4 Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those 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 for a thousand years. 5 The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.
Having sought to clear the confusions we must now try to seek the real point of the chapter's message for John and for ourselves. It is this: it proclaims a Satan bound! That is its central affirmation. It is sometimes objected to the interpretation given above that abound. Satan does not correspond with the experience of John in his day, or ours. But this is to misunderstand the meaning. Satan is bound in the sense a dog is bound by a chain. Keep out of the radius of the chain and no harm will come; within, the dog can still do much damage! Satan is not bound the absolute sense, any more than he is destroyed in the absolute sense, although he is said to be destroyed in the death of Christ (Hebrews 2:14), but in the sense that he is in the control of God, and has lost the initiative since his defeat at the Cross. Christ now has the devil on a chain! Nor is this a new message in Revelation. It is in fact the message of the entire book; we see it in chapter 1, in the vision of the Living One in the midst of the candlesticks, in chapter 4 in the vision of the Throne; it is the message of the seals, it is the message of the trumpets; it is the message of every vision. We have seen repeatedly that power was given to the evil one to do this or that; the monsters rage by His sovereign permission, and the Word of His power is astride all the conflicts and turmoils of the world. Thus even when it seems in our day as if all hell is let loose in the world, we must remember it is but Satan's 'little season' at the end, prior to the final 'show-down' in which all evil will finally be destroyed, and the new heaven and earth ushered in. Satan is a defeated foe. We battle, not towards, but from victory!