Checkpoint wrote:
onewithhim wrote:
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Replying to post 55 by Checkpoint]
The meaning of verse 5 focuses on the rest of the dead (other than the co-rulers with Christ) "coming to life" when the thousand years were ended. What does "coming to
life" actually mean? Does it mean that the dead are resurrected AFTER the thousand years? Or does it mean that these dead have passed the test, if you will, of accepting the truth about God and Christ during the Millennial Reign, and then living according to the "new scrolls" that were opened when Armageddon was over (Rev.20:12), then making themselves
eligible for everlasting life? The fact that these formerly dead people have now proven their faithfulness to God and Christ makes them approved to live forever---thus "coming to life".....the real life, the life that will never end.
This makes the most sense to me, and it's not just because someone said that is what verse 5 means.
Thank you for further explaining what makes the most sense to you, onewithhim.
However, that explanation is only possible when what the verse says is directly contradicted.
The verse says "the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were over", doesn't it?
What did you say?
"that these dead have passed the test...during the Millennial Reign", didn't you?
They cannot do that while they remain dead until that reign is over.
Why on earth do I have to spell that out to you?
Where are you, onewithhim?
Grace and peace.
The verse says that the rest of the dead (other than the ones who participated in the first resurrection, who will rule with Christ) "
did not come to life" until the thousand years were completed (NASB ). The issue is:
What does it mean, that they "did not come to life"? Why does it have to mean "they weren't resurrected" until the thousand years were over"? Why can't it mean that they weren't eligible to LIVE FOREVER (really "coming to life") until the end of the thousand years?
"Life" here means
the real life---that is, ETERNAL life, not merely life given back to the dead. The rest of the dead truly were able to come to the REAL life---eternal life.
Paul even said that this life---just breathing---is not the real life.
"Instruct them to be good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the
future, so that they may take hold of that which is LIFE INDEED." (NASB)
(the life that is TRUE life) (NAB)
(the life that is TRULY LIFE) (NIV)
Is that not enough to show you that "life" to a Christian who is looking to live forever is just that---
ETERNAL life? That unending life is the REAL life?
I think that is what Revelation 20:5 is speaking of, and I have not added anything to, or contradicted, the verse as it stands.
