His being bound and confined must symbolize his dejection to a position where he can have no possible influence over the nations during the time he is bound. It can be no _partial_ restraint, as some theologians hold; for that is contrary to the conditions of the symbolic representation. His restraint is full, complete, and entire. Consequently his influence, for the time being, will have entirely ceased. The period of his confinement, therefore, cannot be one of partial exemption from sin; but the living will be perfectly free from all its contagious influences. He is to deceive the nations _no more_, till the thousand years shall be fulfilled.
"The nations" who are freed from his influences, and also those whom he is subsequently to deceive, are not, necessarily, organized political bodies, under civil rulers, as they now exist. The original term, { ~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, is defined by Robinson to be "a multitude, people, race, belonging and living together." At this epoch, the national organizations having disappeared, and the people constituting them being translated or slain, the only nations remaining will be "the nations of them which are saved" (21:24), over whom the influence of Satan will have ceased forever; and those constituting "the rest of the dead" (20:5), who will not live again till the end of the thousand years--at the very time when Satan is to be loosed from his prison to go out to deceive them, 20:7, 8.
There is, in the Apocalypse, no symbolic representation of the act of the cleansing of the earth, yet various scriptures show that it is at the epoch of the second advent, and of the establishment of the kingdom of God. If so, it follows the destruction of the wicked and the binding of Satan, while the raised and transfigured saints--constituting "the bride"--are still with the Lord in the clouds of heaven (19:7-9), where they were caught up to meet him in the air, 1 Thess. 4:17.
A restoration of the earth, in connection with the first resurrection, is in accordance with the testimony of scripture, and was the opinion of the ancients. We read in Isaiah: "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind," Isa. 65:17.