Gods Kingdom of a thousand years has approached (1973)
Download: PDF — Gods Kingdom of a thousand years has approached (1973)
/cover.jpg)
GOD'S KINGDOM OF A THOUSAND YEARS Has Approached
GOD'S KINGDOM OF A THOUSAND YEARS Has Approached
An examination of much evidence in the Holy Bible and Twentieth-Century World History on whether God's Millennial Kingdom will begin its blessings within our own generation.
"And they lived and reigned with the Messiah for a thousand years. . . . They will be priests of God and the Messiah, and will reign with him a thousand years."—Revelation 20:4, 6, "The Authentic New Testament," by Hugh J. Schonfield, 1955 edition.
COPYRIGHT, 1973 by WATCH TOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA
FIRST EDITION 2,000,000 COPIES
PUBLISHERS WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY OF NEW YORK, INC. INTERNATIONAL BIBLE STUDENTS ASSOCIATION Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A.
Dedicated
to the God whose time has approached to introduce the thousand-year kingdom of his Messiah for the eternal good of distressed humanity
Dy - Douay Version (Roman Catholic) of the Holy Scriptures
INT - The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures
Je - The Jerusalem Bible (Roman Catholic), English translation
Mo - A New Translation of the Bible, by James Moffatt
NA - The New American Bible (Roman Catholic)
NE - The New English Bible
NW - New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
Ro - The Emphasized Bible - A New Translation, by Joseph B. Rotherham
RS - The Holy Bible - Revised Standard Version
We - The New Testament in Modern Speech, by R. F. Weymouth
Yg - Young's Literal Translation of the Holy Bible, by Robert Young
Any Bible quotation or citation not followed by any special abbreviation is made from the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NW) in its revised edition of 1971.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER AND TITLE PAGE No.
The "Thousand Years"—Not a False Hope . . . 7
War Between Heaven and Earth
Precedes the Thousand Years . . . . . . . 19
Enjoying the Visionary Preview
of the Thousand Years . . . . . . . . . 28
Kings for a Thousand Years
Without Successors . . . . . . . . . 45
How the Associate Kings Are Put in Office . . . 69
Priests for Ten Centuries
with No Scheming Priestcraft . . . . . . 83
What to Expect of Judges
for a Thousand Years . . . . . . . . . 117
What to Expect When the Millennial
Judgment Day Ends . . . . . . . . . . 139
The Post-Millennial Test of All Mankind . . . . 147
The "Sign" of Its Approach . . . . . . . . 163
"Here Is the Bridegroom!" . . . . . . . . 183
Increasing the King's Belongings . . . . . . . 212
Settling Accounts with the Slaves
of Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Earthly Subjects of the Kingdom of God . . . . 257
Why Goatlike Ones Fail to Inherit
the Kingdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
Completion of the Foretold "Sign" Nears . . . . 293
The "Slave" Who Lived to See the "Sign" . . . . 331
Bringing the "Man of Lawlessness" to Nothing . . . 364
Preserved for God's Kingdom
of a Thousand Years . . . . . . . . . . 398
The "Thousand Years"
—Not a False Hope
TO ENDURE for a thousand years, a kingdom would really have to be good—strong. Such a royal government could not be planned, installed and maintained by a mere man or succession of men. No man-made kingdom in the hands of kings of a certain family line has ever lasted for even near a thousand years.
2 What, then, about a kingdom in the hands of a single continuing monarch for ten centuries? An impossibility! No man has ever lived that long. According to the oldest genealogical records, the man Methuselah in southwestern Asia lived the longest of any human creature on earth. But even he came short of a millennium by thirty-one years.* In our own modern times the life expectancy of a man has been set far from that extraordinary age. In the most advanced lands of the day it has been brought to a life-span of less than seventy years by the aid of medical science. Woman has been given an edge of around six years over man. So royal rule for a thousand years by just one man or woman, no matter how good the subjects might think their ruler to be, is out of the question.
3 Logically, then, we are not talking of a millennial kingdom from that human standpoint. We, as well as many millions of others yet alive, are able, as personal observers, to remember the most recent effort for a government a thousand years long. This "Thousand-
GOD'S KINGDOM OF A THOUSAND YEARS HAS APPROACHED
Year Plan" was that of Adolf Hitler, Nazi dictator of Germany 1933-1945 C.E. Shortly after the United States was plunged into World War II, information on this Nazi plan was gleaned from seized Nazi documents and from German agents who had been taken into custody and from various other sources. This plan aimed at a Nazi world order that Hitler, if successful in World War II, would mercilessly enforce upon the world of mankind. It envisioned a virtual slave program, the workers for which would be recruited from non-German countries. This plan covered the thousand years to come.
4 The Nazi leader Hitler, who came from the land of the Hapsburg family of kings, Austria, evidently had in mind the Germanic Holy Roman Empire, which lasted from the year 962 to 1806. In fact, we have the words of a Roman Catholic priest to that effect. Speaking on the night of February 16, 1940, to a capacity audience in the Memorial Continental Hall in Washington, D.C., Dr. Edmund A. Walsh, the regent of the Foreign Service School of Georgetown University, outlined the German war aims as a "reestablishment of the Holy Roman Empire." "Dr. Walsh said that he had heard Adolf Hitler say that the Holy Roman Empire, which was a Germanic empire, must be re-established."—New York Times, February 17, 1940.
Boastfully the Nazi Fuehrer Hitler had said: "The National Socialist Reich [Empire] will endure a thousand years." But his police chief, Heinrich Himmler, was even more confident and responded: "Ten thousand!" Once embarked on his egocentric plan, Hitler would be satisfied with nothing less than world rule or world ruin. In the book The Last Days of Hitler, the author, H. R. Trevor-Roper, says: "It was always understood that Hitler would remain true to his original programme Weltmacht oder Niedergang,—worldpower or ruin.
If world-power was unattainable, then (it was agreed by all who knew him) he would make the ruin as great as he could." At this—and with good reason—some will be inclined to exclaim: "How like the Devil!" At any rate, there was no reestablishment of the Holy Roman Empire, as many people of Hitler's religion had hoped—and the Nazi "Thousand-Year Plan" failed inside twelve years.
