An Interpretation of Revelation 20:4-6

Revelation 20 is a text about which differences of interpretation are common among Christians. In this article I shall give mine. My chief goal is to seek an understanding of the 1000 years. Considerable rebuttal will be directed to the pre-millennial position. Further, since there is much discussion about the proper approaches to this passage, attention will be given to them.   

Two views: 

We are often told that what we have in this text is the physical resurrection of believers at the Second Coming of Christ. These saints then after Christ returns enter into what is called the Millennium. In this viewpoint it is crucial to see the sequence. It is that Christ comes first, and only then will the 1000 year period occur. This prior coming is the reason the view is called pre-millennial. Further, the period is often referred to as the reign of Christ on the earth.

My view of the millennium is that the reign found in Revelation 20:4-6 is the current reign of faithful martyrs who joined Christ in heaven as soon as they died.  The 1000 years precede the Second Coming. It is a reference to the present.

Where does this reign take place? 

After all Revelation 5:10 says, “… and they shall reign on the earth.”  Does that text speak of the reign of the martyrs in chapter 20? Since the reign in mind in 5:10 is on the earth, it is fulfilled on earth in 22:5, “… and they will reign forever and ever.”  Prior to Revelation 20 the throne of God is only in heaven, and thrones (plural) on which others sat are also located in heaven. (See also Daniel 7:9 & 10.)

The continuing narrative    

John who received this revelation was devoted to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus (1:2,9). In Revelation 20 these who sit on thrones have died for that same word and testimony. These martyrs are first introduced in 6:9-11.

1. In 6:9-11  The martyrs are the souls of those who had been slain for the same word and testimony. Their plea for vengeance was received by the Lord Who told them to rest for a little while until the others join them in death. These souls John saw were under the altar. The altar will be heard from throughout the Book of Revelation. The narrative follows the souls under the altar.
2. 8:3-5   The plea for vengeance was heeded. The prayers of the saints on the golden altar rose before God, and fire from that altar was thrown on the earth, and on those who dwell there (6:10).  (Note that the altar is in heaven.)
3. 9:13-15  From the altar comes a voice ordering the release of four angels of awesome judgment. A third of mankind died.  
4. 14:17-20  An old image of divine judgment, as in Isaiah 63, was that of crushing grapes underfoot in a winepress. The angel with authority to order this harvest of grapes for the winepress was an angel who came out of the altar.  
5. 16:5-7  The prayers for God to act in justice had a very large response. This culminated in a word of satisfaction that these prayers had been heard. The prayers of murdered saints and prophets had God’s attention. Bowls of wrath (15:7) were poured out from heaven. An angel proclaimed justice, and the altar where earlier the souls were agreed, saying, “Yes, Lord God the Almighty, true and just are your judgments!” Thus the “Sovereign Lord, holy and true” avenged the blood of the martyrs. It is important to see how closely this judgment is tied to their original plea in 6:10.

Elsewhere in Revelation saints in heaven are mentioned, without reference to the altar (7:9-17 and 14:1-5). This thread in Revelation related to the altar shows who the souls in chapter 20 are. They have appeared in Revelation before.

But what of blessing?   

Punitive justice was fully applied, but what does Revelation reveal of blessing upon these faithful saints?  Chapter 20 supplies that. John saw the souls of those who were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God. They do not plead any more for justice on their afflicters. That matter was cared for in chapters 16 & 19. What appears in 20:4-6 is a report on how the martyrs are doing now. To understand Revelation 20, it helps to know that these are not just souls that appear out of the blue; they are the murdered martyrs we have heard of before.  

Souls or bodies?   

These who were murdered are called souls in 6:9 and 20:4. In English we may use “souls” for the departed or the living, though in both cases we mean persons.  We might say, “She is such a sweet soul” or, “There are many souls in hell.” In harmony with 6:9 what we have in 20:4 as souls are the same saints again. Calling them souls is a strong indicator that they have not been resurrected yet. To see the souls of those who have been beheaded is hardly a way to refer to physically resurrected saints. To say that this is the first resurrection, and that those who have experienced it are blessed and holy, is a way to express the life of those who reign with Christ. The continuing narrative within chapters 6 to 20 is the proper context in which to discover the identity of those seated on thrones reigning with Christ, especially when they have already appeared as souls who have died.

