[This post was created from a comment (#3129) in the The resurrection of those in Christ thread.]
Hi Andrew,
Its funny, it would seem you and I agree on a lot of how the prophecies of the OT relate to Revelation and the kingdom coming - we just disagree over the little issue of whether it has happened. That and I am still baffled by your doctrine of secret resurrection.
I would agree with you, for example, that the vision of the resurrected saints reigning Revelation 20 is to be seen in connection with Daniel 7:9-10, 26. But whereas you say that
In the ‘first resurrection’ those who die because of their testimony to Jesus simply come to life and reign with Christ for a thousand years (Rev. 20:4); they will accompany him at his ‘coming’, but this is not a coming to earth, it is a coming to the throne of God to receive a kingdom. It is a simple prophetic assurance that those who die for the sake of Christ during the period of persecution that John envisages, who cry out for judgment against their enemies (Rev. 6:9), will share in Christ’s vindication…
I would insist that it is a coming to earth. This is the context of the great conflict in Rev.19. Moreover, the promise offered the suffering saints was to share the reign of Christ ‘on earth’ (e.g., Rev.5:10; cf. 2:26), who comes to rule the nations with an iron rod (19:15), and then follows the great battle of the nations against God’s anointed in 19:19ff. Secondly, I would disagree that the resurrected martyrs noted in 20:4 are to be limited to those who suffered persecution during the empire-wide persecution of Rome. Certainly John is not limiting this resurrection and reign to those who were beheaded, as opposed to other martyrs of the period (though he only mentions thse beheaded). Rather, the first resurrection refers to (all) believers. For the ‘the rest of the dead’ who are not raised to life during the first resurrection are contrasted not with the martyrs per se, but more accurately, with those who “had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands,” (12:4, 5) which in Revelation is obviously all true believers. The focus of John on the martyrs in particular here (i.e., those suffering persecution due to the imperial cult of Rome) is due to his pastoral concern to encourage the suffering churches of his day (or within the foreseeable future) - cf. 13:10; 14:12.
Dan.7:18 says, “but the saints of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it forever” and v. 27, “Then the sovereignty, the dominion, and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the Highest One; His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all the dominions will serve and obey Him.”
From this, I would conclude that this kingdom is given to the saints of Most High - all of them. Can we really limit this to those saints who suffered martyrdom? There are a lot of questions about who ‘the saints of the Most High’ are in Daniel 7 - e.g., “your people” in Daniel 9 clearly would have been understood as ethnic Israel by the prophet (= ‘the holy people’ in 12:7?). But that’s another issue.
Secondly, we see that the kingdom given them is a dominion over the earth, a rule over all the kingdoms ‘under heaven’, which in Daniel is clearly the rule of geo-political ‘nations’ on the earth. Just as He rules over the kings of the earth now (Rev.1:5), and will rule (Rev.11:15; 19-20; 21-22), so we too, if we persevere, will share in His reign (Rev.3:21). We will all rule with Christ; we will even judge the angels, Paul tells us.
“That is rather different to interrupting a continuous and coherent narrative of judgment and vindication and saying that the first part was (more or less) fulfilled in the first century but the second part (not a repetition of the first part) has to wait.”
First, I do see it as a ‘motif’ that is repeated (judgment in AD 70 and judgment at the end of the age). The second coming of the Son of Man to bring salvation to those who await Him (He.9:28) is a repetition of His first coming (hence a second advent), during which He suffered for sins (e.g., Mt.20:28).
Second, how long of an ‘interruption’ is permissible? Consider Jesus’ usage of Isaiah 61:1-2, stopping mid-verse at the comment concerning coming judgment (“and the day of vengeance of our God”) in Luke 4:18-19. It is a remarkable omission. Indeed, Jesus’ ministry was confounding to John who had anticipated (and not without biblical reason) immediate judgment, and a baptism of fire (Mt.11:3ff.; 3:7-12). It would seem that what appeared as a singular event or complex of events in Isaiah (e.g., 11:1-10), Malachi (e.g., 3:1-5), etc., gets separated into the two-fold coming of Christ (however you time his return). Is a separation of 40 to a few hundred years then acceptable?
If we are left behind, is there a vindication for martyrs who suffer at the hands nations today? If so, how are we to understand it in light of Scripture. I assume from your understanding of Rev.20 that you’re amillennial in the sense that the reign of the saints is present (or past), but then do you expect a future, satanically inspired battle against the Lord and His saints as stated at the of 20?
Re: The suffering of creation
I wouldn’t label it a ‘doctrine of secret resurrection’. That seems a systematizing ‘modern’ approach. It is not a ‘doctrine’, it is an element in an integrated narrative reading of the New Testament; secrecy has no part to play in that narrative; and even the focus on resurrection is a little misleading if it makes us think of a visible, material event rather than vindication at the throne of God. (I would also, incidentally, avoid the term ‘amillennial’ for similar reasons. Interpretation is not helped at all by this sort of categorization and the sectarianism that so often accompanies it.)