The would-be world ruler Hitler may not have learned the lesson, but he ran smack up against the hard irremovable fact that a much earlier world ruler had to learn in the hard way. This was a non-German, non-Aryan man who ruled longer than Hitler, that is, for forty-three years (624-581 B.C.E.). He was the king of Babylon, and his name was a long one, Nebuchadnezzar. We may recognize him as the Semitic world conqueror who destroyed the Jewish city of Jerusalem in the year 607 B.C.E. and who deported whole populations just as Hitler did, dragging the surviving Jews, for the most part, into exile in distant Babylonian territories. Among the deported people was the Semitic prophet Daniel of the Jewish tribe of Judah. King Nebuchadnezzar had a strange dream, to which he attached great importance, and the slave, the prophet Daniel, was the only one able to interpret it. Daniel's interpretation came true.
A year after the dream, Nebuchadnezzar as head of the Babylonian World Power began to brag, glorying over his capital city Babylon on the Euphrates River. Hardly had he finished his boast, when he heard a voice out of the invisible—out of heaven—saying words that he had heard in his dream. In Nebuchadnezzar's own account of this, which was preserved by the prophet Daniel, he writes: "To you it is being said, O Nebuchadnezzar the king, The kingdom itself has gone away from you, and from mankind they are driving even you away, and with the beasts of the field your dwelling will be.
Vegetation they will give even to you to eat just like bulls, and seven times themselves will pass over you, until you know that the Most High is Ruler in the kingdom of mankind, and that to the one whom he wants to he gives it.'"—Daniel 4:29-32.
What followed immediately? It is understandable why what now happened was not preserved for us in the Babylonian historical records, or why any record thereof by a Babylonian chronicler was removed or destroyed. But the honest, true-to-fact prophet Daniel, who was personally implicated in the matter, was inspired to make a record of it, for our consultation more than two and a half millenniums later. The proud King Nebuchadnezzar was instantly smitten with madness—and it was not his most revered god, Marduk (or, Merodach), who smote him. It was the Almighty God who foretold this madness that smote the boastful king, the king who had destroyed the sacred temple at Jerusalem in 607 B.C.E. And, just as predicted and ordained, "seven times" literally did pass over King Nebuchadnezzar while he was insanely chewing at
grass like a bull out there in a nearby field.
The mad king did not commit suicide, as Adolf Hitler did in 1945 just as his capital city Berlin was falling into the hands of the Red Communist armies of Russia. At the end of Nebuchadnezzar's seven years of madness, the Divine Smiter of him healed him and restored his sanity.
9 Did the king of Babylon learn his lesson? We can determine this from his own account, as preserved for us by the prophet Daniel. The account, given in the first person, reads:
10 "And at the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up to the heavens my eyes, and my own understanding began to return to me; and I blessed the Most High himself, and the One living to time indefinite I praised and glorified, because his rulership is a rulership to time indefinite and his kingdom is for generation after generation. And all the inhabitants of the earth are being considered as merely nothing, and he is doing according to his own will among the army of the heavens and the inhabitants of the earth. And there exists no one that can check his hand or that can say to him, 'What have you been doing?' . . . Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, am praising and exalting and glorifying the King of the heavens, because all his works are truth and his ways are justice, and because those who are walking in pride he is able to humiliate." —Daniel 4:34-37.
11 Nebuchadnezzar himself tells us that he was restored to the throne of the Babylonian World Power, the Third World Power in a succession of seven world powers spoken of in the Holy Bible. (Daniel 4:36) Little did he know that that period of "seven times" in which he proved his unfitness to rule were prophetic of a greater period of "seven times" of larger duration, "the times of the Gentiles." Little did he know that during those larger "seven times" five world powers would dominate the earth—the Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, the Grecian, the Roman and the modern-time British-American.
Little did Nebuchadnezzar know that those "seven times," comprising all together 2,520 years, began in the year of his desolating of Jerusalem and its temple and would end in the year that would see the world of mankind embroiled in the first world war—1914 C.E. (Luke 21:24, AV; Daniel 4:16, 23, 25, 32) Yes, little did Nebuchadnezzar know that at the end of those "seven times" of Gentile domination in 1914 the "King of the heavens" would give the "kingdom of mankind" to the one whom he wanted to—His Messiah!—Daniel 9:25.
PREVIEW GIVEN BY DIVINE INSPIRATION
12 The politicians of all the nations still think that the "kingdom of mankind" is their proper concern and is the proper field for their activity. Long ago King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon thought so. Quite recently Adolf Hitler, with his dream of a thousand-years-long political system, thought so. But the One concerning whom Nebuchadnezzar was finally obliged to admit, "His rulership is a rulership to time indefinite and his kingdom is for generation after generation," this One still proves to be the "Ruler in the kingdom of mankind." This kingdom over human affairs is still His rightful field of interest and operation. The worldly politicians, backed by the clergymen of Christendom, have been unable to "check his hand," nor do they have the authority to say to him: "What have you been doing?" (Daniel 4:34, 35) He did not consult those politicians and their religious backers regarding the one to whom He should give the "kingdom of mankind" at the end of the "times of the Gentiles" in 1914 C.E. The politicians and their religious allies are not of that importance as consultants, whereas He is "the Most High himself, and the One living to time indefinite."
13 Reasonably, then, upon the basis of whose word can any prediction be made regarding a thousand years to come? Man cannot foretell even what will be tomorrow. "You do not know what your life will be tomorrow," said an observer of more than nineteen centuries ago. (James 4:14) But with "the Most High himself, and the One living to time indefinite," this is different. What is time to Him?
14 To this One it was well said by a man who lived for just one hundred and twenty years: "A thousand years are in your eyes but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch [an ancient Jewish watch of four hours] during the night." (Psalm 90:4 and superscription) By a mere dream of the night and by the prophet Daniel's interpretation thereof to King Nebuchadnezzar, He was able to foretell what would happen in world history after a period of 2,520 years, ending in 1914 C.E. Could he not just as easily foretell with accuracy what will happen during a thousand years beginning with some point of time after 1914 C.E.? Most reasonably so! And what if He has already given us a description of such a thousand-year period? Then with that word as our basis, we can confidently speak of a thousand years to come.