In this way Revelation shows a stark contrast from the fate of those struck down by the sword of Christ, trod upon in “the winepress of the wrath and fury of God the Almighty,” and fed to the vultures (19:15-21). On the other hand, for the saints so cruelly beheaded, there is the uplifting grace of God that they are seated on thrones participating in the reign of Christ. The murdered saints entered death and at that moment came into life, forever sheltered from the second death of the rebels. Those “who dwell on the earth” (6:10) chose the mark of the beast and spurned the worship of the Lamb.  Those who reign with Christ in heaven are there as priests of God, with access to His throne.

Two groups said to be dead   

Revelation 20:4 presents two human groups who have died (20:4-6). One group lacks the first resurrection. They will not come to life until the thousand years end. They are mentioned second, and when the text gets to them, they are called “the rest of the dead.” This implies of course, that the other group is also dead, still dead. If the beheaded martyrs are still physically dead, the physical death of the two groups is identical; it is the coming to life that is different. For the first group there has been a “resurrection” of some kind (20:5), and for the rest of the dead no such thing. Those who worshipped the beast are the dead who have before them only a second death.  

That there are two deaths here of two kinds is well received by interpreters. What is debated is whether the resurrection is also of two kinds. My reply to that is that the second death is a spiritual death, and the first resurrection is likewise spiritual. Life in the presence of Christ is very real life even before the coming of the Lord (Philippians 1:23). If there are deaths of two kinds, the idea of resurrections of two kinds in the same text is highly plausible.  The same souls who enjoy the first resurrection will experience the (implied) second when they come to life later in resurrected physical bodies. Persons who physically die in their sins (John 8:21) will each face an additional death of a different kind, called “the second”. The usual verb in Greek for being resurrected is not used in Revelation 20:4-6, but the noun is. This is the reason the NIV and ESV translate it as a coming to life.  The KJV simply says they lived, which is accurate.

A family may speak of their budget concerning everyday living expenses, while they say the rest of the money is saved for vacation or pension. It is clear that two sets of money are in view. “The rest of the money” is distinguished from the other money. And so it is in Revelation 20; the martyrs have died but live while the rest of the dead remain dead. Those who came to life and reigned with Christ are referred to as dead in one sense. We all understand that those who die in Christ are alive with Him; though dead they live (John 11:25).

Both statements are true: “Moses my servant is dead” (Joshua 1:2), and “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Matthew 22:32). Abraham and Moses are dead, but they live. They are souls who have come to life in their first resurrection while they await their second. So it is with all the faithful dead who live. They rejected the mark of the beast; they are those who refused to disown Christ, and now reign with him.  The coming to life of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses is not a onetime event. Their later resurrection is.

All humans who die share the first death (implied because there is a second), but not all share the second death (20:6). That death is an irreversible and eternal separation from God. Those reigning with Christ enjoy the opposite of such a separation already. Not all of mankind share the first resurrection. That resurrected life, in fellowship with Christ and even reigning with Him, is God’s kindness to those who rejected the beast and his image. For these disembodied souls, their death became the first resurrection. This is the immediate response of God to the cruelty of their persecutors.

As living souls they sing in heaven before the throne (14:1-3). They have not received the mark of the beast (20:4), but rejecting it they have the seal of God (3:12; 9:4; 14:1-3). They are redeemed from the earth (14:3), having come out of the great tribulation (7:14) now going on. These souls are very much alive, clothed in the white robes (6:11; 7:9; 19:14) promised to them before they died (3:4, 5, 18).

Premillennial teachers insist that the first and second resurrections are both physical with the 1000 years intervening. This means two physical resurrections for different people: one resurrection for believers, and one later for the lost to stand in judgment, and two deaths for the unsaved. To many fellow Christians, not surprisingly, this is a convincing explanation. They connect the first resurrection to the future, namely the  Second Coming though that coming is not mentioned in verses about the millennium.

My response:    

That teaching does not connect to the long narrative thread about the living disembodied martyrs who died yet are alive and praying. In every other text in Revelation with souls and/or the altar, these martyred souls are spiritually alive. That identity – living souls – fits Revelation 20 well, where the martyred souls are reigning. They reappear in the narrative as Christians who have died and are alive. In every other appearance in Revelation that is the case, but in chapter 20 this sheltered life is now expressed as a resurrection. Some decide the meaning of that word by how the word is used elsewhere, but dictionaries have no plots. Revelation does. How the once murdered martyrs are presently doing is part of the big story in Revelation 20.

An interpretation which does not fit   

Some reformed theologians have another way to explain the two kinds of life. They too say the martyrs have their spiritual resurrection before their physical one. Under a challenge to explain how the saints can have two different kinds of resurrections, they turn to John 5:21-29. There, some who are spiritually dead are given spiritual life when they believe (5:21, 24, 25), and later they will also come out of their tombs (5:28) in a physical resurrection. Admittedly, that is an example of two kinds of resurrection within the same passage, but it does not parallel what we have in Revelation 20.

