Revelation

The Resurrection

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Prerequisite/Law

Lesson: 25-30

Genre: Talk

Track: 193

Dictation Name: RR129N25

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Revelation 20, the Resurrection.

“20 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.

2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,

3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.

6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,

8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.

9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.

10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

11 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.

12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.

14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”

Much of the confusion concerning the book of Revelation stems from the various interpretations of this chapter, and in particular, to the reference to the thousand years. Nowhere else in the Bible is there a reference to a thousand year period during which the saints are to reign, this is the only reference.

Now what is the meaning of this term? In order to understand the meaning of the thousand years, it is important for us to understand what it meant to the people of the day, and then how it was used by Saint John. When our Lord began his ministry, Israel was expecting the millennium, that is, the thousand years, to begin. According to the expectation of the Jews as a result of their Rabbinical teaching, a great messianic age would be ushered in on the year 5000, and would last 1000 years. The expectations concerning this thousand years were staggering, for example, according to the Apocalypse of Baruch, one of the apocryphal books of the day, the earth will bring forth fruit, one producing ten thousand. In the vine there will be a thousand branches, in every branch a thousand clusters; in every cluster a thousand berries, and every berry will yield a core of wine. In other words, every berry of grape will yield a core, or 36 gallons of wine.

Now this is what they expected from the thousand years. Again, according to another apocryphal book, the book of Enoch, in those days will the whole earth be tilled in righteousness, and vines will be planted on it. The vine which is planted thereon will yield wine in abundance, and of all seed which is sown thereon will each measure bear ten thousand. It was of such Jewish fables that Paul warned the believers in Titus 1:14.

Now where did they have these concepts, where did they derive them from? Now, of course we know that the heavens and earth were created in 6 days. We also know that the psalmist tells us that a thousand years are as a day in the Lords sight. Out of these two verses, one referring to the six days of creation, and the other referring to the fact that time is nothing in the sigh of God, the Pharisees as they commented on Scripture put the two together, and you had of course the beginning of the kind of interpretation that today prevails in many churches, where they tried to do away with Genesis and say that the days were ages, so that instead of the heavens and earth being created and all things therein in 6 days, they tell us that it was a long span of time. Not necessarily a thousand, it could be a hundred million. The Greek word thousand is the word we have literally in the English, myriad. Which can mean literally a thousand, or figuratively, a long, vast span of time. As a result these commentators take the days of Genesis, and they fit all of evolutionary geology into the framework of these long days, and they make it into millions of years.

Such interpretation of course, turns scripture into nonsense.

Now, the Rabbi’s as they interpreted the Bible said that each of the thousand years of the days of creation represented an age in history. The first age was from the year one to 999. The second millennium was from the year 1-1999, and so on. So that with the year 5000, the sixth millennium was to begin, and man was created on the sixth day, therefore the 6th millennium of history was to be the age of man, the fulfillment of man, and man was to reign over the earth in the person of the Jew, who was to establish a world-wide kingdom, subjugate all peoples, and rule as Lord of the earth. The messiah, therefore, in their expectation, was to come to be this world wide ruler, who was miraculously to subjugate all peoples to the Jews.

This then was the meaning of the messiah to the Jews of the day, and this was the meaning of the thousand years. As a result, since the year 5000 fell at this time, there was a feverish excitement throughout the whole of Judea and Galilee. Everyone was expecting that any moment the messiah would appear, and the Jews would rule the world. As a result to, Rome was worried; because Rome knew that this could lead to some kind of rebellion. As a result also you have the tremendous number of false messiahs who appeared in this century and in the early part of the second century among the Jews; adventurers who presented themselves as the messiah, and created a tremendous rebellion, culminating finally in the second century with the Rebellion of Bar Kochba, whose name means literally, son of the star; which has reference of course to the Old Testament prophecy concerning the star out of Jacob, that is, the great ruler, the messiah who will come out of Israel.

