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The History of the Ages – Lesson 58

As we continue on, we’re ready to look at Revelation 20:4-6. These three verses are all that John says about the Millennium. So, as I’ve said before, we’ll have to look at this subject using the many references found in the Old Testament (and a few in the New Testament, as well) in future lessons. “Then I saw thrones, and sitting on them were those to whom judicial authority had been given. And I saw the souls of those who had been slain for their witnessing for Jesus and for preaching the word of God and those who had refused to worship the beast or his statue or accept his mark or permit it to be stamped on their forehead or hand. And they lived again and ruled with Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead will not live again until the thousand years are completed. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they shall be ministers of God and of Christ, and they shall rule with Him a thousand years.”

Now, there are a couple of things we need to look at here. First is the statement “to whom judicial authority had been given”. I’ll not take the time to explain all the references here; you can look them up for yourself. Jesus tells His disciples that they will act as judges (Luke 22:30). John talks about the saints being a kingdom of priests (Revelation 1:6; 2:26-27; 3:21 and 5:10), and so does Paul (Romans 8:17; I Corinthians 5:2-3; II Timothy 2:12). The 144,000 are part of this group (Revelation 12:5). And, this authority is not given just for the thousand years, but for eternity (Daniel 7:18, 27; Revelation 22:4-5).  

Just to keep things clear, let’s look at the two classes of people who will live on the earth in the future. Natural born people will live through the future tribulation period, on into the Millennium and then into the eternal new earth forever, if they do not sin or rebel with Satan against God at the end of the Millennium (Matthew 13:39-50; 25:46; Revelation 20:7-10 and 21:27). Christ will determine who will be allowed to enter into His kingdom (the Millennium) when He judges the nations at His second coming. This will be one of the first things that happen after Armageddon and we’ll look at this in detail in the next lesson. These natural people will marry, have children and carry out God’s eternal purpose (to replenish the earth, Genesis 1:28) as He intended when He created Adam and Eve. They will live forever by having access to the tree of life (Revelation 22:1-2).

All those who have a part in the first resurrection will be the eternal rulers over the eternal generations of natural people. Those who have been resurrected will not marry (Matthew 22:30). They will live forever because they have been resurrected and changed from mortality to immortality (I Corinthians 15:51-58) and will have a body like Christ’s resurrected body (Philippians 3:21). As we will see when we look at the Millennium in detail, the resurrected saints will act as God’s legal representatives and will administer full and complete justice without prejudice to those living on the earth.

We have noted the verses in past lessons that talk about Christ ruling with a rod of iron and looked at this in some detail in Lesson 56 regarding Revelation 19:15. But I want to explain how the saints will rule with Christ during the Millennium and throughout eternity. This is Revelation 2:26-27: “And he who overcomes, doing the things I have commanded to the very end, I will give him authority over the nations. And he will rule them with a rod of iron, like earthen pots they shall be broken to pieces. And his authority over them shall be like that which I Myself have received of My Father.”  

This verse is the reason I use the term “legal representative” in describing how redeemed saints will rule during the Millennium and into the eternal state. As Christ states in this passage, they will have authority that is equal to the authority given Him by the Father. This is extremely important when you consider what the Scriptures say about Christ’s authority. By His own testimony, He has “all authority” (Matthew 28:18); John the Baptist tells us that the Father has “entrusted everything into His hand” (John 3:35); and Paul says Christ will “abolish all authority” and “put all His enemies under His feet” (I Corinthians 15:24-28).

We’ll look at this in more detail later, but for now I’ll just mention this briefly. Above in the passage from Revelation 2:26-27 you see the phrase “like earthen pots they shall be broken to pieces”. This is an idiom (word picture) that refers back to “the nations” in the previous sentence and is used to illustrate total domination. During the Millennium Christ, along with His legal representatives stationed around the world, will crush any resistance to His authority that might exist. As we will see, one of the purposes for the Millennium is to deal with anyone who would oppose the rule of God. And, make no mistake; there will be opposition as evidenced by the fact that at the end of this time there will be a great, final rebellion as described in Revelation 20:7-9. During this period of time all nations will have to accept the fact that God is present on the earth, that He is in charge and they must submit to His authority or suffer the consequences.    

The other thing I want to look at has to do with the statement found at the beginning of the lesson in Revelation 20:6, “Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection.” The first resurrection includes all the redeemed saints that John sees sitting on thrones in verse 1. There is a second resurrection of the wicked dead after the Millennium (Revelation 20:11-15). These are the ones John is talking about when he says, “The rest of the dead will not live again until the thousand years are completed.” (Verse 5 above) We’ll get to that later. But for now I want to explain the first resurrection. It includes 5 raptures, as follows:

1. Christ and the many Old Testament saints who were resurrected immediately after His resurrection (Matthew 27:52-53; I Corinthians 15:20).
2. Those who are in Christ at His coming; commonly called the “rapture” (John 14:1-3; I Thessalonians 4:13-17 and many more). This includes the Old Testament saints who were not raptured following Christ’s resurrection in point 1.
3. The 144,000 Jews who come to Christ during the first half of the tribulation period (Revelation 7:1-8). This is the manchild that is caught up alive to God (Revelation 12:5 and 14:1-5).
4. All the tribulation saints who come to Christ, but are martyred after the “rapture” of point 2, above. We see the first of these in Revelation 6:9-11. In this passage they are asking, when will we be raptured? And they’re told they have to wait until the rest of the martyrs of the tribulation period have been killed, then all will be raptured together. These raptured martyrs are described in parenthetical passages found in Revelation 7:9-17 and 15:2-4.  
5. The last is the rapture of the two witnesses in Revelation 11:7-12. If you look back to Lesson 36, I identified the two witnesses as Enoch and Elijah. Both men were taken up alive to be with God. As we see in Revelation 11, they return, are eventually killed, brought back to life by God, then taken up to God again – the only two men we know of that will be raptured twice.  

Since so many of these things are found in parenthetical passages, it’s difficult to put a timeline on this; but all of the saints described here must be raptured before the marriage supper in Revelation 19:9.