A distinction needs to be made here. The martyrs will reign with Christ in heaven: it is a reign on the basis of having conquered death (cf. Rev. 2:26). Those who ‘reign on earth’ are those who have been redeemed ‘from every tribe and tongue and people and nation’; they are a continuation of Israel, a ‘kingdom and priests’ amongst the peoples of the earth; they are not described as having suffered (Rev. 5:9-10). The vision of Christ in Revelation 19:11-16 depicts the one who has judged and defeated his enemies through his suffering, on the one hand, and through the proclamation of the word of God, on the other. The reference to the rod of iron brings to mind Psalm 2, which describes the victory of God’s son over the nations that conspire against him and his enthronement as king.
It seems to me unquestionable that the first resurrection is a resurrection of the martyrs. They are described as having been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God (Rev. 20:4). It is also said that they did not worship the beast, etc., but that cannot be taken to mean that this includes all believers: it is simply that they are part of this larger group. We have, moreover, seen this group before:
Are you seriously suggesting that this is meant to be a description of all believers? Those who share in the first resurrection are those who are killed by their persecutors. It’s absolutely clear and it makes perfect sense. You could argue that this includes other believers who have suffered persecution since the fall of imperial Rome, but to my mind this is beyond the purview of the New Testament, which addresses the conflict that it actually had to deal with (this is the realism of New Testament eschatology), not speculative conflicts yet to come.
The question I would ask is: Would it have been reasonable for Jesus to have taken this vision of conflict and vindication and have applied it to the situation that confronted both himself and his followers? In any case, the kingdom is not given to all the saints throughout the ages; it is given to those against whom the little horn on the head of the fourth beast makes war. Jesus foresaw an analogous ‘war’ between an arrogant and blasphemous imperial power and the small number of God’s people who remained loyal to the (new) covenant, and believed that this suffering group would be vindicated as the Son of man figure was vindicated.
What should we expect this kingdom to look like? As I have said before in this conversation, I think we have to take into account here the manner in which Jesus reinterprets the ‘reign’ of God. He doesn’t make it apolitical or purely spiritual, but he does invert power relations. He is king because he gave himself for others, he is the king who serves, the king who overcomes through weakness. That sort of kingship only really makes sense in the context of the exercise of worldly power by other political forces. The kingdom of God that matters is a kingdom that works in the midst of opposition - that is why it was given not to a king like Herod but to a suffering servant. This is how God is sovereign in the world - precisely through the weakness and self-giving of his people. It is a reality here and now. There is, conversely, something deeply and disturbingly unchristian about aspiring to world domination.
Re: The suffering of creation
"It is not a ‘doctrine’, it is an element in an integrated narrative reading of the New Testament"
Wha? I just mean doctrine in the biblical sense/usage of ‘a teaching’. Since when is biblical doctrine not ‘an element in an integrated reading’ of Scripture?
"and even the focus on resurrection is a little misleading if it makes us think of a visible, material event rather than vindication at the throne of God"
Exactly…one of the weaknesses of your reading of ‘resurrection of the saints’ It does not cohere well with a merely spiritual/heavenly vindication before the throne.
"Are you seriously suggesting that this is meant to be a description of all believers?"
As in Rev.20:4, the explicit mention of the martyrs points to the purpose and focus of the vision(s): the encouragement of a perseucted church in depicting the vindication of the slain saints (even the resurrection of ones beheaded!). To argue that these promises were limited to those who were martyred for the faith is absurd, delimiting the scope of John’s audience to the beheaded (20:4) or those whose blood had been literally spilled by Rome.
Thus you unnaturally split the promises of sharing Christ’s reign with the martyrs and the rest of the saints into a heavenly vindication and an earthly vindication (maybe dispensationalists are comfortable with such distinctions, but I have never been). I would argue that this two-tiered division of the saints is utterly foreign to the NT. There is no indication that actual martyrdom distinguished one from other disciples who also suffered for the faith, yet not to ‘the point of shedding blood’. Would John himself, who was "your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus," and was "on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus," miss the first resurrection, while his fellow apostles and servants ‘shone’ in the kingdom of the Son of Man (in a manner of speaking, of course, as your interpretation would have it)?
Along these lines, your reading of a martyr’s-only resurrection stumbles on even your own interpretation 1Cor.15:23, where "those who belong to Him" can only mean the saints as those who are "in Christ" (cf. 1Co.3:23; Gal.5:28-29). This cannot be reduced to the ‘martyred saints’ only.
"but to my mind this is beyond the purview of the New Testament, which addresses the conflict that it actually had to deal with (this is the realism of New Testament eschatology), not speculative conflicts yet to come."
