Inducement number one concerns ‘the first resurrection’ that is mentioned in Revelation 20.5, 6. The ‘first resurrection’ is mentioned in both verses; and it is the same resurrection that is referred to in each verse. Verse 6: “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.” The generic ‘he’ that has part in this ‘first resurrection’ is the same as ‘the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God’ in verse 4. That is the topic. This is why we have the assertion in verse 5: “This is the first resurrection.” The rest of verse 5 is parenthetical. What the author is saying is: This concerns that: this ‘first resurrection’ in verse 6 has to do with these ‘souls’ in verse 4. He that is ‘beheaded’ (verse 4) is he that is disembodied; it is the author’s way of saying that we have to do with souls here, not bodies. And these beheaded souls—these souls without bodies—they ‘reign with him [Christ] a thousand years’ (verse 6.) Where do souls without their bodies reign with Christ? They reign with Christ in heaven; they reign in heaven with Christ for a thousand years, which is another way, in apocalyptic literature, of saying, a long time. Therefore this ‘first resurrection’ that grants the right of disembodied souls to reign with Christ in heaven must be a spiritual, not a bodily, resurrection. This inference is substantiated by the statement that the second death has no power on persons who have part in the first resurrection: ‘on such the second death hath no power’ (verse 6.) The second death has no power on persons who have part in the first resurrection; that is to say, on persons who have been born again. It is called the ‘first’ resurrection because it happens before the second one; the second one is the resurrection of the body. The first resurrection is of the soul; the second one is of the body. There is a figurative use in the New Testament of the concept of resurrection. This is what is referred to in Revelation 20. Resurrection is sometimes used in a figurative sense. Christians are said to be ‘raised up’ before ‘the ages to come’ (Ephesians 2.6, 7.) This is the ‘quickening’ of verse 5. God ‘hath raised us up,’ it says in verse 6. This is spoken in the past tense to Christians then living. There is a resurrection that happens to sinners to make them Christians; it is the born again experience; it is regeneration. We have the same idea in Colossians 2.12. The Colossian Christians ‘are risen with him [Christ],’ it says there. They are resurrected already; the bodily resurrection comes after. They have, as Jesus puts it in John 5.24, ‘passed from death unto life.’ The ‘second death’ is mentioned in Revelation 20 beside this ‘first resurrection,’ which resurrection is figurative to signify regeneration, something that happens before, not after, bodily death. The ‘second death’ is mentioned in association with something else (in addition to this kind of resurrection) that happens before, not after, bodily death. See the consistency of that. “He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death” (Revelation 2.11.) This is an admonition to Christians yet alive. If they persevere in faith, they will dodge the second death. This is the meaning. The same kind of admonition occurs in Revelation 21.7 to distinguish persevering Christians from varieties of impenitent sinners: ‘the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable,’ and so on (verse 8.) Therefore the teaching is that he upon whom the second death has no power is he that is regenerated before dying the first time, or physically; and he upon whom the second death has no power is he that overcomes in faith all the way to his grave.
If the concept of resurrection, therefore, is used figuratively in other parts of the New Testament, why should it be thought strange that it would be used figuratively in the most figurative book in the Bible? And the figurative use of it in Revelation 20 tells us that it is resurrected souls, not resurrected Christians with their bodies, that reign with Christ for a thousand years; and it tells us that the focal point of these thousand years is heaven, not earth; and this, in turn, tells us that from the perspective of persons on earth, the thousand years are figurative years denoting that period of time in between the first and second advents of Jesus Christ our Lord. That the thousand years has mainly to do with heaven in the present tense would be comforting to first century Christians whose spiritual brothers and sisters were being ‘beheaded,’ or killed for their faith: “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such 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.) There would be little comfort here for first century saints if these thousand years were thousands of years in the future. He that is beheaded for his faith begins immediately to reign with Christ for a thousand years. “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand” (Revelation 1.3.) The meaning, largely considered, is: Happy is he who hears the words of this prophecy and obeys what is written in it, for if he remains faithful and overcomes, even unto death, he will begin to reap the rewards shortly. This, then, is one inducement to be amillennial instead of millennial. By comparing Scripture with Scripture, and through special care to be congruent with the context, a spiritual resurrection is found in Revelation 20, and this ‘first resurrection’ is the event that guarantees the soul a thousand years with Christ in heaven until he comes back to earth to resurrect the bodies of all and to judge the world. The nearness of the millennium and its extended period of blessedness would be especially relevant for persecuted Christians to whom Jesus the Lord, through his apostle John, addressed his message.
