1. Revelation 20:4 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

What is significant about the word “then”?

Revelation 20:4 (ESV)

4 Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

See on Revelation 20:1. John’s eye moves from the angel arresting Satan to a series of thrones. Clearly, the thrones (and those on them) exist concurrently with the events of Revelation 20:1–3. That is, while Satan is imprisoned (that is the present dispensation!), someone governs this world, and it is not Satan!