“The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against His Anointed …” (Ps. 2:2, NKJV)
We are currently engaged in an extensive exegesis of Rev. 20:7-9a: “Now when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city.”
We have already discussed quite a few of the phrases in these three verses. We already know what “the thousand years,” the “prison,” and the incorrectly translated “nations” mean. We also placed “Satan … will go out” and “which are in the four corners of the earth” in a larger, more encompassing context. We are currently still discussing “Gog and Magog”.
The conclusion of the previous teaching pointed out that the Bible’s prophetic sections can in no way be exegetically interpreted in so-called New Testament fulfilments. The church father Augustine already understood this centuries ago, noting that prophetic passages or Revelation can in no way be read as mirror images of what was happening in contemporary history. The Scripture that decisively deals with this speculation, is Matt. 11:13: “For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.” Period. Thus no prophesy can be interpreted according to events that transpire through Old Testament prophecies.
Gog and Magog are thus not barbarians in the northern hemisphere, but symbols of people that have been consumed, ‘covered’, by the devil or opponent. Symbolically Gog and Magog points to everyone that opposes God and his master plan, as well as to the area they control. The ‘cover’ that is hidden in their name, points to the covering of darkness, a “refuge of lies” (Isa. 28:17).
The underlying image of this matter is very clear. If the believer frees the opponent through disobedience, by moving from their position in Christ, the believer is no longer in the sabbath rest of today, the eternal reign of peace or the other reality or eternity, and he/she is delivered to the realities of the world, which, according to 1 John 5:19, “lies under the sway of the wicked one”. You have then also moved out from under the protection of the blood of Jesus, the Body of Christ, the angels, etc. At the same time this can lead to “fall[ing] short of the grace of God”, and “by this many become defiled” (Heb. 12:15).
From the reconstruction of timelines follows a very important other aspect which we have not yet discussed in this unfolding of revelation, namely the so-called white throne judgment, another theological term that does not appear in Scripture in exactly this format. This judgment can never be coupled to eternity, as Rom. 8:1-2 is absolutely clear about this: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.” Therefore judgment lies only outside Christ/the third dimension/eternity/paradise/other reality. You are only inside today, or you are not. You are either within the other reality where there is no judgment, or you are in the realm of the dead where you are already condemned: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” (John 5:24). A short while before Jesus explicitly made clear what his definition of judgment is: “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” (John 3:18-19).
There are still many other mysteries around this judgment, but this will only be discussed at a later point.
To return to the remaining concepts in Rev. 20:8-9. Next up is the phrase “to gather them together to battle”. Usually when one reads this phrase, or something similar, the conditioning is to understand it as a full-scale war out there. But in the light of the rest of this section it is absolutely clear that this war takes place the moment you walk out in disobedience, and it takes place in the world of your thoughts. Paul explains this in precise terms in 2 Cor. 10:3-6: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.”
The word warfare is defined by Strong as “military service”, but this is clearly in the domain of thought, where every thought needs to be taken captive. Take note – it has to be brought “to the obedience of Christ”! There is no external war! Even the feared Armageddon (Rev. 16:16) is a space in your psyche. What is gathered together for the war? Gog, those who oppose the agenda of God, and Magog, the covered world in which all who are disobedient to the voice of God, live, becomes the incubator of demonic thoughts and whispers. Clearly one could easily refer to this thought world as Babylon, as is seen in Rev. 18:2: “a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit …” Rev. 16:14 explains it in even greater detail: “For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.” There is thus a nest of this legion of demons, “for we are many” (Mark 5:9; Luke 8:30).
This war is clearly not a future war, but a battle that is being fought WITHIN YOU, just as Jesus was tempted on the mount of temptation (Matt. 4:1-11). All these temptations took place in Jesus’s thoughts, but this does not make them less real or frightening! Paul’s articulation of this root battle (note this specific term) is found in Eph. 6:12, 13a & 16: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places … Therefore take up the whole armor of God … above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.”
The following four phrases from Rev. 20:8-9 are all concerned with these Gog-people who are described in terms of their Magog-world: how many they are, where they come from, and what their goals are:
- their “number is as the sand of the sea”
- “they went up on the breadth of the earth”
- they “surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city”
The phrase “as the sand of the sea” is found in a number of instances in Scripture, and refers to the rich, symbolic tradition in which the expression is embedded. Obviously it also points to that “which cannot be measured or numbered” (Hos. 1:10), or that which is not countable (Gen. 41:49; Heb. 11:12), but it clearly also carries symbolic meaning. We find the phrase first being used in Gen. 22:17, where God promises Abraham that his descendants will be “as the sand which is on the seashore”. Isa. 10:22 then prophesies: “For though your people, O Israel, be as the sand of the sea, a remnant of them will return …” Paul uses this prophesy in Rom. 9:27 and points out that from this “sand of the sea” (all those who are saved, but who are still sons of the soil) only a remnant will receive the identity of Bride (the sons of oil).
These sons of oil, or the sons of the Anointed, Christ, are likened in Gen. 22:17 to “the stars of the heaven”. In Dan. 12:2 the state of the Bride is presented in terms of this typology: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.” This verse points to the transition from church to Bride (from the adamic nature to the Godly nature).
If in the passage under discussion in Rev. 20:8-9 it then notes that Gog’s “number is as the sand of the sea,” there lies within it a particular promise to the sons of the first Adam (all people), as well to carnal believers (saved and even born again, but not part of the Body because they do not walk in their high callings). All of them work against the agenda of God, as Ps. 2:2-3 makes clear: “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, ‘Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us’”, but God offers them a particular choice of turning back to Him (John 3:16; 1:12). Eventually we know: “For it is written: ‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God.’” (Rom. 14:11).
It is then very interesting that John, in Rev. 12:18, stands on the sand of the sea and then sees what is manifested from the sea of humanity. This corporate image is a symbolic version of Gog and Magog, that to which the believer is exposed when he/she walks in disobedience.
The phrase “they went up on the breadth of the earth” is quite simply, as The Complete WordStudy Dictionary makes clear: “the great expanses of the earth, the width”. This way of speaking is also found in Hab. 1:6-7, in reference to the Chaldeans (“clod-breakers” – Thayer): “For indeed I am raising up the Chaldeans, a bitter and hasty nation which marches through the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful; their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves.” The comparison is easy to make, and the implication of this occupation is succinctly made clear in this Old Testament Scripture.
Lastly: they “surrounded the camps of the saints”, as well as the “beloved city”. Believers are not only attacked by Gog one by one, but also within smaller formations of believers (like for instance home churches), and corporately, in terms of the New Jerusalem, or the Bride of Christ (Rev. 21:2 & 10). An attack on a member of the Body causes the entire Body to suffer. 1 Cor. 12:26-27 notes it in apt terms: “And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it … Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.” We need to deal with this onslaught with collective action, as Gal. 6:2 notes: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.”
With this we conclude the exegesis of this section about satan who is released, for a little while, after the period of rest.
- Selah: Explain the opening Scripture of this teaching to someone.
- Read: 1 Kings 20-22; 2 Kings 1-6.
- Memorise: 1 Kings 22:22.
