Глава XX

Imprisonment of the dragon in the abyss (1–3); the thousand-year reign of those sitting on the throne (4–6). The final condemnation of the devil to eternal torment and destruction of the peoples of Gog and Magog by heavenly fire (7–10). The vision of the final judgment after the general resurrection, the destruction of death and hell and the beginning of eternal torment (11–15). Rev.20:1. And I saw an angel descending from heaven, who had the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. The visions of the twentieth chapter should be considered not in connection with the previous chapter, but in connection with the general content of the Apocalypse as a revelation of the history of the Church before the beginning of the eternal kingdom. In the twentieth chapter the revelation returns again to the beginning of the history of the Christian Church on earth. We meet again with the devil, again we see him in his relationship to the Christian Church, although in a relationship viewed from the other side - from the side of the victorious struggle of Christians against their primordial enemy. Some interpreters see Jesus Christ Himself under the Angel descending from heaven, but the majority considers him to be an ordinary Angel, as a messenger and executor of the Divine will. And this is all the more true since the seer did not give him any attributes of glory and greatness. This Angel, in fulfilling his mission, is left only to bind the devil and imprison him in prison, the abyss. Rev.20:2. He took the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, Rev.20:3. and he cast him into the abyss, and shut him up, and put a seal over him, that he should deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were ended; after this he should be released for a short time. The dragon is the same ancient serpent, devil and Satan, which was already discussed (in Rev. 12:3–4, 7–9, 13–17). Now the defeated devil is not only expelled from heaven to earth, but is even cast down and imprisoned in the abyss. The Abyss (Rev. 9:1, 11:7) is a special state and position of constraint and constraint characteristic of evil spirits, in which they find themselves in their evil activities towards people 87. Such confinement and constraint, which began for evil spirits from the time they were bound with a chain, must continue for a thousand years. Actually, the death of Jesus Christ and His resurrection should be considered the moment when the devil, deprived of his former power over already redeemed humanity, was, so to speak, bound by Jesus Christ and condemned to the futility (comparative) of his activities. The symbolic action of the Angel of binding Satan and imprisoning him in the abyss, as if in some kind of prison, should be attributed to this time. He was not only bound, not only imprisoned in the abyss, but also sealed. The seal means the firmness of the protection and indicates that what is sealed cannot be opened without the will and desire of the one who placed it. But how long will this bondage of Satan last? In relation to individual people, the devil is bound only when they use the name of Christ, but he is free in relation to Christians who are wavering and weak in the faith. For a precise and definite time, the devil is bound only in relation to “the peoples of the earth” as a common deceiver, as the culprit of common idolatry and resistance to God, as the ruler of the darkness of this age. As such, he is bound by God for a thousand years. Only after this God-determined and ordained time has passed will the devil be freed again and again appear not only as a corrupter of individuals, but also as a general deceiver of the world. He will then appear as the angel of the abyss (Rev. 9:11), like the beast from the abyss (Rev. 11:7). How to understand this millennium? Some interpreters consider the years of this millennium to be the number of years determined by God that must pass from the time of the second coming of the Lord to the time of the general resurrection and general judgment. But such an interpretation contradicts the teaching of the Orthodox Church, based on the Holy Scriptures. Scripture that the second coming of the Lord will be simultaneously with the general resurrection and will immediately precede the Last Judgment, leaving no gap. Other interpreters 89, who are alien to preconceived thoughts, resolve this issue differently. – Now, since the death of Christ the Savior and with the spread of Christianity, the devil is associated in his activities as a common corrupter of nations and the leader of earthly idolatrous kingdoms, of which there were six before the time of John. The seventh kingdom, although also not free from the influence of the devil, is comparatively to a very weak extent, as hinted by the deliberate remark of the apocalyptic text that the seventh king will not last long (Rev. 17:10). But the eighth kingdom will be the complete triumph of the devil. Then, freed by the will of God, he will again appear as a world ruler and, in the person of the Antichrist, will manifest his most harmful activity. But this freedom will be given to him only for a short time (Rev. 20:3), and the reign of his representative Antichrist in the anti-Christian time will not last long 90. Closely connected with the described phenomenon of the binding of Satan is the subsequent vision of the thousand-year reign of His saints and martyrs with Christ. Rev.20:4. And I saw thrones and those sitting on them, to whom