The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 659
Now the event takes place foreshadowed in the last solemn service
of the Day of Atonement. When the ministration in the holy of
holies had been completed, and the sins of Israel had been removed
from the sanctuary by virtue of the blood of the sin offering, then the
scapegoat was presented alive before the Lord; and in the presence of
the congregation the high priest confessed over him “all the iniquities of
the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting
them upon the head of the goat.” Leviticus 16:21. In like manner, when
the work of atonement in the heavenly sanctuary has been completed,
then in the presence of God and heavenly angels and the hosts of the
redeemed the sins of God’s people will be placed upon Satan; he will be
declared guilty of all the evil which he has caused them to commit. And
as the scapegoat was sent away into a land not inhabited, so Satan will
be banished to the desolate earth, an uninhabited and dreary wilderness.
The revelator foretells the banishment of Satan and the condition of
chaos and desolation to which the earth is to be reduced, and he declares
that this condition will exist for a thousand years. After presenting the
scenes of the Lord’s second coming and the destruction of the wicked,
the prophecy continues: “I saw an angel come down from heaven, having
the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid
hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and
bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and
shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations
no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he
must be loosed a little season.” Revelation 20:1-3.
That the expression “bottomless pit” represents the earth in a state
of confusion and darkness is evident from other scriptures. Concerning
the condition of the earth “in the beginning,” the Bible record says that it
“was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the
deep.” [The Hebrew word here translated “deep” is rendered in the
Septuagint (Greek) translation of the Hebrew Old Testament by the same
word rendered “bottomless pit” In Revelation 20:1-3.]
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