📖 Revelation Intensive — Unit 11: The Return of Christ, the Millennium, and Judgment

Text: Revelation 19-20

Heaven's Hallelujahs and the Marriage of the Lamb

The fall of Babylon gives way to rejoicing in heaven. A great multitude cries, "Alleluia! Salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God! For true and righteous are His judgments" (Revelation 19:1-2). Four times in these verses heaven sings "Alleluia," a word found nowhere else in the New Testament, and the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fall down and worship. Then a voice declares the great turning point: "Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready" (Revelation 19:6-7). The bride is the church, and she is arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, "for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints" (Revelation 19:8). A blessing is pronounced: "Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb" (Revelation 19:9). When John falls to worship the angel who shows him these things, the angel forbids it, saying, "Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy" (Revelation 19:10).

The Rider on the White Horse

Now heaven itself is opened, and John sees the returning Christ in glory. A white horse appears, "and He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war" (Revelation 19:11). His eyes are like a flame of fire, on His head are many crowns, and He bears a name no one knew but Himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and "His name is called The Word of God" (Revelation 19:13). The armies of heaven follow Him on white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of His mouth goes a sharp sword to strike the nations, and He treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And on His robe and on His thigh is written a name: "KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS" (Revelation 19:16). This is no longer the Lamb led to slaughter, but the conquering King returning in power. The same Jesus who came once in humility now comes in glory to judge the world in righteousness, and no power on earth can stand before Him.

The Beast and the False Prophet Defeated

An angel standing in the sun calls all the birds to gather "for the supper of the great God" (Revelation 19:17), a grim reversal of the marriage supper of the Lamb, to eat the flesh of kings and captains and mighty men. Then John sees the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together "to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army" (Revelation 19:19). But there is no real battle. The beast is captured, and with him the false prophet who had deceived those who received the mark and worshiped the image. "These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone" (Revelation 19:20), and the rest are slain by the sword that comes from the mouth of the Rider. The great enemies of God who had seemed invincible through chapters thirteen and seventeen are defeated in an instant, without a struggle, by the word of Christ. The victory of the King is complete and effortless, for He has only to speak and His enemies fall.

Satan Bound, and the Thousand Years

John then sees an angel come down with the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. He lays hold of "the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years" (Revelation 20:2), casting him into the pit, shut and sealed, "so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished" (Revelation 20:3). John sees thrones, and seated on them those given authority to judge, and the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast. "And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years" (Revelation 20:4). This, the text says, "is the first resurrection," and it pronounces a blessing: "Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years" (Revelation 20:6). It must be said plainly that sincere, orthodox Christians have understood this thousand years, this binding of Satan, and this first resurrection in more than one way, and the three main views are the subject of the next three units. Here the passage is presented simply as it stands, and the course does not favor any one reading; what is certain is that Satan is bound by the power of God and that the people of God reign with Christ.

Satan's Final Doom

When the thousand years are finished, Satan is released from his prison and goes out once more "to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle" (Revelation 20:8), and their number is as the sand of the sea. They go up over the breadth of the earth and surround "the camp of the saints and the beloved city" (Revelation 20:9). But there is no battle here either, for "fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them." Then "the devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are" (Revelation 20:10), to be tormented day and night forever and ever. The last revolt of evil is permitted only to be crushed, and the ancient enemy who deceived Adam and Eve, who tempted Christ, and who made war on the saints is brought at last to his eternal and final defeat. He is given no second triumph, only the lake of fire from which there is no return.

The Great White Throne: The Books Are Opened

Then comes the last judgment. John sees "a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them" (Revelation 20:11). The dead, "small and great," stand before God, and the books are opened. There is in the library of heaven a book that records the deeds of men, every work and word, every idle thought and secret sin, and by it the one who has trusted in himself is judged. "And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books" (Revelation 20:12). The sea gives up its dead, and Death and Hades give up the dead in them, and each one is judged according to his works. When the book of deeds is read, every mouth is stopped, for it shows that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and that the wages of sin is death. No one can stand before that throne on the record of his own life, for the holiest deeds of the best of men are stained, and the book tells the truth about each soul.

The Book of Life and the Second Death

But there is another book in the library of heaven, and it makes all the difference. It is the Lamb's Book of Life, heaven's own roll, and the one question that decides eternity is whether a name is written there. As the roll is read, some are shocked to find their names missing. One pleads that he was a church member for many years; the answer is only, here is the book. Another pleads that he was a deacon, or a teacher, or a good and moral person; still the answer is the same. For no membership, no office, and no morality can write a name in that book; only the blood of the Lamb can do that. Yet when the roll reaches a sinner who long ago stopped trusting his own goodness and staked everything on the righteousness of Christ, his name stands there, written once and for all in indelible ink the scarlet color of the shed blood of Jesus, and it can never be erased. "Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death" (Revelation 20:14), "and anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire" (Revelation 20:15). So chapters nineteen and twenty are the triumph of Christ — His glorious return as King of kings, the defeat of the beast and of Satan, and the final judgment of all the dead. On the second coming itself every Christian agrees; the nature of the thousand years is studied in the units that follow. And the one question that decides each soul's eternity is simple: is your name written in the Lamb's Book of Life?

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