Christ’s reign begins when the kingdom is transferred to the Son of man figure. The theme appears in Revelation 11:5: ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.’ In 1 Corinthians 15:23 Paul argues for a separation of Christ’s resurrection from the resurrection of those who belong to him: ‘each in his own order’. Christ has been raised in advance of his ‘coming’ as the Son of man (and as the one who represents the suffering saints) to receive the kingdom. He is seated at the right hand of God, ‘far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come’ (Eph.1:20-21). He will reign ‘until he has put all his enemies under his feet’ (1 Cor.15:25; cf. Heb.2:8; 10:12-13); then he will deliver the kingdom to the Father ‘after destroying every rule and every authority and power’ (1 Cor.15:24).
There is an important strand of teaching that relates to the situation of those who suffer because of Christ during the period of upheaval that marked the end of the age. This group will not merely experience resurrection but will participate actively in the reign of the resurrected Christ. This is prefigured in Daniel’s vision, in which it is the oppressed saints of the Most High who receive ‘dominion and glory and kingdom’ (Dan.7:14). The idea appears most clearly in Jesus’ promise that in the kingdom, or in the ‘new world’, those who continue with his in his trials will also be assigned a kingdom and will ‘sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel’ (Lk.22:28-30; cf. Matt.19:28). It may be implicit in the beatitude: ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’ (Matt.5:10). In response to aggression from the Jews Paul urged the new converts in Asia Minor to continue in the faith, saying that ‘through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God’ (Acts 14:22). He assures the Thessalonian believers that by their suffering they are ‘made worthy of the kingdom of God’ (2 Thess.1:5). At the coming of the Son of man those whose hearts are ‘unblamable in holiness’ (1 Thess.3:13) will be presented, as the saints of the Most High were presented in Daniel 7, before God: the dead in Christ will have been raised, the living snatched up ‘in the clouds’, to be with Christ at his coming (1 Thess.4:15-17) and to receive the kingdom with him. In Romans 8:17 Paul makes it clear that those who will be ‘fellow heirs with Christ’, who will inherit the same kingdom, are those who will ‘suffer with him’. He also differentiates between the resurrection of Christ, ‘the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep’, and the resurrection ‘at his coming’ (the Son of man motif) of those who belong to Christ’ (1 Cor.15:23).
Peter assures the ‘exiles of the Dispersion’ that they have the hope of an imperishable inheritance. For a little while they will have to ‘suffer various trials’, but because Christ was raised from the dead, they can be certain that a salvation will be ‘revealed in the last time’, at ‘the revelation of Jesus Christ’ (1 Pet.1:3-7). Those who endure the ‘fiery ordeal’ that will come upon them will ‘obtain the unfading crown of glory’ when the chief Shepherd is manifested (1 Pet.4:12-14; 5:4; cf. 5:8-10). It is in the context of opposition, reviling and persecution that the hope of resurrection and glory in the near future becomes operative: the ‘revelation of Jesus Christ’ will bring their sufferings to an end and they will obtain ‘the salvation of your souls’ (1:9). The same thought may lie behind Hebrews 2:10: ‘For it was fitting that [God]… in bringing many sons to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering’ (cf. 6:11-12; 12:1-4; 13:12-14).
The idea that those who suffer will share in Christ’s heavenly reign is given greater clarity in Revelation by the distinction between a first and second resurrection. The first resurrection follows the overthrow of ‘Babylon the great’ (18:2), which is Rome, the revelation of the Word of God (19:11-16; cf. 2 Thess.1:7-8; 2:8), the defeat of the beast and false prophet (19:17-21), both of which are closely associated with Rome’s demonic hostility towards the people of God, and the imprisonment of Satan in the ‘abyss’ for a thousand years. At this point those who did not worship the beast, who were killed ‘for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God’, are raised to life and reign with Christ for a thousand years (20:4-6). The second resurrection of all the dead takes place at the end of this period (20:12-15).
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