Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Revelation 20:6

"Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: over these the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years." — Revelation 20:6 (ASV)

The fourth last thing is the thousand-year reign of Christ on the earth. John gives us no picture of life in the Millennium in these verses; they contain only a statement about who will participate in it. He sees thrones, and judges sitting on them. The scene is usually connected with Daniel’s vision of the Son of Man (Daniel 7:9, 22, 27). There, justice was done for the saints by the Ancient of Days, and they began their kingdom reign. If that thought is found here, those who sit on the thrones are the angelic court. On the other hand, those on the thrones may be the resurrected martyrs who exercise judgment and rule during the Millennium. This possible reinterpretation of Daniel seems preferable in the light of other NT teaching as well as of Revelation itself (cf. Lk 22:30; 1 Corinthians 6:2; Revelation 2:26). They who were once judged by earth’s courts to be worthy of death are now the judges of the earth under Christ.

A more difficult question concerns the identity of those who will rule with Christ. They are the “beheaded” (with an axe) martyrs who have previously occupied John’s attention (cf. 6:9). The cause of their death is attributed to their faithful witness to Jesus and the word of God (cf. 6:9; 12:11). The reference to “souls” (GK 6034) recalls 6:9, where this word is used of the slain witnesses under the altar. It describes those who have lost their bodily life but are nevertheless still alive in God’s sight. This term prepares us for their coming to (bodily) life again at the first resurrection. It is a mistake to take this word to imply a later spiritual resurrection or rebirth of the soul.

These martyrs are also those who did not worship the beast or his image or receive his mark on them (cf. 13:1ff.; 15:2); in a word, they are the followers of the Lamb. At this point, NIV omits a very important term. Between the description of those beheaded and the description concerning the beast worship in v.4 are two Greek words meaning “and who.” This construction is capable of bearing two different meanings. It could simply introduce a further qualifying phrase to the identification of the martyrs (so NIV). But it may also be understood to introduce a second group. There are (1) those who were beheaded for their witness and (2) “also those who” did not worship the beast (see NASB). This immediately alleviates a thorny problem, i.e., why only the martyrs should live and reign with Christ. Usually in Revelation the specific relative pronoun “who” used here refers to the preceding group and adds some further detail (2:24; 9:4; 17:12); but in one other reference, the phrase so introduced singles out a special class or group from the more general group in the preceding statement (1:7). Thus the “and who” clause introduces a special class of the beheaded, i.e., those who were beheaded because they did not worship the beast, etc. In any case, it seems that John has only the beheaded in mind (cf. 14:13).

But this presents a problem because John has elsewhere indicated that the kingdom reign will be shared by every believer who overcomes (2:26–28; 3:12, 21) and is purchased by Christ’s blood (5:10). Also, in 1 Corinthians 6:2–3, Paul clearly speaks of all believers—not just martyrs—exercising judgment in the future. Unless only those beheaded by the beast will reign in the Millennium, another explanation is demanded. There are two possible approaches. (1) The pastoral approach explains John’s reference to only the martyrs as a piece of special encouragement to them, while not implying that others would be left out. (2) The other view, with which I am more comfortable , sees the martyrs as representing the whole church that is faithful to Jesus, whether or not they have actually been killed. They constitute a group that can in truth be described as those who “did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death” (12:11). As such, the term “martyrs” is a synonym for overcomers (chs. 2–3). Thus John could count himself in this group, though he may never have suffered death by the axe of the beast. In 2:11 those who during persecution are faithful to Christ even to the point of death are promised escape from the second death, which in 20:6 is promised to those who share in the first resurrection, i.e., the beheaded (v.4). In fact, several other promises to overcomers in the letters to the seven churches find their fulfillment in ch. 20 (cf. 2:11 with 20:6; 2:26–27 with 20:4; 3:5 with 20:12, 15; 3:21 with 20:4).

