"Let the Revelation speak and tell what is truth. . . . Uplift Jesus as the center of all hope."
XLIV. The Final Judgment
EVERYTHING in this world looks to an end. No one begins a work but he thinks of the end of that work. No one begins a career but he has some thoughts of the end of the career. He who sows the field, sows in view of the harvest; and these are lessons which God uses to point us forward to the great judgment-day. The Scriptures ever look forward to the judgment. The duty of man is not made to rest upon what men may think, or what men may declare, or upon what men may demand or judge; but the great, final judgment must be kept in view. Therefore the wise man, in summing up the whole duty of man, carries us on to the judgment: "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." Eccl. 12: 13, 14. And the same thought is echoed by a New Testament writer: "So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty." James 2: 12.
It is well for us to regard the feelings of others; it is well that we shall question how our conduct will affect them; but it is never well to compromise duty, whatever men may think. It is always well to keep in mind the great standard which God has given, and that we must meet that standard before the bar of Heaven.
Our chapter for the week deals with the judgment. There is another very prominent thought in connection with the chapter, and that, tho hidden, will appear evident if we will but study it; and that thought is the Sabbath idea. God has impressed His Sabbath law upon us in many places of the Scripture. Before man sinned, the Sabbath law was in evidence. God formed the week; the crowning day of the week was the Sabbath. When His people became largely one nation, they were not only made custodians of a weekly Sabbath, but their land itself must keep the sabbath. Every seven years was a sabbath. The land must be neither tilled nor sown. When the nation utterly disregarded God's Sabbath for 490 years, their country and city were desolated for seventy years during Israel's captivity, that the land might enjoy her sabbaths. See 2 Chron. 36: 17-21. "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof;" but man, the highest work of creation, has listened to the deceiver, has turned from God the Creator, has trampled God's great memorial worship day, for man's good, underfoot. The earth has not known God's Sabbath, so the seventh millennium of this earth's existence under sin is to be a sabbath for the earth. The earth is to be desolated. It shall not be tilled, nor sown, nor reaped by man. This will appear as we study the text. We will see the antitype of the Sabbath law in the desolated earth.
The Answer of the Text
1. With what particular vision does the chapter open?
And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. Rev. 20: 1. Note 1.
2. What did this angel do?
And he laid hold on the dragon, the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and cast him into the abyss, and shut it, and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years should be finished: after this he must be loosed for a little time. Verses 2, 3. Note 2.
3. What new vision was given to John?
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the Word of God, and such as worshiped not the beast, neither his image, and received not the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand; and they lived, and reigned with Christ a thousand years. Verse 4. Note 3.
4. What is this salvation called?
The rest of the dead lived not until the thousand years should be finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: over these the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years. Verses 5, 6. Note 4.
5. What work does Satan do at the close of the thousand years?
And when the thousand years are finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall come forth to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the war: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. Verses 7, 8. Note 5.
6. What is the result of the great battle?
And they went up over the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where are also the beast and the false prophet; and they shall be tormented day and night forever and ever. Verses 9, 10. Note 6.
7. What is the result of the judgment?
And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne; and books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life: and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it; and death and hades gave up the dead that were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, even the lake of fire. And if any was not found written in the Book of Life, he was cast into the lake of fire. Verses 11-15. Note 7.
Note and Comment
1. AN ANGEL.—One of God's mighty messengers, who comes down out of heaven to execute a part of God's will concerning Satan, bringing mighty power to bear upon conditions in earth. An angel flying THROUGH heaven simply means the carrying of God's message; coming DOWN FROM heaven brings mighty power to bear upon the earth. The "abyss," rendered in the common version "the bottomless pit," is simply the transferred Greek word "abussos," meaning a void, or empty, place. It is the term which the Septuagint uses to translate the Hebrew word
rendered "deep" in our common version, in Gen. 1: 2: "And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the DEEP." It is to that condition that sin will bring the earth again—a formless, chaotic condition, the result of perverted law. To this Jeremiah refers: "I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was WASTE AND VOID; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved to and fro. I beheld, and, lo, there was NO MAN, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful field was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of Jehovah, and before His fierce anger." Jer. 4: 23-26.
