The Revelation of Jesus Christ - The Herald

2. Daniel "beheld . . . the judgment seat."--Dan. 7:10.
St. John "saw . . . they sat on them."--Rev. 20:4.
3. Daniel says," judgment was given to the saints."--Dan. 7:22.
St. John says, "judgment was given to them."--Rev. 20:4.
4. Daniel beheld "the time came that the saints possessed the Kingdom." --Dan. 7:22.
St. John saw that "they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." --Rev. 20:4.
Referring to this text as describing the judgment power to be given to the saints, a noted
writer has thus both truthfully and eloquently expressed:
"Once it was the fate of believers to be judged by the ungodly world-powers. Jesus told
His followers that they should be brought before councils, governors, and kings, and that a
time would come when men would think it a holy thing to adjudge them worthy of
stripes, imprisonments, and death. So Paul stood before the courts of earth, saying, 'I stand
and am judged.' But man's day has a limit, and then comes another order, when as Mary
sung, God 'shall put down the mighty from their seats,' and 'exalt them of low degree'-when
the Pauls shall be the royal judges and the Felixes and Festuses and Agrippas and
Caesars then in place, shall be obliged to accept the sentences of heavenly justice from
God's immortal potentates, who once stood helpless at earth's tribunals; for so it is written,
'the saints shall judge the world' (1 Cor. 6:2), and 'shall take the Kingdom and possess the
Kingdom forever, even forever and ever' (Dan. 7:18); and Christ the victorious All-Ruler,
according to His promise, will 'give them authority over the nations to shepherdize them
with a rod of iron' (Rev. 2:26,27), invincibly and effectually."
As St. John no doubt recognized these enthroned ones as identical with those he had seen
in other visions enduring suffering and bearing testimony for Christ under most trying
and difficult circumstances and conditions--in many instances even to the extent of laying
down their lives, would he not be most forcibly reminded of the words of St. Paul, "If we
suffer with Him, we shall also reign With Him" (2 Tim. 2:12); "and I reckon that the
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be
revealed in us"!--Rom. 8:18.
It should be kept in mind when considering the various evils and evil systems that these
enthroned ones have had to combat and become victors over, namely the beast and his
image and mark, that not only are these to be understood as symbols, as we have hitherto
shown, but that the beheading for the testimony of Jesus and the Word of God is likewise
a symbol; in other words, the beheading is a symbolic beheading. It is quite true that in the
earlier centuries some of God's saints were literally beheaded, because in those times that
was a way by which capital punishment was inflicted, but some suffered death in many
other ways. It would be giving special honor to the particular manner by which the Lord's
people died for the Truth's sake to understand these words literally. One has written quite
extensively on this expression, interpreting it symbolically: