The binding of Satan in Revelation 20\u00a0has always been\u00a0a major issue of debate between premillennialists and amillennialists.\u00a0 Premillennialists, like me, insist on the chronological nature of chapters 19-20. So the second coming of Christ in Revelation 19 precedes the 1000 years of Revelation 20.\u00a0 Amillennialists, many of them following the Augustinian recapitulation view of the literary structure of the book of Revelation, argue that Revelation 20 begins over again with a discussion of the present age.\u00a0 Hence, the 1000 years (as an indefinite period of time) describes the present or Church age.\u00a0 This means that the binding of Satan described in Revelation 20 is happening now at the present time.<\/p>\n
Consequently, there is a debate between premillennialists and amillennialists over the activity of Satan during the present time.\u00a0 For example, in the excellent book (in my view) Competent to Counsel<\/em> by Jay Adams, he honestly affirms that, because he is an amillennialist, he does not recognize demon possession when he counsels people.\u00a0 Now, his views as well as others, always get qualified in later writings or expressions, but the sentiment is generally a limitation of Satan’s activity in the present age.<\/p>\n The overall thrust of amillennial presentations tend to try to identify what the scope of the binding of Satan happens to be.\u00a0 Revelation 20:3 asserts that Satan is bound “so that he should not deceive the nations any longer.”\u00a0 Amillennialists will often say that Satan is active against church believers today (e.g., 1 Peter 5:8), but that the devil has limitations in deceiving unbelievers or the nations.\u00a0 Premillennialists often respond\u00a0by pointing out examples such as Acts 13:8-10\u00a0where Paul encounters Elymas the magician.\u00a0\u00a0Elymas\u00a0apparently is deceived as an unbeliever.\u00a0 Indeed, in 2 Cor. 4:3-4 Satan appears to be the one blinding or deceiving the minds of unbelievers relative to Christ.<\/p>\n Even\u00a0amillennialist Sam Storms mentions\u00a02 Cor. 4:4 as a passage that seems to assert some demonic force in the world at the present time (Kingdom Come, p. 271).\u00a0 However, later Storms notes:\u00a0 \u00a0“In other words, it is the influence of the Church, as a result of the universal preaching of the gospel, which inhibits the activity of Satan in this particular regard.\u00a0 Though Satan still blinds the minds of the unbelieving (2 Cor. 4:4), he is providentially restricted from hindering the pervasive expansion of the gospel throughout the world.\u00a0 Satan may win an occasional battle, but the war belongs to Christ! (Kingdom Come<\/em>, p. 442).<\/p>\n However, this kind of reasoning will never satisfy the premillennialist.\u00a0 Revelation 20 says that Satan does no deceiving at all during the 1000 years.\u00a0 Allowing him to still blind the minds of unbelievers in the nations seems to be a contradiction.\u00a0 Revelation 20 seems to assert a total absence of Satan deceiving the nations.\u00a0 Storms’ presentation seems to be an attempt to have his cake and eat it too — a kind of halfway position that allows him to go any direction.\u00a0 The text in Revelation 20 is stronger than he wants.\u00a0 Premillennialists will forever remain unconvinced of his logic.\u00a0 Satan cannot win an occasional battle while not deceiving the nations any longer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The binding of Satan in Revelation 20\u00a0has always been\u00a0a major issue of debate between premillennialists and amillennialists.\u00a0 Premillennialists, like me, insist on the chronological nature of chapters 19-20. So the second coming of Christ in Revelation 19 precedes the 1000 years of Revelation 20.\u00a0 Amillennialists, many of them following the Augustinian recapitulation view of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,54,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1398"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1400,"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398\/revisions\/1400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}