Part 33

The angel descending from heaven, must be a representative of his own order; for at this epoch there are no other orders of beings for him to be a representative of. He therefore symbolizes the angels who are commissioned to “gather out of his kingdom all things that offend,” Matt. 13:41.

The “key,” “pit,” and “chain,” symbolize the instruments of restraint and confinement to which Satan is to be subjected; and his being bound and confined symbolize his restraint.

The “Dragon” is expressly called “that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan.” With the appendages of heads and horns—symbols of political sovereignty—he is used in Rev. 12:3, as a symbol of the Roman civil power, under Pagan rule; and in verse 7, when divested of political insignia, of the pagan hierarchy. But now, as the beast, another symbol of Roman civil rule, has been cast into “the lake of fire and brimstone,” and the “remnant” are “slain with the sword” (19:21), there are no analogous powers remaining on earth for him to be a representative of, and consequently he is here represented as a symbol of himself.

Of his identity there can be no question: He is “that Old Serpent,” who, being “more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made” (Gen. 3:1), “beguiled Eve through his subtlety,” 2 Cor. 11:3. He is also the Devil, by whom our Saviour was tempted in the wilderness, (Matt. 4:1-12); and the Satan, whose working is “with all power and signs and lying wonders,” 2 Thess. 2:9. He is our adversary the devil, who, “as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour,” (1 Pet. 5:8); and against whom we are to guard continually, “lest Satan should get an advantage of us,” 2 Cor. 2:11.

Coëval with the fall, the promise was given that his head should in due time be bruised, and he is not ignorant of his doom; for when the legion saw the Saviour about to dispossess them of the two men among the tombs, they recognized him as “the Son of God,” and cried, “Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?” (Matt. 8:29); “and they besought him, that he would not command them to go out into the deep,”—the pit, or abyss, Luke 8:31. The epoch when he should be there confined, is also shown by Isaiah to be when “the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity,” when “the earth also shall disclose her blood, and no more cover her slain,” Isa. 26:21. For “in that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan [the dragon], the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent,” Ib. 27:1. This synchronizes with the slaying of the remnant with the sword, when Satan is bound and cast into the abyss, to continue there a thousand years.

His being bound and confined must symbolize his dejection to a position where he can have no possible influence over the nations during the time he is bound. It can be no partial restraint, as some theologians hold; for that is contrary to the conditions of the symbolic representation. His restraint is full, complete, and entire. Consequently his influence, for the time being, will have entirely ceased. The period of his confinement, therefore, cannot be one of partial exemption from sin; but the living will be perfectly free from all its contagious influences. He is to deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years shall be fulfilled.

“The nations” who are freed from his influences, and also those whom he is subsequently to deceive, are not, necessarily, organized political bodies, under civil rulers, as they now exist. The original term, εθνος, is defined by Robinson to be “a multitude, people, race, belonging and living together.” At this epoch, the national organizations having disappeared, and the people constituting them being translated or slain, the only nations remaining will be “the nations of them which are saved” (21:24), over whom the influence of Satan will have ceased forever; and those constituting “the rest of the dead” (20:5), who will not live again till the end of the thousand years—at the very time when Satan is to be loosed from his prison to go out to deceive them, 20:7, 8.

The Cleansing of the Earth.

There is, in the Apocalypse, no symbolic representation of the act of the cleansing of the earth, yet various scriptures show that it is at the epoch of the second advent, and of the establishment of the kingdom of God. If so, it follows the destruction of the wicked and the binding of Satan, while the raised and transfigured saints—constituting “the bride”—are still with the Lord in the clouds of heaven (19:7-9), where they were caught up to meet him in the air, 1 Thess. 4:17.

A restoration of the earth, in connection with the first resurrection, is in accordance with the testimony of scripture, and was the opinion of the ancients. We read in Isaiah: “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind,” Isa. 65:17.

“As for my opinion,” saith R. Menasse, a Jewish Rabbi, “I think that after six thousand years, the world shall be destroyed, upon one certain day, or in one hour; that the arches of heaven shall make a stand as immovable; that there will be no more generation or corruption; and that all things by the resurrection shall be renovated, and return to a better condition.” He also assures us that “this, without doubt, is the opinion of the most learned Aben Ezra,” who looked for it in the new earth of Isa. 65:17.

“Man shall be restored in that time, namely, in the days of the Messiah, to that state in which he was before the first man sinned.”—R. Moses Nachmanides in Duet. § 45.

“Although all things were created perfect, yet when the first man sinned, they were corrupted, and will not again return to their congruous state till PHEREZ (i.e., the MESSIAH) comes.” “There are six things which shall be restored to their primitive state, viz.: the splendor of man, his life, the height of his stature, the fruits of the earth, the fruits of the trees, and the luminaries, (the sun, moon, and stars.)”—R. Berakyah, in the name of R. Samuel—Bereshith Rabba, Fol. 11, Col. 3.

