20:1–3 The next two consequences of Christ’s parousia envision the destiny of the final and most powerful member of the evil trinity, Satan. Because Christ’s first advent resulted in Satan’s banishment from heaven (cf. 12:9), the reader assumes that Christ’s second advent will have a similar effect on earth—and so it does, as we will soon find out. At first, John sees not the dragon, but rather an angel coming down out of heaven to earth where the Evil One now lives. This angel comes as Satan’s jailer. In the one hand, it holds the key to the Abyss to lock and seal it over the devil, and in the other a great chain to bind him for a thousand years. His evil influence, which stems from deceiving the nations, has ceased altogether until the close of the thousand-year period when he must be se…