Isaiah also points forward to the desolation of this earth because of sin: "Behold, Jehovah maketh the EARTH EMPTY, AND MAKETH IT WASTE, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof. . . . The earth shall be UTTERLY EMPTIED, and UTTERLY LAID WASTE; for Jehovah hath spoken this word." Isa. 24: 1-3. The prophet also gives the reason of this: "The earth also is polluted under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth." Verses 5, 6. This same desolation was indicated in the previous chapter of our studies. After the great battle of Armageddon, which will utterly destroy the antagonistic systems of the earth, we read, "The rest were killed with the sword of Him that sat upon the horse." That is, the blazing glory of God when it shall be manifest in the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Word, will slay with the glory of His presence all who are identified with sin. And this mighty angel which John sees, holds the key of this desolate earth.
2. LAID HOLD.—He has an object with his key and his chain. The one who has desolated the earth and who has been the author of all its trouble is Satan, the old serpent, the devil, the adversary of God, of whom Isaiah declared that he was the one who made the earth to tremble: "That made the world as a wilderness, and overthrew the cities thereof; that let not loose his prisoners to their home." See Isa. 14: 12-17.
The devil, we read in Heb. 2: 14, is the one who has power over death, who has, through sin, locked the human family in the sepulchers of the ages. He not only let them not loose; he has no power to let them loose. Now he is for a thousand years to be confined to the earth which sin has desolated, there to see his work, not only for his just punishment, but as a lesson to the very universe itself. What is implied by shutting him up and sealing it over him, we can not say. This we do know; that God has means of confining intelligences, of which we know nothing. He can build invisible walls around a person, that no power of humanity can break through, and yet humanity may not see the wall. So God confines to this desolate earth Satan, and he and his angels have no power to leave it. He will deceive the nations no more during this time, for two reasons: The righteous, we have learned before, are in heaven. They are taken there when our Lord Jesus Christ comes. They begin their eternal reign in that New Jerusalem, the mansions which Christ has prepared7for them according to His promise in John 14: 1-3. The wicked are dead. They have been slain through the wars of Armageddon, and by the glory of Christ's presence when He comes. There are no nations for him to deceive, but his work is not over. It is worthy of note that Satan's first casting down was by God the Father (2 Peter 2: 4); his second, by our Lord Jesus Christ (Rev. 12: 7-10); his third, by an angel (Rev. 20: 2); at his destruction he will meet the common doom of sinners.
3. "I SAW THRONES."—The throne implies reigning. God's children who have been oppressed through all the ages now reign. They sit upon the thrones. Judgment is given to them. It had been promised before: "Wherefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come." 1 Cor. 4: 5. Then men will be able to discern right judgment. "Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world?" "Know ye not that we shall judge angels?" 1 Cor. 6: 2, 3. The time has now come when God's children will sit in judgment with Him, when there will be brought before them all the records of all earth's sad career. Mention is made among those who have especially suffered, of the souls, the persons, of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, for the Word of God—such as worship not the beast. This includes the whole beast-system—not simply his manifestation down in the last days, but the beast-system back through all the ages. All will be there, as well as those who have not worshiped the beast in his later phase, nor worshiped his image, nor received his mark. All the good of all the ages live and reign with Christ a thousand years; but these classes are especially mentioned as those who went down under the opprobrium and condemnation of the world, those for whom earth never had a home, those who were cast out for Christ's sake. They suffered with Him; they now reign with Him.
4. THE REST OF THE DEAD.—That is, those who are not reigning with Christ. "The rest of the dead lived not until the thousand years should be finished." Of those who do live it is written, "This is the first resurrection." There is no ONE general resurrection; there are two great general resurrections. It is not this scripture alone which points them out, but others as well. For instance, Jesus declares in John 5: 28, 29, "Marvel not at this: for the hour cometh, in which all that are in the tombs shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment." And the apostle Paul, in Acts 24: 15, declares that "there shall be a resurrection both of the just and unjust." The first resurrection is of the just, the resurrection to life. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in that resurrection. It was the promise of that resurrection that cheered God's children,—the psalmist, Isaiah, Hosea, Daniel. It is of that resurrection that Jesus declares, to the faithful, "And thou shalt be recompensed in the resurrection of the just," and which He calls "the resurrection from the dead"—literally, "the resurrection out from among the dead ones." Luke 20: 35. Some of the dead will sleep on; some of them will arise. For that first resurrection the apostle Paul longed: "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death; if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead," or "out from among the dead." Phil. 3: 10, 11. Those who reign with Christ the thousand years, are those that have had part in the first resurrection.
