Revelation 20:1-4; The Devil’s Incarceration

Revelation 20:1-4 (KJV)  And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 

At long last, the head of the serpent is forever bruised.

Genesis 3:15 (KJV)  And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. 

The victory secured over the devil at Calvary is now completely operative. Cast out of heaven in ancient times because of his rebellion, and then cast out of the air to the earth (Revelation 12:9).

Revelation 12:9 (KJV)  And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. 

The devil is now cast into the bottomless pit for a thousand years. His liberty to walk about devouring souls (1 Peter 5:8) is now abolished as an angel from heaven binds Satan, confining him in the bottomless pit, and seals his prison for a thousand years. John wrote that the dragon is imprisoned so that “he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled.“

Satan’s thousand years in the bottomless pit will produce no change in his evil character. Once, released, he will prove himself to be the same old devil. But while he is confined, the earth will breathe a purer air, and Christ’s millennial reign will cause peace and righteousness to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Six times, the phrase “thousand years” is mentioned, and this period is the glorious kingdom age produced by the prophets, as well as by Christ and His apostles.

After his final, postmillennial work of deception, the devil is forced to join his deluded devotees, who had already endured the flames for a thousand years. With them, he “shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever” (Revelation 20:10). At last, the “trinity of evil” imitating the Trinity of heaven reap their unrelieved doom. The devil, alone with the beast and the false prophet, are, together, forever in the lake of fire. No wonder the devil strives to keep people from reading this final book of the Bible! It is heavy to his deserved doom, and he does not want those he deceived to know his terrible future.

[Herbert L. Lockyer, Revelation – Drama of the Ages, Whitaker House, 2012, 297-298]