When Was the First Resurrection? – Fighting for Real Estate – Part #24

“Untangling the Millennial Errors of Dispensationalism!”

 By Richard Allen – November 3, 2025

There is no Biblical concept that stirs up more debate than the subject of the Millennium. In fact, there are several camps of theological interpretation, differentiated only by their understanding and placement of the Millennial Age in which Christ is to Reign. So, if I were trying to present a complete exposition of the Book of Revelation, I would spend an entire chapter explaining how each millennial school’s interpretive framework determines most of what it purports to believe. Without getting too deep into the various camps, let me observe that there are really only two camps of “interpretation” for the Book of Revelation: 1.) The Spiritual Camps and 2.) The Carnal-Natural Camps.  If you notice, I didn’t say “The Spiritual” and “The Literal” camps – even those who state that “they alone faithfully interpret the Scriptures literally,” do not consistently interpret every line literally.  They make great pretense that they alone believe and teach exactly what Scripture says, nothing more, nothing less!  If they did take a “strict literal” approach, they would be in the “Amelia Bedelia Camp!”  For those of you who may not know, Amelia Bedelia is a series of Children’s books, in which a funny old babysitter named Amelia Bedelia takes everything literally – to the extreme!  If you told her to “draw the curtains,” she would literally sit down with crayons and paper and draw a picture of curtains!

Having said this, all of us who believe in the “verbal plenary inspiration of Scripture,” do want to understand and believe exactly what the Holy Spirit – the author of those Scriptures – actually intends us to understand!  We believe that every word of Scripture is God-breathed, authoritative and true.  But we believe those Scriptures – as they were given “in context,” with the intended meaning that God gave them. So, before we dig into Revelation Chapter 20 and the Millennium, let me give you four interpretive principles that will help guide our understanding of Scripture:  1.) The Book of Revelation is a book of symbols – taken from the Old Testament – and needs to be understood just as other symbolic  Apocryphal literature is interpreted. In fact, Revelation is a Book of visionary and numerical symbols.  2.) The Book of Revelation contains seven Apocryphal Visions, “non-sequential” narratives revealed to the Apostle John concerning:    a). Things that John had seen on the Isle of Patmos, b.) Things that Are happening in the present age, and c). Things that Are Yet to Come.  3.) Each of these Apocryphal Visions spanned the time between Christ’s First and Second Advents, many of them a “recapitulation” – or retelling of things that were covered in earlier Visions from differing perspectives, and 4.) The Book of Revelation was written to encourage Saints in the Post-Apostolic Age – starting with the first century Church that was going through intense persecution as the Book was written and delivered.

The first thing we need to understand is that the Vision in Revelation Chapter 3 starts in heaven, not on the earth:

“Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain.  And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while. Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also, I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years” (Revelation 20:1-6).

As mentioned in a previous Blog: “Has Satan Been Bound?” – What is God Like – Part #8, the sole purpose for Satan being bound with a chain is: “So that he might not deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were ended.” This is where the Dispensationalists violate their “carnal-natural-literal interpretive principles. None of them imagine that the chain used to bind Satan is a literal chain – anymore than there is a “bottomless pit.” They either ignore these verses, or spiritualize them away. But in the same verses – They Insist That The Thousand Years are Literal and Numerically Exact. Again, a study of the use of ‘1,000 numerically’ or the ‘word thousand’ in Scripture, shows that it is not a numerical or exact number, but a “great expanse of time or dominion.” (see 2 Peter 3:8; Psalm 50:10; 90:4). For serious students of Revelation 20, they’ll immediately notice that John is again talking about the Nations, that Satan won’t be able to deceive them any longer.  This is strange, because in Revelation Chapter 19 the Nations all join in Battle against Jesus and the Armies of Heaven, to wage war against the Saints, and Jesus destroys them with a “sharp sword coming from His mouth” (Revelation 19:15). Like several other verses earlier in Revelation, this signifies the end of human history, that God has executed judgment!  If the Nations are judged in Revelation 19 – how is it possible that Satan is being bound in Chapter 20 to keep from deceiving them? This is just one of many recapitulations of the same judgment in Revelation.

Then in Revelation 20 starting at verse 7:

“And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them” (Revelation 20:7-9).

These verses are describing the same conflict in Revelation 19, but instead of focusing on the Beast (the multi-national armies of fallen men), the focus is on Satan, that old dragon – and his role in fighting against the Church, the “beloved city” through all the Nations of the earth.  There are multiple references to the Lord’s Second Coming in judgment, with “the breath of His mouth,” and “the brightness of His appearing” (1 Thessalonians 2:8), or His coming in “flaming fire to inflict vengeance on those who don’t obey the gospel” (2 Thessalonians 1:8). In fact, the Lord Jesus, as He appears to John as both the “Son of Man” and the “Ancient of Days” early in Revelation 1:16, is described: “In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.”   

For centuries before the errors of John Nelson Darby – most sound Biblical teaching held that there were several “recapitulations” of God’s judgment over multiple visions, viewed from several perspectives. This explains how the time periods for both visions cover “this age where Christ is reigning on high, waiting for His enemies to be made His footstool” (Hebrews 10:13; 1 Corinthians 15:25-26). Our problem starts with verse 4:

“Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also, I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years”  (Revelation 20:4-6).

Notice, John doesn’t see men and women in resurrected bodies.  We need to grasp what John saw was a heavenly vision of “the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the Word of God.” These are the souls, John says, “came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.” Just so we are not misled, we are told in verse 6: “Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such, the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.” What exactly does this mean? First, John was writing to give comfort to the Church in his day – which was currently enduring intense persecution and martyrdom. Christ’s vision – given by John – was meant to give comfort to those still in the fight, that their departed brothers and sisters were “living and reigning with Christ." John tells us in Revelation 20:6: “Blessed and Holy are those who share in the first resurrection – over such the second death will have no power,” just like Jesus told a current Church in Smyrna in Revelation 2:11: “The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.” Since these are the only two places in Scripture where the term the “Second Death” is used, it’s clear that in Smyrna – a real, existing Church in the first century A.D. – there were Believers who were part of the “First Resurrection!”  He promised “those who conquer will not be hurt by the Second Death.”  This may be a shock to those who have grown up during the past 180 years, but the First Resurrection is past!  It happened to everyone who has ever Believed on Jesus Christ.  Here’s how Paul describes this First, Spiritual Resurrection to the Church in Ephesus:

“Remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,  and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might  that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come” (Ephesians 1:16-21). 

Paul is pleading with the saints to understand that they have already shared in Christ’s Resurrection, in fact, they are beneficiaries of God’s great power and might toward those who believe when He raised Christ from the dead! The New Testament Scriptures make it clear that we both died and were raised with Christ by faith:

“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1).

“Made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:5-6).

I could show similar verses many times over, rather than being redundant – it’s a clear teaching of the New Covenant that all Believers have been Raised in Christ, that is, in the First Spiritual Resurrection.  And for any believer who has had a part in that Resurrection: “The Second Death Will Have No Power.”  Just by saying that, some will ask: “Then does the First Death still have power over us?”  Sadly, the answer is “Yes.” Except for those who are alive when Jesus comes and are caught up in the air to meet him (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17), most of us will die the First Death, which is our Physical Death. This is the fate of all mankind – except that generation which is alive at His Coming!  And at His Coming, The Second Resurrection will occur, one that all mankind – the just and the unjust – will take part in. I’ll have more to say in my next Blog as we review the First and Second Resurrection through Our Lord’s Words in John Chapter 5!

Soli Deo Gloria