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Revelation 20: 7-8, An Amillennialist Problem
Posted : 26 Jun, 2011 07:38 AM
Revelation 20: 7-8, An Amillennialist Problem
When the Catholic, Calvinist and orthodox Lutheran amillennialists allegorize away Revelation 20: 1-8, there is some information in those verses that is lost, especially Revelation 20: 7-8. "And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison. and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea."
If, as the amillennialists say, the thousand years is an allegory for the entire period from the Cross until the appearing of Christ, then Satan would be released at the end of that period.
Or maybe an amillennialist would just ignore Revelation 20: 7-8.
There is a kind of abstract formula in scripture that would predict that Satan might be released at some point. Revelation 17: 11: "And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition."
Man was created on the sixth day (Genesis 1: 26, 2:2), and the number of man in Revelation 13: 18 is said to be 666, or 6 repeated three times. Genesis 2: 2-3 says "And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." And so the seventh day of the week, which is Saturday, was to be a day of rest in the Lord for man. Sunday is the first day of the week. Or, maybe it can be considered to to the the "eighth" day.
Hebrews 4: 3-4 says "For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works."
Number seven is being in God's rest. This does not get into a Harold Camping kind of complex numerology. Its there in scripture.
The kingdoms in Daniel 2: are Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome, and the kingdom of Egypt and the Assyrian Kingdom make this list add up to six kingdoms. In Daniel 2: 44 a seventh kingdom arises during the Roman Empire, the kingdom of God.
Being in God is being in number seven. But man, not being content to stay in God as number seven, moved into number eight, which is a mingling of the Kingdom of God with the kingdom of man.
We can then see that Talmudic Judaism moved from number seven to number eight. Roman Catholicism moved from the early church period, number seven, to number eight, a mix of man's religion, or pagan religion, with the kingdom of God. Protestant dispensationalism is doing the same thing, but going back to Judaism rather than Catholicism in this process of moving out of number seven to number eight.
The six, seven, eight cycle shown in Revelation 17: 11 can apply to Satan, who was, is not, and comes back. Satan is not during the thousand year reign of Christ, but then he is released and he is again. We have to have faith that he will be done away with permanently later.
I don't think the statement in Revelation 20: 7-8 that Satan will be released can be simply ignored. It has a meaning that must be considered.
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