We have here two prominent, globally-known spokesmen for what we might call the anti-woke, sociologically right-wing side of things. That they invoke personal and social utility to justify belief in God, rather than classical theistic formulations, at once more robust and more straightforward, strongly suggests that we are dealing with what the historian Oswald Spengler called “second religiosity” (or “second religiousness”) in his Decline of the West. What this term means is that earlier, earnestly-held religious beliefs are rehashed largely as a cultural stance against declining social conditions and the establishment.

God is the highest value in the hierarchy of values … God is how we imaginatively and collectively represent the existence and action of consciousness across time …
God is that which eternally dies and is reborn in the pursuit of higher being and truth. 
—Jordan Peterson, during his June 2018 debate with Sam Harris.
When you understand the level of evil in the world, you understand that (following the second law of thermodynamics) the only equal but opposite force to that must be God …
Even God as a concept becomes a real thing. If you have a thousand people and they believe in God … and that makes them act righteously, even as a concept God becomes a real force.
—Andrew Tate
Whatever disagreements they might have, what Peterson and Tate are both expressing in the above quotes is a false faith, a bluff. They may believe in God but find that their faith is inchoate so far as their ability to articulate it. That’s a question we cannot judge—what they do articulate, however, is technically speaking an idol.
The West’s Second Religiosity
To worship an “imaginative and collective representation” of consciousness “across time,” that is, within our heads and within time, rather than beyond these, is technically idolatry.
To worship a force that is opposite but equal to evil, and a concept whose reality consists in affecting behaviour, is no different.
Given the prominence of Tate, I should add—although it isn’t the focus of this essay—that whether or not he is guilty of the crimes for which he stands accused—he obviously promoted moral rot through gambling and a webcam business. This track record remains significant insofar as his legions of fans have yet to hear him explicitly repent, so far as I know (a lack of repentance which may be related to his tendency to argue for God’s existence as a socially useful “operating system” rather than as a genuine transcendent source of moral truth). 
It is a technical matter of religiosity, to my mind, that sin should be repented from publicly if sin was promoted publicly. During his interview with Candace Owens, the two agreed that one should not regret past mistakes. Fair enough. But a mother who had a child with a man who was not her husband need not regret the life of that child to repent of the adultery. 
Tate’s un-repentance for pushing moral corruption may well go hand in hand with his tendency to think about God as a social operating system.
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Jesus’s blood seals our fate, and his Holy Spirit is our guarantee. The Father himself loves us. And if we have the Father’s love, we have everything we’ll ever need because he’s a good Father. The spiritual discipline of thanksgiving gives us eyes to see the goodness of God, and when we see the goodness of God, we can’t help but thank him for who he is.

When Paul drilled down to the very heart of sin in Romans 1:21, he said, “Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.” A thankless heart isn’t just a problem. It is a sin against God. Every kind of evil begins there. Francis Schaeffer said, “A heart giving thanks at any given moment is the real test of the extent to which we love God at that moment” (A Christian View of Spirituality, 205). Thanking God is loving God. Thanksgiving is not an optional add-on to the Christian life; the Christian life cannot be lived without thanksgiving.
But giving thanks is hard, isn’t it? Paul called this world the “present evil age” (Gal. 1:4). It’s not easy to thank God with a broken heart or a tragic diagnosis. It’s not easy to thank God in the depths of anxiety and depression. It’s not easy to thank God in the middle of the night when you can’t sleep and don’t know what’s coming tomorrow, but you think it’s more than you can bear. Nowhere does the Bible say thanking God is easy. But nowhere does the Bible say thanking God is optional. It’s not a practice reserved only for the good times. It’s a spiritual discipline necessary at all times.
Becoming Psalm 100 People
The Bible says, “If there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Phil. 4:8). One classic Psalm of thanksgiving, Psalm 100, gives us things of which we can think about. In fact, Psalm 100 is a perfect Psalm to grow in the spiritual discipline of thanksgiving.
We start in the middle of Psalm 100, in verse 3, because it shows us the ground for our thanksgiving. Our God is the only God. It all begins there. The one true God is ours by grace in Christ. We are his people, his very own creation. He didn’t plop us here and retreat to heaven to see how this played out. He is involved in every detail of our life, the good and the bad, the sins and the successes. He is our Good Shepherd who takes care of us and watches over us, and even when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, it’s so he can take us to the green pastures and still waters we long for. We are not the first people to experience this. The Bible is filled with those who have come before us, bearing witness to these truths. God has been faithful for generations. Throughout history, God has never disappointed anyone who trusted him, and he will not start with us. “For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations” (Ps. 100:5).
These truths find their ultimate expression in the person and work of Jesus Christ. “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him” (2 Cor. 1:20a). Every promise in the Bible that God made, every hope in the Bible that God gave, and every joy in the Bible that God promised find their Yes in Jesus. Yes, life is still hard and still hurts, but in Christ, even death is now a portal into a better world with him. “And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good” (Rom. 8:28a). We have victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 15:57). We’ve been rescued! Jesus is the reason for our greatest thanks.
We can give thanks even in the hard stuff, because no matter how hopeless today may seem, there is hope for tomorrow. As Ray Ortlund said, “God has designed reality in such a way that we praise our way into a better future.” Thanksgiving moves us closer to God’s heart and a better tomorrow.
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When viewed against the backdrop of redemptive history (culminating in Christ’s saving work), the binding of Satan is directly tied to the success of the missionary enterprise. Satan was bound when his power of deception over nations and empires was broken by Jesus’s death and resurrection. John is not referring to the absence of all evil and unbelief as premillennarians contend. The amillennial interpretation is the correct one.

