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From: Revelation 20:1-4, 11-21:2

The Thousand-Year Reign of Christ and His People

[1] Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key
of the bottomless pit and a great chain. [2] And he seized the dragon, that an-
cient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years,
[3] and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, that he should
deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years were ended. After that he
must be loosed for a little while.

[4] Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom judgment was
committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testi-
mony to Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not worshipped the beast
or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands.
They came to life, and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

The Last Judgment of the Living and Dead

[11] Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it; from his presence
earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. [12] And I saw the
dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also
another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by
what was written in the books, by what they had done. [13] And the sea gave up
the dead in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead in them, and all were judged
by what they had done. [14] Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of
fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire; [15] and if any one’s name was not
found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

A New World Comes into Being. The New Jerusalem

[1] Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first
earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. [2] And I saw the holy city,
new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride
adorned for her husband.

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Commentary:

1-3. The victory of the Lamb is manifested by the fact that Rome, the great har-
lot, has been destroyed (chap. 18); then the beast and its prophet are overcome
(chap. 19); there remains the dragon whom we saw in chapter 12 and whose de-
feat marks the final outcome of the war referred to in that chapter.

The battle between Satan and God is described in two scenes; the first tells of
how Satan is brought under control and deprived of his power for a time (vv. 1-3);
the second describes his last assault on the Church and what happens to him
in the end (vv. 7-10). Between these two scenes comes the reign of Christ and
his followers for a thousand years (vv. 4-6). At the end of the second scene
comes the General Judgment, with the reprobate being damned (vv. 11-18) and
a new world coming into being (21:1-8).

The bottomless pit, or abyss, refers to a mysterious place, different from the
lake of fire, or hell. Satan is also called the “ancient serpent” because it was
he who seduced our first parents at the dawn of history (cf. Gen 3:1-19).

The period during which Satan is held captive coincides with the reign of Christ
and his saints — one thousand years (cf. v. 4) — and contrasts with the “little
while” during which he is given further scope to act. This contrast is very signi-
ficant and it may simply be a symbolic way of showing that Christ’s power is
vastly greater than Satan’s and that the devil’s power is doomed to perish even
though on occasions it may emerge with unsuspected force.

11-15. Now that the devil, the root of all evil, is removed from the scene, we are
shown (as we were after the previous battle) the resurrection of the dead and the
General Judgment. The white throne symbolizes the power of God, who judges
the living and the dead. Other New Testament texts tell us that the supreme
Judge is Christ, who has been charged with this task by the Father (cf., e.g.,
Mt 16:27; 25:31-46; Acts 17:31; 2 Cor 5:10). The “flight of earth and sky” mean
that they disappear (for even non-rational created things have been contamina-
ted by sin: cf. Rom 8:19ff) to make way for a new heaven and a new earth (21:1;
cf. 2 Pet 3:13; Rom 8:23).

The author then turns his attention to the resurrection, when all men will be jud-
ged according to their works. He describes this by using the metaphor of two
books. One of these records the actions of men (as in Daniel 7:10 and other
passages of the Old Testament, cf., e.g., Is 65: 6; Jer 22:30). The second book
contains the names of those predestined to eternal life (an idea inspired by Da-
niel 12:1; cf. also, e.g., Ex 32: 32). This is a way of showing that man cannot
attain salvation by his own efforts alone: it is God who saves him; however, he
needs to act in such a way that he responds to the destiny God has marked out
for him; if he fails to do that he runs the risk of having his name blotted out of the
book of life (cf. Rev 3:5), that is, of being damned. By using this metaphor, the
author of Revelation is teaching us two truths which are always mysteriously
connected — 1) that we are free and 2) that there is a grace of predestination.

Regarding Hades or hell, it should be pointed out that this does not refer to hell
in the strict sense, but to “Sheol”, the name the Jews gave to the gloomy abode
of the dead.