THE SECOND DEATH.—The second implies a similar first. It is said sometimes that the second death is "a death that never dies"—an utterly incongruous thing. There could not be two deaths which never die, or two eternal deaths; and the only logical, reasonable conclusion to which one can come is that by a first and a second death is meant simply death. The first death becomes first death only because from it there is a resurrection; and the second death becomes eternal because from it there is no resurrection. It is the total finality of sin. And that second death, the finality of sin, has no power over those who have taken part in the first resurrection. There is no power of death over the sinless. Those who sleep in Christ, died because of Adam's sin. But in their own characters they have been invested with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. He died to save us from death; but He had no sin in His own character, and therefore death could not hold Him. Acts 2: 24. Therefore all those who sleep with the righteousness of Christ upon them will come forth in that first resurrection, and upon such the second death has no power. They are among those who are priests of God and of Christ, and reign with Him a thousand years.
5. SATAN SHALL BE LOOSED.—We already learned of this in verse 3. The shackles will be taken from him. The souls whom he deceived, who went down in death identified with sin, shall be raised again. From one end of the earth to the other, all the multitudes of the past, Satan's lawful captives, shall be brought back again. He "loosed not his prisoners;" God will loose them. According to the promise of the prophecy of Isa. 24: 21, 22, "It shall come to pass in that day, that Jehovah will punish the host of the high ones on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth. And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and they shall be shut up in the prison; and after many days they shall be visited." And they have been in the prison during the thousand years of earth's desolation. The "many days" of Isaiah are the thousand years of John. God visits them again, calls them out of their prison-house, and the multitude stand once more upon the earth. And Satan goes out to deceive them, and does deceive them. He gathers them into a great and mighty army, leads them to believe that there is victory before them, and it may be that he, in his own deceived heart, will feel that with such an army as that there is victory for him. He has all the mighty generals of the past—Alexander and Hannibal and Caesar and Napoleon. And all the others who have been under his power in the past will stand before him again. It will not be the work of a few days, or a few years, to marshal and train and equip this army. Weapons will have to be forged. Munitions of war will have to be provided; hellish engines such as earth has never known, will be devised and constructed, in order that God's army may be conquered, and the holy city, which will come down from heaven upon the earth, shall be taken. Is that period after the 1,000 years 100 years? See Isa. 65: 20.
It may be asked, Why, if the wicked had met their doom, should they be called to live again, and Satan be allowed to deceive them again? Some ask, "Does God delight in visiting punishment upon the wicked?" No, He does not; He has given us His own word for that: "As I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live." Eze. 33: 11. But there is a great lie to be met, and this lie will be met effectively and for all eternity. Men have declared through all the ages that man is able to save himself. Men are declaring to-day that man is essentially divine; that he has within himself that power of divinity which is able to save him from sin, and all that is needed is effort and will—evolution. Men have declared that man is essentially good; that of himself, if right conditions prevailed, he would seek God. The resurrection of the wicked dead, their recall to life by the hand of the Lord, ought, if there is within them what we have been told, to call forth gratitude on their part and lead them to seek God. But instead of that, they yield to the essentially selfish deceptions of the enemy, and are again swept away by his seductive wiles, always and forever based on selfishness, always and forever appealing to the selfish passions of the human heart. Their very yielding to the power of Satan demonstrates the truth of the Gospel that no one can come to Christ except the Father draw him; that no one has power to save himself; that in no natural, sinful heart dwells the divine immanency; that salvation is possible only as Christ is received by faith.
