Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #4 of Revelation chapter 20 and we are going to read Revelation 20:4:

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.

I will stop reading there.  God has just explained that Satan was bound for a “thousand years” and after that he would be loosed for a “little season.”  We saw that, spiritually, this pointed to the cross; that was the time when Satan was bound.  The “thousand years” is a figurative number and not a literal thousand years.  You can be sure the people of God would have been on high alert at the point that was exactly 1,000 years from the cross in 33AD.  So, the year 1,033AD would obviously have been a focal point for people that were familiar with these verses.  Of course, the Bible was around in 1033AD and, certainly, they were keeping “watch” and looking for Satan to be loosed.  They would wonder if this was the time the Bible talked about as the “little season.”  Would it come after a literal 1,000 years?  But there was no change.  They were doing the right thing in looking at the Bible, but they were looking at that number literally.

First, let me make this clear that I am speculating here, but there is a very good likelihood that this happened because God’s people are the same in all generations.  So there was the statement that Satan would be bound a thousand years and as that time drew close, people would have started to talk and say, “Do you think this is the time?  It has been 1,000 years since the cross when the strong man was bound.”  But when the time came and went, they would realize that this was not the answer and only then could they have been sure that the “thousand years” was not literal.

It is just like when we struggled with the “five months” of Revelation 9 because it fit so well for the period between May 21, 2011 and October 21, 2011.  Then when that date passed, we came to the realization that it could not have been a literal “five months,” but it must represent the duration of Judgment Day rather than the actual length of Judgment Day.

People like to say, “Well, you are coming to the knowledge of a spiritual judgment after the fact.”  Sometimes, due to our limitations as men with feet of clay, we have no ability within ourselves to make the determination whether something is “literal” or “spiritual” until the literal time period passes; then it helps us to understand (as is often the case) that it was a spiritual application.  So it is not always a bad thing when the literal understanding of a timeline passes.  It can actually assist us in helping us to understand. 

Passing the point of 1,033AD would have been an “assist” to the serious Bible student over the next several centuries as they looked at the Bible.  They would say, “We can tell from the Scriptures that Satan was bound at the cross, but here we are at 1,700AD, so it cannot be literal and we need to look at a spiritual meaning for the thousand years.”  When we search the Bible it does not take long to see that the number “10,” the number “1,000” or the number “10,000” all consistently point to the “completeness” of whatever is in view.  For example, it may point to the completeness of “10 coins” or the completeness of “1,000 hills” or the completeness of “10,000 saints.”  Then we realize that the “thousand years” of Satan’s binding points to the completeness of the binding.  In other words, God does not give us the actual timeline of Satan’s binding through the reference to a “thousand years.”   It does not help us with the specifics of when His binding would end and when he would be loosed.  It is only when we take into account other Biblical information that God provides in the Biblical calendar of history that we can see how it fits exactly with the year 1988, for example, and how on the day before Pentecost on May 21, 1988 it was the day the church age ended and the 2,300 “evening mornings” began and how they fit and how they end on September 7, 1994 in a Jubilee Year.  It would be the time of the blowing of the trumpets of the Jubilee to signal the Latter Rain, the glorious time in the second part of the Great Tribulation when God would save that great multitude.  Then the end of the 6,100 days fell on May 21, 2011, an exact 23 years or an exact 8,400 days.  It was a very precise timeline for the Great Tribulation.

So we can figure out that the “thousand years” is referring to the completeness of Satan’s binding which worked out to be 1,955 years.  And that number “1,955” breaks down into key and significant numbers that identify with God’s Gospel program.  That is how we do it and, so, you cannot use the time reference in Revelation 20 as the actual time period of Satan’s binding, but it gives you a spiritual reference point and then, through other Biblical information you are able to identify the “thousand years” as a spiritual representation of Satan’s binding that turns out to be an actual 1,955 years. 

In the case of the “five months” of torment in Revelation 9, it is a spiritual reference; the number “five” identifies with the atonement and that relates to “grace and judgment.”  God will be judging the earth for “five months” and that is a figure that goes together with the figure of “seven months” that God relates to the Great Tribulation, forming a total of “twelve months” or “one year” of vengeance that covers the entire “10,000” days as the likely complete duration of the judgment of God.  As we learned from other key information in the Bible, the figurative “five months” was actually 1,600 days and the information fit together and we were able to place the actual time span with the figurative time span, just as we did with the “three and one half days” that the two witnesses were laying dead in the streets.  We gathered other Biblical information to discover that the “three and one half days” was the 2,300 evening mornings that made up the first part of the Great Tribulation, and so forth.  That is how we work through these numbers.

Let me read, again, at the beginning of Revelation 20:4:

And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them…

The Apostle John was given a vision of thrones (plural) and “they sat upon them.”  In the Bible, what does it mean “to sit”?  It means to rule and a throne is what a king sits upon.  For instance, God is seated upon a throne.  He is the great King. 

