It is satisfactory for one who dislikes opposing a good and able dignitary that “we are now fallen upon the last part of our task.” Yet is it sad to find that such a man labors, not to learn the divine intention in Rev. 20:44And 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. (Revelation 20:4), but to show that we are not, by any necessity of the case, cast upon what he calls a Double Resurrection of the body, and such a millennial reign of the saints, as is contended for by many, to put the last phrase in a decorous form.
Now if the “Revelation of Jesus Christ” never had been sent and signified by God to His servant John, every Christian is responsible to believe in two resurrections (of course of the body), wholly different in object, character, and end, as well as in time, that of “the just” preceding the other of “the unjust.” How long the interval between them falls very naturally to the province of the great N. T. book of prophecy rather than to the Gospels or Epistles. So beyond doubt is the fact. The Gospel of Mark (chap. 12:25) gives us a note beyond the more general form of the Lord's answer to the Sadducees in Matt. 22, for the Lord is represented as saying, “when they shall rise from the dead.” This is more than a resurrection “of” dead persons; it is rising “from out of them” (ἐκ νεκρῶν) So His own resurrection is described (chap. 9: 9, 10) which led to questioning among the disciples what it could mean; not merely rising again, but rising from among dead men, and therefore previously to the mass.
Still more fully does the truth, so unwelcome to theologians, come out in Luke 20:34-3634And Jesus answering said unto them, The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage: 35But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: 36Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection. (Luke 20:34‑36), where our Lord contrasts the sons of this age with those accounted worthy to obtain that age (the future millennial age), and the resurrection “from” the dead. Just so in chap. 14:14, He had shown the true time of blessed recompence to be in the resurrection (not general, as men say, but) “of the just.” There is therefore and beyond controversy a Double Resurrection; the just being raised from among the dead, while the rest of the dead, the unjust, await a later action of the Lord. Those are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection; whereas these left for a later day are only raised for their doom.
It is however in the Gospel of John that the Lord opens this out, as bound up with His divine glory and His rights as Son of Man: exactly the place most appropriate. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour cometh and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in Himself, even so gave He to the Son also to have life in Himself; and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of man. Marvel not at this: for the hour cometh, in which all that are in the tombs shall hear His voice and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done ill unto the resurrection of judgment” (ch. 5., R. V.). What can be plainer, more blessed, or so solemn? The Gospel hour has been going on ever since Christ spoke, at least the hour of quickening souls that believe. By-and-by will come another hour, wherein He will raise the bodies of believers, of those “that have done good;” and before it closes, the bodies of evil-doers: two resurrections, so distinct, that He characterizes the first as of life, the second as of judgment, into which, He had already laid down, the believer comes not, as he has eternal life and has passed out of death into life. They are thus in direct and exclusive contrast. Those having eternal life now by faith are quickened by Him, the Son of God; those who do not believe on God's Son cannot escape resurrection of judgment which He will execute as Son of Man. Thus does God secure His honor from every child of man. The believer bows before, and serves Him Who is God the Son, one with the Father, is quickened now, and awaits His coming to complete it in his body, a resurrection of life; the unbeliever rejects Him now and lives in evil, but must rise to be judged by the Son of man, and honor Him then and thus, to his own endless shame and perdition.
In John 6:39, 40, 44, 5439And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. 40And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:39‑40)
44No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:44)
54Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:54), we have exclusively the resurrection of believers; and so in chap. 11:24-26. In the Acts of the Apostles Christ's resurrection is often urged. Again, we hear in chap. 17 of the resurrection “of” the dead also, and in chap. 24:15, of a resurrection of both just and unjust, but not a word implying both together, irreconcilable as it would be with what we have seen. In Rom. 8 a principle (and fact indeed) is laid down which absolutely severs the believer now from the unbeliever: position in Christ with possession of the indwelling Holy Spirit; and this in ver. 11 is applied to his resurrection, its complement. So 1 Cor. 15 develops the resurrection of believers only from that of Christ; and this with the deepest interest also in 2 Cor. 4, and 5., quite excluding unbelievers. This is not the aim in recalling the bewitched Galatians to the ground of grace, whence they had fallen into law and ritualism. In Ephesians the truth is carried yet higher in chap. 1., &c., and its result even now in chap. 2:5, 6; but their state did not call for any pressure of a truth so familiar to the saints.
