Then, I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given to them—both the souls of the ones having been beheaded because of the witness of Jesus and through the word of God, and the same who did not throw themselves prostrate in homage to the beast nor the image of it, and did not receive the etched mark upon their forehead or upon their hand—and they became alive and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
The remaining dead did not become alive until the thousand years would be completed. This is the first resurrection.
Supremely blessed and holy the one having a share in the first resurrection, upon these the second death does not have authority, but rather they will be the priests of God and of Christ, and will reign with him a thousand years.
Revelation 20:4-6
Premillennial
Who Sat Upon the Thrones?
The possibilities include
- God the Father, God the Son (who is Christ), and the angels.
- the twenty-four elders first introduced in Revelation 4:4.
- the martyrs and those who refused the mark of the beast.
- all true believers represented in the Hebrew Bible and Christian Testament, as described in Matthew’s Gospel. This is the most preferred option among commentators.
It seems this company was given the right to judge during this millennial reign. Specifically mentioned are martyrs and those who refused to worship the beast—these are either being judged worthy of the first resurrection, or they are joining the company of those who will come to life and reign with Jesus.
Ζάω | zaō—Come to Life in the Resurrection
A hotly contested verb, and a testament to how hard it is to figure out how to translate it. It means “to live,” or “to “be alive.” And the way it would normally be phrased is to say, “they lived,” and “they did not live.” But in this context, it possibly has a different nuance. Premillennialist expositors would say, “came to life,” with the idea they had been dead and now are being raised to life again in reference to the first resurrection mentioned in the text. Compellingly, earlier in John’s apocalypse, Jesus also gave certain promises to overcomers which are now coming true:
“And the one conquering and the one keeping My works until the end, I will give to that one jurisdiction over the nations,
“and that one will shepherd them like a staff of iron as the vessels of potters are shattered”
Revelation 2:26-27
and
“And You created them for our God, a kingdom and priests, and they will reign upon the earth.”
Revelation 5:10
After this thousand-year era, when Christ rules, and the saints judge the nations, there will be another resurrection of those who had not been raised in the first one. At that time, all mortals will come before God to be assessed. This is the only sensible way to understand the meaning of a first resurrection, and another resurrection to come after. John’s vision of the souls of those who had been beheaded implies he saw them not as bodies, but rather existing in a spiritual state right before the were about to be raised to physical life.
A Thousand Years
Again, the sensible reading of this timeframe is literal, just as reading the three and a half years of tribulation makes sense literally, in keeping with the way John wrote his Revelation. However, lifespans may be altered, as Isaiah indicated,
No more shall there be in it
Isaiah 65:20 (NRSVUE, italics added)
an infant who lives but a few days
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime,
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
Amillennial
Thrones and Martyrs
Already in heaven are the twenty-four elders from Revelation 4, seated up on their thrones, and the martyrs, introduced in Revelation 6. So, the souls John sees must be all the faithful who have died during the church age.
Spiritual Resurrection
The older view of this passage, first proposed by Augustine of Hippo, symbolizes the earthly Christian Era. Christians, spiritually, rule the earth with Christ enthroned in heaven, seeing Paul’s statement in concrete terms, “in all these things we are more than victorious through him who loved us.”
An alternative view—which has become the prevailing amillennial view—was put forward in the nineteenth century. It suggests John saw all those who had died up to that point, living in a blessed state with the Lord before the resurrection to come. In other words, the first resurrection is a spiritual one in which those who have died enter into an eternal, spiritual plane in preparation for the resurrection to come of their physical bodies.
Seen this way, zaō means, simply, “lived,” as it would in the bulk of koine Greek texts. Those who have died in Christ live on into eternity with the Lord in heaven. Christians’ experience of eternity is couched in terms of a spiritual quickening from death to life, as John wrote in his Gospel:
Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and does not come under judgment but has passed from death to life.
John 5:24 (NRSVUE)
… and as Paul also regularly wrote about in several of his letters.
Yet, there is still the sense that all saints reign with Christ.
… even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus …
Ephesians 2:5-6 (NRSVUE, italics added)
Conversely, there are others who John saw did not live. These never experienced the passing from death to life that believers experience when they put their faith in God through Christ. Possibly they have been inert, having had no experience of eternity, or blessing in heaven with God, and assuredly they are the resurrection to condemnation Jesus spoke of.
Just a few verses later in Revelation 20, John will speak of a second death: one is a spiritual death, the other is physical.
Physical Resurrection
Other passages in the Bible indicate there will only be one physical resurrection, which will include all mortals who have ever lived—both the righteous and unrighteous. This is the resurrection spoken of later in Revelation 20.
A Thousand Years
Scholars point to other Bible passages which indicate the number “thousand” as symbolic of an incalculably long time or an innumerably large amount.
- God keeps covenant with a thousand generations, arguably 40,000 years (Deuteronomy 7:9).
- God owns all the cattle on a thousand hills, in other words, all cattle worldwide (Psalm 50:10).
- One Israelite will be able to chase a thousand enemy troops—they will be invincible (Joshua 23:10).
- A thousand may fall by the side of the one who trusts God, even ten thousand (in other words, disaster is bringing down everyone else), but no harm shall befall those who put their faith in the Lord (Psalm 91:7).
- A thousand years is like a day to eternal God, very unlike the human experience of the passage of time (Psalm 90:4, Ecclesiastes 6:6, 2 Peter 3:8).
Rejecting the Mark and Worship of the Beast
The “beast” incorporates all those who have been opposed to the church, and to the people of God, from the beginning. Those who, throughout history, have remained loyal and faithful to God, are the ones refusing the beast’s rule.
The three millennial views are taken from Revelation: Four Views A Parallel Commentary, edited by Steve Gregg