When John the Baptist began his ministry, and he declared the end of the age, you can understand the tremendous, feverish excitement. He declared of course, that the time had come, “prepare ye the way of the Lord.” And so they flocked out into the desert to hear him; after all, was this the beginning of the millennium? But of course John was a bitter disappointment to them. Because he said the kingdom indeed would come, and the messiah would come, but the ax is laid at the root of the tree, Israel, which shall be chopped down, because it is an evil and a perverse generation. And so he declared indeed the time of the kingdom had come, but the king who was to come would deny Israel’s hope; indeed would condemn Israel, and Israel was to perish. And so it was they hated him with a passion.

And then Herod, who was more moved by John then were Johns own people, and for a time out of fear of Johns message did mend his ways, made himself immensely popular with the Pharisees and the people at large when he sentenced John to death.

Now we can understand why our Lord when He began His ministry, did not openly declare: “I am the Messiah.” Why he so often warned people to tell no man, when he performed a miracle that was clearly a fulfillment of the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. He had no desire to have them believe that because He was the messiah, He was the messiah in terms of the Jewish hope. Therefore He instructed them repeatedly in the meaning of the kingdom, He instructed them over and over again what it was He had come to overthrow, the power of sin and death. That He had come as man’s savior to reestablish the true kingdom, the kingdom of God, the kingdom which Adam and Eve had destroyed by their apostasy, by their rebellion against God; the kingdom which had been surrendered and sin and death had entered the world. And so Christ had come to overthrow the work of Satan and to reestablish the kingdom of God in righteousness and everlasting life. He began that reestablishment at His temptation. He continued it by setting forth the meaning of the kingdom. He accomplished it by His atoning death and resurrection; and by establishing His people as the new Israel of God, as His new creation.

Therefore Saint Paul spoke of our Lord as the last Adam or the new Adam, the fountainhead of the new humanity, the beginning of the new creation. The kingdom age had arrived, it arrived with Christ’s resurrection, and the kingdom is wherever His people are. The kingdom of God is within you, in your midst, wherever the people of God are, there the true millennium has begun.

Now, all present day millennial thinking is a revival of the Jewish hope. It survived in the early church among the Judaizers, and then died. At the time of the middle ages it was revived by (Wakim?) of Flora and others who were definitely heretical, at the time of the Reformation it was revived when the second generation of clergymen began to go to Rabbis to be taught Hebrew; and when they were taught Hebrew, in the process the Rabbis taught them their interpretation of the hope. Its modern revival was due largely to Darby, and then to Scofield. And the Scofield notes go so far as to assert that the primary work of Jesus was to establish the Jewish kingdom, and that failing that the atonement on the cross was a second-best plan of salvation; and in fact, Scofield said, the Jewish plan will ultimately be restored in its primacy, the temple will be rebuilt, and sacrifice will again be reestablished in Jerusalem, as the real way of salvation. In other words, what was only a shadow of Christ is made the reality, and Christ is made the shadow by Scofield.

This is why there has been a revision recently of Scofield, trying to take out some of these things which are really anti-Christian. Josephus in his history echoes this whole Jewish plan. He gives us the history of the Jewish nation for five thousand years, and he himself was a believer in this hope, and believed that he or his family might produce the messiah. His conception was totally humanistic.

Now, in one sense only the Jews were right. The time was at hand; but not for their hope, for the fulfillment of scripture. And as Mark declares in 1:14-15 “Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.” This kingdom He ushered in, by His victory over Satan in the temptation, by His perfect obedience, His death and resurrection, and the power of Satan was broken by these things, and the kingdom ushered in with power over sin and death. And so our Lord declared that on Himself, on the confession that He is the Christ, the son of the living God: “I will build my church, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against her.”

Jesus said very clearly: “Verily I say unto you, that there be some of them that stand here which shall not taste of death till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.” Now this is a significant statement, and our Lord made it several times. Now, either Christ was wrong, or the kingdom did come with power. It did come with power to Pentecost. It did come with the establishment of the people of God, and we are citizens of that kingdom. And Paul speaks of our citizenship being in heaven.

Because the disciples persistently believed in the Jewish hope, they could not associate this coming kingdom with the crucifixion, and they were dumbfounded with Christ’s teaching, and by the course of events. And even as our Lord told them that He must go to Jerusalem, to accomplish these things, Peter put his hand upon Him forcibly to turn Him in the other direction, and said: “Not so Lord.” and our Lord turned and said: “Get thee behind me Satan.” Because the course that Peter was proposing for the kingdom was Satanic.

