But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
The rest of the dead are the wicked dead, who remain lifeless in the dust through the thousand years and do not live again until the thousand years are finished, so there are two literal resurrections separated by a thousand years. Those who did good rise first in the first resurrection when Jesus comes in glory, made immortal and incorruptible unto eternal life, and they are blessed and holy with the second death having no power over them as priests of God and of Christ reigning with Him a thousand years. During those thousand years the righteous rest in the holy city and reign with Christ, sitting with Him in judgment to review the records of the dead and mete out to each wicked person according to works. At the close of the thousand years Christ returns with the redeemed and calls the wicked forth in the second resurrection to damnation, bearing the marks of death and retaining their enmity with no further probation, to surround the city, be judged, and then be devoured by fire from God out of heaven until they cease to exist with no hope of another resurrection. Whether a person has part in the first resurrection is settled by character and choices in this life, requiring sins put away, Christ's righteousness received, and robes washed white in the blood of the Lamb.
Timing of Two Resurrections
The rest of the dead are the wicked dead, who remain dead in the dust throughout the thousand years and do not live again until the thousand years are finished. Their return to life is the second resurrection, when they appear before God for the execution of the judgment written against them. The final judgment cannot be executed upon them before they are raised, but at the end of the thousand years they are raised and gathered around the camp of the saints, when fire from God devours them.
There are two literal resurrections separated by one thousand years, the first resurrection before the thousand years and the resurrection of the rest of the dead after them. The dead rest in their graves until the resurrection, when the righteous rise in the first resurrection and the wicked in the second. During the thousand years God's people are together in the city of God, and afterward the city comes down to earth, which has been cleansed by fire.
Those who did good rise first to eternal life in the first resurrection, while those who did evil stay in their graves through the thousand years and rise afterward to damnation. The rising of dead believers takes place when Jesus comes in glory as King and Deliverer, before the rest of the dead. They are called from all parts of the earth, from rocky caverns, dungeons, caves and the waters of the deep, with triumph and victory, and the second death has no power over them, followed by no more death, sin or sorrow. Those who are not raised in the first resurrection remain in their graves until the thousand years are finished, and this distinction makes each person's part in the first resurrection a solemn matter.
The vision places these events after Christ's second advent, in connection with His coming and the close of the controversy between Christ and Satan. The saints are almost home to rest in the city a thousand years, and at the close of the thousand years the rest of the dead live again. The general judgment takes place at the end of the thousand years and is distinct from the partial resurrection of those raised after Christ's resurrection and led with Him through the gates of the city to the throne. At the voice of the Son of man every saint who sleeps in Jesus will awake and leave the prison house, while the rest of the dead remain until the thousand years are finished, when those who disowned Christ and betrayed Him in the person of His saints will see the result of their work.
The thousand years were still future and not already past, so the claim made around the Volney meeting that they had already occurred was an error.
Blessings of First Resurrection
Those who live and reign with Christ a thousand years in the first resurrection include those beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God, who did not worship the beast or his image and did not receive his mark on forehead or hand. Those with part in the first resurrection are blessed and holy, the second death has no power over them, and they are priests of God and of Christ reigning with Him a thousand years. Afterward there is no more death, sin, sorrow, crying, or pain, when innumerable voices sing that the tabernacle of God is with men and He will dwell with them as their God and wipe away all tears because the former things have passed away.
The righteous dead remain asleep until they awake in the first resurrection, when they are made immortal. For the faithful, death is not a dark uncertainty, for their hope of eternal life is centered in Jesus and they will meet one another again when the righteous dead rise. The faithful dead come up changed from mortal and corruptible to immortal and incorruptible, and are welcomed by Jesus into the homes He has prepared for them.
Christ's sleeping saints are raised at the triumphant last trumpet through the power of Christ's Spirit who dwelt in them, because they shared in the divine nature. Their mortal bodies are raised incorruptible, glorious, powerful, and spiritual, and Christ calls them His purchased possession, kept safe and known by name until that hour. The first resurrection is the resurrection to life of the righteous dead when Christ comes in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, when at the trump of God the graves are opened and the righteous dead come forth, because Christ loves the world and gave His life for it. Christ is the Alpha and Omega, the Genesis of the Old Testament and the Revelation of the New, who by His obedience in overcoming Satan's temptations reconciled Adam and God and redeemed Adam's disgraceful failure and fall, so the two Adams meet in Paradise and embrace each other, while the dragon, the beast, the false prophet, and all who refused the opportunities and privileges given at infinite cost and did not return to loyalty are shut out of Paradise.