judgment had been given, and the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their foreheads or on their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. John sees thrones and those sitting on them. Those sitting on the thrones of judgment are, first of all, the apostles, as the first preachers of Christian truth, the Divine word. After the apostles, among those sitting on the thrones one should see their closest collaborators and other Christians who became famous in the field of Christian preaching. However, neither the identities of those sitting nor their number can be accurately determined. The apostles, first of all and primarily, through their preaching, contributed to the binding of Satan in his godless activities. The very matter of spreading Christian preaching is subject to judgment (judgment, reasoning) of those sitting on the thrones: they contemplate its successes; and, seeing, take part in the suppression of evil and in the triumph of Christianity and virtue. Further, the souls of the beheaded also enjoy glorification. This means that the victory of Jesus Christ should serve as a consolation for the beheaded, who need it most. The souls of all those beheaded, as well as all those who had and will have to suffer in the future from the devil, from his servants and, especially, from the beast-Antichrist and his false prophet (those who did not worship the beast) - all of them will not lose their reward: they will be alive and will reign with Christ for a thousand years. The last expression is sometimes taken by interpreters as the basis for the teaching of the chiliasts about the thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ with righteous people; but completely wrong. If the chiliastic doctrine was based on St. Scripture, then not in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament. The emergence of this doctrine dates back to the first time of Christianity. Even the heretic Kerinth expected that Christ, when he established His thousand-year Kingdom, would restore Jerusalem in all its glory, and the happiness of the participants in this kingdom would consist of all kinds of pleasures. But some Christian fathers and teachers also held chiliastic views as a private opinion. Thus, Papias, according to Eusebius Caesar, said that after the resurrection of the dead, the Kingdom of Christ would come bodily on this very earth and would last a thousand years. St. also taught about this. Justin the philosopher. St. discusses the issue of the thousand-year kingdom in more detail. Irenaeus. But he and others do not look for evidence of their opinion in the Apocalypse and do not refer to our place (Rev. 20:4-5), but look for them in the prophecies of the Old Testament and refer to Isaiah 26:19; Jer 23:7–8; Eze 37:12–14, etc. According to some of the newest interpreters, the millennial kingdom will also consist mainly of the preliminary glorification of Christian saints, which will precede the general resurrection 91 . The doctrine of the thousand-year kingdom, both as the teaching of heretics and as the opinion of the fathers, is in conflict with other places of the Holy Scriptures. Scriptures. So we find clear indications that, firstly, there will be only one general resurrection of the dead on the last day (Matthew 13:37-50; John 5:28), secondly, there will be only one more coming of the Lord and, moreover, with the direct purpose of immediate judgment on all people without exception (Matthew 25:31-33) and thirdly, that there are only two kingdoms, the real kingdom of grace (1 Cor. 15:23–26) and the future eternal kingdom of glory (Luke 1:33); there is no middle ground between these kingdoms either in time or in content. Therefore, chiliasm, the doctrine of the thousand-year kingdom, was also condemned by the second ecumenical council. In addition, the very text of Article 4, taken by itself, does not say anything about the earthly thousand-year kingdom. We read here: the beheaded lived - in fact, they were alive before the eyes of the secret viewer. On earth they died, but here in heaven, in a vision, John sees them alive. Namely, as a consolation to all those persecuted for the faith of Christ, it is said that their death is limited only to the earth and the body, but their souls live, and, moreover, live in heaven before the throne of God. They will reign together with Jesus Christ, that is, they can be leaders and helpers of Christians struggling on earth and in this they will find for themselves a new source of joy and bliss. This blissful reign of theirs will last a thousand years. A thousand years is the thousand during which Satan was bound in his activities (Rev. 20:3). Therefore, the blessed reign will end when, after the short-term reign of the Antichrist on earth, the day of the second coming of the Lord, the day of the general resurrection, comes. After this, a new eternal kingdom will come, when the bliss of the righteous will be aggravated by the fact that their glorified bodies will also take part in it. As for why the number thousand is used, in response to this we need to point to other places in the Holy Scriptures. Scripture, where the same number is used to denote plurality and completeness (Deut. 5:10; Jer. 32:18; Ps. 89:5; 2 Pet. 3:8). Rev.20:5. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. The rest of the dead are obviously those who are not included in those named in Rev. 20:4; they will not be touched by the first resurrection, which John calls his vision of living souls. Moreover, this resurrection is not the reunification of dead people with their bodies, but rather a first, special resurrection. By the first resurrection we must understand the state of the souls of the dead that the seer beheld. It can be viewed as the transition (rebellion) of the pious from earthly life to life in heaven, from humiliation and suffering to glory before the throne of God. This resurrection is called the first, because it precedes and foreshadows the general resurrection, which will be followed by the blessed life of the righteous in their bodies. This fate does not belong to everyone; many (other of the dead) Christians and non-Christians will not be worthy of glorification after their earthly life and, having been separated from their body, will remain far from the Divine throne with their soul. That is why John does not see them alive (revived) before the Divine Throne and sitting nearby on the thrones. John calls the participants in the first resurrection not only blessed, but also saints, that is, perfect. Perfection, being a condition for the bliss of Christians after their earthly death, after the separation of soul and body, will at the same time serve as the basis for their liberation from the second death. The second death, as can be seen from Rev. 2:11, 20:14, is eternal torment that comes for every person after his condemnation at the Last Judgment. Corporal death is the separation of the soul from the body, and no person escapes it. But there is also spiritual death, it consists in depriving a person of Divine grace that revives his soul. The righteous, thanks to their holiness and purity, are even after their bodily death in the closest communion with God. They become priests of God and Christ (cf. Rev. 1:6), that is, persons very close to God, they become some intermediaries between Him and earthly people. And how now they reign with Christ for a thousand years, i.e. until the general resurrection, so they will reign after this resurrection, forever, since nothing can deprive them of grace and through this subject them to a second eternal death, eternal torment. Rev.20:6. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection: the second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years. Rev.20:7. When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, and gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. Section XX Ch. from 7–10 tbsp. John communicates this not in the form of a vision, but in the form of a prophecy. It was revealed to the prophetic gaze of John that after a thousand years, for which Satan (the devil) was imprisoned in the abyss, he would again be freed from this prison, from his state of being bound in his activities. The devil is called here Satan, which name characterizes him in terms of his hostility to God, in terms of his constant desire to prevent people from receiving Divine grace. This eschatological moment of the liberation of Satan from the abyss must be considered (cf. Rev. 9:1-11, 11:7) as the very activity of the devil that he will show before the end of the world, when he will use the personality of the Antichrist and his false prophet for greater success. Satan comes out, that is, he openly 92 reveals himself as the deceiver of the nations of the earth (cf. Rev. 9:11, 13:1). In 7 tbsp. the deceived nations are called Gog and Magog. We also meet the names of Gog and Magog in St. Scripture, and in the Holy. Scriptures of the Old Testament. Magog is the name of one of the sons of Japheth (Gen 10:2) and the country (Eze 39:6) of which Gog was king (Eze 38:15–16). The names of Gog and Magog should be considered as an indication of representatives of the peoples who were the instrument of Divine execution, and should tell us about the belligerence and cruelty of these peoples. They are depicted as being at the four corners of the earth; this means all the peoples of the universe that the devil will use through the Antichrist in his hostile activities against God. The wicked peoples of the last time, excited by the devil and led by the Antichrist, will gather to fight against the saints (camp) and against the beloved city. The camp of saints is the Church of Christ 93, the society of true believing Christians of the last time in their opposition to the followers of the Antichrist. In the same way, the beloved city is the same Church, a society of believers, persecuted, but firm and glorious with Divine help, faith in God, who dwells among them as if in His beloved city. Rev.20:8. And they went out into the breadth of the earth, and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. Rev.20:9. And fire fell from heaven from God and consumed them; Christians will have to form a military camp, as it were, and in this sense always fight and be ready to fight the devil; but, according to the expression of the Apocalypse, fire will fall from the sky and destroy all the hostile hosts. This fire will undoubtedly be sent from God as an obvious proof and expression of Divine help for the saints and Divine wrath towards sinners (cf. Gen. 19:24). This fall of fire from heaven points to the same eschatological moment that Rev. 19:21 speaks of (cf. 2 Thess. 