Thus if our Lord was right, the kingdom was established, but it was not the kingdom of man, the humanistic kingdom which was the Jewish hope; it was the kingdom of God, established by His victory over sin and death, and extending that victory by grace unto all who by faith come unto Him. Now any other kingdom dream is not of Christ.

Now the book of Revelation presents us with the significance of this struggle with Satan, and it presents the kingdom age as a period of struggle and victory, a time when Christ’s church marches victoriously, when our kinsman redeemer dispossesses the powers of darkness in order to reclaim and repossess the lost inheritance, which is creation in its original state. And two aspects of this restoration have to be distinguished. First there is repossession. Christ through His church and kingdom repossesses the earth, and second, recreation; whereby the repossessed heaven and earth are recreated.

Now, that recreation begins when we are born again in Him, so that we are now spiritually part of the new creation. This is the first resurrection, it is our resurrection from the death of sin. The second resurrection is the resurrection of our body.

As a result, in order to understand Revelation, we have to see what the thousand years meant in the day, how Christ denied it, and now is saying through Saint John the true kingdom age, the true millennial reign, is the victory over sin and death, the establishment and extension of My kingdom.

Now as we analyze specifically the chapter and verses 1-6, we have the declaration of this first resurrection, that is, our resurrection from the power of sin and death, and the binding of Satan. Now the binding of Satan in scripture is associated always with Christ’s atonement and resurrection. A vast number of verses refer to the binding of Satan as being accomplished by Christ on the cross and by His resurrection. Some of these verses for example, John 16:11, Luke 10:18, John 12:31, Genesis 3:15, Hebrews 2:14, Isaiah 53:12, Colossians 2:15, Luke 11:21-22, and 1st John 3:8.

The purpose of our Lords coming was to destroy the work of the devil and to reclaim mans forfeited inheritance, to save man from the power of sin and death, and to recreate man in the image of God.

Now, in Luke 11 we find that Jesus was accused of being in league with Satan, and He answered that instead: “The kingdom of God is come upon you in my person.” and the strong man, Satan, who has ruled from Adam on was now cast out by a stronger, who not only overcomes Satan, but taketh from him all his armor wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils. He declared, moreover: “Now is the judgement of this world. Now shall the prince of this world be cast out.”

Moreover, saint Paul said that Jesus Christ by His death and resurrection spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. So that, Christ by His death and resurrection bound up Satan, so that Satan is no longer able to deceive the nations. If they follow him it is openly and deliberately, and we are freed from the power of Satan. We are delivered into life and righteousness. This gospel era therefore is the period of the first resurrection, and all who believe, alive and dead, are reigning with Christ; those who were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God; those who have not worshipped, and are not worshipping the beast; those who stand against the whole dream of Babylon, alive and dead, reign with Christ.

The first resurrection, therefore, means our salvation from sin and death, our resurrection from the old humanity of Adam, the lost and dead humanity; and this is spoken of in scripture as rebirth, regeneration, as a rising from the dead.

Now those who are alive are a part of this first resurrection, who believe in Christ, those who believe and have died and are with the Lord are a part of this first resurrection. And the new Jerusalem itself, the new creation, begins with the resurrection, and Christ is spoken of as the first fruits of them that slept, and the great redeemer of heaven and earth. He must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. And Saint Paul in Hebrews 12:22-23 plainly tells believers that here and now, when you believe in Jesus Christ, you are come unto mount Zion and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.

Now, in verses 7-10, the second section of this chapter, we see the release of Satan, that he might be destroyed, and all that he presumes to be. This means that in the gospel age Satan also accomplishes a great deal in that again the dream of Babylon and the tower of Babel is reestablished. The tares and the wheat each become manifest as the harvest time approaches. And so again Satan operates with Gog and Magog. Now Gog means prince and Magog the people of the prince, so that the forces of Satan martial themselves together against the forces of Christ. The two kingdoms are now in open opposition, but the conclusion of this is judgement. In verses 11-15 the judgement is proclaimed. Verse 11 echoes Psalm 114, and Psalm 114 shows creation fleeing from the wrath and judgement of God when He delivered Israel from Egypt. And so here we have the same thing presented to us, even as God destroyed the power of Egypt with His plagues, so He will destroy the power of Babylon, of Satan, with His judgments.

