Monday • 11/15/2021

Monday of the Twenty-fifth Week After Pentecost (Proper 28)

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 89; 1 Maccabees 3:1–24; Revelation 20:7–15; Matthew 17:1–13

More on Revelation 20:1–10 from 12/21/2020 at https://tinyurl.com/ykprytyz

More on Revelation 20:11–21:8 from 12/22/2020 at https://tinyurl.com/w98nee47

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2–6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)

Revelation. The first half of Revelation 20 (Saturday’s reading) is one of the most debated passages in the New Testament. I share my considered conclusions, and they are based largely on two observations. The first has to do with the image of “binding Satan,” the second is prompted by John’s explanation that the binding has the effect that Satan “would deceive the nations no more” for a thousand years. 

Binding. Over time as I’ve wrestled with the New Testament as a whole, I’ve come to see the “binding” (and the throwing of Satan into a pit, locking him in it, and sealing it over him) as a way of describing what Christ accomplished during his earthly ministry. Jesus, in fact, specifically says he has the power to exorcise demons because he has first “bound” the strong man: “But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.” (Mark 3:27 ESV). That “binding” began when Jesus defeated the tempter in the wilderness (Matthew 4; Luke 4). Miracle after miracle following that wilderness encounter demonstrated the loosening of Satan’s grip on people’s lives. On the cross, Jesus broke the back of Satan’s power. No longer was the devil able to condemn; no longer was death a fear to those who trust Christ. 

What John calls “binding, throwing, locking, and sealing,” the apostle Paul calls “erasing, setting aside, nailing to the cross, disarming, making a public example, and triumphing over.” Paul describes the dynamic of Christ “erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2:14–15). The writer to the Hebrews says that this breaking of Satan’s power over sinners is why Jesus became a man: “…so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14b–15). 

1,000 years of gospel progress. The thousand years of that “binding,” I believe, symbolize the entire era in which the gospel goes to the nations. In John’s vision the binding has one purpose: to prevent Satan from keeping people from hearing that good news and bending the knee to King Jesus. This era is at one and the same time a “short” period of suffering and persecution for the church (the three and a half years of Revelation 11:2,3; 12:6,13:5), and it is also a “long” period of the church seeing countless numbers of people being, as Jesus put it to Paul, turned “from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:18). It’s a season in which sinners enslaved by evil are “rescued…from the power of darkness and transferred…into the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13b–14). 

Satan’s last power grab. The sobering thing is that before heaven and earth become one, and before all evil is vanquished for good, there lies ahead one last conflagration. Shortly before Christ returns, Satan will be let loose to do his worst: “When the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and will come out to deceive the nations…” (Revelation 20:7–8a). The parallel passages in Revelation (especially 6:12–17; 11:5–18; 14:14–20; 16:14–21; 19:19–21) suggest the horrific nature of those events to come. Satan, the personification of evil, will mount one last battle against the Church (all these passages are referring to that battle: 16:14; 19:19; 20:8). Even leashed as he is now, Peter likens him to a roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8). We know he is mortally wounded; and when he is unleashed, his desperate raging promises to be terrible. 

The good news is that with one blast of his mouth, Jesus will end it at his glorious return: “From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations … the rest were killed by the sword of the rider on the horse, the sword that came from his mouth” (Revelation 19:16,21). The unholy trinity of Beast, Antichrist, and false prophet go into “the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:10). From his “great white throne” God will bring justice to an earth that has been morally askew since the Garden of Eden. Resurrection, the settling of all accounts, and the making new of all things will follow directly. Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Shutterstock, used with permission.