The first resurrection belongs to the righteous and to Christ's believing people who have made their calling and election sure. The wicked have no part in it at the resurrection morn. Therefore the sinner closes his eyes in death with fearful uncertainty about the future, with no pleasing sense of God's approbation and no cheering hope or pleasure in looking forward to being raised.
State of Wicked Dead
The rest of the dead remain mouldered to dust with no conscious life in heaven between the resurrections, and do not live again until the thousand years are finished when they are called forth in the second resurrection to receive their reward and suffer the second death. The wicked, including Thomas Paine, are still in the dust and are not already exalted in heaven nor living as conscious spirits teaching the living, but rise only then for punishment.
At the second resurrection all come up as they went down into their graves, in the same weak, sickly bodies in which they died, bearing the traces of disease and death with the visible marks of the curse upon them. This waking is distinct from the first resurrection, in which all come forth in immortal bloom, for those raised then are clothed with immortal youth and beauty as immortal and incorruptible, unlike the wicked who rise to receive their doom. The resurrected wicked see Jesus in kingly glory and recognize Him as the one they mocked and crucified.
They rise retaining their enmity and rebellion against Christ, coming forth with their former ambitions, thoughts, desires, and purposes, with the same enmity to Christ and the same spirit of rebellion as when they went into their graves, and they receive no further probation after rising. Satan deceives them into gathering for an attack on the holy city, gathering them into an army for that purpose. At this second waking they come forth a mighty host numberless as the sands of the sea, including the giant-like well-proportioned race before the flood and the continually decreasing dwarfed feeble deformed race down to the last generation, with kings, warriors, statesmen, and nobles down to the most degraded together. As soon as they behold Jesus in stern majesty and resplendent glory they know He is the crucified one who died to save them whom they despised and rejected, and overwhelmed with His glory and affrighted they seek to hide and are compelled by the force of truth to exclaim in anguish, Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord, not from love to Jesus but words urged from unwilling lips.
Balaam will be among the wicked dead who rise in the second resurrection after the thousand years to face final doom, seeing the redeemed in the city of God but shut out with the wicked. The ignorant slave who died knowing nothing of God or the Bible cannot be taken to heaven in that condition but is left as though he had never lived, as though he had not been, with his sins visited upon his master. The guilty slave-master who kept slaves in ignorance and degradation must first endure the seven last plagues and then come up in the second resurrection to suffer the second, most awful death, and by that punishment the justice of God is satisfied.
Judgment During Thousand Years
The thousand years lie between the first resurrection and the raising of the rest of the dead at its close, and they are the time when the saints in unison with Jesus mete out to the wicked what they shall receive, which the rest of the dead are then raised to receive when the thousand years are finished. During that time the righteous rest in the holy city and reign as kings and priests with Christ, sitting with Jesus in judgment. There they review the records of the dead and the wicked dead, comparing their lives with the Bible and deciding each case, determining the sentence and punishment each wicked person will receive according to deeds, before the wicked are raised for the execution of that judgment.
The sentence is measured according to works and is recorded in the book of death, and Satan and the evil angels are judged as well. The wicked dead remain dead throughout the thousand years and are raised when it ends, as Jesus descends with the saints and holy angels from the Holy City after the saints have taken part in judgment; then the wicked see Jesus in glory and recognize the wounds from His crucifixion, and even those who pierced Him see Him in glory, before they receive the execution of that judgment.
Events After Thousand Years
At the close of the thousand years Christ again returns to the earth in sublimest majesty, accompanied by the host of the redeemed and attended by a retinue of angels, and bids the wicked dead arise from their long sleep to receive their doom. He descends in brightness like lightning and in fearful majesty upon the Mount of Olives, which parts asunder and becomes a mighty plain for the paradise of God to rest upon. Jesus leaves the city and it descends from heaven to the plain He has prepared, and the wicked dead are then raised at the second resurrection after their judgment is finished.
