What happens to Satan in the end?

Question 10156.

Satan’s final defeat is described in Scripture with a clarity that leaves nothing to the imagination and no room for appeal. He is not an eternal rival to God, he is a creature, and Satan’s final defeat was written into the story long before it began.

What surprises people is that the ending comes in stages rather than all at once. Understanding the sequence takes a good deal of the fear out of the subject, which I suspect is part of why God told us about it.

Where He Started

He began as a created being of enormous dignity. The passages in Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14, addressed in the first instance to the king of Tyre and the king of Babylon, carry descriptions that overshoot any human monarch and give us a glimpse of the one behind them. Perfect in beauty, blameless in his ways until unrighteousness was found in him.

The Hebrew term satan means adversary, and the Greek diabolos means slanderer. Those are job descriptions rather than names, and they tell you what he does: he opposes, and he accuses.

His fall began with pride, and pride is where Satan’s final defeat was effectively decided. Everything since has been the working out of a verdict already reached.

Cast Down to Earth

At present he still has some access to the heavenly realm as an accuser, which is what Job 1 and Zechariah 3 show and what Revelation 12:10 calls him: the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them day and night before our God.

That access ends at the midpoint of the tribulation. War breaks out in heaven, Michael and his angels fight, and the dragon is thrown down to the earth with his angels. Then comes a line that explains the ferocity of the second half of that period: “woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short” (Revelation 12:12).

He knows. That is the point. Every move he makes from that moment is made by someone who has read the ending and is raging against it.

Bound for a Thousand Years

At the return of Jesus, an angel comes down with the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain, seizes the dragon and binds him for a thousand years, shutting and sealing him so that he might not deceive the nations any longer.

Notice how little effort this takes. One angel, one chain. I find that quietly devastating for the popular image of a cosmic struggle between near-equals. There has never been a contest.

The binding also settles an interpretive question. If Satan were bound now, in this present age, then Peter’s warning about a prowling lion and Paul’s warnings about his schemes would be inexplicable. See why Satan is released after the millennium.

Released, and Then the End

After the thousand years he is released for a little while and immediately goes out to deceive the nations, gathering them for battle. It is the same trade he has always plied, and after a millennium in the pit he has learned nothing and changed nothing.

The final rebellion lasts no time at all. Fire comes down from heaven and consumes the attackers, and then comes Satan’s final defeat in its permanent form: “and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulphur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10).

Two details in that verse matter. The beast and the false prophet, thrown in a thousand years earlier, are still there, which rules out annihilation. And the duration is stated twice over: day and night, forever and ever.

What Satan’s Final Defeat Reveals

The whole sequence displays God’s patience, since the adversary has been permitted to operate for a long time and within limits set by God rather than by himself. It displays God’s justice, since the release after the millennium demonstrates publicly that the problem was never bad circumstances but rebellious hearts.

And it displays the sufficiency of the cross. Hebrews says Jesus shared in flesh and blood so that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death. The decisive blow landed at Calvary. Everything afterwards is the enforcement of that judgement. My article on what will happen to Satan covers the same ground from another angle.

What He Can and Cannot Do Meanwhile

Before the end arrives there is a long meanwhile, and believers need a sober estimate of what the adversary can actually manage in it.

He can tempt, as he did in the wilderness. He can accuse, as he did with Joshua the high priest. He can hinder, as he did with Paul’s travel plans. He can masquerade as an angel of light, which is far more dangerous than any horror-film imagery, and he can sow false teachers into congregations who look entirely respectable.

What he cannot do is act outside God’s permission. Job is the clearest case: every move the adversary makes has a boundary set by God, and he cannot cross it. He cannot be everywhere, since he is a creature and not omnipresent, which means most of what Christians attribute to him personally is either the world, the flesh or one of his subordinates. And he cannot separate a believer from the love of God, because Paul lists every possible power and rules them all out. Satan’s final defeat is the endpoint of a career that has been under supervision from the beginning.

The Sheer Length of the Sentence

People sometimes ask why the process takes so many stages. Cast down at the middle of the tribulation, bound at the Second Coming, released after a thousand years, then the lake of fire. Why not deal with him in one movement?

Part of the answer is that each stage proves something. The casting down demonstrates that heaven will not host an accuser forever. The binding demonstrates that the peace of the millennial reign comes from the presence of the King and not from improved conditions. The release demonstrates that hearts born in a perfect environment still rebel when given the option, which removes every excuse human beings have ever offered about circumstances.

By the time Satan’s final defeat is executed, God’s justice has been displayed so thoroughly that no charge of unfairness can be brought by anybody. That, I think, is why the sequence is drawn out rather than summary. You can read the whole passage at Revelation 20:7-10.

Satan’s Final Defeat and Ours

There is a personal application in all this that I do not want you to miss.

Paul told the Romans that the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. Under your feet. The victory is Christ’s and the participation is ours, which is why the armour of Ephesians 6 is issued to ordinary believers rather than to specialists. Satan’s final defeat is not a spectacle we watch from the stands.

Practically that means the weapons are unglamorous. Truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, the word of God and prayer. No technique, no formula, no special vocabulary. I have watched believers look for exotic solutions to spiritual oppression when the answer was repentance, Scripture and the fellowship of the church, which are precisely the things Paul lists. My articles on whether demons are judged separately and the release after the millennium fill in the surrounding detail.

Neither Fascination Nor Denial

Two ditches lie either side of this road and I have seen believers in both.

On one side is fascination, where every difficulty is a demonic attack, every illness has a spiritual name, and a great deal of energy goes into rebuking things that Scripture never tells us to address. That approach gives the adversary far more attention than he deserves and leaves people exhausted.

On the other side is denial, where a modern Christian quietly treats the whole subject as first century furniture. That is more common in respectable churches and no less dangerous, since an enemy you refuse to believe in has an unusually free hand.

Scripture walks between them. Be sober-minded, be watchful, resist him, and get on with your life. The adversary is real, his time is short, and his defeat is already scheduled.

A Defeated Enemy Still Fighting

Soldiers in the last months of a lost war are often the most dangerous, because they have nothing left to preserve. That is the position the adversary now occupies, and it explains a good deal.

Satan’s final defeat was secured at the cross and will be executed at the appointed time, and nothing between those two points is in doubt. What lies between them is a rearguard action by an enemy who knows his time is short.

So expect opposition and do not be surprised or frightened by it. The intensity of resistance says nothing about the outcome. It says only that the one resisting has read the same ending you have, and hates it.

So, now what?

Live in the light of the ending. Your adversary is real, he is intelligent, and he is on a chain that is getting shorter. Resist him, firm in your faith, and he flees. That is not bravado; it is James 4:7.

Notice too where his energy goes. He accuses. If you are a believer weighed down by a voice that keeps reciting your failures, ask yourself whose voice that is. The Spirit convicts about specific sin so that you will repent and be free. The accuser condemns generally so that you will give up.

Satan’s final defeat is certain, and yours is not on the cards at all. So why keep listening to a defeated liar?

And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

Revelation 20:10 (ESV)