Crushing the Serpent's Head - Judges for a Thousand Years -Conclusion

 Were all  these 144,000 royal judges physically "executed with an ax"?  Likely, relatively few of the were in a literal sense.  This expression, though, doubtless intended to embrace all those anointed Christians who endure martyrdom in one way or anotgher. (Matthew 10:22, 28)  Certainly, Satan would like to have executed all of them with an ax, but, in fact, not all of Jesus' anointed brothers die as martyrs.  Many of them die of disease or old age. Such ones, howefer, also belong to the group that John now sees.  The death of all of theem is, in a  sense, sacrificial.  (Romans 6:3-5) Additionally, none of them are part of the world. Hence, all of them have been hated by the world  and, in effect, become dead in its eyes. (J0hn15:19; 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 beast. All of them died as conquerors. - 1JOHN5:4;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 thisi 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; 1 Thessalonians 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 for a thousand years. Is this a literal thousand years, or should we view it symbolically as being undefined, long period of time?  "Thousands" may mean  a large, indefinite number, as at 1 Samuel 21:11. But here the "thousand" is literal, since it appears three times at Revelation 20:5-7 as "the thousand  years."  Paul called this time of judgement "a day" when he stated: "He [God] has set a dayt in which he purposes to judge the inhabited earth in righeousness." (Acts 17:31)  Since Peter tells us that one day with Jehovah is a thousand years, it is appropriate that this Day of Judgment be  a literal thousand  years.   - 2 PETER 3:8.

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

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