15 Those who use words drawn from the old Latin language would call that period of a thousand years a millennium, because the two roots of the word are the Latin mille, meaning "thousand," and annus, meaning "year." Over in Greece people would speak of it as a chiliastic period, because the Greek word chilia means "thousand." So the believers in this particular period of a thousand years would be called chiliasts, as well as millennialists or millenarians. People of Christendom use those terms in a reproachful way.
16 Despite the reproach to which one exposes oneself from those who do not understand, there should be real interest in this approaching period of a thousand years.
Information concerning it is recorded in the written word of "the Most High himself, and the One living to time indefinite." Our own growing interest therein is not because we are approaching the year 2000 C.E., the end of the second millennium of our Common Era. That is not the significant thing. We remember what happened when mankind approached the year 1000 C.E., the end of the first millennium of our Common Era. Concerning this the New Catholic Encyclopedia says, under the subject "Millenarianism," page 853: "As the year 1000 neared, millenarianism became more prevalent because many eschatologists believed that the 7th day of creation was to be realized in human history in A.D. 1000 and that there would follow a glorious 10-century reign of the Christ." —Copyright 1967.
17 For one thing, the end of six thousand years of human existence on earth and the beginning of mankind's seventh millennium of existence may come many years sooner than the year 2000 C.E. It is well that this is so. Today, with the world of mankind in such a deplorable condition and being threatened with destruction from so many angles, there are many students and investigators of these threats to human existence who express substantial doubts that mankind will be able to survive till the year 2000 C.E. They do not base their gloomy outlook for our future on any timetable in that most widespread sacred book, the Holy Bible. They base their outlook upon the hard facts of today and upon the now irreversible trend of things that involve all of us. These men who speak with authority give our human race far less than a thousand years to live on into the future. What reason have you, the reader, for not believing them?
18 To the very contrary of these gloomy prophets who speak from the purely human standpoint, "the Most High himself, and the One living to time indefinite," cheeringly speaks of a thousand years yet ahead of mankind and then some, the grandest years in all human history.
This hope-inspiring information is not the private possession of some secret eschatological society of special initiated ones who are in the "know." The sources of this valuable information are openly accessible to hundreds of millions of people speaking 1,500 languages and dialects all around this globe. Wherever a person has a copy of the Holy Bible, this life-brightening information is available to him.
19 Although the Bible was written by men, mere imperfect men, as secretaries or amanuenses, that sacred Book does not in its own pages claim to be the word of man. It is the work of divine inspiration, and so it is written over the name of "the Most High himself, and the One living to time indefinite." To this modern day of ours He takes the responsibility for what it says about the past and of the future before us. It is the Book of books!
20 Where, then, in it do we find this information about those thousand years to come and the ages of eternity to follow? We find it in what is quite appropriately listed as the last book in the Holy Bible. It proves to be just what its name means, Revelation. Or, Unveiling, Apocalypse. O yes, it was written by a man, a man whom the Roman Empire branded as a criminal and put upon the penal island, Patmos, over there in the Aegean Sea and near the coast of Asia Minor, today Turkey. It is a real place, nothing mythical about it. As a young man this exiled prisoner had been a fisher at the Sea of Galilee in the then Roman Province of Galilee. He was John the son of Zebedee, and his fisherman brother was James. John tells us right at the start that he wrote Revelation, but under inspiration. But of what was it to be a revelation or an unveiling? As we read the answer, which should interest us of today, let us note to whom John assigns the responsibility for this book: 21 "This is the revelation given by God to Jesus Christ.
It was given to him so that he might show his servants what must shortly happen. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who, in telling all that he saw, has borne witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ. Happy is the man who reads, and happy those who listen to the words of this prophecy and heed what is written in it. For the hour of fulfillment is near."—Revelation 1:1-3, New English Bible (1970).
22 In those words, "For the hour of fulfillment is near," written almost nineteen centuries ago, is there a thrill for us today in this twentieth century C.E.? Certainly, measured in terms of time, "what must shortly happen" would by now, after nearly nineteen hundred years, not be too soon in happening, especially the beginning of the foretold "thousand years." We can fix better on the time when we read John's account of the thousand years and what immediately leads up to them. Let us read from Revelation 19:11 on:
23 "Then I saw heaven wide open, and there before me was a white horse; and its rider's name was Faithful and True, for he is just in judgement and just in war. His eyes flamed like fire, and on his head were many diadems. Written upon him was a name known to none but himself, and he was robed in a garment drenched in blood. He was called the Word of God, and the armies of heaven followed him on white horses, clothed in fine linen, clean and shining. From his mouth there went a sharp sword with which to smite the nations; for he it is who shall rule them with an iron rod, and tread the winepress of the wrath and retribution of God the sovereign Lord. And on his robe and on his thigh there was written the name: 'King of kings and Lord of lords.'
24 "Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried aloud to all the birds flying in mid-heaven: 'Come and gather for God's great supper, to eat the flesh of kings and commanders and fighting men, the flesh of horses and their riders, the flesh of all men, slave and free, great and small!' Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies mustered to do battle with the Rider and his army. The beast was taken prisoner, and so was the false prophet who had worked miracles in its presence and deluded those that had received the mark of the beast and worshipped its image. The two of them were thrown alive into the lake of fire with its sulphurous flames. The rest were killed by the sword which went out of the Rider's mouth; and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh.
25 "Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven with the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hands. He seized the dragon, that serpent of old, the Devil or Satan, and chained him up for a thousand years; he threw him into the abyss, shutting and sealing it over him, so that he might seduce the nations no more till the thousand years were over. After that he must be let loose for a short while.
28 "Then I saw thrones, and upon them sat those to whom judgement was committed. I could see the souls of those who had been beheaded for the sake of God's word and their testimony to Jesus, those who had not worshipped the beast and its image or received its mark on forehead or hand. These came to life again and reigned with Christ for a thousand years, though the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were over. This is the first resurrection. Happy indeed, and one of God's own people, is the man who shares in this first resurrection! Upon such the second death has no claim; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him for the thousand years.
