Font Size
Revelation 20:3-5
New Catholic Bible
Revelation 20:3-5
New Catholic Bible
3 He threw him into the abyss and locked and sealed it over him, so that he would not again deceive the nations until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released, but only for a short time.
The Reign of the Martyrs: Return and Destruction of Satan.[a] 4 Next, I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given the authority to judge. I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for bearing witness to Jesus and the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.[b]
5 The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Revelation 20:4 While waiting for the History of Salvation to be completed, the witnesses to Christ’s love already reign with Jesus when they take up their crosses and follow Jesus. However, before the final triumph arrives—the great Judgment that one imagines must complete history—evil unleashes a last terrible assault on the Church, as envisaged by Ezekiel (chs. 36–39) and Paul (2 Thes 2). Then will be fulfilled the prophecy of Genesis (3:15) that in advance sketched the profound link of the drama of history and its end: the annihilation of the serpent, the personification of evil.
A reign of a thousand years? This passage has served as the basis of all the millenniarist interpretations, which await the coming of a political kingdom of Christ on earth. Must we at least imagine a first earthly accomplishment of the Kingdom of God before the final and eternal transformation? But the author does not speak of a return of Christ in earthly conditions. He wants to affirm above all that those who have died as witnesses of Jesus are not separated from him while awaiting the full resurrection (vv. 11-13); he also wishes to suggest that from now on believers have access to the tree of life in heaven—of which the figure “one thousand” may be a symbol—hence that they partake in the communion of God. In any case, the thousand-year reign is a symbolic representation, which thus prohibits all speculation. At best it evokes a length of time and a life of the Church beyond persecutions. But we must not forget that for God a thousand years are like one day (see Ps 90:4). - Revelation 20:4 A thousand years: early tradition took this verse literally: after a first real resurrection, that of the martyrs, Christ would return to earth and reign there for a thousand years. The Church has rejected this literal millenniarism.