Is the first resurrection conversion? No.

The spiritual life given by Christ is salvation in those three verses from John 5. But neither Revelation 20, nor John 5 teaches that we begin to rule with Christ at our conversion while still physically alive on earth. That explanation is a misfit. We do not begin to sit on thrones reigning with Christ the day we are saved. There is a better explanation. The souls under the altar in Revelation 6 show up in Revelation 20. First, we see them as souls under the altar, then as souls seated on thrones, reigning with Christ.

What is Revelation 20:4-6 talking about?   

We are often told that this passage is about the reign of Christ on earth from Jerusalem for 1000 years. Physically resurrected saints certainly would not reign from heaven. Though the earth is not mentioned, the conclusion of those teachers is that this reign by resurrected believers can only be on earth. They hold that this resurrection occurs in Revelation 20 at the return of the Lord in chapter 19, thus they say the setting must be the earth.

My response:   

Revelation 20 does not say that the setting is the earth.  Including Jerusalem as the location in 20:4, 5 is also absent from the text. They say that the millennium is the only place to put the fulfillment of those Old Testament promises. In other words conclusions from texts where no 1000 years is mentioned are contributing in a big way to the interpretation here. Revelation 20 speaks of a certain group of people reigning, but the context of Revelation is the proper place to find out who they are.  

20:4  Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also 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 worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. 5. The rest of the dead did not come to life. (This is the first resurrection.) 6. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such [persons] the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.  

What is the emphasis of this text?

Most of the attention in this text by far is to those sitting on thrones, identifying them by how obediently they died. In 20:4-6 in the ESV we find: those, those, those, their, their, they, the one, such, they, and they. All of these pronouns refer to those who came to life. Reigning with Christ is mentioned twice; the reign of Christ is not mentioned. The emphasis is on the martyrs’ reign. In the grammar of the two relevant sentences the subject of the reigning is not Christ but the living souls who reign with Him. And further, in this paragraph it is not Christ Who is being seated on His throne but the martyrs on theirs. Revelation 20:4-6 is not a description of a future reign by Christ at all; the focus is on those who currently reign with Him now. John wrote of things that are, to be distinguished from those that are to take place after this (1:19).

The phrase “and I saw”   

When I was in Bible College, my premillennial theology teacher said the millennial reign will occur after the Second Coming because the narrative of chapter 20 follows chapter 19. He was sure chapters 19 & 20 are sequential. Some boldly argue that whenever it says, “and I saw” (or “then I saw”) that that term “indicates chronological progression.” In other words, it is as if John said that these things follow one another in the order in which he reported them. That is a huge assumption. That view claims that the order in which John saw the elements or spoke of them is the actual order of the events that he saw – a straight sequence.  Of course that could be, but if so, then each “I saw” indicates not the sequence of revelations to John (which is probably the real situation), but that the Book of Revelation is a linear narrative. In other words, the things about which John wrote actually occurred in that order. If this interpretation breaks down one time the hypothesis is overturned. It does break down a number of times.

The Final Judgment in Revelation 6    

Much earlier, in Revelation 6 (earlier in the text of the book, not earlier in time) an awesome judgment of God appears. In 6:12-17 we have the sixth seal. The earth and heavens are convulsed. The great men and the general populace are so terrified they call on the mountains to fall on them to hide them from the face of God and the wrath of the Lamb. The sentence begins with “and I saw”. The event is the Judgment Day. Some say that whenever we find “and I saw” that we have chronological progression, which means that 6:12-17 cannot be the real Judgment Day. They insist that the Second Coming appears for the first time in Revelation 19, not chapter 6. A prominent exponent of this view keeps all the “I saw’s” in order, so he views this outpoured wrath in Revelation 6 as something that precedes the Coming of the Lord. He means that this account of seal six is not that day, the Final Judgment.  Yet, but, and do notice that v.17 says, “For the great day of their wrath has come …” Here is a case where his view of “and I saw” prevents understanding the text. Furthermore, all the disturbances in the heavens and even the movement of mountains and islands are taken literally (except for the stars falling to the earth, and the sky being rolled up like a scroll). These brothers insist that this cataclysmic event is not at the Second Coming.