27 "When the thousand years are over, Satan will be let loose from his dungeon; and he will come out to seduce the nations in the four quarters of the earth and to muster them for battle, yes, the hosts of Gog and Magog, countless as the sands of the sea. So they marched over the breadth of the land and laid siege to the camp of God's people and the city that he loves. But fire came down on them from heaven and consumed them; and the Devil, their seducer, was flung into the lake of fire and sulphur, where the beast and the false prophet had been flung, there to be tormented day and night for ever."—Revelation 19:11 through 20:10, New English Bible.
28 We notice the use of the expression "thousand years" six times in that account. We notice also that those thousand years begin after a battle between the "King of kings" and the "kings of the earth" along with the "beast" and the "false prophet," and then the chaining of Satan the Devil and flinging of him into the abyss. Those events are part of "what must shortly happen." Up till now the world has had nothing to compare with such events. Quite manifestly, then, those "thousand years" have yet to begin. They do not mean some indefinitely long time period, a period that we cannot accurately measure. They are a literal thousand years.
29 Students who argue that those thousand years stand for an indefinite time length say that they began on the festival day of Pentecost of 33 C.E., when God poured out his holy spirit upon his newly formed Christian congregation at Jerusalem. But this argument leads into difficulties and to attempted explanations that are contrary to what actually happened to spirit-begotten Christians all during the more than one thousand nine hundred and forty years since that day of Pentecost when the Christian congregation came to life spiritually until now.
A literal millennium fits in harmoniously with the proved timetable of God.
30 What those thousand years usher in upon our earth is something vitally necessary to the endless life and happiness of the world of mankind. How, then, can we reasonably hold back from at once examining closely the prophetic picture of the marvelous millennium that the apostle John so beautifully drew for us?
Why should we not be able to refrain from examining in detail the prophetic picture of those thousand years?
CHAPTER 2
War Between Heaven and Earth Precedes the Thousand Years
WE HAVE just read the description given us by the apostle John of the preview that he had of the thousand years. Such wonderful things are foretold for it that it is called The Millennium. Ah, but what did John describe as taking place immediately ahead of that glorious Millennium? It was a battle between heavenly forces and earthly human forces. Down till now such a fight has not taken place since the day of Pentecost of 33 C.E., the festival day when the Christian congregation came to life spiritually by being begotten of God's life-giving spirit. True, Jesus Christ was in heaven and at God's right hand at that festival time, more than sixty years before John got the Revelation of "what must shortly happen." (Revelation 1:1, 2, NE) But even after John got the Revelation, no such battle occurred back there between the "King of kings" and the "kings of the earth." That battle is yet ahead of us, and we ought to be interested in the advance account of it, because we are approaching it on a straight course.
2 This approaching battle is not any dreaded third world war, in which the political superpowers, armed with an overload of nuclear and chemical weapons, will madly seek to annihilate one another. This is the coming battle in which all the "kings of the earth," no matter of what political ideologies, unite their forces against their common Opponent, a king and lord who is superior to them all and who is therefore called "King of kings and Lord of lords." He is not God, but, to quote Revelation 19:13, "the name he is called is The Word of God." This is the title that was given to the only-begotten Son of God in his prehuman existence in heaven with his heavenly Father, Jehovah God. John 1:1-3, 18.
During his human existence on earth as the man Jesus Christ, he did not lead any armies of fighting men on white horses, nor did he even choose to call twelve legions of heavenly angels to his aid. (Matthew 26:52-54) But now, since his glorification in heaven and since the end of the "times of the Gentiles" in 1914 C.E., he is authorized to act as the executional officer of the Supreme Judge, Jehovah God, and to do executional work upon earthly enemies just as that angel did, who, in the year 732 B.C.E., in one night killed off 185,000 soldiers of the Assyrian King Sennacherib, who had invaded the land of the people of Jehovah God, and this without the use of a nuclear bomb. (2 Kings 19:32-36; Isaiah 37:33-37) This explains why John was inspired to write concerning the heavenly Warrior Jesus Christ: "The one seated upon [the white horse] is called Faithful and True, and he judges and carries on war in righteousness."—Revelation 19:11.
4 This is far more than a third world war between the nations of earth now armed with nuclear and chemical weapons.
This time the nations are fighting, not against blood and flesh, but against the one seated upon the symbolic white horse and against his heavenly angelic armies. And when he uses his tongue to speak and order an execution of his enemies, it is as if a long sword of an officer with authority were being applied. This is the meaning of the inspired words: "And out of his mouth there protrudes a sharp long sword, that he may strike the nations with it, and he will shepherd them with a rod of iron. He treads too the winepress of the anger of the wrath of God the Almighty. And upon his outer garment, even upon his thigh, he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords." —Revelation 19:15, 16.
Instead of being a third world war between irreligious radical humans on one side and irreligious radical humans on the other side, this is "the war of the great day of God the Almighty." The nations, having by then disposed violently of the international religious "harlot," Babylon the Great, will then find themselves at that stage of world developments called Har-Magedon; just as it is written: "And they gathered them together to the place that is called in Hebrew Har-Magedon." (Revelation 16:14-16) It is at this world situation that the King of kings and the Lord of lords crushes the defiant nations, like grapes in a winepress, thus treading the "winepress of the anger of the wrath of God the Almighty." They will be like helpless sheep to him, upon whom he uses a "rod of iron" to break them to pieces like earthenware vessels of a potter. (Revelation 14:18-20; 2:26, 27; 12:5; Psalm 2:8, 9) There will be no dignified burial with military honors for those slain on earth in the "war of the great day of God the Almighty." That is why God's angel speaks of it as "the great evening meal of God" spread for the carrion birds:
e "Come here," cries out a sunlit angel to all the birds that fly in midheaven, "be gathered together to the great evening meal of God, that you may eat the fleshy parts of kings and the fleshy parts of military commanders and the fleshy parts of strong men and the fleshy parts of horses and of those seated upon them, and the fleshy parts of all, of freemen as well as of slaves and of small ones and great."
