Chapter Forty -Crushing the Serpent's Head

Judges for a Thousand Years

After the thousand years, Satan is released from the abyss for a short while. Why?  Before giving the answer, John brings our attention back to the beginning of that time period. We read:  "And I saw thrones, and thee were those who sat down on them, and power of judging was given them."  (Revelation 20:4a)  Who are these ones sitting on thrones and ruling in the heavens with the glorified Jesus?

They are "the holy ones" that Daniel described as ruling in the Kingdom with the One "like a son of man."  (Daniel 7:13, 14, 18)  They are the same as the 24 elders who sit on heavenly thrones in the very presence of Jehovah. (Revelation 4:4)  They include the 12 apostles, to whom Jesus gave the  promise: "In the re-creation, when the Son of man sits down upon his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also yourselves sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel."  (Matthew 19:28)  They also include Paul, as well as the Corinthian Christians  who remained faithful.  (1 Corinthians 4:8; 6:2, 3)  They would include, too, members of the congregation of Laodicea who conquered. -Revelation 3:21.

Thrones-144,000 of them-are prepared for these anointed conquerors who are "bought from among mankind as firstfruits to God and to the Lamb."  (Revelation 14:1, 4)  Yes, continues John, "I saw the souls of those executed with the ax for the witness the bore to Jesus and for speaking about God, and those who had worshiped neither the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand."  (Revelation 20:4b)  Among those kings, then, are the anointed Christian martyrs who earlier, at the opening of the fifth seal, asked Jehovah how much longer he would wait to avenge their blood. At that time, they were given a white robe and told to wait a little longer. But now they have been avenged through the devastation of Babylon the Great, the destruction of the nations  by the King of kings and Lord of lords, and the abyssing of Satan. -Revelation 6:9-11; 17:16; 19:15, 16. 

Were all these 144,000 royal judges physically "executed with the ax"?  Likely, relatively few of them were in a literal sense. This expression, though, doubtless   is intended to embrace all those anointed Christians who endure martyrdom in one way or another." (Matthew 10:22, 28) Certainly, Satan would like to have executed all of them with the ax, but, in fact, not all of Jesus' anointed brothers die as martyrs. Many of them die of disease or old age. Such ones, however, also belong to the group that John now sees.  The death of all of them is, in a sense, sacrificial.  (Romans 6:3-5)  Additionally, none of them were part of the world. Hence, all of them have been hated by the world and, in effect, become dead in its eyes.  (John 15:19; 1 Corinthians 4:13)  None of them worshipped the wild beast or its image and when they died, none of them carried the mark of the wild beast. All of them died as conquerors. -1 John 5:4; Revelation 2:7; 3:12; 12:11.  

Now these conquerors live again! John reports:  "And they came to life and ruled as kings with the Christ for a thousand years." (Revelation 20:4c)  Does this mean that these judges are not resurrected until after the destruction of the nations and the abyssing of Satan and his demons?  No. Most of them are already very much alive, since they rode with Jesus against the nations at Armageddon.  (Revelation 2:26. 27; 19:14)   Indeed, Paul indicated that their resurrection commences soon after the beginning  of Jesus' presence  in 1914 and that some are resurrected before others.  (1 Corinthians 15:51-54; 1Thessalonians 4:15-17) Therefore, their coming to life occurs over a period of time as they individually receive the gift of immortal life in the heavens. -2 Thessalonians 1:7; 2 Peter 3:11-14. 

Their reigning and judging will be fora  thousand years. Is this a literal thousand years, or should we view it symbolically as being an undefined, long period of time?  "Thousands" may mean a large, indefinite number, as at 1 Samuel 21:11.  But here the "thousands" are literal, since it appears three times in Revelation 20:5-7 as "the thousand years."  Paul called this time judgment "a day" when he stated: "He  [God] has set a day in which he purposes to judge the inhabited earth in righteousness."  (Acts 17:31) Since Peter tells us that one day with Jehovah is as a thousand years it is appropriate that this Day of Judgment be a literal thousand years." -2 Peter 3:8. 

Next time: Chapter Forty -Crushing the Serpent's Head -The Rest of the Dead

From the book of Revelation