Thus also we may comprehend what is meant by the loosing of Satan.
There is no point in the future at which he is to be loosed. He has
been already loosed. Hardly was he completely conquered for the saints
before he was loosed for the world. He was loosed as a great adversary
who, however he may persecute the children of God, cannot touch their
inner life, and who can only "deceive the nations,"--the nations that
have despised and rejected Christ. He has never been really absent
from the earth. He has gone about continually, "knowing that he hath
but a short time."[546] But he is unable to hurt those who are kept in
the hollow of the Lord's hand. No doubt he tries it. That is the
meaning of the description extending from the seventh to the ninth
verse of this chapter,--the meaning of the war which Satan carries on
against the camp of the saints and the beloved city when the thousand
years are finished. In other words, no sooner was Satan, as regards
the saints, completely bound than, as regards the world, he was
loosed; and from that hour, through all the past history of
Christianity, he has been stirring up the world against the Church. He
has been summoning the nations that are in the four corners of the
earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the war. They war,
but they do not conquer, until at last fire comes down out of heaven
and devours them. _The devil that deceived them is cast into the lake
of fire and brimstone, where are also the beast and the false prophet;
and they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever._
The whole picture of the thousand years is in its main features--in
the binding of Satan, in the security and blessedness of the
righteous, and in the loosing of Satan for the war--a striking
parallel to the scenes in chap. xii. of this book. There Michael and
his angels contended with the devil and his angels; and the latter
"prevailed not,"[547] but were cast out of heaven into the earth, so
that the inhabitants of heaven are for ever safe from them. There the
man-child who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, and from
the thought of whom it is impossible to separate the thought of those
who are one with Him, is caught up unto God and unto His throne.
Finally, there also the dragon, though unable really to hurt the
saints, "the rest of the woman's seed," makes war upon them, but
without result. Of this scene the picture which we have been
considering is at once a repetition and a fuller development; and,
when we call to mind the peculiarities marking the structure of the
Apocalypse, we seem in this fact alone to have no slight evidence of
the correctness of the interpretation now proposed.[548]
The three great enemies of the Church have not only been overcome,
but judged, and for ever removed from all possibility of troubling
the righteous more. But the great mass of the wicked have not yet
been overtaken by a similar fate. The time has now come to show us in
vision what awaits them also:--