The Revelation of Jesus Christ - The Herald

"All constituting the Kingdom class are here referred to as beheaded--every member of the
glorified Church must, eventually, have this experience, whatever it signifies. But we
reflect that our Lord was not beheaded and, so far as history shows, few, if any, of the
Apostles were literally beheaded; indeed, very few, if any, of the Lord's saints, from
Pentecost to the present time, have died by decapitation. We are to remember, however,
that this statement is from the symbolical book, and is therefore a figure of speech, a wordpicture,
and its meaning must be sought for accordingly.
"The Apostle gives us the key, saying, 'The head of every man is Christ; the head of the
woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.' (1 Cor. 11:3.) As a woman who becomes
a wife accepts her husband as the head of the family, so the Church accepts Christ as its
head, and each member of the Church thus comes into relationship with the Lord as a
member of His Body--not the Head: and all of these, to be acceptable as members of the
figurative Body of Christ, must be will-less, headless; their own wills must be surrendered,
so that, like their Lord, they can say, 'Not my will, but Thine, be done.' They must be
headless in the sense of ignoring their own wills, being dead to self and actuated
henceforth by the will of the Head of the Body, Christ Jesus. . . . It is this self-surrender to
Christ on the part of His Church that is represented in the symbolism of the text before
us."
The symbolic significance of the beast, the image, and the mark, etc., have been previously
explained. Considering all that is represented in these various symbols, it will be seen that
all the overcoming class of the entire Gospel Age are represented in this symbolism which
portrays those who will be privileged to reign with Christ the thousand years.
A thousand years earth's coming glory
It is said by some (Adventists chiefly) that this vision of St. John is the only place in the
Scriptures where a period of a thousand years is mentioned. These are not able to make it
harmonize with their narrow, erroneous theories of God's great Plan of Salvation. While it
is true that the exact words that Christ and the saints are to reign a thousand years is not
found anywhere else in the Scriptures, yet it is true that the Scriptures explicitly speak of
the Judgment Day, which is the same period as that of the reign of Christ and the saints.
And St. Peter tells us that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand
years as one day, thus clearly identifying the Divine standpoint of counting time. It is also
true that all the peculiar and striking conditions that of necessity would prevail in
connection with man's life here on the earth if Satan and evil were restrained and Christ
were ministering in the affairs of earth's peoples, are portrayed in the Old Testament
prophecies as well as in many New Testament statements. All these prophecies associate
these grand and glorious scenes with the reign of Jehovah over the earth in the person of
His Son. Indeed, this period of a thousand years, when Satan's power is restrained, and
Christ and the saints are represented as reigning over the nations, is the chief theme of all
God's Prophets of old.