“In that time (i.e., of the Messiah) the whole work of creation shall be changed for the better, and shall return into its perfect and pure state, as it was in the time of the first man, before he had sinned.”—R. Becai, in Shilcan Orba, Fol. 9, Col. 4, p. 360.

“Theopompus, who flourished three hundred and forty years B. C., relates that the Persian Magi taught that the present state of things would continue 6000 years; after which hades, or death, would be destroyed, and men would live happy,” &c. “The opinion of the ancient Jews, on this head, may be gathered from the statement of one of their Rabbins, who said, ‘The world endures 6000 years, and in the thousand, or millennium that follows, the enemies of God would be destroyed.’ It was in like manner a tradition of the house of Elias, a holy man, who lived about B. C. 200, that the world was to endure 6000 years, and that the righteous, whom God should raise up, would not be turned again into dust. That, by this resurrection, he meant a resurrection prior to the millennium, is manifest from what follows.... It is worthy of remark, that the two ancient authors, whose words have just been quoted, speak of the seventh millennium as ‘that day’—the day in which God will renew the world, and in which he alone shall be exalted.”—Dis. on Mill. by Bishop Russell, Prof. Eccl. Hist. in the Scottish Epis. Ch.

“The Divine institution of a sabbatical, or seventh year’s solemnity among the Jews, has a plain typical reference to the seventh chiliad, or millenary of the world, according to the well known tradition among the Jewish doctors, adopted by many in every age of the Christian Church, that this world will attain to its limit at the end of 6000 years.”—Mede.

“The observance of the Sabbath is essential to the faith; for such only as observe the Sabbath confess that the earth will be renewed: because He who created it out of nothing will renew it.”—David Kimchi, on Isa. 55:5, quoted by Mede.

“In as many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years it is perfected; for if the day of the Lord be as it were a 1000 years, and in six days those things that are made were finished, it is manifest that the perfecting of those things is in the 6000th year, when anti-Christ, reigning 1260 years, shall have wasted all things in the world, ... then shall the Lord come from heaven in the clouds, with the glory of his Father.” Irenæus, Bish. of Lyons, A. D. 178.

“In six thousand years, the Lord will bring all things to an end, ... when iniquity shall be no more, all things being renewed by the Lord.”—Epst. of Barnabas, sec. 14, 15.

“Let philosophers know, who number thousands of years, ages since the beginning of the world, that the 6000th year is not yet concluded or ended. But that number being fulfilled, of necessity there must be an end, and the state of human things must be transformed into that which is better.”—Lactantius, B. of Divine Inst., A. D. 310.

Thomas Burnet (Theory of Earth, Lon. 1697) states “that it was the received opinion of the primitive church from the days of the apostles to the council of Nice, that this earth would continue 6000 years, when the resurrection of the just, and conflagration of the earth, would usher in the millennium and reign of Christ on earth.”

“God’s blessing the Sabbath day, and resting on it from all his works, was a type of that glorious rest that the saints shall have when the six days of this world are fully ended.... He will finish the toil and travail of his saints, with the burden of the beasts and the curse of the ground, and bring all into rest for a thousand years.... None ever saw this world as it was in its first creation but Adam and his wife, neither will any see it until the manifestation of the children of God; i.e., until the redemption or resurrection of the saints.”—John Bunyan’s Works, vol. 6, pp. 301, 329.

“I expect with Paul a reparation of all the evils caused by sin, for which he represents the creatures as groaning and travailing.”—John Calvin, in his “Institutes.”

The reformation of the earth “never was, nor yet shall be, till the righteous King and Judge appear for the restoration of all things.”—John Knox.

“The groans of nature in this nether world, Which heaven has heard for ages, have an end. Foretold by prophets, and by poets sung, Whose fire was kindled at the prophet’s lamp, The time of rest, the promised Sabbath, comes: Six thousand years of sorrow have well nigh Fulfilled their tardy and disastrous course Over a sinful world; and what remains Of this tempestuous state of human things, Is merely as the working of a sea Before a calm, that rocks itself to rest; For HE, whose car the winds are, and the clouds The dust that waits upon his sultry march, When sin hath moved him, and his wrath is hot, Shall visit earth in mercy; shall descend, Propitious, in his chariot paved with love; And what his storms have blasted and defaced For man’s revolt, shall with a smile repair.” Cowper’s Task.

The above are only a few of many extracts which might be made, showing the faith of the church in past ages; but which are of no weight, only as they are in accordance with the harmony of scriptural testimony.

When man sinned, this earth was cursed for his sake. The Lord said to him, “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” Gen. 3:17-19.

Such was the curse to which the whole creation was subjected because man sinned. “For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,” Rom. 8:20. And this hope is for a removal of the curse thus inflicted, and a restoration of all things to their original condition.