Some writers on this passage of Scripture (Revelation 20) say that the word ‘lived’ in verses 4 and 5 must be identically interpreted. They say that ‘they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years’ must be the same kind of living as in ‘the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.’ So they contend that both these groups were resurrected physically, or else both these groups were made alive spiritually. My doctrine is that the persons who lived to reign with Christ a thousand years (verse 4) are persons made alive spiritually in their born again experiences; and that the persons who lived not again ‘until’ (verse 5) are persons not resurrected in their bodies until the close of these thousand years. My doctrine, therefore, is that the first ‘lived’ is to be taken figuratively as pertaining to souls, and that the second ‘lived’ is to be taken literally as pertaining to bodies. Technical data are supportive of this duality. Both instances of ‘lived’ are stated in Strong’s as bearing either the literal sense or the figurative sense. And for the second ‘lived,’ the Holy Spirit, through his servant John, goes out of his way to use a different word from the first. The first ‘lived’ is translated from ‘zao’; the second is translated from ‘anazao.’ There is no more trouble believing that these words bear different meanings—the first figurative and the second literal—than believing that the first and second advents of Jesus Christ are predicted in Isaiah 9.6 in the words ‘child’ and ‘son.’ The word ‘zao’ means ‘to live,’ and corresponds neatly with that life which a sinner is infused with upon regeneration. The word ‘anazao’ means ‘to recover life,’ and corresponds nicely with the recovery of life to the body upon resurrection.
C. H. Spurgeon preached a sermon in 1861 called The First Resurrection wherein he asserted that the ‘first resurrection’ in the passage being considered is a bodily one; and he says that this sermon was ‘blessed of God.’ It is fair to admit this information. A sermon by Spurgeon is so full of spirit and meat that it may be blessed in spite of a bone and fault or two.
While the ‘first resurrection’ in verses 5 and 6 refers to regeneration, bodily resurrection is mentioned in the parenthetical part of verse 5: in the first sentence. Revelation 20.5: “But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.” So there are two kinds of resurrection here. The ‘first resurrection’ is contrasted with another resurrection in the words, ‘the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.’ The reason why it says, in verse 6, that ‘blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection’ is because this other resurrection must be a negative one. This other resurrection, then, is the one that takes place for persons who are not ‘blessed and holy,’ which must happen at the judgment for unbelievers. The dead who ‘lived not again until the thousand years were finished’ (verse 5) are the same dead mentioned in verse 12 who ‘were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works,’ the ones ‘not found written in the book of life’ (verse 15.) The message, then, is: If you are not raised to newness of life by experiencing this ‘first resurrection’ of your soul, you will not reign with Christ for a thousand years, for you will not have escaped the second death; and persons who have not escaped the second death are doomed to be raised at the last day for the negative purpose of being judged and consigned to the lake of fire for their sins.
As if to crown my investigation on the meaning of this ‘first resurrection,’ the first part of verse 6 reads like so in Young’s Literal Translation: “Happy and holy is he who is having part in the first rising again.” In other words, the meaning is not: Happy and holy is he who is being resurrected bodily. The meaning is: Happy and holy is he who is being saved. So the sinners being born again in John the apostle’s day and who are obviously going to die before the consummation of all things, happy are they because they will get to reign with Christ in heaven for a thousand years or for however long it takes before Jesus Christ descends with them to judge the world. This is palpable encouragement for persecuted saints of the first century. New Testament letters were written for teaching, correction, and reproof, but also, maybe most of all, for encouragement. “Blessed is he that readeth” (Revelation 1.3.) Blessed is he because for him the one thousand years is near; that time is at the door. The blessing is primarily for the saints to whom the apostle wrote. The Revelation had to be written somewhat cryptically in order to veil it from the Roman government; but it also had to be understood by the persons to whom it was written, at least enough for them to derive a blessing from the disclosure.
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