And the account of this "war of the great day of God the Almighty" closes with the remark: "And all the birds were filled from the fleshy parts of them." (Revelation 19:17, 18, 21) From this description of the ones whose corpses the carrion birds are to devour, it appears that there is a total mobilization and regimentation of the peoples of the nations for this War of all wars.
7 Concerning the battle lineup at Har-Magedon the apostle John writes: "And I saw the wild beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage the war with the one seated on the horse and with his army." (Revelation 19:19) Is this "wild beast" a mere mascot, an animal supposed to bring good luck, for the armies of these "kings of the earth"? Of what value would a literal wild beast be to the fighting forces at Har-Magedon? Of no value at all! And a literal wild beast is not to be understood here. It is a symbolic wild beast. It is really a world figure of historical importance. How so? Because it is the symbolic wild beast described in Revelation, chapter thirteen, verses one to eight, concerning which verse two says: "And the dragon gave to the beast its power and its throne and great authority." It is the worldwide political system that the "dragon," that is, Satan the Devil, established long ago as his visible instrument for governing all the people of the world. It has carried on its beastly practices throughout the earth for more than a thousand years, yes, for more than four thousand one hundred years, since the twenty-second century B.C.E.
8 This symbolic wild beast began ravaging the earth's inhabitants in the days of Nimrod, a hunter of literal wild beasts.
It was about the year 2189 B.C.E. that this Nimrod began engineering the building of the Tower of Babel in the land of Shinar, in the valley of Mesopotamia. Becoming world famous, he came to be called "Nimrod a mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah." He established the old or original Babylonian empire, and about this Genesis 10:10-12 tells us: "The beginning of his kingdom came to be Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land he went forth into Assyria and set himself to building Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah and Resen between Nineveh and Calah: this is the great city." (Genesis 10:8-12; 11:1-9) From that small beginning this symbolic wild beast continued extending its power and authority over more and more people until finally it has its political throne established over all the earth.
Throughout the past millenniums this symbolic wild beast has had various members of its political system act as the dominant world power. That is why Revelation, chapter thirteen, pictures this symbolic wild beast as having seven heads, to represent seven world powers in succession, namely, (1) Egypt, (2) Assyria, (3) Neo-Babylonia, (4) Medo-Persia, (5) Greece, (6) Rome, and (7) the dual world power of Britain and America. With its symbolic "ten horns," this seven-headed wild beast has horned, gored and pushed around the worshipers of Jehovah God, including the genuine followers of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, since the days of the enslavement of the sons of Israel in Egypt until now. No wonder, then, that Revelation 19:19 pictures the "kings of the earth and their armies" as lined up with the "wild beast" in battle array against the heavenly angelic army of the "one seated on the horse," Jesus Christ!
10 Revelation 19:20 mentions also as being with the "kings of the earth and their armies" what is called "the false prophet that performed in front of [the wild beast] the signs with which he misled those who received the mark of the wild beast and those who render worship to its image."
This is not a religious prophet belonging to religious Babylon the Great, but is a political prophet. It is the same political organization that is pictured in Revelation 13:11-17. There it appears as the two-horned wild beast that proposed the making of the image of the wild beast and then gave breath to that image so that it spoke authoritatively. That two-horned wild beast is the dual world power of Britain and America, or the Seventh World Power, and the political "image" of the seven-headed wild beast is today the organization for world peace and security, the United Nations. The whole world knows today that this Seventh World Power of Britain and the United States of America endeavors to dictate to the world of mankind and makes impressive prophecies concerning the future of mankind. But it is not the prophet of Jehovah God, inspired by Him. It is "false."
11 The symbolic wild beast has reached its full state of development, having had its seventh head since the year 1763 C.E. By now we have also had more than a quarter of a century of the United Nations (not to speak of its predecessor, the League of Nations). Under the driving force of pursuing their own national goals and preserving their own national sovereignties in defiance of God's kingdom as rightful government for the earth, the "kings of the entire inhabited earth" are irresistibly being gathered to the "war of the great day of God the Almighty." The time for the unparalleled battle at Har-Magedon, which the apostle John saw in pictorial preview, should be quite near, nearer than the self-occupied people of the world think! With God the Almighty and his King of kings being the ones against whom the "kings of the earth and their armies" are drawn up in total warfare, the tide of battle can go only one way, from its very start.
We can have confidence, therefore, that the apostle John is correct in his prophetic description of the battle, as follows:
THE BATTLE AT HAR-MAGEDON
12 "And I saw the wild beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage the war with the one seated on the horse and with his army. And the wild beast was caught, and along with it the false prophet that performed in front of it the signs with which he misled those who received the mark of the wild beast and those who render worship to its image. While still alive, they both were hurled into the fiery lake that burns with sulphur. But the rest were killed off with the long sword of the one seated on the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth. And all the birds were filled from the fleshy parts of them."—Revelation 19:19-21.
13 This battle account makes it certain that God the Almighty takes on as his opponent the entire visible organization of the symbolic dragon, "the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan." In support of that visible worldwide organization, symbolized by the seven-headed wild beast, go all its component parts, namely, the "kings of the earth and their armies," the military commanders, the strong men, the horse riders, the freemen and the slaves, the small ones and the great. The "false prophet" is also a part of that visible planetary system, for it is the dual world power of Britain and America, the dominant part of the whole visible organization of this world. The whole world system is not wily enough to elude the execution of divine judgment for all its ungodly deeds and the way it has preyed upon the people. The symbolic wild beast, along with its false prophet, is "caught," yes, caught while committing its last misdeeds against the faithful worshipers of Jehovah God.
The King of kings, Jesus Christ, is the one who runs down this ferocious wild beast. Like a maneater, it is destroyed.