12 When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood,  13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. 14 The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.  15 Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, 16 calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?   (Revelation 6:12-17)

And so it is with all the other references to the Lord’s appearance that precede chapter 19.  In my judgment, that is a case of missing the obvious. Is this event in chapter 6 just one of a number of amazing days but not the ultimate appearance of Christ? Verse 17 treats it as the real thing, “… the great day of their wrath has come.”  Holding “and I saw” to a strict sequence has a great benefit for those teachers. Such a steadfast role for “I saw” means that “and I saw” in 20:1 makes the 1000 year reign of the martyrs come after the Second Coming in chapter 19. This is an example of theological eagerness to hold onto a cherished position. For some Bible teachers it is worth the strain. However Revelation 6 plainly refers to the great day of wrath at the coming of our Lord, and Revelation 14:14-20 does as well.

Why Is This so Important?   

It is proper respect to seek to understand anything God has given us in His Word, even if the interpretation is difficult. We must seek to relieve the anxiety God’s children have when they struggle with confusion over this. My conclusion is that the Bible teaches a singular event at the end of this age, the one-time appearance of the Son of God to take over this world. We do not need to assert various comings of Christ, more than one final judgment, Christians dying during the 1000 years, with all of this played out in a complicated schedule spread out over many years. At the one single coming of Christ all is resolved in one comprehensive event.

The coming of Christ is grand and conclusive. It is not the beginning of an incremental chain of events; it is the glorious finality. The saints are delivered; the rebels are judged, and sin is removed from the earth, as God creates the new heavens and a new earth when the Lord Jesus comes (2 Peter 3:10-13). There is no judgment prior to the millennium with another to follow, because the millennium in Revelation 20 relates to the current frustration of Satan and the happy reign of living souls now with the Lord in heaven. Revelation shows the downfall and doom of the wicked, while the righteous, very much alive, flourish. They are planted in the House of the Lord (compare with Psalm 92:11-13). Their comfort in death is to sit immediately on thrones to reign with Christ.

Appendix A:   Visions, Chronology, and Literalness

In interpreting Revelation there are two assertions, which if either is true, quickly settle the debate in favor of the premillennial interpretation, with nothing further needed.

1. Are the thousand years literally one thousand years of real time?
2. Do the “and I saw” phrases always indicate chronological progression?

Concerning literal years of exact length   

Many numbers in this divine book of apocalyptic literature are not literal. Each tribe mentioned in chapter 7 has exactly 12,000 persons in it. Soldiers are twice 10,000 x 10,000 in number exactly. John adds, “I heard their number” (9:16). A vision, and Revelation is almost entirely vision, is like a dream with the impression of something real. To view the events in Revelation as literal predictions is a failure to understand the kind of writing Revelation is. A brief time is 10 days (2:10), and a very long period is 1000 years. A huge number may be given as myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands (5:11). Exactly 7000 people died in an earthquake (11:16). These are numbers in a vision rounded off to even numbers often ending in a zero. They are not literal.

If Revelation 20 does teach a period of exactly 1000 years, then it cannot have reference to our present time, because we would have no way to identify the commencement and termination of the 1000 years. It simply cannot fit. So, built on an insistence of literal dimensions, times, and weights, this argument is a shortcut, which places the 1000 years in the future after the return of the Lord.  

A basic agreement among us is that Revelation 19:11-16 is a depiction of the Second Coming. Unfortunately, one author takes the vision as a literal event. He teaches that the Lord will come on a white horse, and that right now there are literal horses in heaven waiting until the Lord will come with mounted armies behind Him.  I told this brother that Revelation 19 was not teaching horses in heaven. His reply is memorable, “What! You don’t think those horses in heaven are real horses?” It is not that Christ comes riding on a white horse, with an army behind Him, but since victors have long been pictured riding on white horses, that imagery is employed for the Lord Jesus coming to defeat His foes.

Visions    

John heard and saw a vision of Christ (1:10, 12); at which point a long vision of 21 more chapters began. The vision of Christ in chapter one is a true depiction of the grandeur of the Lord, but (horrors!) it is not the literal way the Risen Christ actually appears. When He returns that is not what we will see.

In Acts 10:9-16 Peter saw unclean animals in a vision. He was told to kill and eat. That does not mean that he ate pork chops. The pigs in his vision, if pigs they were, were impossible to slaughter; for they were taken up to heaven on the same sheet on which they descended (Acts 10:16). But he really saw animals that weren’t there in a vivid vision designed to teach him an important lesson (Acts 10:17). Peter came to understand that he was to enter a Gentile home without discrimination. It is a huge mistake to interpret visions as literal historical realities. When Peter’s vision was over there were no tracks or feathers to show he had had a vision. Dogs could not pick up the scent.