In Phil. 3 we have important and unmistakable evidence in chap. 3:11, where the apostle employs a word only found there, as far as scripture is concerned, giving an eclectic force to this truth. He calls it “the out-resurrection from among dead persons,” to attain which he minded not difficulty, danger, suffering by the way—nay, courted what was fellowship with Christ practically. So, in vers. 20, 21, he represents our citizenship, or commonwealth, as subsisting in the heavens, whence also we await the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, Who shall transform our body of humiliation into conformity to His body of glory: language differentiating our resurrection from those who shall be raised for judgment. In Colossians we read of our death and resurrection with Christ, not of the future rising for saints or for sinners; but in 1 Thess. 4, we have this and more for the saints exclusively, as allusively in chap. 5:10. The Pastoral Epistles do not give direct occasion for statement of this truth, though of course fully implied; nor yet Hebrews, save for one (chap. 6:2) as part of “the elements,” and chap. 11:35 passingly for the other; nor do the so called Catholic Epistles, though clearly involved, and all in the truest mutual consistency. For the Christian association with Christ is the key. This is lost in the cold lifeless systematic divinity of Christendom, which hears not nor speaks but of a vague universal resurrection to judgment: in painful opposition to such a clear and vital scripture as John 5, quite as much as to the famous Apocalyptic text in question; and the former is so much the more serious, as the full gospel is thus lost, and the grand testimony also to Christ's honor, as His sure words prove.
How striking it is that the Bishop silently ignores, as do his followers to our day, the first and most widely as well as deeply interesting clause of Rev. 20:44And 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. (Revelation 20:4)! Not a word does he say on “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them” (as in A. and R. Vv.). But this betrays fundamental ignorance of the book as a whole, and leaves out the portion of both the Old. and the N. Test. saints during that glorious period, which is an object of moment to the Holy Spirit only second to that of our Lord Himself. They had been seen in heaven ever since chap. iv. under the symbol of the glorified elders, afterward appearing as the bride of the Lamb, and as the guests at her marriage; next, as the hosts following the Divine Warrior out of heaven, now reigning as kings and priests with Him over the earth. Need one urge how irreparable such a gap is! The object which the inspired John saw next in the vision, was “the souls of those that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God.” But again another class is, as usual, confounded with the former, “and such as worshipped not the beast neither his image, and received not the mark upon their foreheads nor upon their hands.” These are in fact the two companies of holy sufferers who are found here below, while those of the incomparably higher class were already glorified above. One of these two is described as already slain under the seals (chap. 6:9, 10); and they are told to rest until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that were about to be killed even as they were, should be fulfilled. And so these last were, when the beast and the false prophet ruled, as chap. xiii. &c. show. Now all the Apocalyptic martyrs (for such they were exclusively) are raised from the dead to join the already glorified on their following the Lord out of heaven, in time to share the millennial reign with Christ. Otherwise it might have been thought that they had lost all part in that bright time of glory; for they only bear witness and suffer, after the Old. and N. Test. saints in general had been caught up to heaven; and they do not live to enjoy Christ's blessed reign as saints living on the earth, like those described in Rev. 7 and elsewhere.
Of all this the excellent Bishop Hall was as profoundly dark as are the saints generally speaking since his day and before it till now. The more pressing is the call of love to testify the truth with all plainness of speech. His efforts to get rid of the language in detail are pitiful. 1. It is not so many souls beheaded, but the souls of those that had been beheaded. 2. The prophetic past as equivalent to the future cannot apply to the beheaded; for they are shown at this epoch to live and reign after being thus put to death. 3. It is sorrowful to hear a godly man say that “the living and reigning with Christ is either in this life, or in heaven; present, or future; in grace or in glory; in way of government, or of blessed fruition.” It only proves his bewilderment. Anything was welcome, except the plain truth of the scripture. So with 4, “the thousand years, either punctually determinate, or indeterminate.” How evasive! 5. The First Resurrection, either of the soul or body, &c. “All these, then, well put together, cannot but afford us our choice of orthodox and probable interpretations without any violence offered to the sense” !! Yes, they offer it a death by poison. “Among the rest, I shall pitch upon these two, as the most clear and free from all just exception.” And then he offers, first, the semi-political position Christendom acquired, in the west at any rate, after Paganism was publicly disowned (as in the note cited from his Paraphrase); while the other alternative is endless glory for a wide extension of the martyr classes to admit any real Christian. And all this makeshift series of misinterpretations he caps with calling up “an odious Cerinthus or an exploded Papias” to cry down the dreaded testimony to a millennial reign when our Lord appears from heaven.
It is humbling to find in such speculations how far a mistake can lead one who truly feared the Lord, as he was also jealous for the authority of the revealed word in other cases where he held fast the truth. Such alas! are we all, when we forsake scripture for tradition.