2:8) and which affirms the truth that all people before the Last Judgment must undergo a change in their body - painful for the wicked, as if the beginning of eternal torment. For the devil, who deceived the nations, eternal torment will come before the general judgment and without judgment. His iniquities and his hostility to God are quite obvious, and therefore the judgment against him, as well as over the Antichrist and the false prophet, is unnecessary (Rev. 19:21). For the devil, as condemned from ancient times, fiery Gehenna was appointed from time immemorial (Matthew 25:41). Rev.20:10. and the devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Rev.20:11. And I saw a great white throne and Him sitting on it, from whose face heaven and earth fled, and no place was found for them. Having completed the depiction of the fate of the Antichrist, the false prophet and the devil himself, given over to eternal torment, revelation turns to the depiction of the judgment of the human world (Rev. 20:11-15), and after that paints a picture of a future renewed world in which a new renewed humanity will live. John sees the great throne, which is called white to indicate the holiness and incorruptibility of the Judge sitting on it (cf. Matthew 28:3; Dan.7:9). The one sitting on the throne is undoubtedly Jesus Christ Himself, who said about Himself that the Father gave all judgment to the Son (John 5:22). Heaven and earth lay before Him as the almighty Lord and Master. Heaven and earth will disappear when the final world revolution comes, after which a new life in a renewed world should begin. The renewal of the world and the renewal of creation must occur simultaneously with the renewal of man, with the change of those who remain alive and with the resurrection of the dead. And only after the revolution, in the midst of a new situation, will all people appear before the throne of the Judge. Rev.20:12. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and the books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged according to what was written in the books, according to their deeds. John calls them dead, but, obviously, instead of “dead”: they are resurrected by the action of the omnipotence of God and called for judgment and accounting for their entire earthly life. Here those who will remain alive until the judgment are kept silent (1 Cor 15:52–53). But this silence is not a denial of the fact of the trial of the survivors 94. The general judgment - and here we are undoubtedly talking about it - will be the judgment of all people without exception, both those who lived until the second coming of the Lord and those who died by this time, both righteous and sinners (Matthew 25:31; 2 Cor 5:10). All people, without exception, must appear before the throne of the Judge: both great and small, without any distinction according to their former position among earthly society. The apocalypse depicts the judgment itself under the guise of a trial: books and the book of life will be opened. This symbolic image must be understood in such a way that, through the action of God’s omnipotence, the conscience of every person will be revealed at the judgment, and in it, as if in a book, he himself will read everything that he has done in life, and from his conscience he will hear a true assessment of all his earthly activities. After this, as if after a legal process, everyone will see another book, common to many - the book of life. This book is God's foreknowledge, comforting to all who labor and are burdened in life. Rev.20:13. Then the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and hell gave up the dead that were in them; and each one was judged according to his deeds. Complementing and explaining the previous, the revelation further speaks about who those dead who appeared before the throne of the Judge were and where they came from. They are those whom the sea, death and hell gave up. The sea is the place where many people die; death - the death of people on earth in an unknown way; hell is not a place of torment, but in the sense of the interior of the earth, the underworld - all buried, buried in the ground. This means that all the dead, without any exception, no matter where and how they died, no matter what their mortal body was turned into, they will all be resurrected and in their renewed bodies will appear for judgment. Rev.20:14. Both death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. Death and hell are used here as personifications (cf. 1 Cor 15:26). Death is the cessation of the earthly life of the corruptible human body, hell is the state of the souls of people awaiting the time of the Last Judgment. But when the judgment has already taken place, then death is no longer inappropriate, unnecessary. The first death is (except for bodily death) the first (not final) alienation of the human soul from Divine grace; the second death is the final and irrevocable condemnation of a person after the Last Judgment, when he is completely deprived of hope for any improvement in his condition: he is thrown into the lake of fire as the place of his eternal torment. Rev.20:15. And whoever was not written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. “Whoever was not written in the book of life,” that is, everyone who, according to the foreknowledge of God, turned out to be worthy of condemnation, who were not recognized as worthy of eternal bliss in the Kingdom of Christ, they were all thrown into the lake of fire. Augustine 20 book chapter 8, “On the City of God.” Lutardt, Ebrard, Kliefoth, Suller, Oberlen. Andrey Kes., Augustin, Yakovlev, Vinogradov. Kliefoth, Ebrard, Lutardt, Suller. Augustine “On the City of God” XX, 11. Augustin, Andrey Kes. Hengstenberg. You might be interested in: