Revelation 20:3

The angel will throw Satan into the abyss and then shut and seal the opening to it to guarantee that he will not escape (cf. Daniel 6:17; Matthew 27:66). This action assures his confinement, but it does not specify that he will suffer otherwise. Satan will not have access to the earth but abide in the abyss (bottomless pit, Revelation 9:1-2; Revelation 11:7; Revelation 13:4; Revelation 13:7; Revelation 17:8) throughout the Millennium. His confinement will preclude his deceiving the nations, which he had been doing (Revelation 13:14; Revelation 16:13-14).

The nations in view will be the descendants of mortal believers who do not die during the Great Tribulation but live on in the Millennium (Revelation 11:13; Revelation 12:13-17). All unbelievers will evidently perish when Christ returns to the earth (Revelation 19:19-21). Life spans will be much longer in the Millennium (Isaiah 65:20), so the earth’s population will increase rapidly, as was the case before the Flood. The children who are born during the Millennium will need to believe on Jesus Christ for salvation, and some of them will not do so. This group will probably constitute the unbelievers whom Satan leads in rebellion at the end of the Millennium (Revelation 20:8-9). God will release Satan out of divine necessity (Gr. dei) to fulfill His plans after the thousand years. White argued that the epic ideology of victory over the dragon followed by house-building constitutes a fundamental hermeneutical paradigm for the historical-grammatical, yet non-literal interpretation of Revelation 20:1-3. [Note: R. Fowler White, "On the Hermeneutics and Interpretation of Revelation 20:1-3: A Preconsummationist [i.e., Amillennialist] Perspective," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 42:1 (March 1999):53-66.]

"The final answer as to why God sees this as a necessity with its fruition in another rebellion is hidden in the counsels of God (cf. Revelation 1:1; Revelation 4:1; Isaiah 55:8; Mark 8:31; Mark 13:7; Luke 24:26; Luke 24:44) . . . Yet one purpose may be a partial answer. Through his release the whole universe will see that after the thousand years of his imprisonment and an ideal reign on earth, Satan is incurably wicked and men’s hearts are still perverse enough to allow him to gather an army of such an immense size." [Note: Thomas, Revelation 8-22, p. 411. See also David J. MacLeod, "The Third ’Last Thing’: The Binding of Satan (Revelation 20:1-3)," Bibliotheca Sacra 156:624 (October-December 1999):469-86.]