The context of Revelation chapter 20 does not suggest anything but a literal reign of Christ on earth.
That is the view of most carnal Futurists.......
Children in the Rapture?
One must first be "Resurrected" before one can be "Raptured"....that is both logical and biblical
Ezekiel 37:10
And I prophecy as He instructed and the spirit/breath is coming in them and they are living and are standing on their feet, an army/host, great, exceedingly-exceedingly.
Ezekiel 37:11 And He is saying to me "Son of Adam, the bones, these are whole house of Yisra'el they behold! ones saying ' bones of us dry, our hope perishes, we are severed to ourselves'. [
Luke 2:34/ Reve 11"11]
Luke 2:34
And Simon blesses them and said toward Mariam His mother,
"behold! this-One is set/lying into
a Fall and Resurrection/standing-up<386> of many in the Israel, and into a Sign being spoken against"
Matthew 19:28
And Jesus said to them, 'Verily I say to you, that ye who did follow me, in the regeneration, when the Son of Man may sit upon a throne of his glory,
shall sit -- ye also -- upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel; [
Luke 22:30/
Revelation 20:]
Acts 1:8
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,
and
you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Notice first that a breath of life comes in them and they "
STAND"
Revelation 11:11
And after the three days and half days, a breath of life out of the God entered in them and they stand upon their feet and fear great fall upon the ones observing them.
The "Rapture" happens after they resurrect before the wrath and tares being burned.
This is during the "Harvest":
12 And they hear a Voice great out of the Heaven saying to them "ascend ye here!"
And they ascended into the heaven in the cloud....
Mat 13:30
suffer both to grow together till the harvest, and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, 'Gather up first the darnel,
and bind it in bundles, to burn it,
and the wheat gather up into my storehouse'.'[
Revelation 14:15]
Revelation 20:4
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given to them,...............
Revelation 20:5
The rest of the dead not live until should be being finished<5055> the thousand years,
This is the first Resurrection<386>
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Reigning With Christ: | Partial Preterism
Reigning With Christ:
Revelation 20:1-6 In Its Salvation-Historical Setting
*SNIP*
The letter to the church in Smyrna (2:8-11) presents another parallel to 20:4-6. Here the risen Christ promises the "crown of life" to those who are "faithful unto death;" it is they who will not be "hurt of the second death" (vv. 10b-11). In addition, 2:9-10; 20:2-3, 7-10 speak of the activity of Satan. Kline also raises the possibility that there is a relationship between the numerical symbols of the ten days of tribulation (2:10) and the thousand years of reigning (20:4, 6). "The intensifying of ten to a thousand together with the lengthening of days to years might then suggest that the present momentary tribulation works a far greater glory to be experienced in the intermediate state as the immediate issue of martyrdom."
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(3)
Next, we must pay brief attention to the fate of "the rest of the dead" (v. 5a). According to v. 4, John sees both a broader and a narrower circle of believing dead. In 4a are envisaged all those seated on thrones, to whom judgment has been committed, a probable allusion to
Dan 7:22, which foresees judgment as a prerogative of the saints of the Most High, as well as of the Son of Man (vv. 9-14). In 4b, John beholds in particular the martyrs, who had not worshipped the beast nor received his mark on their foreheads or hands.
In contrast, v. 5a adds parenthetically that there is a category of the dead who are to be distinguished from those who are reigning with Christ, a group, in other words, who do not partake of the first resurrection and who, consequently, are to be affected by the "second death" and do not come to life until the thousand years are completed. It is true that the author predicates the same verb (ezêsan) of them as of the believing dead. However, as we observed with Kline, this is an instance of the irony and paradox employed by John in his treatment of Christ's people and his enemies respectively. The believer dies and yet is raised to sit with Christ in the heavenly places; the unbeliever comes to life, but, as we recall from
John 5:29, he rises to "the resurrection of judgment."
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As any other passage of Scripture,
Revelation 20 must be set within the parameters of salvation history. Accordingly, a hermeneutic must be applied to the particular question of the thousand year reign of Christ which seeks to be sensitive to the overall biblical architecture of promise and fulfillment. The principal points of such a hermeneutic may be reduced to the following. (1) Christ and his people are the sum and substance of the OT. Passages such as
Luke 24:25-27,
44-49 and
1 Pet 1:10-12 provide the paradigm for the Christian interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures. (2) Within the schema of God's new creation plan, Israel existed to typify the latter-day people (
1 Cor 10:6,
11), those upon whom the end of the ages has come (
1 Cor 10:11) and without whom the saints of old could not be perfected (
Heb 11:40); in them is Christ, the hope of glory (
Col 1:27). Consequently, (3) the prophetic outlook on Israel's future salvation, though cast in terms comprehensible to the original hearers, is modified by its apostolic interpretation, with God's ultimate intention being clarified by its actual historical fulfillment. The nationalistic and militaristic language of the prophets has been transposed into another key, that of the universal reign of Christ, the Prince of Peace, who accepts all without distinction, Jew and Gentile (
Rom 15:7-12).
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It is these broader perspectives provided by a salvation-historical hermeneutic which place a control over the exegete's conception of the thousand years of
Revelation 20. This control is two-sided. On the negative side, methodological consistency will dictate that the reign of Christ is not to be understood in terms of a precise thousand year period, during which the theocratic hopes of Israel are "literally" realized. Rather, the "millennium," as an integral part of the salvific process, is coextensive with the "latter days," during which the nations are summoned to render the obedience of faith to king Jesus (
Gen 49:10;
Ps 2:8-9;
Rom 1:5).
84 It is that time foretold by the prophets when the strangers to the commonwealth of Israel would be accepted as the equals of the ancient covenant people (
Eph 2:11-22). Far from reinforcing the Jew/Gentile divide, this "day of salvation" (
2 Cor 6:1) obliterates such distinctions forever.
Consequently, to put it positively, the "millennium" of
Revelation 20 is organically one with the new era inaugurated with the first advent of Jesus Christ, and is to be situated within the larger framework of the arrival of the eschaton "at the end of these days" (
Heb 1:2). It is here that the phrase "intermediate state" is misleading. To be sure, from one point of view the existence of deceased believers is "intermediate" in relation to final resurrection (the "second resurrection"); it is an interim period. Nevertheless, in the most meaningful sense it is not intermediate at all; it is but the continuation and higher experience of the newness of life to which the Christian has been admitted by faith. At most, it can be called the "meantime" of the believer's redemption,
85 because it is none other than his present reign with and rest in Christ, which are to be protracted forever, when his body is made like the glorious body of Christ (
Phil 3:21).
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In short, the "millennial reign" of
Rev 20:1-6 is eternal life intensified: the reign of Christ and his saints is a piece of realized soteriology. Nothing could have been more relevant for John's readers to know. Contrary to what appears to be true, the throne room scene of
Revelation 20 assures suffering Christians that those who have gone before actually "reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ" (
Rom 5:17). The blessedness of the first resurrection is a partial but very real bringing to pass of the promise of
Rev 2:10: "Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life." It is for this reason that the risen Christ was revealed to John on Patmos.
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