Their resurrection takes place as Jesus and the saints descend from the Holy City, and the wicked then see Jesus in kingly glory and recognize the wounds from His crucifixion. They come forth a mighty host numberless as the sands of the sea and gather around the Holy City and the camp of the saints. As they behold the glory of the Son of God they exclaim with one voice, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord, not from love but words urged from unwilling lips by the force of truth.
Their resurrection gives Satan, bound during the thousand years, a vast multitude to rally for his final attempt to overthrow God's city. They come forth with their former ambitions and thoughts and remain his followers, resuming their former thoughts and desires. He deceives them into gathering for an attack to seize the Holy City. This resurrection precedes their final destruction and the final triumph and reign of Christ on earth.
Those who lose their lives for the truth will rise and receive everlasting life in the city of God, while their persecutors will remain outside the city and, seeing the faithful honored by Jesus, will regret having persecuted them. Fire breathed from God out of heaven then devours the wicked and consumes them root and branch, with Satan as the root and his children as the branches, so Satan and those who followed him perish together. They cease to exist, and their death is everlasting, with no hope of another resurrection.
The same fire that destroys the wicked purifies the whole earth, melting the broken ragged mountains with fervent heat and the atmosphere also and consuming all the stubble. The earth is not cleansed until the wicked are destroyed, and only then is it cleansed and made new. It becomes the saints' inheritance, made new, glorious and beautiful, which the wicked never desecrate and whose feet do not defile the earth made new. No sinner became immortal by eating from the tree of life, because Adam's family was barred from it.
The new heaven and new earth appear after this final destruction. After that resurrection come the final destruction of Satan and the wicked, and Christ's final triumph and reign on earth. After the thousand years, events on earth bring the enemy of God down and purify the earth, so the city and its inhabitants will never be corrupted. After the wicked are raised, the saints join Jesus in the final judgment, and after their judgment is finished the wicked receive the sentence rendered with Jesus and the saints, and fire from God consumes them.
False Views of Millennium
The verse does not teach a temporal millennium on earth before Christ returns in glory, in which the earth would be filled with the knowledge of the Lord. That expectation was held before the announcement of Christ's soon coming, and was pressed by a presiding elder against the hope of His soon return. Against it stood the longing of Robert and Ellen for Christ's soon coming, rejecting the idea that His return would be delayed for thousands of years. The Scriptures instead show Christ returning to earth in glory, not after such an earthly millennium before the end of the world.
Nor does the verse teach a thousand years of spiritual peace and prosperity in which the world is converted before Christ comes. It does not mean that wickedness will steadily disappear as the end approaches. That doctrine is a dangerous deception. Scripture instead warns that evil and deception will increase before Christ comes.
The thousand years are not a period in which to carry out the work of warning the world. They are not a temporal millennium to which that work may be postponed. The time for that work is now, before God's dealings with sinful people suddenly change.
Preparing for First Resurrection
The difference between rising with the just in the first resurrection and waking later with the rest of the dead after the thousand years is the difference between two destinies, and it makes seeking a sure hope of rising with the just urgent. The faithful dead will rise with the saints in that first resurrection, and the unconscious time in the grave will seem only a moment, as though they had gone straight to heaven. That hope gives assurance of an inheritance in the life to come, and preparation for that life belongs in the days of health, not merely at the deathbed.
That first resurrection is the resurrection to life of the righteous dead when Christ comes in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, when at the trump of God the graves are opened and they come forth because Christ loved the world and gave His life for it. Having part in it requires present readiness, standing prepared as minute men and women, so that if life is cut off in a moment by accident or calamity there is preparedness for the life to come. That readiness means sins put away and the righteousness of Christ received.
A person's character and choices in this life determine whether there is a part in the first resurrection. Those who cling to sin and reject the Spirit of God will not rise in it and will not see the King in His beauty. If probation closes before a person has overcome and become Christlike, that person will not share in it.
