Then, when the thousand years shall come to an end, the Adversary [Satan] will be released out of his prison, and he will go forth to lead astray the nations that are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them before the battle, of whom the number of them is as the sand of the sea.
Then they went up over the breadth of the earth and encircled the encampment of the holy and the beloved city.
Then fire descended out of the sky and consumed them.
And then the Slanderer [Devil], the one deceiving them, was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where also the beast and the false prophet are, and they will be tormented day and night into the aeons of the aeons.
Revelation 20:7-10
Premillennial
Read in concrete terms, these few verses relay a future time when Satan will be released for a short, intensive period.
Satan Set Free
Satan will successfully foment a final rebellion, a battle involving Gog and Magog, which will be swiftly ended by a supernatural conflagration. Whether the Devil’s activities will interrupt Christ’s reign with the saints, however briefly, is unclear.
God’s purpose in releasing Satan might be as a winnowing device to identify true believers among those born during the Millennium. In fact, “the four corners of the earth” might indicate those remote areas where people groups are the farthest from Jerusalem, the center of Christ’s righteous government. Or, possibly, these will be nations which had, until Satan’s powerful influence was felt, been only outwardly subject to Christ’s reign. Such people will all the while have been secretly yearning to throw off Christ’s authority, but lacked the wherewithal until Satan’s release.
Gog and Magog
Ezekiel 38-39 speaks of these two mysterious figures, coming down from the north to invade Israel at the end of time.
“Therefore, mortal, prophesy and say to Gog: ‘Thus says the Lord God: On that day when my people Israel are living securely, you will rouse yourself and come from your place out of the remotest parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great horde, a mighty army; you will come up against my people Israel like a cloud covering the earth. In the latter days I will bring you against my land, so that the nations may know me, when through you, O Gog, I display my holiness before their eyes.”
Ezekiel 38:14-16(NRSV, emphases added)
Most premillennial expositors place the battle Ezekiel describes early in the time of Tribulation, even before the battle of Armageddon. The conflict above would be a reprise of that earlier rebellion.
Satan’s Assault
John seems to be describing a military installation of Jesus’s army—the holy ones—encamped in a protective posture around God’s beloved city, earthly Jerusalem where Jesus has had his throne for the past ten centuries. The saints are ready for battle! But it is God who deals the blow.
Fire from Heaven
As Ezekiel predicted, God’s fiery wrath pours forth from God’s heavenly domain to scorch the enemy army.
“With pestilence and bloodshed I will enter into judgment with him, and I will pour down torrential rains and hailstones, fire and sulfur upon him and his troops and the many peoples who are with him.”
Ezekiel 38:22 (NRSVUE, emphases added)
God has already dealt with the dangerous creature and the false prophet that accompanied it, having thrown them down into the lake of fire. Now God will deal with Satan, once and for all, casting him also into that same inescapable sea of scalding sulfur, a place of eternal torment.
Amillennial
Commentators recognize there will be a brief and vehement burst of Satanic activity at the very end of the Christian era. Satan’s sway—long dampened by Christ’s rule through the church—will be felt around the globe, corresponding to Paul’s prediction of unrestrained evil prompted by a man of perdition.
2 Thessalonians Fulfilled
“… the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction.
“He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God. Do you not remember that I told you these things when I was still with you? And you know what is now restraining him, so that he may be revealed when his time comes.
“For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but only until the one who now restrains it is removed. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath of his mouth, annihilating him by the manifestation of his coming.
“The coming of the lawless one is apparent in the working of Satan, who uses all power, signs, lying wonders, and every kind of wicked deception for those who are perishing because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion, leading them to believe what is false, so that all who have not believed the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness will be condemned.”
2 Thessalonians 2:3-12 (NRSVUE, emphases added)
Most of the world will turn away from Christianity, becoming enemies of the church and of God, devolving into a pre-Christian state, worshiping anything but Jesus.
Gog and Magog
Amillennial interpreters also see Ezekiel’s prophecy fulfilled, but this final strife occurs before Christ’s Second Coming, not after.
Warfare will be spiritual in nature, but Christians all over the world will experience physical opposition and persecution as did believers in the first centuries of the church. Yet, in their hearts, Christians will encamp around the New Jerusalem to come, the spiritual city that Abraham and all the saints have longed for, an image of the church.
“For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”
Hebrews 11:10 (NRSVUE)
Christ’s Second Coming
Satan’s last stand will be brought to a blazing conclusion at Jesus’s return, again described by Paul.
“… when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in a fiery flame, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
“These will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes to be glorified by his saints and to be marveled at on that day among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.”
2 Thessalonians 1:7-10 (NRSVUE, emphases added)
Peter also described this event, a celestial inferno ignited at God’s command, destroying this present world.
Such total destruction could only come after Christ’s return, or there would have been no earth left for everything John had been describing up to this point.
Lake of Fire
Satan’s final judgement will not be imprisonment, but rather an end Isaiah had prophesied long ago.
“On that day the Lord with his cruel and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will kill the dragon that is in the sea.”
Isaiah 27:1 (NRSV, emphases added)
In quick succession (not separated by a thousand years), the beast, the false prophet, and Satan will be cast into the fire.
Postmillennial
Much in agreement with the amillennial position, scholars see the whole world becoming increasingly Christianized, with righteous governments across the earth, until this last act of Satan’s unbounded dark power gathering “Gog and Magog,” or the prince and the peoples, to a penultimate clash with God.
The Church Embattled
It may be entirely a fight of ideas and philosophy of life. Or, there might be a political element in which the church “circles its wagons,” so to speak, in a final, brilliant stand for truth and virtue. The symbolic fire of zeal for Christ will win the day, though interpreters do not rule out actual flames pouring forth from heaven at the moment of Christ’s re-entry into earth’s physical realm.
The three millennial views are taken from Revelation: Four Views A Parallel Commentary, edited by Steve Gregg
