Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years; over these the second death hath no authority. The first words describe the state of those who have part in the spiritual resurrection with Christ (see on Revelation 20:5). The second clause gives to the oppressed Christian the culminating reason for patience and perseverance. The "second death" is the spiritual death of the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14). Priests of God, etc. (cf. Revelation 1:6; Revelation 5:10). A thousand years; in complete and everlasting security (see on Revelation 20:2, et seq.). We may in this place briefly indicate some of the other interpretations which have been given to this reign of. the saints for a thousand years, or, as it is generally styled, the millennium.
(a) Amongst its advocates almost every detail is a matter of dispute. Some place the millennium in the future, others in the past. Of these latter some specify the first thousand years of the Christian age, others the thousand years from the time of Constantine. "The length of the period, the number and class of the believers who shall be partakers of its glory, the condition in which they are to live, the work in which they are to be engaged, the relation in which the exalted Redeemer is to stand to them," are all subjects for disagreement.
(b) The carnal nature of such a resurrection is at variance with the general teaching of the Bible, and unlike the spiritual nature which our Lord himself assumed after his resurrection.
(c) If the saints receive a glorified body for that period, it is impossible to conceive of them as living in the world in its present state, and a large part of which is inhabited by the ungodly.
(d) It is impossible satisfactorily to conceive what relations could exist between the saints in such a case and the ungodly. If Satan is bound during this period so that he can deceive the nations no more, whence comes the evil which exists among the ungodly portion of the world?
(e) There is no other example of a literal use of numbers in the whole of the Apocalypse.
(f) The teaching of the Bible elsewhere not only negatively fails to support this view, but is in positive opposition to it, in such points as a continuance of evil after Christ's second coming; the existence of an interval between his coming and the judgment instead of a sudden coming to judgment (comp. John 6:40, "I will raise him up at the last day").