There are numerous passages that teach Satan’s active role in deceiving the world at this time. Take this one for example in Paul’s second epistle to the Corinthians:
“But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing, among whom the god of this age has blinded the minds of those who do not believe so they would not see the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Cor 4:3–4)
Amillennialists rightly agree that this refers to the present interadvent period.
But they also believe that Satan is not deceiving the nations while being bound at this same time in the abyss:
“Then I saw an angel descending from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the abyss and a huge chain. He seized the dragon—the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan—and tied him up for a thousand years. The angel then threw him into the abyss and locked and sealed it so that he could not deceive the nations until the one thousand years were finished. (After these things he must be released for a brief period of time.)” (Rev 20:1–3)
This is a contradiction on a couple of levels.
New Testament passages teach that Satan is outside of the abyss influencing the world, while Rev 20:1–3 teaches that he is not only bound in the abyss but concealed and locked within it.
Amillennialists are forced to either equivocate (“He is only bound in this or that sense”) or they must deny the existence of a literal abyss and in turn must be consistent and deny the existence of hell.
It also contradicts on the level that both passages refer to Satan deceiving the world, but in the former passage, Satan is intensely active in deceiving the world, while in the latter, Satan is prevented from deceiving the world.
Amillennialists have desperately attempted to get around this problematic issue. For example, it has been argued that both activities occur at this interadvent age because 2 Cor 4:3–4 refers to “individuals” and Rev 20:1–3 refers to “nations.”
This is easily refuted. It is a distinction without meaning, because individuals make up nations. Nations are not abstract entities. Abstract entities are not deceived—people are. Further, a bit further in 2 Corinthians, Paul links the behavior of individuals with nations (1 Cor 5:1!). It is an artificial and strained attempt to equivocate the domains of Satan’s deceptive activity.
If language means anything, it is clear the activity of Satan’s deception in 2 Cor 4:3–4 and Satan’s prevention of deception in Rev 20:1–3 refer to two different time periods.
You cannot have both at the same time and in the same sense.
