What is meant by Satan’s being” loosed a little season” (Rev. 20:3, 7) after the 1000 years are fulfilled?
As Satan’s imprisonment means his being in error and away from any contact with the race on earth, his loosing would imply his being brought back into touch with the race and finding out the exact truth on Millennial teachings and conditions. As his binding was a gradual one, extending over many years, so will his loosing—a permitting of more or less of knowledge to influence by deception—be a gradual one extending over many years, though his coming back to the earth will not be a prolonged journey. He will make a careful study of the situation, so as to get a thorough grasp of it, as the basis of a plan to seize control of the human race again. Doubtless Satan will not believe that he will be annihilated at the end of the Little Season, but like Pharaoh, his type, will persuade himself that God is too kind to take extreme measures against him; and he will therefore hope for another empire and reign over the earth for thousands of years, like his first one. God will allow him to attempt to gain control of the race again, only as a means of testing the hearts’ attitude of the perfected race for the manifestation of those who will be loyal to right principles under heart-searching tests and those who under such tests will not be loyal to right principles; for God is determined to let no person, after having had a favorable opportunity for life, exist after the Little Season, if he will not maintain loyalty to righteousness. So Satan’s unbelief and ambition will inveigle him into the role of a tempter; and this will bring upon all a final crucial temptation, whose outcome will be life everlasting to the faithful and endless death to the unfaithful. Thus, as with Adam and Eve in the beginning, a trial to determine worthiness or unworthiness for everlasting life must be undergone by all, and the stage for that trial will be set in the Little Season.
Satan will devise some subtle deception which will be the means of manifesting the worthy and the unworthy in this final trial. Those of mankind who will have developed properly in character (Matt. 25:31-40) will stand in that trial, but those who will not have done so (vs. 41-46) will fall into Satan’s snare, thinking all the while that God approves their wrong course. Satan urging them on, they will finally commit some undeniable sin, which will prove them unworthy of eternal life. Thereupon will follow their and Satan’s and the impenitent angels’ annihilation, symbolized by their being cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:9, 10, 15; 21:8). Literal passages, like the following, prove this of the wicked: Job 6:15, 18; 7:9; Psa. 37:10, 35, 36; 49:12; 104:35; Isa. 65:20; while the following passages show this of Satan: Isa. 27:1: Ezek. 28:16-19; Heb. 2:14. Sometimes Rev. 20:10, which in the A.V. speaks of the devil being tormented eternally, is quoted to prove that he will continue to exist forever. To this several things may be answered: The beast and the false prophet, which are spoken of in this passage, and which have the same thing done to them as is done to Satan, are not persons, but Satanic institutions, systems, organizations, which therefore will not exist forever (1 John 3:8). What, then, is the solution of this matter? We reply that the word basanizo, translated tormented in the A.V. of Rev. 20:10, is an unhappy translation here. This word has three meanings: (1) to examine; (2) to examine with torture, and (3) to torture, The A.V. has taken the third, whereas the first meaning of this word fits here. The thought is this: that eternally perfect men will examine Satan’s, the beast’s and the false prophet’s history, theories, effects, etc., and as a result of that examination will always conclude that these deserved their eternal annihilation. The thought is more literally expressed in Isa. 14:15-20.
As Satan’s imprisonment means his being in error and away from any contact with the race on earth, his loosing would imply his being brought back into touch with the race and finding out the exact truth on Millennial teachings and conditions. As his binding was a gradual one, extending over many years, so will his loosing—a permitting of more or less of knowledge to influence by deception—be a gradual one extending over many years, though his coming back to the earth will not be a prolonged journey. He will make a careful study of the situation, so as to get a thorough grasp of it, as the basis of a plan to seize control of the human race again. Doubtless Satan will not believe that he will be annihilated at the end of the Little Season, but like Pharaoh, his type, will persuade himself that God is too kind to take extreme measures against him; and he will therefore hope for another empire and reign over the earth for thousands of years, like his first one. God will allow him to attempt to gain control of the race again, only as a means of testing the hearts’ attitude of the perfected race for the manifestation of those who will be loyal to right principles under heart-searching tests and those who under such tests will not be loyal to right principles; for God is determined to let no person, after having had a favorable opportunity for life, exist after the Little Season, if he will not maintain loyalty to righteousness. So Satan’s unbelief and ambition will inveigle him into the role of a tempter; and this will bring upon all a final crucial temptation, whose outcome will be life everlasting to the faithful and endless death to the unfaithful. Thus, as with Adam and Eve in the beginning, a trial to determine worthiness or unworthiness for everlasting life must be undergone by all, and the stage for that trial will be set in the Little Season.
Satan will devise some subtle deception which will be the means of manifesting the worthy and the unworthy in this final trial. Those of mankind who will have developed properly in character (Matt. 25:31-40) will stand in that trial, but those who will not have done so (vs. 41-46) will fall into Satan’s snare, thinking all the while that God approves their wrong course. Satan urging them on, they will finally commit some undeniable sin, which will prove them unworthy of eternal life. Thereupon will follow their and Satan’s and the impenitent angels’ annihilation, symbolized by their being cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:9, 10, 15; 21:8). Literal passages, like the following, prove this of the wicked: Job 6:15, 18; 7:9; Psa. 37:10, 35, 36; 49:12; 104:35; Isa. 65:20; while the following passages show this of Satan: Isa. 27:1: Ezek. 28:16-19; Heb. 2:14. Sometimes Rev. 20:10, which in the A.V. speaks of the devil being tormented eternally, is quoted to prove that he will continue to exist forever. To this several things may be answered: The beast and the false prophet, which are spoken of in this passage, and which have the same thing done to them as is done to Satan, are not persons, but Satanic institutions, systems, organizations, which therefore will not exist forever (1 John 3:8). What, then, is the solution of this matter? We reply that the word basanizo, translated tormented in the A.V. of Rev. 20:10, is an unhappy translation here. This word has three meanings: (1) to examine; (2) to examine with torture, and (3) to torture, The A.V. has taken the third, whereas the first meaning of this word fits here. The thought is this: that eternally perfect men will examine Satan’s, the beast’s and the false prophet’s history, theories, effects, etc., and as a result of that examination will always conclude that these deserved their eternal annihilation. The thought is more literally expressed in Isa. 14:15-20.
