Is Satan Bound Right Now?
Ask whether Satan is bound today and you will get a flat yes from one set of thoughtful Christians and a flat no from another, both quoting the same three verses.
Here is why. Revelation 20:2 says Satan was bound for a thousand years, and Revelation 20:3 says why: "that he should deceive the nations no more." If that clause states the entire scope of the binding, then Satan can be bound now in one specific respect while still being active in every other, and the millennium is the age you are living in. If instead the clause names one consequence of a total confinement, then nothing like it has happened yet, and the millennium is future. Everything else in the argument follows from where you land on that one clause.
The text
And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, 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. Revelation 20:1-3
Four Greek words carry most of the weight. Halysis, a chain. Abyssos, the bottomless pit, from the negating a- plus byssos, a depth, so literally something with no floor. Ekleisen, from kleiō, to shut, the ordinary word for closing a door. And esphragisen, from sphragizō, to seal, the verb used of a signet pressed into wax to certify that something has not been opened.
"Bound" is edēsen, from deō, to tie. It is a plain word, used in the Gospels of tying up a colt and of binding a prisoner.
The amillennial case: yes, in one limited sense
Amillennialism reads the thousand years as the present church age. On that reading the binding happened at Christ's first coming, and the argument for it is built out of four passages where Jesus and the apostles describe a decisive defeat of Satan already accomplished.
Or else how can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house. Matthew 12:29
The word for "bind" there is dēsē, the same verb deō that Revelation 20:2 uses. Jesus says it about his own casting out of demons, and he says it in the present tense of his ministry. The strong man is already tied up; the house is already being emptied.
Alongside it they set three more.
- John 12:31-32, spoken days before the cross: "Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."
- Luke 10:18, after the seventy return: "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven."
- Colossians 2:15, of the cross: God "spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it."
Then the historical observation that gives the reading its force. Before Christ, the knowledge of God sat inside one small nation. Acts 14:16 says God "suffered all nations to walk in their own ways", and Acts 17:30 calls it the times of ignorance. After Pentecost the gospel crosses every border, and has not stopped. Something changed, at scale, in the one respect Revelation 20:3 actually names.
On this reading the binding is not a claim that Satan is inactive. It is a claim that one particular power was taken from him: he can no longer hold the nations in the dark as a bloc. Augustine put the millennium at Christ's first coming in book 20 of The City of God, and every amillennial writer since has worked in that channel.
The premillennial reply: no, and the picture says so
Premillennialists answer at two levels.
First, the imagery. John does not say Satan was restrained. He says an angel seized him, chained him, threw him into a pit with no bottom, shut it, and sealed it. Four images of confinement stacked one on another, none of which is doing any work if the point is a limited curtailment. A seal in particular is a strange thing to mention about someone who is still at large.
Second, the counter-evidence.
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. 1 Peter 5:8
"Walketh about" is peripatei, from peripateō, to walk around, the ordinary verb for going here and there. It is close to the opposite picture of a sealed pit. Around it they set Ephesians 2:2, where Satan is "the prince of the power of the air" working in the disobedient; 2 Corinthians 4:4, where he blinds the minds of unbelievers; and 1 John 5:19, where the whole world "lieth in wickedness". If deception is the one thing the binding stops, 2 Corinthians 4:4 is awkward, because blinding minds is deception.
On Matthew 12:29 the reply is that Jesus is describing a plundering that has begun, not a confinement that has been completed. A strong man tied up so his house can be emptied is not a strong man sealed in a pit for a thousand years. The two pictures share a verb, not a scope.
Where the argument actually turns
Both sides know the disagreement is about the reach of one purpose clause, and both have a strong point at that spot.
The amillennial strength is that the clause is there at all. John did not leave the binding undefined. He wrote down what it accomplishes, and what it accomplishes is national, not individual: the ethnē, the nations. Restrict yourself to what the text specifies and you get a binding that is real, dated, and compatible with a devil who still prowls.
The premillennial strength is verse 8. When Satan is loosed, he goes out "to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth". The deception that returns at the end is the same deception that stopped at the beginning. So whatever the binding removed, its absence is meant to be visible on a global scale, and the world after Pentecost does not obviously look like a world where that capacity has been withdrawn.
| Point | Amillennial | Premillennial |
|---|---|---|
| Scope of binding | Deceiving nations only | Total confinement |
| Matthew 12:29 | The binding itself | A raid, not a jail |
| 1 Peter 5:8 | Different activity | Flatly incompatible |
| Timing | Christ's first coming | Still future |
Two things worth noticing
The first is that neither side is being evasive. The amillennial reading is not a dodge invented to avoid a literal millennium; it is an attempt to take verse 3's own definition seriously. The premillennial reading is not woodenness; it is an attempt to take verses 1 and 2's four images seriously. Each is holding on to something the other has to explain.
The second is how much rides on this. If Satan is bound now, the thousand years is running, the first resurrection is behind us, and the second coming is the next great event. If he is not, the whole chapter sits in the future and Revelation 20 describes a kingdom nobody has seen yet. There is no middle setting. The chapter as a whole is walked through in Revelation 20 explained verse by verse, and the next domino, the meaning of "they lived" in verse 4, is what the first resurrection is.
Most people never examine this. They inherit an answer, notice it fits their church, and move on. The clause is short enough to read in six seconds and heavy enough to carry a whole eschatology, which is a good reason to know exactly what you think it means and why the other side does not.