Only those who have developed characters fit for it will rise among the redeemed, those who have appreciated the great privilege of washing their robes and making them white in the blood of the Lamb, while Satan watches his chance to destroy souls who have not developed such fit characters. Having part in it requires widening the separation from the world, with refined and choice conversation and godly company. Narrowing that separation until it is obliterated, living in spiritual decline with loose, reckless talk and worldly company, leaves a person with no part in that blessing if life were cut off now.
The first resurrection is for those who walk in the light God gives them, are blessed in that light, and die faithful in that light. Even amid widespread corruption they can walk with God as Enoch did, reflect His light to others, form a righteous character, and escape the corruption in the world through lust, to be raised when that resurrection comes. Others faithful at the second coming will be translated without seeing death.
To be saved is to have part in the first resurrection and reign with Christ in glory, and fitting for that reign requires being led by God and taught His will and present truth and what must be in order to be saved. Those just brought to God and His truth who innocently feel a false power through inexperience are not charged with sin for it. If humble they will be led along and taught until fitted to be saved and reign with Christ.
The first resurrection is the overcomer's reward for victory over appetite through the name of Christ, with a seat with Him upon His throne for those who overcome as He overcame. If slaves to appetite die in the struggle to free themselves from its controlling power, they die in a good cause, and even victory gained at the cost of human life is not too dearly earned if the victor comes up in it, for then everything is gained. Those who make determined efforts in Christ's name to overcome unnatural cravings, however, will not die in that struggle. Those who in the face of light and truth destroy mental, moral, and physical health by indulgence will lose heaven.
Coming up in the first resurrection is the portion of the saved dead, and whether a person will rise then depends on being saved before death. The eternal interest of children is therefore a burden that calls for salvation in the home, that from the eldest to the youngest all may be saved and give praise, lest a child die without evidence of salvation and not come up in it. Those who die as sinners unreformed rise in the second resurrection after the thousand years, and then receive their place among the wicked as determined by their life. That is a resurrection in which unrepentant souls come up to be lost, left outside the city of God among dogs and sorcerers and adulterers and those who love and make a lie, a warning urging parents to help their children escape that fate while there is still time.
The rest of the dead are the wicked dead, who remain lifeless in the dust through the thousand years and do not live again until the thousand years are finished, so there are two literal resurrections separated by a thousand years. Those who did good rise first in the first resurrection when Jesus comes in glory, made immortal and incorruptible unto eternal life, and they are blessed and holy with the second death having no power over them as priests of God and of Christ reigning with Him a thousand years. During those thousand years the righteous rest in the holy city and reign with Christ, sitting with Him in judgment to review the records of the dead and mete out to each wicked person according to works. At the close of the thousand years Christ returns with the redeemed and calls the wicked forth in the second resurrection to damnation, bearing the marks of death and retaining their enmity with no further probation, to surround the city, be judged, and then be devoured by fire from God out of heaven until they cease to exist with no hope of another resurrection. Whether a person has part in the first resurrection is settled by character and choices in this life, requiring sins put away, Christ's righteousness received, and robes washed white in the blood of the Lamb.
Timing of Two Resurrections
The rest of the dead are the wicked dead, who remain dead in the dust throughout the thousand years and do not live again until the thousand years are finished. Their return to life is the second resurrection, when they appear before God for the execution of the judgment written against them. The final judgment cannot be executed upon them before they are raised, but at the end of the thousand years they are raised and gathered around the camp of the saints, when fire from God devours them.
There are two literal resurrections separated by one thousand years, the first resurrection before the thousand years and the resurrection of the rest of the dead after them. The dead rest in their graves until the resurrection, when the righteous rise in the first resurrection and the wicked in the second. During the thousand years God's people are together in the city of God, and afterward the city comes down to earth, which has been cleansed by fire.
Those who did good rise first to eternal life in the first resurrection, while those who did evil stay in their graves through the thousand years and rise afterward to damnation. The rising of dead believers takes place when Jesus comes in glory as King and Deliverer, before the rest of the dead. They are called from all parts of the earth, from rocky caverns, dungeons, caves and the waters of the deep, with triumph and victory, and the second death has no power over them, followed by no more death, sin or sorrow. Those who are not raised in the first resurrection remain in their graves until the thousand years are finished, and this distinction makes each person's part in the first resurrection a solemn matter.
