Blessed and Holy are Those who Share in the First Resurrection

 I saw thrones, and sitting on those thrones were the ones who had been given the right to judge. I also saw the souls of the people who had their heads cut off because they had told about Jesus and preached God’s message. They were the same ones who had not worshiped the beast or the idol, and they had refused to let its mark be put on their hands or foreheads. They will come to life and rule with Christ for a thousand years. These people are the first to be raised to life, and they are especially blessed and holy. The second death has no power over them. They will be priests for God and Christ and will rule with them for a thousand years. No other dead people were raised to life until a thousand years later. Rev. 20:4–6 CEB

John now interprets and summarizes what he has just seen: This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years (Rev.20:5,6).

Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection

 Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection A fifth Apocalyptic beatitude (cf. Rev.1:3, 14:13, 16:15, 19:9, 22:7, 22:14), distinguished from the other six by the addition of blessed to holy. He to whom this blessings belongs is not only happy, but holy; he is in the highest degree worthy of the name of Saint; he is beatified, he is canonized by the voice of the Spirit of Jesus. With have part in. cf. John. 13:8 “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” , and the use of τὸ μέρος-their part in (Rev.21:8, 22:19). Henry Barclay Swete, ed., The Apocalypse of St. John, 2d. ed., Classic Commentaries on the Greek New Testament (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1906), 258,260. 

It is not difficult to understand how conceptions regarding an intermediate kingdom, if existing in popular apocalyptic, should have entered into the visions of our Prophet. For membership in that kingdom, with its security from the power of Satan and the blessedness of reigning with the Messiah, must present itself to his mind as a gift of God’s supreme favor.

 And what reward more glorious than that could be imagined for the martyrs, who in Christian thought and especially in this book stand foremost in the favor of God? The Revelation is specifically a book for the martyrs; everywhere the author seeks to fortify those who are facing persecution in the time then present with them and in the awful future till the doom of Antichrist.

 Current ideas of an earthly reign of the Messiah and the restraint of evil powers would furnish him a vision of the form in which steadfastness unto death shall receive its special reward. It is thus, we may believe, that under the influence of his dominant idea of the glory of martyrdom, transforming in his vision expectations cherished in contemporary apocalyptic, he sees the intermediate kingdom set up and the martyrs alone admitted to it.

 In other words, the millennial vision of this passage appears to be an outgrowth of familiar eschatological ideas transformed and glorified through the faith that God has a special guerdon laid up for the martyr. The author’s purpose in this vision furnishes the clue to the correct interpretation of the Millennium as an element in Christian eschatology. Its place in his thought he makes clear in limiting a share in it to the martyrs. 

 These few verses standing alone in biblical utterances, and apparently deriving their formal contents from an external source, have given occasion for controversy running through centuries and for vast practical delusions. Yet the chief aim of the author is clear. He seeks to set forth under a striking apocalyptic form the assurance that the martyr’s steadfastness wins for him the special favor of his Lord, and the highest life in union with God and Christ. 

That is the meaning of the passage for us. When once we apprehend the fact that the essential truth of prophecy, as distinguished from its form, is not the revelation of a chronological program in the world’s history, we cease to find here the prediction of an eschatological era, however closely the Apocalyptist himself may have associated form and substance.

 The dispensational limit under which the Seer here apprehends his truth may, or may not, be an integral element in it for him; yet for us, viewed in the light of the nature and course of prophetic revelation, the essential truth, which, stripped of its apocalyptic form, is expressed in the vision of the martyr’s millennial glory, is that which is given in our Lord’s saying, ‘He that loses his life for my sake shall find it,’ Mt. 10:39. Isbon T. Beckwith, The Apocalypse of John: Studies in Introduction with a Critical and Exegetical Commentary. (New York: Macmillan Company, 1919), 736–738.

Is there not a distinction  between those who have periled their lives and suffered  

Is there not a distinction made by John, between those who have periled their lives and suffered for their steadfast adherence to religion, and those who have been distinguished neither by active piety nor by suffering?—Who will venture to answer with confident assurance, that there is not? The special object, in view of which the Apocalypse was written, seems to point us to the class of martyrs and faithful confessors, as being the only ones intended to be included by the writer.

 In times of distressing and bloody persecution was the book written

 Christians were to be consoled, and fortified so as to meet the shock. What now was the natural course for the writer to take? Was it not to hold out high and peculiar rewards to those who endured to the end? It is difficult not to think this probable. And what is the peculiar reward of unshaken constancy and fidelity? A part in the first resurrection.

 This is the natural and obvious solution of the case. But what then of other pious men of every age, who have borne no conspicuous part in martyrdom or suffering, and made no peculiar attainments in piety? Are they to wait the common lot of other Christians, who may live after the Millennium has commenced, and be raised up only at the last day? I do not feel that this question can be answered with entire confidence.

 On the one hand, to affirm that all the pious, who have lived before the Millennium, will be raised up at the beginning of that period, would seem to abolish all distinction between faithful confessors, who are martyrs, and other Christians who hold an inferior place; and thus to remove special excitement to steadfast adherence to Christianity amid sufferings and death. On the other hand, however, it will be said, that we seem, by the distinction in question, to mingle the pious of humbler degree with the wicked, who are a portion, if not all, of the rest of the dead that have no part in the first resurrection.