In Revelation 20:1-3, John is given a remarkable vision:

“Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. 2 And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, 3 and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while.” In verse 7, John adds, “and when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison.”

The binding of Satan as depicted in this passage raises several obvious questions, especially in light of the on-going debate between amillennarians and premillennarians about the timing and character of the millennial age. This is the only biblical text which specifically mentions a thousand year period of time in which Satan’s power and activity are curtailed (the millennial age). The two most obvious questions raised by John’s vision are, “what does it mean for Satan to be bound in such a manner?” and “are the thousand years a present or a future period of time?” Amillennarians and premillennarians take quite different approaches to this passage and offer conflicting answers to these questions.
Amillennarians believe that the binding of Satan is but another way of speaking of Jesus’ victory over the devil during our Lord’s messianic mission. The thousand years are not a literal period of time, but refer to the entire age between Christ’s first and second coming (the inter-advental period). If true, the binding of Satan begins with our Lord’s death and resurrection, continues throughout the present age, and ends with the release of Satan from the abyss (abussos) shortly before Jesus returns at the end of the age when Antichrist is revealed during a time of final apostasy (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12). This brief apostasy is followed by the final consummation which includes: the general resurrection (1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11; 1 Corinthians 15:50-57), the final judgment (Matthew 25:31-46; Revelation 20:4-6, 11-15), and the ushering in of a new heavens and earth (2 Peter 3:4).
Premillennarians, however, contend that the thousand years are a literal period of time commencing with Christ’s second advent, who then establishs his physical rule over the earth in a millennial kingdom (Revelation 20:1-7). During this time, Satan is bound. The thousand years ends with Satan’s release from his imprisonment so as to lead the nations in a final revolt against Jesus’ rule, immediately before the final judgment at the end of the millennial age (Revelation 20:7-10). I address the serious problems with this understanding of redemptive history here: Evil in the Millennial Age? A Huge Problem for Premillennarians.
To summarize, amillennarians understand the binding of Satan to be a present reality, while premillennarians see this scene as an entirely future event. In this essay, I will consider and evaluate the biblical background to John’s vision and then respond to the premillennial challenge, “when and how is Satan is bound?” And “why is there so much evil in the world if he is?” These are two important questions which merit response.
The Redemptive Historical Background to John’s Vision
There is significant biblical background which provides context to help us understand what John sees, and which ought to be considered before we turn to the details of the vision given John as recorded in Revelation 20:1-3, 7. The scene depicted in Revelation 20 occurs in heaven (where the thrones are) and actually makes much sense in light of Old Testament imagery and events, especially when these are interpreted in light of the dawn of the messianic age in which Jesus triumphs over the devil and his legions. Since the context behind John’s vision is important and often overlooked in this debate, I will endeavor to trace out these images and events to aid us in our interpretation of the binding of Satan in Revelation 20. There are three categories of biblical events which give us considerable aid in understanding and interpreting John’s vision.
First, we consider Satan’s influence upon the nations. We start with the obvious fact that Satan was instrumental in the fall of our race during a time of probation in Eden (Genesis 3:1-24). A fierce adversary is introduced into the biblical narrative from the very beginning, although it is foretold that this adversary ultimately will be defeated by the seed of the woman (Genesis 3:15). According to the subsequent chapters of Genesis, Satan managed to deceive much of the world soon after Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden, although an elect line did remain—the line of Seth, as recounted in Genesis 4:26. The first city was built by Cain in the land of Nod, and named for his first born son, Enoch. The Cain-Enoch genealogy in Genesis 4:17 ff. implies that the city became a center of unbelief and opposition to the purposes of God. Then we read of the Nephilim (Genesis 6), followed by YHWH’s judgment upon “the world that was” in the form of the flood (Genesis 6:9-9:29). No sooner did Noah and his family leave the safety of the ark, we read of the rise of two more cities hostile to God’s purposes and his people, Nineveh (Genesis 10:11-12) and Babel (Genesis 11). The early course of redemptive history is characterized as a period of increasing human wickedness, manifest in city-states hostile to God due to the spiritual darkness of satanic deception (Genesis 6:5).
