Hey Chris,
Yeah, it always sounded literal to me too, but then what others (scholars etc) saw in the text started to make much more sense.
Here is the basic predominant view of Rev 20:1-6 over the last 1500 years or so.
None of this text is literal, except for the effects being depicted in allegorical terms.
Ask yourself:
Does the angel have a literal key? Really?
It there actually a pit that has no bottom? Where’s that?
Did the angel grab Satan and really cast him in there?
Did the angel literally bind Satan with a literal chain? Made of metal links and all…really?
How does John know the souls he saw were “beheaded”? Is it ONLY the souls that were beheaded that reign with Christ for a 1000 years? That what the text says.
That narrows it down to a small percentage of the saints right there.
The rest of the dead that don’t live again are the ones not beheaded?
You see, if you take it literally, it gets a bit confusing.
Now here’s what the majority view basically is.
Satan was defeated by Christ on the cross and with his resurrection. The NT is full of passages to that effect. Satan is now effectively bound since Christ is reigning at the right hand of God the Father.
What! you say. Doesn’t look like he’s bound with all going on in the world today.
Agree, but just think for a minute. Prior to Christ the entire world was pagan. Israel was the only nation worshiping the true God. But now Satan can “deceive the nations no more till the 1000 years have ended”
Since Christ and his disciples preached the kingdom to many 1000s of Jews who believed then on to the gentiles. Within just a few decades the gospel had spread throughout the civilized world.
That was even under extreme persecution the likes we can’t even begin to imagine.
Christians were tortured, fed to lions & dogs for sport, burned at the stake, put in racks, bound in hell hole prisons etc etc etc and STILL the gospel spread across the globe like wildfire. (that was before literacy rates were even 5%)
Christianity has dominated the world ever since! 2 billion plus are professing Christians today.
So Satan’s binding is seen as his loss of the control he had say even when he tempted Christ. Oh sure he still is active, but not like before. He’s defeated. Fact is he was cast out of heaven after his defeat from the work of Christ on the cross. He can no longer accuse the saints as before.
There has been much ink spilled over this subject & mine is but a speck of an overview. But when you try to start putting a literal 1000 year reign on earth with passages about a literal temple, but yet those same passages are full of eternal references as the lion lying down with the lamb etc a literal interpretation just doesn’t stand the test and is not convincing when under detailed scrutiny.
That’s where I’m at on it. I’m certainly open to discussion on the finer points.