Revelation 20:6

An interpolated explanation of the preceding vision. Ἅγιος, if a continuation of μακ., must almost be taken in its archaic sense of ‘belonging to God”. The ordinary meaning reduces the phrase to a hysteron proteron, unless the idea is that the bliss consists in holiness (so Vendidad xix. 22, “happy, happy the man who is holy with perfect holiness”). “Blessed and holy,” however, was a conventional Jewish term of praise and congratulation (cf. Jub. ii. 23). ὁ δεύτ. θάνατος κ. τ. λ. According to the Hellenic faith recorded in Plutarch (in his essay on “the face in the moon's orb”), the second death, which gently severs the mind from the soul, is a boon, not a punishment. But John's view reflects the tradition underlying the Iranian belief (Brandt, 586 f., 592) that the righteous were exempt from the second death (defined as in Revelation 21:8). The clause ἀλλʼ … Χριστοῦ refers to the permanent standing (Revelation 1:6; Revelation 5:10 a) of these risen martyrs not only during but after the millennium; otherwise it would be meaningless, since the danger of the second death (as the penalty inflicted on all who are condemned at the final assizes) does not emerge until the millennium is over. The subsequent clause καὶ βασιλεύσουσι κ. τ. λ. is independent, referring back to the special and temporary privilege of the first resurrection and the millennium. For this reason it is precarious to infer from ἔσονται ἱερεῖς τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ Χριστοῦ (elsewhere τῷ θεῷ) that the occupation of these saints is the mediation of divine knowledge to the ἔθνη whom Satan is temporarily prevented from beguiling. The likelihood is that the phrase simply denotes as elsewhere the bliss of undisturbed access to God and of intimate fellowship. John ignores the current belief that the loyal survivors on earth would be rewarded (cf. Daniel 12:12; Ps. Sol. 17:50, etc.), which is voiced in Asc. Isa. iv. 14 16, but he reproduces independently the cognate view (Asc. Isa. iv. 16 f.) that “the saints will come with the Lord with their garments which are (now) stored up on high in the seventh heaven [cf. Revelation 6:11] … they will descend and be present in this world” (after which the Beloved executes judgment at the resurrection). He, retains, however, not only the general resurrection (12) but the variant and earlier idea (cf.4Ezr 7 26 f.) of a resurrection (ἔζησαν, 4) confined to the saints. He calls this the first resurrection not because the martyrs and confessors who enjoyed it had to undergo a second in the process of their final redemption but because it preceded the only kind of resurrection with which sinners and even ordinary Christians had anything to do (Titius, 37 40; Baldensperger, 74, 79 f.). καὶ βασιλεύσουσι, apparently on earth. This would be put beyond doubt were we to take the view of the risen martyrs' occupation which has been set aside above. But, even apart from this, in the light of all relevant tradition and of the context, the earth must be the sphere of the millennium; Christ might of course be conceived to execute his sovereignty from heaven, but, though Revelation 20:9 denotes a different cycle of tradition from 4 6, it is put on the same plane, and the vision of 4 (cf. Revelation 20:1) is evidently this world. ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς would be more in keeping with this context than with that of Revelation 20:10, where again the refrain of Revelation 22:5 (κ. β. εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων) would be more appropriate. χίλια ἔτη. This enigmatic and isolated prediction has led to more unhappy fantasies of speculation and conduct than almost any other passage of the N.T. It stands severely apart from the sensuous expectations of current chiliasm (fertility of soil, longevity, a religious carnival, etc.), but even its earliest interpreters, Papias and Justin, failed to appreciate its reticence, its special object, and its semi-transcendent atmosphere. For its relevance, or rather irrelevance, to the normal Christian outlook, see Denney's Studies in Theology, pp. 231 f., and A. Robertson's Regnum Dei, pp. 113 f. When the millennium or messianic reign was thus abbreviated into a temporary phase of providence in the latter days, the resurrection had to be shifted from its original position prior to the messianic reign; it now became, as here, the sequel to that period.