this, “the first resurrection.” Not everyone who had died was resurrected, only the ones beheaded. Back then, only Roman citizens had the merciful execution method of beheading instead of crucifixion or whatever torturous method the Roman Empire conjured up in their barbaric brains.
After Satan worked again on the earth and was thrown into the lake of fire, all the books including the book of life were opened and everyone, living and dead, were judged. At the end, after Death and Hades gave back their dead for judgement, they, too, were thrown into the lake of fire.
Lake of Fire
As I pondered on the physics of the Lake of Fire, I remembered that nothing in the universe can be destroyed. Matter becomes energy; energy cycles back into matter. When humans or animals are cremated, their matter becomes fire that becomes heat, which is energy, and ashes, which is the remainder of physical matter. The energy is not extinguished. It simply gets absorbed into the atmosphere, after, hopefully, being scrubbed of toxins. Even toxins aren’t destroyed. They’re buried, broken down into less-toxic constituent parts, or repurposed.
The stereotypical image of Hell being an endless burning place is, in a way, based on this idea that nothing can be destroyed in the known universe. Yet matter, when on fire, doesn’t remain matter (except when the three teens were thrown into the furnace and God kept them safe within the heat). One of the questions I asked myself for novel 3 of The Q’Zam’Ta Trilogy is, “What would that lake actually be like?” What do you think?
The Thousand Years
Like almost everybody else, I found this peculiar event difficult to visualize and understand. Many look for an actual period of a thousand years. Except, we must remember, this is a vision, whose message is told through metaphors, symbols, and signs. Not literal descriptions. Also, at no point in history have we had a thousand years of peace.
But then I asked myself, is peace the right idea?
Would those thousand years be peaceful?
Wright writes, “We must not forget that ‘the satan’ was initially a member of the heavenly council. Though he has fallen from his position, he may still, by God’s permission, play a role. The satan’s job was always to ‘accuse’ where accusation was due, to make sure that nothing reprehensible went unreprehended. Now, one last time, he must play that role, even though as before he will pervert it and try to deceive and accuse in all directions, warranted or not (verse 8). He must ultimately do the worst he can, so that when he is defeated there will be no last tiny remnant of suspicion that anything worthy of ‘accusation’ has been left unaccounted for.” Page 131.
So if he’s let out for “a short time” after the millennium in order to accuse, what was happening during those thousand years that would lead to that need?
Babylon the Great, the monster, and the beast are gone. What or who does that leave us?
When I examined it from that angle, I began to think about the early Christian church as described in Acts. Christians, though a subset of Judaism back then, were not accepted in any official entity. They had to meet in groups, in homes, serve each other, and live outside of established norms. Not perfectly, mind you, which the seven letters to the seven churches attest.
Left without the dragon working behind the scenes, without the monster, ie empires, without the beast, ie elites who enforce the empire’s requirements, and without the kings, merchants, and mariners who profited from all of that, what and who is left?
What do you think? What would humanity be like, then?
I’m reminded that Jesus came to save human beings from sin. Nowhere in the vision is it said that sin is defeated. I mean, Jesus’s death and resurrection defeated sin and death. But during this time period, we’re still in the it has happened but not yet, phase.
Suddenly, as I walked and pondered these things, I knew how I’d tie all the big events with the individual life of my protagonist Charlotte Elisabeth in novel three of The Q’Zam’Ta Trilogy. I also fine-tuned the different kinds of beings appearing in novels two and three. I wrote it into my Plottr outline and character sketches.