6. AND THEY WENT UP.—He gathers together his army from the breadth of the earth, and compasses the camp of the saints and the beloved city. Zechariah has given us light upon this question. He tells us that in that great, awful day of God, Christ shall descend from heaven, that He shall come and fight against those nations as when He fought in the day of battle. "And His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives shall be cleft in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south." The very touch of the feet of Christ purifies that part of the earth; and upon that part of the earth where Christ yielded His life, the New Jerusalem, the beloved city, the capital of His glorious kingdom, where the saints have been for a thousand years, will descend. And the camp of the saints is round about that city. Satan thinks it an easy capture. He looks upon the saints, and believes that they can be conquered. He surrounds it, and gives his order to advance upon it; but fire comes down out of heaven and devours them. The glory of God's presence consumes them. And the devil, that deceived them, was cast into a lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet were cast. The verb "are" in the text is not expressed in the Greek. The ellipsis should be supplied by "were cast," that is, at the beginning of the 1,000 years. All systems of men will be thus destroyed, Satan and his individual followers at the close of that period. By the destruction of the antagonistic systems of the earth at the beginning of the thousand years, God gave us a sample of what it would be at the end of the thousand years; and as the beast and the false prophet were destroyed at the beginning of the thousand years, so will Satan and all of his minions be destroyed at the end of the thousand years.
TORMENTED DAY AND NIGHT.—The word "tormented" comes from "basanos." (See note on Rev. 14: 11.) The root idea of the Greek word means tested. In the last analysis, the testing shall be by fire. "For the day shall declare it, because it is revealed by fire; and the fire itself shall prove each man's work of what sort it is." The whole earth will be converted into a lake of fire. "But the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men." 2 Peter 3: 7. Upon that sea will rest, unharmed, undisturbed, the city of God, with all His children. They will answer in fact, in demonstration, the question asked by Isaiah (33: 14, 15) long centuries before: "Who among us can dwell with the devouring fire? who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?" and he answers that question, "He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from taking a bribe, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from looking upon evil," holy characters, those upon whom God's righteousness rests. These shall dwell in the devouring of fire until it has utterly consumed sin and all8identified with sin, even as the three Hebrew children could stay in the fiery furnace because there was with them "the form of the Fourth" (Dan. 3: 19-27). And this is God's prophecy concerning the city at this time: "Whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall because of thee. . . . No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn." The mad hosts that are deceived by Satan to destroy even the heritage of God, meet the last great fiery test, and are destroyed forever, "utterly burned with fire."
7. THE GREAT WHITE THRONE.—We are carried back a little by this passage to the beginning of the judgment, the time when the records came before God, when the dead—the great and the small—represented in the records of the books stand before Him. God does not need these records, but His children do. He is not only going to manifest His justice against sin, not only going to give His reward of righteousness, but He is going to open the books kept by angel scribes of all the generations of men, that all His children may see and know that He has wrought justice. In that Book of Life are registered the names of all those that are His. See Phil. 4: 3 and Luke 10: 20. In that Book of Life are the names of those who have overcome, who shall not be hurt of the second death; and the remainder, those whose names are in the record books, who have failed of life, shall be judged out of the things which are written in the books. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it; and death and hades, the grave, the abode of the dead, gave up the dead that were in them; and every man is judged according to his works not only in the sentence which is meted out, but in the final execution as well, when all shall go down in death, under the great fiery test. This is the second death, even the lake of fire; and all not found written in the Book of Life are cast into the lake of fire. But mark especially, that lake of fire is not a perpetually burning affair; it issues in the second death, and that is not dying which is not consummated in death, cessation of existence. So we read in the 16th verse of Obadiah, that the wicked "shall be as tho they had not been." So we read of Satan in Eze. 28: 18, "I have turned thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee;" and in verse 19, "Thou shalt nevermore have any being." Malachi declares (4: 1) that they shall be burned up, root and branch. It is utterly out of harmony with God's plan to have an ever-burning hell marring the glory of His universe. The end of sin is destruction.
We have already learned from chapter 5 that there will come a time when every voice in heaven, in earth, everywhere in God's creation, shall be singing praise to Him. That will be after sin has been destroyed. Then, too, the wicked are not punished for sins which they are committing eternally, but for the things done in the body, for the deeds they have committed here upon the earth. He would be a monster of cruelty indeed that would inflict untold ages of pain and misery upon one who had just sinned away his day of grace; and God is not a monster. Those who have had little sin, who have barely yielded themselves and identified themselves with Satan, will pass away with no more suffering than is proportioned to their sin. They will receive the wages of sin—death. But those who have been mighty sinners before God, will receive the greater punishment; and Satan, the greatest of all. But after it all, God will have a clean universe. His plan will be met, His purpose will be carried out in all its fulness. Those who have taken themselves outside of His purpose will die, and those who are within His purpose shall partake of all the benefits and blessings of that purpose forevermore.