The vision places these events after Christ's second advent, in connection with His coming and the close of the controversy between Christ and Satan. The saints are almost home to rest in the city a thousand years, and at the close of the thousand years the rest of the dead live again. The general judgment takes place at the end of the thousand years and is distinct from the partial resurrection of those raised after Christ's resurrection and led with Him through the gates of the city to the throne. At the voice of the Son of man every saint who sleeps in Jesus will awake and leave the prison house, while the rest of the dead remain until the thousand years are finished, when those who disowned Christ and betrayed Him in the person of His saints will see the result of their work.
The thousand years were still future and not already past, so the claim made around the Volney meeting that they had already occurred was an error.
Blessings of First Resurrection
Those who live and reign with Christ a thousand years in the first resurrection include those beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God, who did not worship the beast or his image and did not receive his mark on forehead or hand. Those with part in the first resurrection are blessed and holy, the second death has no power over them, and they are priests of God and of Christ reigning with Him a thousand years. Afterward there is no more death, sin, sorrow, crying, or pain, when innumerable voices sing that the tabernacle of God is with men and He will dwell with them as their God and wipe away all tears because the former things have passed away.
The righteous dead remain asleep until they awake in the first resurrection, when they are made immortal. For the faithful, death is not a dark uncertainty, for their hope of eternal life is centered in Jesus and they will meet one another again when the righteous dead rise. The faithful dead come up changed from mortal and corruptible to immortal and incorruptible, and are welcomed by Jesus into the homes He has prepared for them.
Christ's sleeping saints are raised at the triumphant last trumpet through the power of Christ's Spirit who dwelt in them, because they shared in the divine nature. Their mortal bodies are raised incorruptible, glorious, powerful, and spiritual, and Christ calls them His purchased possession, kept safe and known by name until that hour. The first resurrection is the resurrection to life of the righteous dead when Christ comes in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, when at the trump of God the graves are opened and the righteous dead come forth, because Christ loves the world and gave His life for it. Christ is the Alpha and Omega, the Genesis of the Old Testament and the Revelation of the New, who by His obedience in overcoming Satan's temptations reconciled Adam and God and redeemed Adam's disgraceful failure and fall, so the two Adams meet in Paradise and embrace each other, while the dragon, the beast, the false prophet, and all who refused the opportunities and privileges given at infinite cost and did not return to loyalty are shut out of Paradise.
The first resurrection belongs to the righteous and to Christ's believing people who have made their calling and election sure. The wicked have no part in it at the resurrection morn. Therefore the sinner closes his eyes in death with fearful uncertainty about the future, with no pleasing sense of God's approbation and no cheering hope or pleasure in looking forward to being raised.
State of Wicked Dead
The rest of the dead remain mouldered to dust with no conscious life in heaven between the resurrections, and do not live again until the thousand years are finished when they are called forth in the second resurrection to receive their reward and suffer the second death. The wicked, including Thomas Paine, are still in the dust and are not already exalted in heaven nor living as conscious spirits teaching the living, but rise only then for punishment.
At the second resurrection all come up as they went down into their graves, in the same weak, sickly bodies in which they died, bearing the traces of disease and death with the visible marks of the curse upon them. This waking is distinct from the first resurrection, in which all come forth in immortal bloom, for those raised then are clothed with immortal youth and beauty as immortal and incorruptible, unlike the wicked who rise to receive their doom. The resurrected wicked see Jesus in kingly glory and recognize Him as the one they mocked and crucified.
They rise retaining their enmity and rebellion against Christ, coming forth with their former ambitions, thoughts, desires, and purposes, with the same enmity to Christ and the same spirit of rebellion as when they went into their graves, and they receive no further probation after rising. Satan deceives them into gathering for an attack on the holy city, gathering them into an army for that purpose. At this second waking they come forth a mighty host numberless as the sands of the sea, including the giant-like well-proportioned race before the flood and the continually decreasing dwarfed feeble deformed race down to the last generation, with kings, warriors, statesmen, and nobles down to the most degraded together. As soon as they behold Jesus in stern majesty and resplendent glory they know He is the crucified one who died to save them whom they despised and rejected, and overwhelmed with His glory and affrighted they seek to hide and are compelled by the force of truth to exclaim in anguish, Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord, not from love to Jesus but words urged from unwilling lips.
