Revelation Chapter 20
IN THIS LESSON
An angel descends and binds the dragon—Satan—throwing him into the Abyss for a thousand years. But the story doesn’t end there. The dragon returns. Why? If the victory is secure, why the temporary restraint instead of a final defeat? This passage introduces one of the most debated topics in Christian eschatology: the Millennial Kingdom. Is it a literal thousand years? Or a symbolic era of Christ’s reign? What about the “double resurrection”? Should we read these verses literally, symbolically, or something in between? Instead of filing this away as an “exceptional case,” what if we considered what this vision reveals about Christ’s rule, the persistence of evil, and the shape of Christian hope?
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N.T. Wright, Revelation For Everyone (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2011), 166-171.