The martyrs “came to life” (GK 2409). The interpretation of these words is crucial to the whole passage. Since Augustine, the majority of interpreters have taken the words to refer to new birth (a spiritual resurrection) or to the triumph of the church. This construes the historical event of physical resurrection in a symbolic way. Others, rightly, chastened by a more serious exegesis of the text, hold that the language teaches bodily resurrection but that the whole section (20:1—10) is not to be taken as predicting events within history but is apocalyptic language, figurative of the consolation and reward promised the martyrs. The verb “came to life” is used in v.4 of the martyrs and also in v.5 of the “rest of the dead.” When the context is that of bodily death, this NT verb connotes physical resurrection (Acts 1:3; Acts 9:41), even though the normal word is “raise up” (GK 1586). More importantly, Revelation clearly uses “live” for the resurrection of Christ (1:18; 2:8) and also curiously for the sea beast (13:14). John plainly says in 20:5 that this is the first “resurrection” (GK 414). The word “resurrection,” which occurs over forty times in the NT, is used almost exclusively of physical resurrection (Lk 2:34 is the only exception). There is no indication that John has departed from this usage.

Why does John call this the “first” (GK 4755) resurrection? This word clearly implies the first in a series of two or more. John does not directly refer to a second resurrection, though a second resurrection is inferred both from the use of “first” and from the expression “the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended” (v.5). Some early interpreters connect John’s first resurrection with the “resurrection of the just” . From at least the time of Augustine, the first resurrection was understood as a regeneration of the soul and the second resurrection as the general physical, bodily resurrection of just and unjust. It must, however, be insisted that it is quite weak exegesis to make the first resurrection spiritual and the second one physical, unless the text itself clearly indicates this change, which it does not.

Another response would be to understand “the rest of the dead” who lived not until the close of the thousand years to be all the faithful except the martyrs, plus the entire body of unbelievers. This view, in our opinion, runs aground on the fact that John clearly seems to tie exclusion from the second death with those who are part of the first resurrection, thus strongly implying that those who participate in the second resurrection are destined for the second death. Therefore, we may understand the first resurrection as being the raising to physical life of all the dead in Christ (cf. Jn 5:29; 1 Corinthians 15:12ff.; 1 Thessalonians 4:13ff.). For those who participate in this resurrection, “the second death [the lake of fire (20:14)] has no power over them” (v.6). Therefore, they are “blessed and holy” (the fifth beatitude) and shall be priests of God and Christ for the thousand years. On the other hand, those over whom the second death will have power must be “the rest of the dead” (v.5), who will be participants in the second resurrection, who will “rise to be condemned” (cf. Acts 24:15).

The only NT place other than 2:11 and 20:6 that mentions the second death refers to exclusion from physical resurrection (v.14). Likewise, the Palestinian Targum on Dt 33:6 reads: “Let Reuben live in this world and not die in the second death in which death the wicked die in the world to come.” Here the second death means exclusion from the resurrection. Not to die the second death, then, means to rise again to eternal life.

What now may be said as to the length of the kingdom reign? Nowhere in other literature is the kingdom reign of the Messiah specified as a thousand years. Thus parallels to John’s use of a thousand years must be sought elsewhere. It seems that the earliest traditions in Asia relate the thousand years to Adam’s paradisiacal time span. The Book of Jubilees, for example, attempts to justify the correctness of Ge 2:17, that Adam died “on the day” that he ate of the forbidden fruit. According to Ge 5:5, his sin caused him to die at 930 years of age, “seventy years before attaining a thousand years, for one thousand years are as one day [Psalms 90:4] in heaven.” Thus Adam died before completing one day (a thousand years). Some believe that this is the origin of John’s use of the thousand years.

Later, the thousand years began to be associated with the Jewish cosmic- week framework in which the history of the world is viewed as lasting a week of millennia, or seven thousand years. The last day millennium is the Sabbath-rest millennium, followed by the eighth day of the age to come. This idea was then linked interpretatively but inappropriately to 2 Peter 3:8.

Is the thousand years symbolic of a perfect human life-span or some ideal kingdom environment on the earth? In the first place, the number symbolisms of John in Revelation should not be used to argue against an earthly kingdom. It might be said that the number is symbolic of a perfect period of time of whatever length. The essence of premillennialism is in its insistence that the reign will be on earth, not in heaven, for a period of time before the final judgment and the new heavens and earth. For example, we may rightly understand the 1,260 days (42 months) of earlier chapters as a symbolic number, but it still refers to an actual historical period of whatever length during which the beast will destroy the saints. In any case, it is not of primary importance whether the years are 365day years or symbolic of a shorter or longer period of bliss enjoyed by believers as they reign with Christ on earth (cf. 5:10 with 11:15; 22:5).