The Spirit has revealed that there will be a binding of Satan for a thousand years that will take place:

Revelation 20:1 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. 2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, 3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

Some believers assert that this binding has already happened. One person with whom I recently interacted said that this binding happened when Jesus sent out the seventy (cf. Luke 10:17-20).

A close examination of Revelation 20:2-3, however, shows that it is false to hold that Satan has already been bound in the way spoken of in this passage.

Shut Up and Sealed in the Bottomless Pit

Revelation 20:2-3 expressly states that Satan will be bound for a thousand years in a bottomless pit, shut up in it, and have set a seal upon him during the time that he is in that pit.

The text is very plain that Satan will not be free to do anything on the earth during this time. To assert otherwise is to make a mockery of the text’s saying that he will be shut up and sealed in that pit.

Furthermore, many NT passages speak explicitly of Satanic activity in the world during the entire lifetimes of the Apostles, as recorded in Scripture. A right handling of these passages shows that the binding of Satan revealed in Revelation 20:1-3 could not have taken place and did not take place at any time prior to the writing of the book of Revelation.

1 Peter 5:8

For example, Peter taught that the devil was freely walking about on the earth seeking people to devour:

1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: 9 Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.

It is nonsensical to say that the devil was bound in the specific manner spoken of in Revelation 20:1-3 at the time that 1 Peter 5:8 was inspired by the Spirit.

Comparing 1 Peter 5:8 with two texts in Job further confirms that there had not been any change in Satan’s freedom to roam around on the earth from the time of Job to the time 1 Peter was written:

Job 1:7 And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.

Job 2:2 And the LORD said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.

Both in Job’s day and at the time First Peter was written, Satan was freely walking about on the earth. He was not bound, shut up, and sealed in a bottomless pit when Peter wrote First Peter.

Revelation 2

Moreover, the glorified Christ directed the apostle John to write seven letters to seven churches late in the first century AD (Rev. 2-3). In 2 of those letters, Christ Himself revealed the active workings of Satan at the very time those letters were written:

Revelation 2:10 Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.

Here, Christ talks about the devil’s direct attacks on believers in the church at Thyatira. Satan certainly was not bound, shut up, and sealed in the bottomless pit at that time.

Revelation 2:13 I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth.

Here, Christ talked about Satan’s seat being in Pergamos and his dwelling there. Obviously, because Satan was dwelling there, he certainly was not at that time bound, shut up, and sealed in the bottomless pit.

Conclusion

It is a faulty handling of Scripture to say that the NT supports holding that the binding of Satan spoken of in Revelation 20 has already taken place. It has not taken place!

Through my continuing studies in the book of Daniel, I have found several significant ways that comparing Scripture with Scripture provides important illumination about passages. Looking closely at Daniel 5 compared to Daniel 3 reveals a valuable insight about the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar made.

Daniel 5

The Spirit begins Daniel 5 by telling us that Belshazzar made a great feast in which a large number of people participated:

Daniel 5:1 Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand.

A thousand lords were present at this feast! Beyond the king and the 1000 lords, others were also participants:

Daniel 5:2 Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein. 3 Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them.

From Daniel 5:1-3, we learn that there were considerably more than a 1000 participants in this feast.

Daniel 5 versus Daniel 3

Strikingly, the Spirit has chosen to give us a large specified number for how many people participated in Belshazzar’s feast, but He has not done so for how many people worshiped the image that Nebuchadnezzar made! Why did the Spirit want us to know numerical information about the former but not about the latter?

Although we cannot know the answer to this intriguing question, Daniel 5 illumines Daniel 3 in an important way, as follows.

We know that there were more than 1000 participants in Belshazzar’s feast. Given the greater importance of the event in Daniel 3, we should therefore hold that there were more people at the dedication of the image than at Belshazzar’s feast.

This comparison thus teaches us that there surely were well over a thousand people at the dedication of the image in Daniel 3.

Because at least some of the king’s army also seems to have been present at the dedication (cf. Dan. 3:20), and a well-armed presence of a sufficient number of trusted soldiers would have been necessary for ensuring the safety of the king and his guests, we should expect that there would have been more armed soldiers present than there were present officials in Nebuchadnezzar’s government. Reasoning in this way teaches us that there were at least more than 2000 people present at the dedication of the image.

Even if one says that Nebuchadnezzar may have had only half as many lords in his government as Belshazzar did in his, the presence of the army would still mean that there were more than 1000 people at the dedication of the image.