So, here, the Apostle John is given a vision of thrones and of a group of people that sat upon them “and judgment was given unto them.”  So we are very curious about the identity of these people are and why they are sitting upon thrones.  Why is God making reference to this?  And what is the judgment that is given unto them?  The rest of the verse explains who they are because the rest of the verse goes on to say, in Revelation 20:4:

… 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.

Who typically reigns?  A king reigns.  To reign is to rule and to have authority and dominion over whatever you reign over, whether it is a principality, a kingdom or a nation.  Here, the souls are in view and “they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.”  Remember that the number “thousand” points to the completion of whatever is in view.  This is not looking at the period of the binding of Satan, but it is looking at a different subject; it is looking at the souls of true believers and they are living and reigning with Christ “a thousand years.”  We know that the Bible tells us that when individuals become saved they are translated into the heavenlies.  Let me read from Ephesians 2:5-6:

Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

The vision that God showed to the Apostle John is of these children of God.  They are “the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God.”  It was not the people of the world; the unsaved are not beheaded for the sake of Christ and His Word.  It is only the true believers that lose their lives for the sake of the Gospel and they are the ones that “sat upon thrones, and judgment was given unto them.”  So it is speaking of those that God has saved and, according to Ephesians 2:6, when God saves them, they are seated “in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”  Christ is royalty.  He is the Great King.  He is the glorious King of kings and Lord of lords and He reigns over His kingdom.  If we are “in Him,” then we also reign with Him.  How long will Christ’s reign continue?  It is an eternal reign and it goes on into eternity future.  How long will the people of God reign with Him?  They will reign eternally because they have been given eternal life.  Therefore, it says they “live” and they will live forever and reign forever with Christ for “a thousand years,” or the completeness of eternity future.  That is what this particular “thousand years” points to and it is really saying that they will live and reign with Christ for ever and ever.  The Book of Revelation says that often, but in this case, God uses the “thousand years” as a figure of something different and He was hiding the truth of what He had in mind. 

That is why over the centuries there were theologians and churches that got carried away with this whole “thousand years” and they developed eschatology regarding the end that are elaborate concoctions from their own minds.  They take the “thousand years” and they do things with it that are not according to the Bible.  Some say that Christ is going to come to this earth and physically reign for a “thousand years.”  They believe that literally.  They think Jesus will come at a time and set up an earthly kingdom because it says, “and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.”  Since this was said after the previous reference to Satan being bound “a thousand years,” they confuse the two references to “a thousand years” and they take these statements literally.   You would think that they would have a clue it was not literal because it says that it is the “souls of them” and it does not mention their bodies.  It is their souls that reign “a thousand years” because they are the saints that have died and have gone to heaven in their spiritual essence or in their souls; it is not the end of the world yet because they have not received their resurrected bodies. 

Can you imagine that?  You have gone through this life of living in this sin-cursed earth and seeing all the filthy deeds that vexed your soul in this life and, finally, God took you home, because the Bible says that “to die is gain” and you go to be with the Lord and there is happiness.  It is not complete because you do not have your resurrected body, but what a glorious thing it is to be with the Lord in heaven.  There is no sin there.  There is no evil or wickedness.  Then these theologians are basically dragging the saints out of heaven and placing them back on this sin-cursed earth.  Not only that, but they would take the Lord Jesus Christ and drag Him out of heaven to reign here for “a thousand years.”  What purpose would that serve?  It would serve God no purpose.  It would serve the saints of God in heaven no purpose to be reacquainted with this evil world.  It is just mankind that cannot get this world out of their thoughts – they just cannot let go of this world.  They somehow have to involve this world because the natural mind wants to develop these kinds of doctrines.  Their natural minds do not understand there is deeper spiritual meaning to the Word of God and you cannot take these things literally.  Christ spoke in parables.  Certainly, in the Book of Revelation God gives full warning all over the place not to take things literally and it would just be ridiculous, for example, if you thought a literal beast was going to come up out of the literal sea, and so forth.  There are all kinds of things in the Book of Revelation that should cue you to look for the spiritual aspect or the spiritual meaning, not a literal interpretation.  Even when Christ addressed the churches earlier in the Book of Revelation, He would give the clue phrase, “Let him that hath an ear hear what the spirit sayeth to the churches.”  He was warning people to keep their spiritual ears open for spiritual truth, but theologians and certain churches have developed their end time eschatology and they have “pre-mil” and “post-mil” and “a-mil” doctrines and the latter was probably the closest to truth, but there was much error as they tried to understand things about the end.  But God had said to Daniel, “shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.”  

So at the time of the end, we can now look at these verses and we understand it has nothing to do with reigning on earth for a literal “thousand years.”  That would be the last thing that God would want.  We have come to the end of time and God has revealed many truths and we can read these kinds of verses with understanding.  God’s people understand it is not a literal “thousand years,” but a figurative period of time.  It was that way concerning the period of Satan’s binding and that figurative period passed at the end of the church age.

And when it concerns the souls that live and reign with Christ a “thousand years,” that period of time will never pass.  That particular “thousand years” is for ever and ever.  It is a glorious millennial reign (they are right about that), but it is a glorious reign that goes on and on for eternity.