Revelation 20:1 - Printer Friendly

ESV: Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain.

NIV: And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain.

NASB: Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand.

CSB: Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven holding the key to the abyss and a great chain in his hand.

NLT: Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven with the key to the bottomless pit and a heavy chain in his hand.

KJV: And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.

NKJV: Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.

Satan, also called the Devil, rebelled against God before the dawn of human history (Isaiah 14:12–15). Since then he has opposed God and God's people with cunning and persistence. Revelation 16:13–16 reports that he stirs up international armies to thwart God's purpose for mankind. But after the Lord destroys the massive armies that war against him and casts the beast and the false prophet into the lake of fire, the Devil is incarcerated.

If Satan were allowed to continue his wicked activity, the reign of Christ on the earth would not enjoy peace and righteousness. We read, therefore, that an angel descends from heaven, holding the key to the bottomless pit and a huge chain. The intent, as we learn in the next verse, is to incarcerate the Devil. We do not know whether the chain is figurative or literal, but we know it is effective, and the Devil is about to feel its strength.

Some wonder why God would not choose to cast Satan into the lake of fire immediately, rather than hold him for a thousand years before being released. Most likely, this is part of God's "message" as seen in Revelation. Even after a millennium of goodness and justice, human beings will still choose to reject God and follow Satan. The claim that mankind would follow God "if only" He did something more to win them is a myth, which events in the end times explicitly disprove.

Revelation 20:1–3 describes the Devil's punishment, following the doom of the Antichrist and the False Prophet we read about in Revelation 19:20–21. Satan is enclosed in the bottomless pit, to be released at the end of a thousand years. Matthew 24:29–31 reports the coming of Christ at the end of the tribulation, and Matthew 25:31–46 describes the judgment of the nations that takes place when Jesus inaugurates His kingdom on earth.

Revelation chapter 20 represents the final lesson, final judgment, and final victory of the end times. Satan is bound, but not destroyed, and released after a thousand years of peace and righteousness. Proving that no evidence or reason to believe in and follow Jesus is enough for those determined to rebel, some follow Satan and are destroyed in a rebellion. Those who died without faith in Christ, through all of history, are resurrected to face the great white throne judgment. There, they are sentenced for sin and consigned eternally to the lake of fire.

This chapter comes between the account of our Lord's decisive victory at Armageddon and the descent of the New Jerusalem from heaven to earth. It focuses on the beginning of Jesus' reign on the earth and the great white throne judgment when unbelievers from all periods of history are judged and sentenced to eternal suffering in the lake of fire. Daniel 7:18, Isaiah 11, Joel 3:16–21, Obadiah 1:21, and Micah 4:2 are just a few of the Old Testament references to the reign of Jesus on the earth. After this point in the end times, evil has been entirely and completely defeated.

The word ''revelation'' means ''an unveiling or disclosure.'' This writing unveils future events such as the rapture, three series of judgments that will fall on the earth during the tribulation, the emergence of the Antichrist, the persecution of Israel and her amazing revival, as well as Jesus' second coming with His saints to the earth, the judgment of Satan and his followers, and finally, the eternal state. This content, combined with the original Greek term apokalypsis, is why we now refer to an end-of-the-world scenario as ''an apocalypse.''