The oft repeated “and I saw” (και ειδον)   

If one insists on a strict chronological progression, this one factor, if legitimate, removes all need to dig deeper. It means the 1000 years are subsequent to the Lord’s return. “And I saw” “or “then I saw” or at times “and I heard” are much repeated words in Revelation. All that John heard and saw continues to unfold the vision. But these expressions do not indicate a chronology; they simply add more elements. I have shown that the final judgment appears in 6:12-17 and 14:19, 20. We cannot have multiple final judgments or multiple Second Comings, but we can have numerous references to them, because Revelation keeps returning to basics.

Is 20:1 necessarily later than what was reported in chapter 19? Do these phrases demand chronological progression? John reports the things he saw in the order we find them in Revelation, but does that mean that the things he wrote about were in a linear sequence? We all speak of events in whatever order suits us.

If “and I saw” always communicates a chronological progression, then the Lord Jesus returns to earth multiple times, or else what appears to be the Second Coming in some Revelation statements is actually something else. Neither explanation is acceptable. “And I saw” appears a number of times prior to Revelation 19’s account of the Second Coming.   There is no dilemma here; the solution is to drop the assumption of progressive chronology.

The Clarity of Revelation 11:15-18     

Revelation 11:15-19 also shows the Second Coming. These words in chapter 11 cannot exclude the Second Coming. In this text the kingdom of the world has become Christ’s (11:15). There is a present kingdom of Christ, but this text includes the replacement of the competing kingdom. In this event the Lord has taken His great power and begun to reign (11:17). He already reigns with all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18), but Revelation 11 shows a radical exercise of that authority by putting down all opposition. The details include the wrath of God in reaction to the rage of man, as in Psalm 2.

Now follows the matter of time in Revelation 11. We are told of “the time for … and for … and for.”   In very straightforward fashion only one time is in view. It is the time for judging the dead, the time for rewarding His own, and the time for destroying the destroyers of the earth. It is the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty (19:15), and the judgment of the nations (Matthew 25:31-46).  It will be the battle on the great day of God the Almighty (16:14), and the great white throne judgment (20:11-15). This is not different from the great day of their wrath in Revelation 6:17. Since all these texts display finality, they all point to the final Judgment Day.   

The events of the singular time in Revelation 11 can only occur when the Lord comes. There is only one coming, and all these references to judgment refer to the same one. The widespread references to the Judgment Day show that Revelation does not have a strict linear chronology. It does have progression in its narrative; the souls of 6:9 have immediate blessing ruling with Christ at the time of their death prior to their physical resurrection (20:4, 5). Revelation intends this encouragement to believers facing severe persecution. The others who died physically come to life only to experience the second death, and will exist forever apart from Christ.

Appendix B:  Input from other theologians

Leon Morris pointed out that John does not mention a second resurrection, nor does he mention the Second Advent in this chapter at all.

Too little attention has been given to this point. It appears that John is simply taking us behind the scenes as he has done so often before. Despite the persecution of believers, Christ is not defeated, nor are those who have died for His sake. Our peep behind the scenes shows us martyrs reigning and Satan bound.  … Here he [John] is surely concerned with present realities – the apparent defeat of the martyrs and their real triumph. (emphasis added)

And Benjamin B. Warfield:

Revelation 20 “in one word, is a vision of the peace of those who have died in the Lord; and its message to us is embodied in the words of 14:13: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, from henceforth’ – of which passage the present is indeed only an expansion. The picture that is brought before us here [in Revelation 20] is … the picture of the “intermediate state” – of the saints of God gathered in heaven away from the confused noise and garments bathed in blood that characterize the war upon earth, in order that they may securely await the end. The thousand years thus, is the whole of the present dispensation, which again is placed before us in its entirety, but looked at now relatively not to what is passing on earth but to what is enjoyed “in Paradise”. This, in fact, is the meaning of the symbol of the thousand years.”

Summary

The notion of linear events does not fit Revelation, and insisting on a literal reading of the book has as many contradictions. The simple solution is to resort to the good principle of paying attention to the context, which in this case is a rather wide developing narrative. Revelation 20 does not stand alone. It makes more sense if we include the rest of the vision. The murdered souls of Revelation 6 reappear now and then in the book. They are blessed and holy (20:6), and their present living reign with Christ and their priestly service is found in 20:4-6. When an axe is about to come down on a believer, one’s thoughts need not be on the axe but on the reception in heaven, there to be souls seated on a throne with authority to reign with Christ until the Second Coming.

Dedicated to my dear friends, the saints of Pilgrim Community Church in Quezon City, Metro Manila, the Philippines, August, 2018 (revised)