Tuesday, May 24, 2022

Revelation 20:5-6 and the "First Resurrection" as Evidence For a Literal Millennium

  

According to amillennialists by calling it the “first” resurrection, the apostle was not simply designating it the first in a series of resurrections of the same kind—he was indicating that this resurrection was of a different quality than the resurrection that follows. IN other words, the modifier “first” indicates a qualitative difference between two resurrections rather than merely establishing a numerical sequence between two events. According to this view, the qualitative difference is that the “first” resurrection is spiritual whereas the second resurrection is physical. (Matt Waymeyer, Amillennialism and the Age to Come: A Premillennial Critique of the Two-Age Model [The Woodlands, Tex.: Kress Biblical Resources, 2016], 216)

 

Even though this argument was first articulated in 1975 by Meredith Kline, the chiastic relationship between the two deaths and two resurrections was identified in 1960 by Summers (Ray Summers, “Revelation 20: An Interpretation,” RevExp 57, no. 2 [April 1960]: 182). (Ibid., 221 n. 48)

 

[One difficulty] with this argument relates to the perspicuity of Scripture. Simply stated, it is difficult to imagine that any interpreter would have ever taken this approach to the “first resurrection” prior to its discovery in the second half of the 20th century. How could even the most diligent Bible students be expected to connect all the dots necessary to arrive at this conclusion? Why would the apostle John sue such obscure language, demanding such a convoluted interpretive process? How could John be sure his readers would identify this double binary pattern, much less think to consult these other three passages, to determine the meaning of the “first resurrection”? And why would the fact that “first” never modifies “resurrection” outside of Revelation 20 send his readers on this complicated interpretive journey in the first place (The fact that a given adjective modifies a given noun only once in the entire New Testament should not lead the interpreter to expect a specialized meaning of the adjective-noun combination which ascribes an unprecedented meaning to the noun. But the amillennial approach does not just that)? Isn’t it more likely that “first resurrection” simply means “first resurrection”? (Ibid., 221)

 

 . . . most importantly, even if the amillennial view of πρωτος is granted for the sake of argument, an insurmountable problem arises because of the definitions given to πρωτος and αναστασις. To review, in light of the perceived antithesis between “first/old” and “second/new,” amillennialists insist that πρωτος in Revelation 20 means “to belong to the present state of affairs which is passing away.” As the qualitative and polar opposite of “new,” πρωτος is said to describe that which is merely provisional, transient, and temporary, in contrast to what is consummate, final, and enduring. In other words, whatever is “first” is antithetical to permanence and will eventually be superseded and replace by what is “new” when it passes away. For this reason, amillennialists believe the adjective πρωτος “is used to designate elements that belong . . . to the present, sin-cursed creation order, in contrast to the new heaven and new earth.” As the diametrical opposite of that which characterizes eternity and resurrection life, “Whatever is first does not participate in the quality of finality and permanence which id distinctive of the age to come.”

 

The difficulty arises when the amillennialist takes this definition of πρωτος and applies it to αναστασις in Revelation 20 as a reference to a spiritual resurrection. For those amillennialists who believe that the “first resurrection” refers to regeneration, the contradiction is obvious. In what way does the believer’s regeneration belong to the present state of affairs which is passing away? How can the new life received at conversion be described as provisional, transient, and temporary, in contrast to what endures? How can the new birth be considered the qualitative and polar opposite of the future resurrection? Is the believer’s regeneration antithetical to permanence? Will the new life received at conversion pass away and be replaced by his bodily resurrection? Can it really be said that the spiritual birth of believers belong to the present, sin-cursed creation and therefore that the spiritual life of regeneration does not participate in the age to come? . . . For those amillennialists who believe that the “first resurrection” refers to the believer being ushered into the presence of Christ at the point of death, the dilemma is similar In what sense does the believer’s entrance into the blessings of heaven belong to the present state of affairs which is passing away? How can being ushered into the presence of Christ be described as transitory or diametrically opposed to the future resurrection? How can a “resurrection of heavenly glories?”—including the blessings it brings to those who are resurrected—be considered part of the present, sin-cursed creation order? (Ibid., 222-25)

 

In the footnotes to the above, we have the following interesting comments:

 

Most amillennialists would likely affirm that regeneration is the means by which believers partake of the age to come, even now in the present age. In contrast, they see the “first man” (1 Cor 15:47) and the “first covenant” (Heb 8-10) as that which leads to death (Riddlebarger, A Case for Amillennialism, 246; Beale, The Book of Revelation, 1007). This alone demonstrates the inconsistency of the amillennial position, at last for those who see the “first resurrection” as regeneration. (224 n. 63)

 

Beale responds to this argument by instating that the inconsistency is resolved “by understanding that the intermediate state of the soul’s resurrection is, indeed, an incomplete state, since these souls await the final, consummated physical resurrection in the new heavens and earth” (The Book of Revelation, 107; also see Kline, “The First Resurrection,” 371). But as demonstrated above, the amillennialist ascribes far more to the meaning of πρωτος than simply “incomplete.” The amillennial antithesis between “first/old” and “second/new” presents the two as polar opposites in which πρωτος describes that which belongs to the order of this sin-cursed world, being transitory and destined to pass away when it is replaced by what is “new.” So the inconsistency remains.

 

Kline seeks to resolve the tension in a similar way, noting that this resurrection “is still not the ultimate glory of the Christian” because “it stands on this side of the consummation” (“The First Resurrection,” 371). But this too significantly dilute the amillennial view of the antithesis between the two terms. According to amillennialists, “first” does not mean pre-consummative in the chronological sense of existing or taking place prior to the consummation. (If it did, the New Covenant itself could not be considered “new” since it was inaugurated and became operative prior to the consummation.) Amillennialists present προωτος not as a chronological modifier describing what exists (or takes place) during the present world, but as a qualitative modifier describing what belongs to the present world order. For this reason, Klines’s appeal to the timing of the “first resurrection”—as that which “stands on this side of the consummation”—fails to offer any substantial response to the objection. (Ibid., 225 n. 66)

 

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