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Philip Edgcumbe Hughes’ interpretation of Revelation 20:4-6
The following interpretation is from the commentary The Book of Revelation, page 211ff, by Philip Edgcumbe Hughes’. Note that Hughes uses his own translation of the Book of Revelation.
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The following interpretation is from the commentary The Book of Revelation, page 211ff, by Philip Edgcumbe Hughes’. Note that Hughes uses his own translation of the Book of Revelation.
Revelation 20:4, [Hughes translation]
4 And I saw thrones, and judgment was given to those who were seated on them. And 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 worshipped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their forehead or on their hand. And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
As this vision unfolds, St.John sees thrones and records that judgment was given to those who were seated on them. We are informed that it is souls that are thus enthroned, that is to say, persons in the disembodied state which prevails between death and resurrection. These souls are classified in two categories. Firstly, there are those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, or, in other words, those who had suffered the death of martyrdom, ‘beheading’ being a cover-term for every kind of violent death endured by the martyrs. And secondly, there are those who had not worshipped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their forehead or on their hand, or, in other words, faithful witnesses who had honoured Christ in their lives without being called to seal their testimony with martyrdom [the reference is to what has been written in Revelation 13:11f]. This distinction repeats, in effect, the distinction between the blood of the martyrs and the blood of the saints in Revelation 17:6 above; and it corresponds with the experience of the brothers James and John. The former died the death of a martyr [Acts 12:1f.], while the latter lived on into old age, yet both were assured by Jesus that they would drink the cup that he would drink and be baptized with the baptism with which he would be baptized [Mark 10:38f.]. The souls in view, then, are the souls of all who, whether their lives have been shortened by the cruel death of martyrdom or they have died, so to speak, in their beds, belong to the company of those who persevere to the end in following their Lord while here on earth.
These are the souls whom St. John saw seated on thrones and of whom it is said that they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. They are the persons who have suffered death in their bodies but not in their souls. They have not feared ‘those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul’ [Matthew 10:28], and now it is as souls that they live and reign with Christ. Faithful unto death, they have received the crown of life [Revelation 2:10; cf. 3:21] and they experience the blessedness of the dead who die in the Lord [Revelation 14:13]. St. Paul taught the same truth when he declared that the Christian who has died is ‘away from the body and at home with the Lord’ [2 Corinthians 5:8], and that ‘to die is gain’ because it means ‘to depart and be with Christ’ [Philippians 1:21, 23].
The thousand years may be defined as the period between the two comings of Christ, or, more strictly, between the return of the ascended Son to glory, his mission to earth completed, and the loosing of Satan ‘for a little while’ [Revelation 20: 3 above]. The latter, however, is the final event of this period and it ends, as we have seen, in the conclusive defeat of Satan and his hosts at Christ’s Second Coming. This is the perspective clearly delineated in the assertion of Hebrews 10:12f., that ‘when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down [enthroned] at the right hand of God, then to wait until his enemies should be made a stool for his feet’ [cf. Psalms 110:1]; and this is precisely what St. Paul affirms when he writes that ‘he must reign until he had put all his enemies under his feet’ [1 Corinthians 15:25]. For Christ, it is the meantime as he awaits the final assault and total subjugation of the enemy. For the Christian who has departed this life, it is the meantime between death and resurrection as he awaits the reinvestment of the soul with his body that, sown in weakness, will be raised in glory and power [1 Corinthians 15:42-44]. And this is the meantime of ‘a thousand years’ within which the souls of the faithful live and reign with Christ.
Revelation 20:5,6, [Hughes translation]
5 The rest of the dead did not live until the thousand years were ended.
6 Blessed and holy is he who has a part in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and they shall reign with him during the thousand years.
The rest of the dead are who, in contrast to Christian believers who have died and whose souls live and reign with Christ within this span of the thousand years, end their present life in a state of impenitence and unbelief. There is no comfort or blessedness for them in the interval between death and resurrection, for they have no part in the first resurrection. Christian believers, however, are pronounced blessed and holy even while they themselves are dead and unresurrected because of their participation in the first resurrection; indeed, it is by virtue of this participation that they are priests of God and of Christ and reign with him during the thousand years. This priestly and kingly status, which derives from the believer’s union with the incarnate Son who is the Priest-King [Hebrews 7:1ff.], continues through death into the intermediate state and beyond into the everlasting perfection of the new creation. Hence the doxology uttered by St. John in the opening part of this work: ‘To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen’ [Revelation 1:6; cf. 1 Peter 2:9, ‘a royal priesthood’]. Theirs are the souls that live and reign with the ascended and enthroned Redeemer during the thousand years.
That the Apostle is writing about Christ’s servants who have died is obvious: they are referred to as souls, living and reigning indeed with Christ, but as such awaiting their own resurrection. This separation from their bodies is not permanent, but only for this interim period of one thousand years; and in this state they are distinct from ‘the rest of the dead’. As those who have a part in the first resurrection they have the assurance that the second death has no power over them. Just as mention of ‘the second death’ plainly implies that there is a first death, so also the mention of ‘the first resurrection’ plainly implies that there is a second resurrection. The second death and the second resurrection are future realities yet to be experienced by the dead. We must now inquire into the significance of this terminology regarding first and second deaths and first and second resurrections.
We may conveniently start with the second resurrection, even though in chronological order it follows the first, for [while the precise designation ‘second resurrection’ does not occur] it is evident that it is one and the same with what is customarily known as the general resurrection of the dead which, as affirmed in the creeds, will take place at the end of this age [‘At {Christ’s} coming all men shall rise again with their bodies’, Athanasian Creed]. Thus St. Paul taught that ‘there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust’ [Acts 24:15], and Christ himself instructed his disciples that ‘the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment’ [John 5:28f.; see also the similar teaching in Daniel 12:2].
In the nature of the case, resurrection means bodily resurrection: if it is not resurrection of the body, it is not resurrection. Accordingly, Christian believers are assured that the Saviour whose advent from heaven they await will transform their lowly body into the likeness of his glorified body [Philippians 3:20f.], while those who persist in unbelief will face God ‘who can destroy both soul and body in hell’ [Matthew 10:28].
The same considerations apply to the first resurrection in which the living souls of Christians who have died have a part. It is quite commonly supposed that what is intended is a notion of resurrection in a merely spiritual and analogical sense. Christ declared, it is true, that the believer has passed from death to life [John 5:24], and St. Paul was saying ; the same thing when he taught that God makes alive those who were dead through trespasses and sins [Ephesians 2:1]. But to spiritualize or allegorize the first resurrection in such a way as to leave it a mere theological concept unconnected with bodily resurrection [except for the future second or general resurrection at the end of this age - and it is the first resurrection that is our present concern] is incommensurate with the requirements of the context. If the second resurrection is bodily, in other words, truly a resurrection, then the first resurrection must also be bodily.
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