An Epitaph for Death [part one] ...

Perhaps the most significant thing about the revelation given to John in chapter twenty of his book is its position in both time and venue.  The second coming of Christ to take us home has already occurred.  The seventh item in the series of seven prophecies all throughout this book has been fulfilled (with perhaps one exception, the work of the seventh angel described in the next few verses).  The point simply is that from a human perspective, the most important event to see us reconciled to God has ALREADY occurred.  We are already reunited.  We are already to experience paradise and perfection, finally and fully.  But while we have played the role of “the redeemed” in this great conflict of good versus evil, of love-of-others verses love-of-self, the story is greater than us, it always was.  The final disposition of evil must now occur so that its universal eradication can be complete.

The war being over, God could have ended evil at his second coming event for all time.  But He chooses not to.  He brings to a temporary end the lives of humanity who refused His redemption, but then He delays the final disposition of lost humanity for another 1000 years.  He did not need to do this.  He would have been right to exterminate evil when it first began.  He would have been right to exterminate it again just after it cost Him the life of His only son, as Satan proved just how far evil would sink in killing God.  He would have been right again to exterminate evil forever at His second coming.  But He delayed in all these 3 events.  Why? 

Perhaps because only He would have known for sure that He was right about exterminating evil when Lucifer first refused to trust Him and began the descent into evil.  The rest of the angels and unfallen worlds would not have had the chance to see just how far evil would sink right at that time.  Perhaps because He held out hope that Lucifer might still change His mind, before He actually determined to see Christ killed on the cross of Calvary.  Perhaps He knew only the unfallen universe who had witnessed these events might be sure at Calvary and mankind still unconvinced.  Now, after the second coming, He once again allows more time to pass, so that mankind can see for himself in the aftermath of our world’s history of evil, why those who refused redemption would never change their mind.  Despite His own perfect knowledge of how bad evil is, He allows His creations to see it as well, so that we maintain our freedom of choice, and never repeat the mistakes that led up to the genesis of evil ever again.

John begins in verse one writing … “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.”  The work of the seventh angel now begins.  Our world lays in shambles but there is one whose prison sentence is about to begin.  John continues in verse 2 saying … “And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,”.  Satan is to be bound for a millennia.  He will no longer be free to travel the extents of the universe.  He will be chained to the destruction he has caused.  The effects of the plagues are still upon our world.  This is not a happy place, no beauty remains, everything is in a state of utter destruction.  Verse 3 continues … “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.”

In these verses are described a thousand year prison sentence for Satan and his demonic following throng.  They are to be bound in isolation with each other for 1000 years with no humanity left to torture or deceive.  Fallen mankind will be asleep in death for this 1000 years, only to be raised at its conclusion when Satan will be “loosed for a little season”.  You will again notice the absence of certain common beliefs in what is described here.  First, there is no eternally burning hell where everyone wicked has been thrown into as yet.  Instead, Satan is “alone” in this 1000 year punishment.  Second, Satan himself is not said to be in a state of God imposed flames of physical torture, but instead only constrained in a destroyed world alone with his demons to think about what he has done.  It is a “time out” for evil.  And finally, notice that when fallen mankind dies, their “spirits” or “souls” go nowhere.  They sleep the sleep of death for this period of time, they exist in no other plain of existence where they might continue to be deceived or otherwise tortured by Satan at all.

The events described by John in just these few texts again put an end to our ideas about an eternal hell that has always been in existence where Satan resides comfortably, and fallen mankind enters at the moment of their death to be tortured forever as disembodied souls.  Dead fallen men sleep just like dead righteous ones, without memory, without a continuance to another form of existence.  For what God said to Adam was true, we are not immortal, and we do not live forever in any state, we die.  It is God alone who can create us, raise us, give us life and make it last eternally.  Death is a state of non-existence, similar to sleep in that the passage of time and events happens without any awareness on our part.  The fire that will finally consume evil and for that matter death itself, is YET to come.  These events occur BEFORE that final ending.  If Satan were to be ruling in hell (as commonly believed), his numerous souls would serve as an eternal kingdom for him to delight in their deception and torture forever.  This makes both Satan, evil, and humanity effectively immortal.  These ideas are simply not supported in these passages revealed to John by Christ.

