Thanks, jaydam. That is the usual ammill response, and I think it's reasonable and plausible. But the premill response is also reasonable; the imagery does suggest more than a mere limitation of power - "Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. 2 And he seized ... Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, 3 and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended." Rev 20:1-5 (ESV).jaydam wrote:Making war against the church could still happen at the same time as Satan's confinement.
It seems you speak of Satan as being completely imprisoned, but that is not what the verse says. It speaks of the perspective of Satan's confinement, being restricted from deceiving the nations.
It says nothing of his ability to war against God's people, or to deceive people on a personal level.
If one is amill (or maybe postmill) and preterist, then it seems plausible that the devil is in fact shut up and away for now. So far, I'm not aware of anything that should rule out that possibility.
Similar to your idea about Satan being cast to Israel rather than "Earth" (which is interesting), it is just something I'm toying with a little bit.
For me anyway, it's primarily the latter. I don't believe anything about the devil/Satan (i.e., "the adversary") other than the bits mentioned in the Bible. I don't know if Satan is "the greatest malevolent being to inhabit the universe". At this point, I don't know if he's loose or imprisoned, nor do I know if "we should be able to know" that, outside of authoritative revelation. I agree that my post is somewhat speculative, if that's what you mean, since the passage in question is brief and particularly open to interpretation.morbo3000 wrote:My question: How do we know if Satan is or isn't imprisoned? Isn't that a metaphysical reality? Or is it just interpretation of a text?
Briefly, ammils often tie Rev 20:1-5 to the binding of the strong man in Mark 3 and Matt 12, which would imply that Rev 20 took place during Jesus' life, which would mean that Satan was not completely bound up since he is later mentioned as roaming the Earth or land. Reasonable, but I have never been convinced that the "strong man" necessarily refers to Satan.
Now I'm off to work. Have a good day!