14 Never again will this beastly world system of political rule, along with its political "false prophet," victimize mankind. Not as dead, nonfunctioning political institutions, but, as Revelation 19:20 states, "while still alive, they both were hurled into the fiery lake that burns with sulphur." Never will they come out of this "fiery lake" alive, for their death in battle is not due to the death that the sinner Adam brought upon all his human offspring. The "fiery lake" symbolizes another kind of death, an endless death from which there is no resurrection. Revelation itself (20:14) explains it, saying: "This means the second death, the lake of fire." All human efforts in patriotically fighting to perpetuate this political system for running human affairs will fail!
15 Will there, then, be a resurrection for the others, who as rulers or as ruled people fight for the symbolic wild beast and false prophet against God's kingdom in the hands of his King of kings? There is a total extermination of them. The tongue of the militant King of kings, which proceeds out of his mouth like a sharp long sword, orders the execution of them all, and the angelic armies of heaven carry out his royal orders. So those willful opposers of God's Messianic kingdom are all killed off. They are not counted as having suffered an honorable death, making the "supreme sacrifice" for country and government. They are not buried in memorial tombs, in nationally maintained military cemeteries to be visited annually on a Memorial Day or Decoration Day. As undeserving of a resurrection, they are pictured as having their corpses left lying exposed on the battlefield of Har-Magedon, their stinking bodies attracting all the birds that live on carrion flesh. It is foretold: "All the birds were filled from the fleshy parts of them." They gorge themselves to bursting on the "great evening meal of God."
Revelation 19:17-21.
16 It is to be noted that the account does not say that the literal earth over which the "kings" have reigned is burned up. No, but the earth survives the "war of the great day of God the Almighty" at Har-Magedon. Also, "all the birds that fly in midheaven" survive, to feast upon the fleshy parts of the bodies strewn over the earth. But there are also human survivors on earth after the "war of the great day of God the Almighty." This is not shown here directly in this battle account. Yet this must be so! Why? Because not all the inhabitants of the earth at the time of the battle will be misled by the "false prophet." There will be exceptions, though comparatively few, to "those who received the mark of the wild beast and those who render worship to its image." (Revelation 19:20) What about the "great crowd," whom the apostle John saw earlier in the vision and who were seen standing before God's throne and before the Lamb Jesus Christ? They are not among those fighting against God's Messianic kingdom at Har-Magedon.
17 Telling about these, John says: "They keep on crying with a loud voice, saying: 'Salvation we owe to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb.'" After making inquiry about these, one of the twenty-four heavenly elders tells John: "These are the ones that come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." (Revelation 7:9-14) This "great crowd" that comes "out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues" was definitely not against the Messianic kingdom of God. It refused to receive the "mark of the wild beast" and to "render worship to its image."
18 So the "great crowd" will not fall slain with people executed at Har-Magedon, but will "come out of the great tribulation," the grand climax of which will be the "war of the great day of God the Almighty."
Surviving that "great tribulation" and hailing victorious Jehovah God and the Lamb Jesus Christ, the "great crowd" will, as with palm branches, look forward joyfully to the thousand years ahead. So the earth will not be found empty of human life as the glorious thousand years of Christ's reign begins.
CHAPTER 3
Enjoying the Visionary Preview of the Thousand Years
OUR earthly globe will not be reduced to ashes and smoke by being burned up in the "war of the great day of God the Almighty" at Har-Magedon. This is shown by what happens to Satan the Devil right after that war. How so? Because he and his demon angels are found still alive at the earth, to which they were cast down in defeat after a war broke out in heaven after the birth of God's Messianic kingdom in the heavens. Down Satan and his demons plunged to earth's vicinity, to be retained there for a "short period of time." (Revelation 12:7-13) Because they are restrained to the earth clear through the "war of the great day of God the Almighty," God's angel needs to come down to the earth to take further action against them. Respecting this we read in John's account of his vision:
2 "And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven with the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he seized the dragon, the original serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.
And he hurled him into the abyss and shut it and sealed it over him, that he might not mislead the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After these things he must be let loose for a little while."—Revelation 20:1-3.
At the time that Satan the Devil was cast out of heaven, his demon angels were cast out with him and confined to the neighborhood of the earth. So what is done to their ruler applies also to them. They are seized, chained and abyssed with Satan the Devil for the thousand years. Not only does this put a stop to their further misleading the worldly nations, but it puts an end to their waging warfare against the remnant yet on earth of the Christian heirs of God's Messianic kingdom. Concerning this, Revelation 12:13, 17 tells us: "Now when the dragon saw that it was hurled down to the earth, it persecuted the woman that gave birth to the male child [symbolizing God's Messianic kingdom in the heavens]. And the dragon grew wrathful at the woman, and went off to wage war with the remaining ones of her seed, who observe the commandments of God and have the work of bearing witness to Jesus."
4 This devilish warfare fails to kill off all the remnant of Kingdom heirs who keep God's commandments and bear witness to His Son, Jesus Christ. It also fails to kill off the "great crowd" who accept this witness to the Messiah Jesus and who come from all nations of the earth and join the Kingdom remnant in worshiping Jehovah God at his spiritual temple. Testifying to their survival, Revelation 7:9-15 says concerning this "great crowd" out of all races, nations and tribes: "These are the ones that come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. That is why they are before the throne of God; and they are rendering him sacred service day and night in his temple; and the One seated on the throne will spread his tent over them."
Thus the confining of Satan and his demon angels in the abyss does not leave the earth desolate of all human inhabitants. The abyssing relieves the earth, not of the presence of the Kingdom remnant and of the "great crowd," but, rather, of the presence of Satan the Devil and his demon angels. During their thousand years of imprisonment in the abyss they will be as if they 'were not.'—Compare Revelation 17:8.
EARTH'S RULERS FOR A THOUSAND YEARS
No longer will Satan the Devil be the ruler of the world of mankind or the "god" of the system of things. (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 2 Corinthians 4:4) Who, then, will rule the inhabited earth during the thousand years that Satan the Devil is abyssed and "is not"?