Balaam will be among the wicked dead who rise in the second resurrection after the thousand years to face final doom, seeing the redeemed in the city of God but shut out with the wicked. The ignorant slave who died knowing nothing of God or the Bible cannot be taken to heaven in that condition but is left as though he had never lived, as though he had not been, with his sins visited upon his master. The guilty slave-master who kept slaves in ignorance and degradation must first endure the seven last plagues and then come up in the second resurrection to suffer the second, most awful death, and by that punishment the justice of God is satisfied.
Judgment During Thousand Years
The thousand years lie between the first resurrection and the raising of the rest of the dead at its close, and they are the time when the saints in unison with Jesus mete out to the wicked what they shall receive, which the rest of the dead are then raised to receive when the thousand years are finished. During that time the righteous rest in the holy city and reign as kings and priests with Christ, sitting with Jesus in judgment. There they review the records of the dead and the wicked dead, comparing their lives with the Bible and deciding each case, determining the sentence and punishment each wicked person will receive according to deeds, before the wicked are raised for the execution of that judgment.
The sentence is measured according to works and is recorded in the book of death, and Satan and the evil angels are judged as well. The wicked dead remain dead throughout the thousand years and are raised when it ends, as Jesus descends with the saints and holy angels from the Holy City after the saints have taken part in judgment; then the wicked see Jesus in glory and recognize the wounds from His crucifixion, and even those who pierced Him see Him in glory, before they receive the execution of that judgment.
Events After Thousand Years
At the close of the thousand years Christ again returns to the earth in sublimest majesty, accompanied by the host of the redeemed and attended by a retinue of angels, and bids the wicked dead arise from their long sleep to receive their doom. He descends in brightness like lightning and in fearful majesty upon the Mount of Olives, which parts asunder and becomes a mighty plain for the paradise of God to rest upon. Jesus leaves the city and it descends from heaven to the plain He has prepared, and the wicked dead are then raised at the second resurrection after their judgment is finished.
Their resurrection takes place as Jesus and the saints descend from the Holy City, and the wicked then see Jesus in kingly glory and recognize the wounds from His crucifixion. They come forth a mighty host numberless as the sands of the sea and gather around the Holy City and the camp of the saints. As they behold the glory of the Son of God they exclaim with one voice, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord, not from love but words urged from unwilling lips by the force of truth.
Their resurrection gives Satan, bound during the thousand years, a vast multitude to rally for his final attempt to overthrow God's city. They come forth with their former ambitions and thoughts and remain his followers, resuming their former thoughts and desires. He deceives them into gathering for an attack to seize the Holy City. This resurrection precedes their final destruction and the final triumph and reign of Christ on earth.
Those who lose their lives for the truth will rise and receive everlasting life in the city of God, while their persecutors will remain outside the city and, seeing the faithful honored by Jesus, will regret having persecuted them. Fire breathed from God out of heaven then devours the wicked and consumes them root and branch, with Satan as the root and his children as the branches, so Satan and those who followed him perish together. They cease to exist, and their death is everlasting, with no hope of another resurrection.
The same fire that destroys the wicked purifies the whole earth, melting the broken ragged mountains with fervent heat and the atmosphere also and consuming all the stubble. The earth is not cleansed until the wicked are destroyed, and only then is it cleansed and made new. It becomes the saints' inheritance, made new, glorious and beautiful, which the wicked never desecrate and whose feet do not defile the earth made new. No sinner became immortal by eating from the tree of life, because Adam's family was barred from it.
The new heaven and new earth appear after this final destruction. After that resurrection come the final destruction of Satan and the wicked, and Christ's final triumph and reign on earth. After the thousand years, events on earth bring the enemy of God down and purify the earth, so the city and its inhabitants will never be corrupted. After the wicked are raised, the saints join Jesus in the final judgment, and after their judgment is finished the wicked receive the sentence rendered with Jesus and the saints, and fire from God consumes them.