As the course of redemptive history continues to unfold throughout the balance of the Old Testament, we read of repeated instances of various nations and empires arising and persecuting the people of God. The list is long, but includes the Egyptians and its Pharaoh, followed by the various Canaanite tribes, most notably the Moabites, then the Assyrians and the fall of the northern kingdom (Israel), before Nebuchadnezzar conquers Judah and destroys the city of Jerusalem and its temple. Although Jerusalem and the temple were rebuilt in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, the people of God now find themselves as tenants in their own land, living under the rule of a series of pagan Gentile empires. These are nations who fell under Satan’s sway, did his business, and marshaled their resources against the people of God. This extensive evidence from the biblical narrative points in the direction that Satan’s influence upon the nations during their opposition to God’s purposes is very likely in the background of John’s vision when he refers to nations being freed from satanic manipulation.
A second factor to be considered is Satan’s power of deception, which often takes the form of idolatry and the worship of pagan deities is expressed in continual apostasy among the Israelites, seen initially in the wilderness of the Sinai, and then more openly once the Israelites have conquered the promised land of Canaan. The Canaan narratives inform us that like Adam, Israel never fulfilled the commission given them in Isaiah 49:6, “I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” Because of Israel’s rank unbelief seen in the nation and the idolatry of successive kings evident in their persistent disobedience to YHWH’s covenant, Israel comes under the covenant curses and repeatedly ends up as subjects of godless Gentile nations and their foreign gods. Israel’s witness to the Gentile nations regarding YHWH’s gracious promise of future restoration, coupled with the hope of a final redemption from sin, was largely absent. In the absence of such a witness which chases away satanic error, Satan continues to deceive the nations and is able to keep them walking in darkness.
Third, we fast forward to the New Testament era, where much more information is given us about the devil, his intentions, and the extent of his power. He is called Satan, which comes from the Hebrew for “accuser.” He is also called the devil, (diabolos—the Greek translation of the Hebrew satan). We learn of two names given to Satan, Belial and Beelzebul. He is variously identified as the Adversary, the Dragon, the Enemy, the Serpent, the Tester, and the Wicked One.[1] Satan is said to rule a host of fallen angels (Matthew 25:41), and he has been given control of the world (i.e., Luke 4:6), which indicates that Satan’s actions are limited by God’s providence, a point well captured by Martin Luther’s famous dictum, “the devil is God’s devil.”
Satan dominates non-Christians (John 8:44; Colossians 1:13), he is destructive of life and property (Luke 8:33), and he must be resisted (1 Corinthians 7:5). He is said to be exceedingly cunning (2 Corinthians 2:11), he tempts people to sin (Ephesians 6:11), and he opposes those who preach the gospel (1 Thessalonians 2:18). Especially important for our discussion, recall that Jesus responds to a hostile crowd by declaring, “you are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). Satan is, therefore, the progenitor of lies and deception, and will do anything in his power to oppose the proclamation of the gospel. We see his opposition to the gospel at work when Jesus tells Peter, who implores our Lord not to go to Jerusalem to suffer and die, “get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you [Peter] are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (Matthew 16:23).
An important theme running throughout the New Testament is the repeated references to Jesus’ triumph over Satan and the curtailing of his deceptive powers through our Lord’s death and resurrection. Jesus appeared in the fullness of time (Galatians 4:4-5), but his public ministry did not commence until after he had resisted Satan’s temptations in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11). In an unexpected turn of events, Jesus’ messianic mission appeared to come to an end with his death by crucifixion on Good Friday. But by Easter Sunday, it was abundantly clear that Satan’s victory over the promised Messiah was actually a complete and total defeat. By orchestrating the death of Jesus, ironically Satan ensured his own demise.
Our Lord completes the redemptive mission which Adam and then Israel failed to accomplish, when he fulfills all righteousness through his own personal obedience to God’s commandments, thereby providing a justifying righteousness for his people, while bearing the guilt of our sin in his own flesh. The accuser can no longer accuse if the guilt and power of sin is removed from those whom he would otherwise incriminate. Paul encourages struggling Christians in Colossae by reminding them of Satan’s complete and total defeat. “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” ( (Colossians 2:13-15). Satan is a thoroughly defeated foe whose end is certain, which echoes what Paul had previously told the Romans. “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Romans 16:20).
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