Daniel 3 records King Nebuchadnezzar’s making a colossal image and then acting to bring about the dedication of the image. Some advocate that sound interpretation of the passage limits what we can say happened to what amounts to a minimalist interpretation.¹

One minimalist interpretation holds that the only thing that we can say with certainty took place was that those assembled bowed before the image and that bowing itself was the worship rendered to it. For at least seven reasons, we should reject such a minimalist interpretation.

A Royal Event

The king of the most powerful empire of his day ordained what activities the dedication of the image would include. A royal event necessarily would have involved a certain protocol, decorum, pageantry, pomp, majesty, etc.

A minimalist interpretation requires the understanding that the entire event almost entirely lacked any such features fitting for a royal event. Moreover, what kind of dedication event fitting for a king would consist only of a brief bowing down to the image and nothing more than doing that?

No Known Constraining Factors

A royal event ordained by the most powerful human authority of his day necessarily entails certain realities about the situation. No human authority limited the king about what activities the dedication could include. The king did not lack any needed finances to pay for what would take place.

No evidence exists for any time constraints to the event that limited it in any way. No evidence exists for any circumstantial factors that required the event to be as minimal as possible, such as mass famine in the land or an empire-wide plague or impending weather-related calamities or impending invasions by powerful enemies etc.

Given that there are no known factors constraining what could have been done on this occasion, no basis exists for holding to a minimalist position.

The Biblical Witness about the Central Activity in Idolatrous Worship

Scripture provides numerous passages that show that offering sacrifices to idols was a central activity in idolatrous worship about which God informs and warns His people (cf. Exod. 34:11-17). Positing that an idolatrous emperor would dedicate an image of a god without offering any sacrifices to that god goes against that evidence and also goes against what we already know would have been his own previous experience in his own temple.

Explicit Contextual Evidence That Refutes a Minimalist Interpretation

Comparing what the king did earlier to honor Daniel with what Daniel 3 explicitly says brings out a crucial point. The king honored Daniel by bowing to him, worshiping him, and commanding that certain offerings would be made to him.

Daniel 2:46 Then the king Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, and worshipped Daniel, and commanded that they should offer an oblation and sweet odours unto him.

Using the same verbs for bowing and worshiping found in Daniel 2:46, Daniel 3 says that the people bowed and worshiped the image. To hold that the king honored Daniel by doing more to honor him than he ordained to be done to honor his image is an indefensible position.

Understanding what Daniel 2:46 compared with Daniel 3 shows requires that we hold that the dedication event in Daniel 3 included the offering of things to the image to honor it more than the king had offered to honor Daniel. A minimalist interpretation of Daniel 3 is therefore an impossible reading given what Daniel 2:46 reveals.

Would the King Have Dishonored All the Rulers of the Provinces?

To hold a minimalist interpretation of Daniel 3 would include holding that the king did not provide any amenities for his royal guests. Given that the king had previously ordained on a separate occasion that some captives be fed from his choice food, would the king surely not have fed his royal guests with such food?

Moreover, eating what has been offered to an idol in worship is such a vital aspect of the biblical witness concerning idolatry that there would have to be a very compelling basis to hold that this event did not include such eating. No such basis exists so we must reject a minimalist interpretation that asserts that there were no sacrifices offered on this occasion and no eating of those sacrifices afterward.

An Extravagant “Signal” for a “Bare-Bones” Event?

Some proponents of the need to hold a minimalist interpretation say that the musical instruments mentioned in the account were used to sound a “signal blast” to initiate the worship.The explicit mention of at least six different instruments to sound that supposed blast (and a phrase that may signify the use as well of many other instruments) would seem to be a perplexing extravagance for a “bare-bones” event when the herald himself could have given a sufficient signal or one trumpeter could have done so.

Why would a king who supposedly chose to forgo all other extravagances in a dedication yet choose to use an extravagant signal? Taking a minimalist position about everything else that happened hardly makes sense given the diverse nature of the musical instruments used in the event.

Consideration of the Aftermath of the Event

A minimalist interpretation of Daniel 3 promotes a lack of consideration about the aftermath of the event. Had the king only directed all those present to bow to the statue and then return to their homes, the people would have returned to their homes having experienced a strange event in which the emperor bestowed less honor on his god in a dedication ceremony of kingdom-wide importance than the people were routinely used to bestowing on their gods.

Had the king done so, he would not have communicated to them the proper appreciation of the greatness of his god that he would have wanted them to come to have. A minimalist understanding of what happened would thus mean that the king did not accomplish his objective of setting forth the surpassing greatness of his god in a manner that would have been in keeping with the greatness of his colossal image.

Because there are no reasons to accept such an interpretation that the king failed to furnish his people with a proper appreciation of the greatness of his god, we must reject a minimalist interpretation of what took place.