Yes, we’ve established that you believe that long-term prophecies are unrealistic (except in the case of Daniel, and Isaiah, I guess, but then, what about Moses, Jeremiah, Ezekiel…oh never mind). That is to say, you don’t believe Scripture predicts the unforeseen future. Again, I would question your usage of ‘realistic’ here - as though Daniel’s prophecies of the distant future were unrealistic! Secondly, according to the traditional view, there is nothing ‘speculative’ about the conflicts to come. Again, this appears to betray your bias against the supernatural element to prophecy.
"The vision of Christ in Revelation 19:11-16 depicts the one who has judged and defeated his enemies through his suffering, on the one hand, and through the proclamation of the word of God, on the other."
Where is He suffering in this pericope? Rather, it dramatically paints the violent irruption of Christ’s reign over the earth, in which He conquers the nations, as Ps.2 so clearly portrays. He shatters them with an iron rod - if this does not communicate a violent act of establishing sovereignty, then language means nothing. I would also submit that the Son of Man does not appear to suffer the persecution of the beast in Daniel 7.
"In any case, the kingdom is not given to all the saints throughout the ages; it is given to those against whom the little horn on the head of the fourth beast makes war."
First of all, the ‘saints’ in Daniel’s original context undoubtedly referred to ethnic Jews (who presumably believe), the people of Daniel, Israel. It is inconsistent of you to demand such exegetical precision in relating Daniels’ prophecy to the Apocalypse (which I would generally commend) and then pass over such hermeneutical issues with a flip of the wrist (oh, these promises are ‘transmutated’ in Christ, whatever that means).
Secondly, it is given to the saints throughout the ages, or so the promise to Daniel in 12:13 would suggest (especially in context of chapter 12). Again, you have unduly narrowed the scope of eschatological hopes to those who are the contemporaries of eschatological events.
"There is, conversely, something deeply and disturbingly unchristian about aspiring to world domination."
Whoa. The world dominion of our Lord and of His reign (cf. Rev.11:15) is what we pray for: "your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Excuse me, what the church has prayed for for 2,000 years - you however, apparently, find it passe.
Re: The resurrection of the martyrs
Not at all. Please read the argument more carefully. My point is that it is misleading to think of the resurrection of the martyrs in material, visible terms: they are raised to participate in the coming of the Son of man to the throne of the Ancient of Days. We have gone over this all before.
I simply don’t know how to respond to your insistence that John’s description of those who are killed for the sake of Christ includes all believers. Did you not look at 6:9-11? It’s very simple to read ‘beheaded’ as a metonymy for those martyred; but there is nothing to suggest that he includes in this group people who die peacefully in their sleep 2000 years later.
This unnatural split is exactly the problem that Paul has to deal with in 1 Thess. 4:13-18. The church hoped to be (publicly) vindicated for its faith in Christ and for its enemies to be defeated. But what about those who had already died? He assures them that they will be raised to life and so not miss out on vindication: they will reign with Christ in heaven.
What Paul says in 1 Cor. 15:22-23 is that there is a temporal ‘order’ or sequence to resurrection: first Christ himself, then those who are raised at his coming, then the ‘end’, which I woud argue corresponds to John’s second resurrection of all the dead. The phrase ‘those of Christ at his parousia’ does not have to mean all who are ‘in Christ’ - it simply denotes that group that needs to be raised (cf. 1 Thess.4:16) at the moment of Christ’s vindication.
I think that what I said was that for the most part biblical prophecy relates quite realistically to prevailing and foreseeable conditions. That doesn’t mean I deny the supernatural element - I believe, for example, that Jesus genuinely predicted the destruction of Jerusalem as a consequence of war within a generation. It does mean that I think that God spoke through the prophets about things that actually mattered to the people he was speaking to.
Again, please read more carefully. The vision ‘depicts the one who has judged and defeated his enemies through his suffering’ - the suffering is in the past, it is symbolized by the ‘robe dipped in blood’. It is on the basis of this suffering and the preaching of the word of God that he overcomes the nations that oppose YHWH and his people.
I can see you’re looking forward to it. We clearly have very different conceptions of the nature of Christ’s reign.
It seems clear enough to me. The figure in human form coming on the clouds of heaven represents the saints against whom the little horn makes war in the same way that the beasts from the sea represent four destructive kingdoms.
The kingdom is given to those who suffer - who overcome evil through their willingness to suffer. It will last thoughout the ages. My argument is that in the context of the New Testament this prophetic motif is applied in the first place to Christ, but also to those who suffer in him during the birthpains of the new age. I think, therefore, it is a reign defined by self-giving, it is the reign of one who overcame the enemies of God through suffering; it is not a reign that can be characterized literally as violent world dominion.
From an exegetical point of view there is nothing illogical about the idea that Jesus taught his disciples to pray for something that has since come about.
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