False Views of Millennium
The verse does not teach a temporal millennium on earth before Christ returns in glory, in which the earth would be filled with the knowledge of the Lord. That expectation was held before the announcement of Christ's soon coming, and was pressed by a presiding elder against the hope of His soon return. Against it stood the longing of Robert and Ellen for Christ's soon coming, rejecting the idea that His return would be delayed for thousands of years. The Scriptures instead show Christ returning to earth in glory, not after such an earthly millennium before the end of the world.
Nor does the verse teach a thousand years of spiritual peace and prosperity in which the world is converted before Christ comes. It does not mean that wickedness will steadily disappear as the end approaches. That doctrine is a dangerous deception. Scripture instead warns that evil and deception will increase before Christ comes.
The thousand years are not a period in which to carry out the work of warning the world. They are not a temporal millennium to which that work may be postponed. The time for that work is now, before God's dealings with sinful people suddenly change.
Preparing for First Resurrection
The difference between rising with the just in the first resurrection and waking later with the rest of the dead after the thousand years is the difference between two destinies, and it makes seeking a sure hope of rising with the just urgent. The faithful dead will rise with the saints in that first resurrection, and the unconscious time in the grave will seem only a moment, as though they had gone straight to heaven. That hope gives assurance of an inheritance in the life to come, and preparation for that life belongs in the days of health, not merely at the deathbed.
That first resurrection is the resurrection to life of the righteous dead when Christ comes in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, when at the trump of God the graves are opened and they come forth because Christ loved the world and gave His life for it. Having part in it requires present readiness, standing prepared as minute men and women, so that if life is cut off in a moment by accident or calamity there is preparedness for the life to come. That readiness means sins put away and the righteousness of Christ received.
A person's character and choices in this life determine whether there is a part in the first resurrection. Those who cling to sin and reject the Spirit of God will not rise in it and will not see the King in His beauty. If probation closes before a person has overcome and become Christlike, that person will not share in it.
Only those who have developed characters fit for it will rise among the redeemed, those who have appreciated the great privilege of washing their robes and making them white in the blood of the Lamb, while Satan watches his chance to destroy souls who have not developed such fit characters. Having part in it requires widening the separation from the world, with refined and choice conversation and godly company. Narrowing that separation until it is obliterated, living in spiritual decline with loose, reckless talk and worldly company, leaves a person with no part in that blessing if life were cut off now.
The first resurrection is for those who walk in the light God gives them, are blessed in that light, and die faithful in that light. Even amid widespread corruption they can walk with God as Enoch did, reflect His light to others, form a righteous character, and escape the corruption in the world through lust, to be raised when that resurrection comes. Others faithful at the second coming will be translated without seeing death.
To be saved is to have part in the first resurrection and reign with Christ in glory, and fitting for that reign requires being led by God and taught His will and present truth and what must be in order to be saved. Those just brought to God and His truth who innocently feel a false power through inexperience are not charged with sin for it. If humble they will be led along and taught until fitted to be saved and reign with Christ.
The first resurrection is the overcomer's reward for victory over appetite through the name of Christ, with a seat with Him upon His throne for those who overcome as He overcame. If slaves to appetite die in the struggle to free themselves from its controlling power, they die in a good cause, and even victory gained at the cost of human life is not too dearly earned if the victor comes up in it, for then everything is gained. Those who make determined efforts in Christ's name to overcome unnatural cravings, however, will not die in that struggle. Those who in the face of light and truth destroy mental, moral, and physical health by indulgence will lose heaven.
Coming up in the first resurrection is the portion of the saved dead, and whether a person will rise then depends on being saved before death. The eternal interest of children is therefore a burden that calls for salvation in the home, that from the eldest to the youngest all may be saved and give praise, lest a child die without evidence of salvation and not come up in it. Those who die as sinners unreformed rise in the second resurrection after the thousand years, and then receive their place among the wicked as determined by their life. That is a resurrection in which unrepentant souls come up to be lost, left outside the city of God among dogs and sorcerers and adulterers and those who love and make a lie, a warning urging parents to help their children escape that fate while there is still time.