Conclusion

A minimalist interpretation of Daniel 3 is unsupportable for many reasons. The king did not only just command that all the people bow as the worship that they offered to the image of his god.

We should reject such a minimalist interpretation of Daniel 3.

¹Cf. “Chapter 3 of the book of Daniel revolves around a strange religious ceremony that involved no priests, prayers or sacrifices:“

Who were Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians? In the first article in this series, I treated Daniel 1:2 and Daniel 3 to show that they were profoundly idolatrous people who were thereby regularly in fellowship with demons. Later in Daniel 1, the Spirit provides another vital statement that reveals another key aspect of who Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians were.

Profound Consultation with Occultists

At the end of their three years of preparation for entering into the king’s service, Daniel and his friends excelled profoundly in their wisdom and understanding:

Daniel 1:19 And the king communed with them; and among them all was found none like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah: therefore stood they before the king. 20 And in all matters of wisdom and understanding, that the king enquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm.

Specifically, they vastly excelled the wisdom and understanding of all the leading practitioners of two types of occult practices in the entire Babylonian kingdom.

The king could have compared them with philosophers or prophets but instead they were compared with all such leading occultists in the kingdom. Pondering who they were compared with brings out that Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians were people who profoundly consulted with occultists and esteemed their counsel very highly.

It also shows that the king himself had fully consulted with all such leading practitioners of the occult in his entire kingdom. Two later statements in the book show that the king even had various occultists among his leading advisers (Dan. 2:2; 4:6-7).

Because all practitioners of the occult engage in demonic activities, the profound consultation with occultists reveals a second key way that demons influenced Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. To understand just how immensely the occultists corrupted Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, we must compare Scripture with Scripture concerning the exceedingly great corruption of at least certain occultists.

Immense Corruption by the Occultists

To understand how immensely Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians were corrupted by all the occultists in all his kingdom, we must solemnly consider that Scripture reveals the horrific extent to which demons can corrupt humans in a passage that makes several key revelations about an ancient sorcerer:

Acts 13:6 And when they had gone through the isle unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Barjesus: 7 Which was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man; who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word of God. 8 But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. 9 Then Saul, (who also is called Paul,) filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him, 10 And said, O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?

This profound revelation is noteworthy for many reasons.

First, it says that he was an occultist (who was also a false prophet) who sought to turn away from the faith an unbeliever who wanted to hear God’s truth. Such people thus are profoundly dangerous to unbelievers.

Second, it infallibly reveals key truths about the sorcerer by infallibly recording what the leader of the apostolic company being filled with the Spirit said to the sorcerer. This shows that the statements that Paul made about the sorcerer were exactly what the Spirit directed him to say about the sorcerer. None of Paul’s statements about him were in any way just his own thinking, perspectives, or even possible biases against a particular kind of person because of that person’s ethnicity or any other important aspects of his person.

Third, it shows how consummately this human being was a corrupted human being.

Elymas was “full of all subtilty and all mischief.” He was a profoundly crafty and fraudulent person who used deceit to accomplish his objectives.

He was an “enemy of all righteousness.” He actively opposed everything that was an aspect of righteousness before God. He thus openly fought against the doing of anything that was righteous in the sight of God.

He also would “not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord.” This man continually did whatever he could to corrupt the doing of something in a way that was right before God.

Fourth, and most disturbingly, he was a “child of the devil.” Through his involvement and participation in the occult, this man whom God made in His image had become so corrupted that he was now a child of the most evil being in the universe. In effect, the image of God in him had been completely overcome so that he effectively was a human being who was in the image of the devil!

This passage thus shockingly reveals that there are occultists (at the very least those who are sorcerers) who actively and passionately seek to promote demonic interests in every possible way!

We know that sorcerers were among the leading advisers of king Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 2:2). We also know that the Babylonians were a shockingly occult people (Is. 47:9, 12).

Applying what this profoundly sobering passage (Acts 13:6-10) reveals to what we know about the pervasive influence that occultists (including sorcerers) had with Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians shows that the king and his people were people who had been immensely corrupted by demonically corrupted humans who actively sought to corrupt them from doing anything that was righteous before God.

Application to Daniel 3

Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians were people who were profoundly influenced by demons through their idolatry. Furthermore, they were also profoundly influenced by demons through their profound consultation with occultists.

The musical perspectives and practices of such demonically corrupted people were thus routinely directed into following every possible way to produce instrumental music that does not please God. Given the role that music played in the profoundly important idolatrous worship event in Daniel 3, we have further biblical basis to hold that the music played in the event in Daniel 3 was profoundly ungodly music.