Question Corner | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, Cal. · Apr 2, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 14.

Question Corner.

"Enquire, and make search, and ask diligently."

No. 289. Binding and Loosing of Satan.

PLEASE explain verses 3 and 8 of Revelation 20? J. H. Cox.

Verse 3, in connection with verses 1 and 2, declares that a mighty angel of God lays hold of the devil, casts him into the bottomless pit, shuts him up, and sets a seal upon him for a thousand years, that he might not deceive the nations during this period. After that he is loosed a little season. The word rendered bottomless pit is from the Greek word abussos, rendered in the Revised Version abyss. It is the same word which in the Septuagint stands for the word "deep" in Gen. 1:2. It there refers to the chaotic, void, empty condition of the earth before the creation of man. In Rev. 20:3 it refers to the earth when it is reduced to that condition again, void of human life. See Jer. 4:23. The same word, abussos, occurs in Luke 8:31, where the demons besought Christ that he would not consign them to the deep. At the beginning of the thousand years, at Christ's second coming, the righteous dead are raised, the righteous living changed, and taken to the mansions above (1 Cor. 15:51-54; 1 Thess. 4:16, 17; Rev. 20:5, 6; John 14:1-3; Rev. 14:1-3; 19:1), while the wicked are all destroyed by Christ's presence (Rev. 19:21; 2 Thess. 2:8; Isa. 24:1-3, 21, 22). Upon this desolate earth, keeping its Sabbath, which man refused it, for 1,000 years, Satan and his angels will be confined. During this time he can not work to deceive the righteous, or inhabitants of other worlds, for they are far removed, and the wicked are all dead. At the end of the 1,000 years the wicked dead are raised, and Satan is again given opportunity to ply his arts of deception all over the earth, among the wicked of all generations. This is shown in Rev. 20:8. Then will be demonstrated what the books of heaven have already revealed,—that man of himself, given a "second probation," would reject Christ and rebel against God.