The Last Judgment is a truth of faith concerning which Paul VI says: “He ascen-
ded to heaven, and he will come again, this time in glory, to judge the living and
the dead each according to his merits; those who have responded to the love and
compassion of God going to eternal life, those who have refused them to the end
going to the fire that is not extinguished [...]. We believe in the life eternal. We be-
lieve that the souls of all those who die in the grace of Christ, whether they must
still be purified in purgatory, or whether from the moment they leave their bodies
Jesus takes them to paradise as he did for the Good Thief, are the people of God
in the eternity beyond death, which will be finally conquered on the day of the Re-
surrection when these souls will be reunited with their bodies” (”Creed of the Peo-
ple of God”, 12 and 28).

21:1 - 22:15. Now that all the forces of evil, including death, have been vanquished
the author turns to contemplate the establishment of the Kingdom of God in all its
fullness. Thus, the climax of the book shows a new world inhabited by a new race
— the new Jerusalem (cf. 21: 1-4); a world guaranteed by the eternal and almighty
Word of God to last forever (cf. 21:5-8).

The focus of attention now becomes the people of God; the new Jerusalem is
portrayed as the Bride of the Lamb; a detailed description shows it to be a won-
derful city of great beauty ruled over by God the Father and Christ (21:9-2:6). The
contrast between this and the pilgrim Church in its present circumstances is so
great that the new city can be discerned only if one puts one’s faith in what God’s
messengers reveal (cf. 22:6-9). Faith is also an effective stimulus to the Christian
to continue to strive for holiness and the reward of eternal life (cf. 22: 10-15).

1-4. The prophet Isaiah depicted the messianic times as a radical change in the
fortunes of the people of Israel — so radical that, as he put it, God was going to
create new heavens and a new earth, a new Jerusalem full of joy, where the
sound of weeping would never more be heard, where God would make himself
plain for all to see and where everything would be as it was in paradise before sin
(cf. Is 65:12-25). The author of the Apocalypse uses this same format to describe
the future Kingdom of God. The imagery of a new heaven and a new earth (taken
in a physical sense) was very much in vogue in Jewish writing around the time of
the Apocalypse (cf. 1 Enoch 72:1; 91:16), and is probably reflected also in 2 Pe-
ter 3:10-13 and Matthew 19:28. Scripture nowhere indicates what form the new
heaven and the new earth will take. However, what is clear is that there will be a
radical “renewal” of the present cosmos, contaminated as it is by the sin of man
and the powers of evil (cf. Gen 2:8-3:24: Rom 8:9-13): through this renewal all
creation will be “recapitulated” in Christ (cf. Eph 1:10; Col 1:16:20). No reference
is made to the sea, probably because in Jewish literature it symbolized the
abyss, the abode of demonic powers hostile to God.

Those who will inhabit this new world (symbolized by the Holy City, the new Je-
rusalem) are the entire assembly of the saved, the entire people of God (cf. vv.
12-14) — a holy people disposed to live in loving communion with God (as reflec-
ted by the image of the adorned bride: cf. vv. 2, 9). The promise of a new cove-
nant (Ezek 37:27) will be fulfilled to the letter: God will see to it that none of the
evil, suffering or pain found in this world will find its way into the new world.

This passage of the Book of Revelation strengthens the faith and hope of the
Church — not only St John’s own generation but all generations down the ages
for as long as the Church makes its way through this valley of tears. The Se-
cond Vatican Council says: “We know neither the moment of the consummation
of the earth and of man nor the way the universe will be transformed. The form of
this world, distorted by sin, is passing away and we are taught that God is prepa-
ring a new dwelling and a new earth in which righteousness dwells, whose happi-
ness will fill and surpass all the desires of peace arising in the hearts of men.
Then with death conquered the children of God will be raised in Christ and what
was sown in weakness and dishonor will put on the imperishable: charity and its
works will remain, and all of creation, which God made for man, will be set free
from its bondage to decay” (”Gaudium Et Spes”, 39).

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.