Beast, False Prophet, and the Lake of Fire
By A. Smith
A. SMITH: We do not understand that the wicked at the end of the thousand years will be distinguished into nationalities, but are spoken of under the general terms Gog and Magog. The time when the beast and false prophet are cast alive into the lake of fire, Rev. 19:20, is therefore at the commencement of the thousand years, when as distinct power or nationalities they are destroyed. And this destruction is called a lake of fire because it is similar to the judgment inflicted at the end of the thousand years, and accomplished largely by the same means. This judgment ceasing in the destruction of the wicked, the lake of fire exists no more till the end of the thousand years, when a repetition of the judgments on the grand scale of the destruction of all the resurrected wicked, revives the name, and produces a scene which above all others may be called the lake of fire. In Rev. 20:10, the word, are, is a supplied word. The sense is, “were cast,” instead of “are.” Then the text would read, “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and false prophet were cast; and they shall be tormented day and night forever and ever.” That is, the devil and all his followers now suffer an eternal destruction such as was visited temporarily upon the beast and false prophet at the commencement of the thousand years. They are cast into such a lake of fire as the beast and false prophet “were cast” into a thousand years before.