nations and kingdoms that would not serve her, have perished; yea, those nations have been utterly wasted.” (Is. xlix. 23; lx. 12.)—­The souls which the apostle saw under the altar, whose cry for vengeance he heard, and who were directed to rest for a little season, till the roll of their martyred brethren should be completed, are here presented in quite a new position, “sitting on thrones,” (ch. vi. 9.) Although they are not the same identical persons physically, they are the same morally; for the life of the two witnesses is commensurate with the reign of Antichrist,—­twelve hundred and sixty years.  These “lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years; that is, in their successive generations:  for otherwise they would over-live the age of Methuselah!—­Souls are here evidently persons, and not souls as distinct from bodies, as some needlessly argue against Millenarians:  for “foreheads” and “hands” are attributed to them:  but foreheads cannot be literally ascribed to those who had been “beheaded.”  Their living is to be understood of their succeeding to the same scriptural position occupied by their predecessors, as well as succeeding them in the order of natural generation.  The Holy Spirit says, “Levi, who receiveth tithes, paid tithes in Abraham.” (Heb. vii. 9, 10.) Elijah reappeared in the person of John the Baptist. (Matt. xi. 14.) Jezebel and Balaam were recognised in their wicked successors, (ch. ii. 14, 20.) But this is the very structure of the Apocalypse, being composed of hieroglyphics, that the free agency of the wicked might be left untrammelled, and the diligence of God’s people might be tested in “searching the Scriptures.”

5.  But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.  This is the first resurrection.

V. 5.—­“The rest of the dead” supposes two classes of the dead.  These are the witnesses, who died a violent and cruel death, and the wicked, who died a natural death,—­there “were no bands in their death.”  As there are two kinds of death, so are there two kinds of resurrection,—­a first and second of each.  Those who had been “beheaded for the witness of Jesus,” etc., lived in their successors,—­sat on thrones, reigned with Christ a thousand years.  Of course those who were slain by Christ and his army at the battle of Armageddon, and whose flesh was given to the fowls of heaven, “lived not again” in their successors, “until the thousand years were finished.”  Consequently, “this is the first resurrection,” with which the true disciples of Christ shall be honoured.  They must, however, die as all others, and await the second resurrection:  but “on them the second death shall have no power.”

6.  Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.