The Satan of chs. 12 and 20 is certainly more than a repre- sentative of Rome, and these two chapters must be intended to put the present evil power audita coming fall into relation to an ultimate principle of evil, which Rome only for a time em- bodies. Through tlie birth and ascension of Christ a victory has been achievicl over the ]>ower of evil in heaven. After Rome's fall, there still remains a flnal victory to be achieved over the power of evil in the world. So much we may safely Bay the writer intends in a literal sense.
(4) The tfiotisand year*.— This leads to the question of the significance to him of the lOOO-yeare' reign of Christ and the martyrs. It is a part of the last conflict against evil. WhUo Satan Is bound in the abyss, Christ and His saints reign over the worid, subduing the remaining powers of evil. It Is true that in Jewish apocaI>^lSC8 the idea of a temporary earthly reiffn of Messiidi (or of Israel) arose in the effort to conceive of tiio flnal consunmiation in more transcendental, heavenly terms, and yet provide for the literal fulfilment of the national, earthly horcs of Israel. In Enoch 91 Messiah does not apjiear, but an earthly Messianic age is followed after a final judgment by a consunmia- tion of heavenly character. In 4 Ezr 7 Messiah ha« to do only with the earthly kingdom, not with the heavenly which foMowsttaftei 400 yeara But in Rev, the lUOO years has no such significance Our writer does not need it for the literal tuIfllmeQt of the
262 RE7EL1 TION, BOOK OF
REVELATION, BOOK OF
earthly and national features of the prophetic hope, for he uses these freely in a figrurative sense of the new heaven and earth (21. 22). He does not need it in orderlo cive Messiah His rij^hta, for the Lanib is still on the throne in the final consummation (2iM ^221-3). Holtzraann, indeed, declares that the idea that this 1000-yeare' rei'^ is a period of peace and rest is the only propsr enrichment of Biblical theology in our book, since m St. Paul the interval between the coming of Christ and the consuunnation is a period of the progressive conquest of evil (1 Co l.'.-o-'.^). But where in Rev. is the suggestion that peace and rest characterize the lOUO years? It is here also a reigning of Christ, and the reward of martyrs is a share in His power. St. Paul expresses the common e.Kpectation of the Christian's part in this reign of Christ in 1 Co 6'-- 3. There is every reason to suppose that judging and ruling characterize the 100(1 years in Reveiation. The difference between this first resurrection and the second is not the difference between a preliminary earthly and a final heavenly rest. For the final consummation, as we have seen, is described by ourauthor in thoroughly eart hly (Messianic) terms itoetically taken. It is the difference between power and blessedness. In other words, the looO-.vears' reign here correspuiuls closely to the Jewish expectation of tlie time when the sword of justice and vengeance should be in the bands of the righteous (Enoch 911= 9019- w, ct. 953- ' 961 9812 991. 6 99l(>.10O» 3ss, Dn 72-').
In Kev 2-'ft- 27 321 the rule of those who overcome is promised ; but is this more literally meant than the other promises (-7. 17 etc.)? In 1^ 610 it seems to be said that Christians are already a kingdom and priests reigning on the earth. The brief epi&odal treatment of the 1000 years in 20*-"^ as part of the account of Satan's overthrow, prevents our giving it the aignilicance in the writer's mind that has often been given to it. The possibility cannot be wholly excluded that it stands here because it stood in some account of Satan's overthrow, which our author adopted, as he did so much else, for its general meaning, not for Its detail. We shall perhaps be better able to estimate its meaning to bim as we turn from his predictions to his religious conceptions. It is certain that the overcoming] with which John is most concerned is first Christ's overcoming of sin through His death and exaltation, then the Christian overcoming of the e\il life and false worship of the world and its hatred and persecutions, by patience and faith even unto death. And this overcoming is so referred to in the midst of the description of Satan's fall from heaven (12"), and of the fall of Rome (I?"), that we wonder after all at the end whether this is the reality and those the figure; whether, not of course originally but to our writer,— the one who inserted such verses as these,— this did not express their real meaning. It is certain that he believed chiefly in the triumphant vindication of Christian faith, both in the case of individuals who endured unto death, and of the world which \^*as now in the power of evil. The conviction that death could only bring the faithful soul to its God, and that the future could only see God and Christ manifestly enthroned over the universe, our author held with all the intensity of his being, and expressed in all the variety of form with which the literature of hope furnished him, without too much anxiety about formal consistency. That Christ's conquest of evil involved the fall of Rome, but that the fall of Rome was not the end of evil itself, but the beginning and guarantee of ita end, we may also regard as secure.