 We are reduced then to a kind of strait here, between these two considerations; nor does there appear to be anything so entirely explicit in our text, as completely to relieve us from this strait. Enough, since we know assuredly, that faithful saints and martyrs, in times of persecution and deep distress, have a glorious reward placed before them, of which they will not be deprived.

 The fearful and timid and wavering and cold and slothful Christian—why should he be encouraged by the same prospect and the same promises, which are placed before martyrs and faithful confessors? Even if the abounding and wonderful mercy of God should, in the end, give him part in the first resurrection, it does not seem to be meet, nor consistent with proper excitement to elevated piety, to hold out the same promises and encouragement to the timid and doubting and slothful Christian, as to the faithful and active and diligent one, who counts not his life dear in the cause of Christ, yea, who counts all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord.

And does not Paul himself seem to say, that although he might possibly be a Christian, and attain to final happiness, yet he should lose a part in the first resurrection, if he should become slothful and remiss? He tells us that he had suffered the loss of all things, and counted them but dung … that he might know Christ and the power of his resurrection … if by any means he might attain to the resurrection of the dead; Phil. 3:8–11.

 Did Paul, then, consider it a matter of doubt whether he should have a part in the final resurrection? This same apostle, who has so expressly taught us the resurrection of all, both of the righteous and of the wicked—did he doubt whether he could attain to this same resurrection? Surely not. Consequently his declaration, then and only then, seems to possess a full and energetic meaning, when we view him as declaring, that a high and holy and vigorous contest with the powers of darkness must be carried on, in order to obtain a part in the first resurrection. So interpreted, the meaning of the passage stands out in bold relief.

 All this seems rather to guide us to the conclusion, that a distinction will be made among the pious themselves, at the first resurrection. This is only carrying out the principle,

 that those who possess five talents and improve them diligently, will be made rulers over five cities; and those who have two, over only two cities.

 In other words: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; yea, saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.” An emphatic meaning can, on this ground, be naturally assigned to this passage. Yet I do not, and dare not, confidently affirm in a case like this, where all is future, and from its very nature is involved in some obscurity as seen by our feeble vision. One thing is certain—Just and true are the ways of him who is King of Saints. Moses Stuart, A Commentary on the Apocalypse, vol. 2 (Andover; New York: Allen, Morrill and Wardwell; M. H. Newman, 1845), 483–485.

In taking leave of the subject of the first resurrection, I would merely suggest a few of the leading thoughts that must guide us, as it seems to me, in making up our final opinion.

 (1) It is clear that the usus loquendi-everyday language of the New Testament sanctions the assigning to ἔζησαν the meaning of revived, lived again after death.

 (2) At the end of Rev.20:4 it is distinguished from ἐβασίλευσαν-reigned etc. The living is one thing, the reigning is another. If now we give to ἔζησαν-revived, lived again the tropical sense of reigning with Christ, or of being advanced to an exalted state of glorification, then the two expressions would be tautological; which appears to be inadmissible here. 

 (3) The writer immediately contrasts the state of the glorified martyrs with that of the rest of the dead, Rev.20: 5. He says of the latter, that they did not live, i.e. in the sense in which the martyrs did. Now if the rest of the dead includes other saints who are not martyrs, or the wicked, or both, it would be difficult to make out any tolerable meaning, unless we understand ἔζησαν-revived, lived again as importing a real resurrection.

 As to happiness, (if we understand ἔζησαν-revived, lived again simply to designate this), other saints surely do partake of it. And as to the wicked, it would be needless to assert here, that they were not happy during the thousand years. In fact,

 (4) The only tropical meaning that can be assigned to ἔζησαν-revived, lived again here, which will bear examination at all, is that of exaltation to a high degree of glory and happiness. There is no certain analogy for this shade of meaning in respect to ζάω, elsewhere in the New Testament.

 I do not deny the possibility of employing the word in this way, nor even the probability, in case other circumstances accorded. But here the contrast stands in the way. The martyrs ἔζησαν-revived, lived again at the beginning of the thousand years; the rest of dead οὐκ ἔζησαν-did not -revived, lived again until those years were completed. 

Is not the implication here, of necessity, that at some period after this completion the rest of the dead also lived? 

The contrast relates only to the period in question. Beyond that is a second resurrection, in which the rest of the dead will live.

 If this includes all the rest of the dead, then, living cannot mean advanced to a high degree of glory and happiness, for all the dead will never attain to this.

 If the rest of the dead means only other saints who are not martyrs, the difficulty would indeed be diminished, for all will be “kings and priests unto God,” after the general resurrection. Is this then the meaning of the writer? And does he mean only to contrast one class of saints here with another? It is a possible sense, I would concede; but is it probable that he so limits the comparison? Moses Stuart, A Commentary on the Apocalypse, vol. 2 (Andover; New York: Allen, Morrill and Wardwell; M. H. Newman, 1845), 486–487.