In the vision the apostle John saw by whom the rulership of the earth was to be administered. He says: "And I saw thrones, and there were those who sat down on them, and power of judging was given them. Yes, I saw the souls of those executed with the ax for the witness they bore to Jesus and for speaking about God, and those who had worshiped neither the wild beast nor its image and who had not received the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand. And they came to life and ruled as kings with the 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. Happy and holy is anyone having part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no authority, but they will be priests of God and of the Christ, and will rule as kings with him for the thousand years."—Revelation 20:4-6.
s The thrones that John saw were up in heaven, not on earth, for these are the thrones of those who are to rule as kings with the Christ for a thousand years.
The number of thrones was therefore not indefinite. The number was 144,000, to correspond with the 144,000 spiritual Israelites who are sealed with the "seal of the living God" and who follow the Lamb Jesus Christ "no matter where he goes." (Revelation 7:1-8; 14:1-5) During the past thousands of years that Satan the Devil has been the "ruler of this world" there has been such an absence of justice or miscarriage of justice that it will be an excellent thing when the power of judging mankind is committed to these 144,000 associate judges of the Lord Jesus Christ. So when the apostle John saw those 144,000 thrones and those who sat down on them, he was seeing the beginning of the glorious judicial day that was spoken of to the Court of Areopagus, Athens, nineteen centuries ago, in these words:
9 "God . . . has fixed the day on which he will have the world judged, and justly judged, by a man of his choosing; of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."—Acts 17:22-31, New English Bible, of 1970.
10 The apostle John further identifies the occupants of the judicial thrones as being the 144,000 Kingdom joint heirs of the Lord Jesus Christ by going on to say: "Yes, I saw the souls of those executed with the ax for the witness they bore to Jesus and for speaking about God, and those who had worshiped neither the wild beast nor its image and who had not received the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand." Revelation 20:4.
11 The apostle John did not see headless "souls." By using the descriptive word "souls" he was not talking like spiritistic mediums about "disembodied spirits." He was using the word "souls" in the way that the inspired Holy Scriptures use the word, and he meant live, conscious beings in bodies, through which bodies they expressed their personalities. Only, in order to occupy judicial thrones in the invisible heavens, their bodies would have to be spirit bodies.
In the discussion of the resurrection of the dead, we are told in 1 Corinthians 15:44: "It is sown [in death] a physical body, it is raised up a spiritual body." Hence the apostle John saw live, conscious heavenly bodies, persons equipped with mental abilities for judgment work, and these John identified as being those "executed with the ax" for the witness of Jesus and God's Word.
"EXECUTED WITH THE AX"
12 However, not all the 144,000 Kingdom joint heirs of Jesus Christ were executed with the ax or beheaded for the witness they bore to Jesus and for speaking about God. Not in a literal way! The apostle James, the natural brother of John, was killed by the sword, possibly beheaded, by King Herod Agrippa I. (Acts 12: 1, 2) According to tradition, the apostle Paul was beheaded at Rome, Italy. (2 Timothy 4:6-8) But not all the 144,000 suffer a martyr's death by having their heads chopped off. Certainly it is not God who does
the executing of them with the ax, either literally or figuratively, inasmuch as it was for speaking about Him that they are all executed with the ax. It is the political state that executes them. In the case of the Roman Empire, of which the apostle John was a prisoner on the penal island of Patmos, this power of execution was symbolized by the ax wrapped within a bundle of rods with which criminals were scourged and beheaded. This symbol was called the fasces, and was carried in procession by lictors before the highest Roman magistrate. Benito Mussolini the
Duce of the Fascist Party popularized this symbol during his regime in Italy.
13 In effect the political state of this world executes the 144,000 Kingdom heirs by judging them as unworthy to live under its authority.
It sentences them to death, as it were. The reason for this is made plain by the apostle John. In what way? In that, as John says, they "had worshiped neither the wild beast nor its image" and "had not received the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand." In other words, these 144,000 Kingdom heirs had not worshiped the political state in any of its varied expressions throughout the earth. Neither had the remnant of these Kingdom heirs in this twentieth century worshiped that international organization for world peace and security now known as the United Nations, but known previously as the League of Nations. The symbolic "wild beast," the worldwide political state, is the one that is hurled into the destruction symbolized by the "fiery lake that burns with sulphur" in the "war of the great day of God the Almighty" at Har-Magedon.—Revelation 13: 1-17; 14:9-11; 19:19, 20; 20:4.
14 The 144,000 Kingdom heirs do not worship the symbolic "wild beast," meddling in its politics, running for political offices, sharing in its sanguinary warfare. Thus they do not receive a mark on their foreheads nor on their hands, to symbolize that they are slaves of the state and are lending it an active hand in carrying on its worldly activities, often beastly. Neither do the 144,000 worship the "image to the wild beast," ascribing salvation to a man-made international organization for world peace and security. They worship only the God about whom they speak and give their allegiance to Him as the Universal Sovereign. They do not magnify the earthly political state, but bear witness to Jesus, the Son of God, as being the Christ, the Messiah, whom the Most High God has appointed to rule the world of mankind for a thousand years. Little wonder that the "wild beast" executes the 144,000 as with the ax!
15 Whether finishing their earthly course by a violent martyr's death or not, all the 144,000 Kingdom heirs do at last die in a physical way.
How is it, then, that they can enter into the kingdom of the heavens and sit down on those judicial thrones up there? It is not by any immortality of the human soul, but is by a resurrection from the dead. Says John concerning "those executed with the ax for the witness they bore to Jesus and for speaking about God": "And they came to life and ruled as kings with the Christ for a thousand years."—Revelation 20:4.
10 They "came to life" again, not on earth as human creatures or human souls, but up in heaven as spiritual sons of God. It is as such that they are seen by the apostle John in vision. They have a span of life longer than that of mankind today. They can live longer than Methuselah did, who lived 969 years. (Genesis 5:25-27) They can live for the thousand years of their reigning with Christ and then on into endless eternity, for they are clothed upon with immortality at their resurrection from the dead. (1 Corinthians 15:50-57) At the instant of their being resurrected they are at the fullness of life, without weakness, without corruption, without any of the imperfection that had previously attached to their dying physical bodies that they had inherited from sinful Adam and Eve. They are perfectly alive, justified by Almighty God to everlasting life in the spirit.—1 Corinthians 15:42-55.