Next, consider the state of fallen mankind when they are finally raised from their tombs at the end of the 1000 year sentence on Satan.  There is no promise of perfection for those who have refused it their entire lives.  They do not come out of their graves to a welcoming Lord, but rather in the same condition they went into their graves with.  They are still sick, still perverted, still evil, still clinging to the same thoughts and actions that were occurring right before their death.  They are also raised into a fully destroyed world.  There are no mansions to greet them.  There is only their leader, who they have surrendered to, Satan who at this point needs soldiers most of all.  He works his deceptions once again, and uses his supernatural powers to heal the wounds and weaknesses in the soldiers he will need to fight against God for one final battle.  His numbers and ranks will be fully resupplied with this fresh crop of recruits.  He need only convince them, there is hope in a united mankind in opposing the will of God.

But that scene is still forthcoming as John takes us back to the start of the millennia in verse 4 writing … “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.”  The redeemed live and reign with Christ for a thousand years.  The books of life and death are opened, the seals having been broken by the Lamb of God.  Judgment occurs.  Not the judgment of God, for that was already completed.  Now it is up to perfect mankind to verify the perfect attempts of God for the redemption of those who steadfastly refused to accept it.

Our God allows 1000 years for us to review His work in the lives of those who we loved, and are not there in the kingdom with us.  And so begins a terrible realization; we were the tools of God to be used in the salvation of others.  And it is we who SO often did not love as we should have.  We did not value the souls of others as highly as we should have, and in our sinful selfish state, we have been a cause in their downfall.  So many opportunities to save them squandered on the altar of our self-love, and selfish motives.  God had to use other means to reach these lost souls, because of our refusal to be a part of their redemption, finding ourselves too busy to help out.  How many lost souls will have heard nothing but the voice of condemnation from us in the quest to save them?  How many of us mistakenly thought that calling sin by its right name was more important than bringing the wounded sinner to the Savior who longs to heal that pain?  How much hate speech will we have carried only to see now where hate of any kind leads.

But despite our own responsibility and culpability in the loss of those we loved, God did not let our inadequacy cause the loss of one He so loved.  His efforts to reach the lost remain perfect, and the most that anyone could have ever done.  Our lack of participation stands only to us as an opportunity forever lost to us.  We have lost the opportunity to serve in the most important work of all time, the redemption of souls.  We lose this because of our refusal to submit to Him in full.  We bring our own ideas about salvation to the lost, and instead of achieving redemption, we drive them further into the despair of pain and sin, providing no way of escape, choosing rather to point out their pain and publicly make it worse for them.  Such are the results of a judgmental gospel.  The realization of what we have done, and the effects of it on others, will now overwhelm those who have perfected hearts, and know what it truly means to love others.  The work of God to perfect how we love, now threatens to shatter us in the realization of how our selfishness caused so much pain.  It is here where God must wipe away the tears from our eyes.

John continues in verse 5 … “But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. [verse 6] Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.”  Here John makes a distinction between the righteous who are raised from the dead at the “first” resurrection, and the wicked who are raised at the end of the thousand years.  Those who come out of their graves to the arms of a welcoming Lord, are brought out in a state of perfection, and will never taste death again.  Life will be the only state of being they know from that point on.  Death is a thing of the past for righteous ones who emerge from their graves to see the face of Jesus.  They are to be priests of God and Christ, taking their place in reviewing the judgment of the wicked over this thousand year period.  However those raised in the second resurrection, the one for the wicked dead, they are to be destined to experience the “second death” – a death or state of non-existence that is eternal in nature.

The epitaph for Death is begun but not quite yet ended as our study will continue in part two …