consciences now. And then finally, when we appear before Jehovah God for questioning, we will also be able to make him an answer out of a good conscience and he will judge us with approval through Christ Jesus. Therefore in these wicked days, when the baptism of fire is impending, let us wisely guard against any misbehavior toward God and man. By all means let us request and hold a good conscience toward God.

Questions From Readers

● Revelation 20:7 speaks of the loosing of Satan from the abyss after the 1,000-year reign. Does this final testing come in the closing years of the 1,000-year period, or after it? Does it come within the seventh creative or rest day of 7,000 years, or after its close? Also, does Christ turn the Kingdom back to Jehovah before or after the test by Satan?—W. G., New York.

Revelation 20:7 is explicit in stating that Satan’s loosing is after the 1,000-year reign is over: “Now as soon as the thousand years have been ended, Satan will be let loose out of his prison.” (NW) In this section we have previously shown that the 1,000-year reign of Christ and the 1,000-year abyssing of Satan and his demons run concurrently, that they start and end together, and that hence when it says of Satan that “after these things he must be let loose for a little while” it is conclusive that the final test comes after the 1,000-year reign has ended. (See The Watchtower, March 15, 1951, and Revelation 20:1-6, NW.) Then it is that Satan and his demons are brought forth from the abyss “for a little while”.

Christ’s rule for a full thousand years without any encroachment or interference from Satan and his demons allows for the accomplishment of the things foretold at 1 Corinthians 15:24-28 (NW): “He hands over the kingdom to his God and Father, when he has destroyed all government and all authority and power. For he must rule as king until God has put all enemies under his feet. As the last enemy, death is to be destroyed. For God ‘subjected all things under his feet’. But when he says that ‘all things have been subjected’, it is evident that it is with the exception of the one who subjected all things to him. But when all things will have been subjected to him, then the Son himself will also subject himself to the one who subjected all things to him, that God may be all things to everyone.”

All government and authority and power contrary to Christ’s kingship will be eliminated, and at the last even the enemy death will be destroyed. That is to say, the death resultant from Adam will vanish by Christ’s wiping out every evil trace of that death and its consequences in the human family. From then on the human family could live forever in their physical perfection. They would no longer die because they were descendants from Adam, all condemnation inherited from him being gone. Then it is that Christ turns over the Kingdom government to Jehovah God, that He might be “all things to everyone”. It is necessary for Jesus to do this, because Jesus himself cannot grant everlasting life to this group of human creatures. The Scripture principle remains true that it is Jehovah God who justifies, or, in modern translation, “God is the One who declares them righteous.”—Rom. 8:33, NW.

Now, if God is going to justify them or declare them righteous and worthy of everlasting life he must be the one that acts as a judge. Jesus, by his Kingdom for a thousand years, has acted as a screen over mankind so that the wrath of God might not be exercised against them while he is uplifting them to human perfection and sinlessness. Then at the end of the thousand years when he turns over the Kingdom to God he also turns over the human family for God’s attention and for God to act directly as the judge of the human family. In order that he can apply a test on which he can base judgment for or against, he lets the Devil loose. He uses Jesus to loose the Devil because Jesus is the one who abyssed the Devil and demons. Out they come, and they put humanity to the test.