17 In order to emphasize this difference between their instantaneous state at resurrection and the state of the rest of the world of mankind at the start of the thousand years, the apostle John proceeds to say: "These came to life again and reigned with Christ for a thousand years, though the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were over." (Revelation 20:4, 5, New English Bible) This proves that even the "great crowd" of worshipers at God's spiritual temple, who survive the "great tribulation," will not instantaneously be made perfect in their flesh and pronounced worthy of everlasting life on earth immediately after the binding and abyssing of Satan the Devil and his demons.
By the uplifting aids and blessings of the thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ, they will progress gradually to human perfection and to ability to live sinlessly in the flesh and to keep God's laws flawlessly. But what about those billions of humans asleep in earthly memorial tombs and watery graves?
18 As regards these, John's preview of the thousand years shows us what happens to them, saying: "And the sea gave up those dead in it, and death and Ha'des gave up those dead in them, and they were judged individually according to their deeds." (Revelation 20:13) Among those thus coming forth from Ha'des or the common grave of dead mankind will be that evildoer hung on an execution stake alongside Jesus, to whom Jesus said: "Verily I say unto thee this day: With me shalt thou be in Paradise." (Luke 23:43, Rotherham's translation; New World Translation) This evildoer will come forth from Ha'des into the earthly Paradise reestablished for mankind by the kingdom of Jesus Christ. In that Paradise the evildoer will share the opportunity along with all the other resurrected human dead to correct his life course and be cured of human imperfection and sinfulness. In this way, by the end of the thousand years of Christ's reign, he will be able to reach the goal of human perfection in God's image and likeness. All those attaining to human perfection and sinlessness on earth by the end of the thousand years must, however, undergo a final test of their loyalty to God's universal sovereign rule, in order to keep their perfect life.
13 Those perfected humans on earth who maintain their integrity and prove faithful to God's rightful rule will be declared righteous by the Supreme Judge, Jehovah God. These innocent ones He will declare to be worthy of eternal life, and He will assign to them the right to endless life in happiness in the earthly Paradise.
Free of all condemnation, these obedient ones now really live from God's perfect standpoint. In this manner it is, then, that "the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended." (Revelation 20:5) Those perfected humans who do not faithfully pass that test of godly loyalty after the thousand years are ended will be everlastingly destroyed, just as John in his preview presents the matter, saying: "And death and Hades were hurled into the lake of fire. This means the second death, the lake of fire. Furthermore, whoever was not found written in the book of life was hurled into the lake of fire." (Revelation 20:14, 15) So these disloyal ones do not attain to life eternal.
"THE FIRST RESURRECTION"
20 After interjecting that statement about the "rest of the dead," the apostle John refers back to the coming to life again on the part of those who were "executed with the ax for the witness they bore to Jesus and for speaking about God" and proceeds to say: "This is the first resurrection. Happy and holy is anyone having part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no authority, but they will be priests of God and of the Christ, and will rule as kings with him for the thousand years."—Revelation 20:5, 6.
21 Can it be that this "first resurrection" of these 144,000 Kingdom joint heirs of the Christ is what the apostle Paul speaks of at Ephesians 2:1-6? There the apostle writes to the first-century Christians in the city of Ephesus, Asia Minor, and says: "And you were dead, through the crimes and the sins in which you used to live when you were following the way of this world, obeying the ruler who governs the air, the spirit who is at work in the rebellious. . . But God loved us with so much love that he was generous with his mercy: when we were dead through our sins, he brought us to life with Christ—it is through grace that you have been saved—and raised us up with him and gave us a place with him in heaven, in Christ Jesus."—The Jerusalem Bible, Roman Catholic, of 1966.
22 Similarly, when discussing Christian circumcision with Christians in Colossae, Asia Minor, the apostle Paul wrote: "This is circumcision according to Christ. You have been buried with him, when you were baptised; and by baptism, too, you have been raised up with him through your belief in the power of God who raised him from the dead. You were dead, because you were sinners and had not been circumcised: he has brought you to life with him, he has forgiven us all our sins."—Colossians 2:11-13, Je.
23 We do have to admit that this passing from death to life in a figurative way, or in a spiritual sense, is one of the "first" experiences in a Christian's course. So, taking this experience to be the "first resurrection" mentioned in Revelation 20:5, 6, the New Catholic Encyclopedia (copyrighted 1967) goes on to say under the title "Millenarianism":
. . . The "first resurrection" symbolizes Baptism. . . by which one shares in Christ's resurrection. . . All the faithful, both those on earth and those in heaven, share in the 1,000 year reign of Jesus, a symbol for the entire life span of the Church considered in its glorious aspect from the Resurrection of Christ until the Last Judgment. . . The chaining of Satan during this same period signifies that the influence of Satan has been notably reduced, not completely removed. The lessening of Satan's influence is the result of the effectiveness of Christ's Redemption. After a final struggle near the end of time . . . Satan will be completely conquered by Christ. . .
24 Does such an explanation of the "first resurrection" harmonize with what John writes in Revelation 20:1-6?
Well, since the day of the Festival of Weeks in the year 33 C.E., when the Christian congregation at Jerusalem began to be baptized with God's holy spirit, until now, the "life span of the Church" has proved to be, not just one thousand years, but nearly double that. During all these nearly two millenniums has any member of the true Christian congregation "reigned," even in the midst of the congregation itself?
25 Who of the apostles thus "reigned"? Not the apostle Paul! For he wrote to certain ambitious members of the congregation in Corinth: "You have begun ruling as kings WITHOUT us, have you? And I wish indeed that you had begun ruling as kings, that we also might rule with you as kings. For it seems to me that God has put us the apostles last on exhibition as men appointed to death, because we have become a theatrical spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men." (1 Corinthians 4:8, 9) To his missionary companion Timothy, he presented the matter of reigning as coming after the Christian's physical death, saying: "Faithful is the saying: Certainly if we died together, we shall also live together; if we go on enduring, we shall also rule together as kings; if we deny, he also will deny us."—2 Timothy 2:11, 12.
…