Revelation 20:5 Commentary and Bible Study

To understand this verse, you must put some words in brackets. The beginning of verse 5, before the word ‘but’, you want a bracket, and then you want to close the bracket after the word ‘finished’. That is a comment about the unconverted dead. ‘This is the first resurrection’, in our way of writing, belongs on the end of verse 4. The redeemed that had died before Christ’s second coming, lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years throughout the gospel age. This is the first resurrection.When a Christian dies, his death is not called a death in this passage. He is not seen to die. What happens is he is translated into glory, and it is called ‘the first resurrection’. Then when Christ comes again, and he receives his resurrection body, we call it – though it isn't referred to in the chapter – ‘the second resurrection’. If there is a first, there must be a second. The first resurrection is when, as a Christian, you die and go to the paradise of Christ, heaven, to be with him, leaving your body behind in the grave. Death is not mentioned in connection with you, and that is right because you didn't die; you were translated. Christ speaks of a new state which the soul attains through faith in him, by which that man will never see death (John 8:51). Since all those to whom he spoke did see physical death, he must have been speaking of something else. In John 11:25, he confirms that he is not saying that his disciples will escape the death of the body; his words must be applied to the soul. Those who believe in him have a life that endures through physical death and which death of the body never interrupts. ‘For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him’ (Luke 20:38).But ‘the rest of the dead’ refers to all unbelievers. The unbeliever does die. He knows physical and spiritual death. He is remanded to the day of judgement in hell, from the moment of death. That is the first death. And the second death is when Christ comes again and the condemned dead receive resurrection bodies, and are judged in the body and dispatched everlastingly away from God.