The Revelation of Jesus Christ - The Herald

faith of Jesus,' yet many such times of trial had been before--I cannot but add that the
intimation seems to imply a settlement of the great Pre-millennial question. For how could
the saints' blessedness and reward be viewed as imminent, if a millennium of the spiritual
evangelization of the world were expected to precede it?"
Mr. Lord, in his comment on these words, although brief, seems to us to approach nearer
to the true interpretation:
"To die in the Lord, is to die for His sake as a witness to His truth. . . . That their works are
to follow with them, denotes, doubtless, that they are immediately to be raised from death,
and as kings and priests in Christ's Kingdom on earth, to resume their work towards the
nations and exert an important instrumentality in converting them to the homage of God."
Another commentator comes even closer, we believe, to the true interpretation. His
writing is later than those already quoted:
"Faith too is sustained in another way, namely by the special consolation as to those who
die as martyrs at this time: 'And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Blessed are
the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth.' That is clearly encouragement under peculiar
circumstances. All who die in the Lord must be blessed at any time; but that only makes it
plainer that the circumstances must be exceptional now which require such comfort to be
so expressly provided for them. Something must have produced a question as to the
blessedness of those that die at this time; and in this we have an incidental confirmation-stronger
because incidental--that the resurrection of the saints has already taken place.
Were they still waiting to be raised, the blessedness of those who as martyrs join their
company could scarcely be in doubt. The resurrection having taken place, and the hope of
believers being now to enter alive into the Kingdom of the Son of Man at His appearing, as the Lord says of that time,
'He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved' (Matt. 24:13), the question is
necessarily raised. What shall be the portion of these martyrs, then, must not remain a
question; and in the tenderness of Divine love the answer is explicitly given. Specially
blessed are those who die from henceforth: they rest from their labors; they go to their
reward. The Spirit seals this with a sweet confirming 'yea'--so it is. Earth has only cast
them out that heaven may receive them; they have suffered, therefore they shall reign with
Christ. Thus accordingly we find in the twentieth chapter, that when the thrones are set
and filled, those that have suffered under the beast [and we would add, the image of the
beast also] are shown as rising from the dead to reign with the rest of those who reign with
Him. Not the martyrs in general, but these of this special time are marked distinctly as
finding acknowledgment and blessing in that 'first resurrection,' from which it might have
seemed that they were shut out altogether.
"It may help some to see how similar was the difficulty that had to be met for the
Thessalonian saints, and which the Apostle meets also with a special 'word of the Lord,' in
his first epistle. They too were looking for the Lord, so that the language of their hearts
was (with that of the Apostle), 'We who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord.'