And then finally there is the last judgement, the great judgement, whereby all heaven and earth are judged and the devil and all his works cast into hell; this is the second death, that is the last judgement constitutes the second death, and it constitutes for us the second resurrection, the resurrection of our body. The judgement culminates in the destruction of man’s last enemy, death, and the resurrection of the body, and our eternal reward. We are saved by faith and rewarded according to our works. In this reward we receive both here and now in our Christian walk, and in its fullness at the resurrection.

One thing more, with regard to this chapter. Many people with all kinds of varying interpretations have tried, out of this chapter to work out a chronology, a timetable, and say: “This must happen, and then that will happen, and that will happen, and these things will come to pass.” The answer is that this chapter forbids it. Why?

Now in Ezekiel, as we have these same events presented to us, Gog is completely destroyed before the kingdom age. In Revelation 20, Gog is destroyed after the kingdom age, after the thousand years. Now this presents us with a problem. How are we to interpret this? Either Ezekiel’s kingdom is not the same as a thousand years, or else we are not given chronology in either case. And the answer is of course, either you have to say there is some kind of contradiction here, or the two things are talking about two different things, and there are two kingdom ages, or else scripture is here declaring that we are not to walk by sight. That we are deliberately given a different location for the time of Gog and Magog; that we might not attempt to walk by sight but by faith. And this I believe is the plain intention here.

One of the unhappy facts of today is that in so many churches you will go and you will have a chart which will tell you, one teacher will say: “Now according to Ezekiel this is what is going to happen” and the other will say, “On the contrary, according to Revelation 20 this is the time table, and this is what we can expect.” And last summer in terms of the attack on Israel, there were a number who were saying that their timetable was being fulfilled, and the second coming would be sometime by the end of summer or early fall.

This is attempting to walk by sight, which scripture forbids. And this is precisely why neither in Ezekiel nor in Revelation are we given a chronology, a timetable. Because we are to walk by faith. And so what does the scripture tell us? It tells us that there is a struggle between God and Satan, between Christ and every anti-Christian nation in the world. That this struggle will culminate in a great struggle, that Christ will triumph, that we who are His people have the assurance of victory in time and in eternity, whatever the struggle and the suffering may be. And in terms of this we are summoned to walk by faith, confident that if God be for us, who can be against us?

Revelation therefore forbids timetables, it forbids charting, it summons us to believe and to walk by faith. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we thank Thee for this Thy glorious word, and we thank Thee that we have here the assurance of victory, that we who have been resurrected from the death of sin, have the certainty of the glorious resurrection of our body, and of eternal life with Thee. Make us strong in this faith, and confident that indeed the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, that because Thou art for us, who can be against us? Oh Lord our God how great Thou art, and we praise Thee. In Jesus name amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all with respect to the lesson? Yes.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, the power of Satan over the believer is broken, it is broken. Now, because the believer is not perfectly sanctified, the old Adam in him continues to work. But the new man in us is Jesus Christ. Satan cannot compare in power to Jesus Christ, so it is an uneven contest. Now it is a question of growth, the power of Satan is broken. So we now move in terms of the power of Christ. But even as children stumble when they first begin to walk, and as children have much to learn over the years, so we as Christians we stumble, we have much to learn, we have a great deal of growing to do in order to manifest the life and the intelligence that is ours.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] What is that?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] More than that, Christ controls it. Because Christ is our new life, He is the new man within us, according to Saint Paul. And therefore we do not face these things alone. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, how does the Aumillennial position see the future. The Aumillennial position says there is no Millennial age, and things get worse and worse as Babylon is built, and then finally the world comes to an end with the coming of Christ, but things progressively deteriorate, and He comes in to rescue everything. So it is a rather pessimistic perspective, it sees history simply as going downhill, and I don’t believe that is Christian.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Your, I don’t like the term Postmillennial, but most of your American colonial thinkers, and most of your great Christian leaders in this country in the last century were what is loosely called the Postmillennial school.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] I don’t like the term, I don’t think that it describes it accurately.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] I couldn’t speak for all of them, but the Westminster Confession, while it is not explicit, has been described as being somewhat on the Postmillennial order. It has been by and large the historic position of orthodox believers through the centuries.

Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Basically no, the Christian can sin, but I don’t think… I think the power of Satan over the believer has been over-estimated. Now this is a matter of considerable controversy, during the period of the early church, into the early part of the middle ages, it was regarded as a heresy to overestimate the power of Satan. Then during the period of the High Middle Ages, became very common to overestimate the power of Satan, and this continued into the 18th century into both Catholic and Protestant circles; and it led to a great deal of morbidity, you see, because people in their daily life concentrated on the power of Satan and the fear of Satan, rather than on the power of God, and the saving power of God. And it did lead to a very morbid perspective for a number of centuries.

Now, we cannot underestimate Satan, true Satan can tempt believers, but basically the believer is under the protection of Christ, and he has been delivered from Satan, and if he is a true believer he moves progressively in that power.

Now, very often the Christian as he sins wants to blame Satan, the poet and preacher John Dunn, in one of his poems spoke of such people as “Tempting Satan to tempt us.” In other words, wanting to stray, and wanting to have an excuse for straying, in other words, it is “Satan’s fault not mine.” So I think we overestimate too often the power of Satan in the life of Believers, and we underestimate the power of Satan in the world at large.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Well, of course there are two questions there, first, are they true Christians? Second, children can often be very willful, you see. And Paul speaks of most believes being babes in Christ; and the Christian can be misled for a time, but he cannot be totally misled or permanently misled, because if he is a true believer, Christ being the new man in him, Christ cannot be deceived.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Exactly.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, you have put your finger on it. Now, if you have a fine, healthy plant, and you water for it and you care for it it is going to thrive. But if you fail to take care of it it is going to be infected by every blight that comes along and it is going to wilt. If a believer worships where he will hear the word of God, where he will have the fellowship of true believers, then he is going to flourish. But if he puts himself in a situation where the soil spiritually is bad, then he is going to be blighted and he is going to wither, and this is why our church associations are so important. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Right. This is extremely important, because as we study the word of God we have the direct blessing of God and the operation of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And we may not understand everything but as time goes on we understand more and more. And even the dirtiest cup in the world, if it is placed under a dripping faucet, will in time become clean. So it is with us; if we subject ourselves to the discipline of the word of God its cleaning power will effect a growing change and reformation in our lives. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Luther did not get around to a commentary on Revelation as far as I know, and the Lutherans by and large have shied away from the book as though it were not a part of the Bible, which is regrettable. But the Lutherans by and large take no stand here, and since it is a part of the Bible, this is a serious mistake on their part.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, each chapter I am writing so that when I finish this will be a book on Daniel and Revelation, and then I will take also the key passages from elsewhere, for example Thessalonians and Matthew 24, which is extremely important, Matthew 24. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Yes, we are saved by grace. Our salvation is not our work, but it is God’s work. So that, you are now already saved, and the person who is lost is already a lost person, and until he becomes saved he is lost, legally, in the sight of God. So that when we stand before God it is not then we become saved, is it? You are already saved when you face Gods judgement, or you are already lost. What you then receive is your reward. We are saved by faith, we are rewarded according to our works. And so, Saint Paul said: “Some enter in as it were by fire.” That is, like a man whose house burns down, and it was a house of straw, and he gets out with nothing. But others enter through the judgement fire as it were, with all kinds of gold and silver and precious stones, that is, their works. The works of faith are such that they will be rewarded, and in the parable of the talents our Lord says to those who believe, those who have used their talents, “be thou ruler over ten cities” or, “be thou ruler over five cities.” So we are saved by faith, we are rewarded according to works. Yes?

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] No, the point as I recall it, is that the judgement of Israel would be all the more severe because there was so much light given to them, you see. Christ Himself, the whole of the Old Testament prophecies. And because they had received so much they would be judged all the more severely.

[Audience Member] …?...

[Rushdoony] Oh, they will all be judged by it, because Saint Paul declares in the 1st chapter of Romans, that all men know the things of God, because having been created by God, these things are implanted in their being, so that he says: “They are without excuse” because this witness is already planted within them.

Well, our time is up, and we must adjourn at this time.