Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

20:4
been the attempt to grab the robe of political power
before it has been bestowed.
This whole issue has been thoughtfully explored in an
excellent essay by James Jordan, and the best service I
can provide the interested reader at this point is simply
to refer him to it. 25 Jordan concludes his study with
these words: “When we are ready, God will give the
robe to us. That He has not done so proves that we are
not ready. Asserting our readiness will not fool Him.
Let us pray that He does not crush us by giving us such
authority before we are ready for it. Let us plan for our
great-grandchildren to be ready for it. Let us go about
our business, acquiring wisdom in family, church, state,
and business, and avoiding confrontations with the
powers that be . . . . For as sure as Christ is risen from
the grave and is ascended to regal glory on high, so sure
it is that His saints will inherit the kingdom and rule in
His name, when the time is right.” 26 When the time is
right.
St. John tells us that, in addition to the enthroned
elders, he saw those whom the elders represent: First,
the souls of those who had been beheaded because of
the Testimony of Jesus and because of the Word of
God. This expression is almost identical to his
description of the martyrs underneath the altar:
I saw . . . the souls of those who had been slain because
of the Word of God, and because of the Testimony they had
maintained. (6:9)
There is a significant difference, however: the use of the
word beheaded. While most commentators are surely
correct in seeing this as a general reference to all the
martyrs for the Faith (by whatever means they were
slain), we should attempt to do justice to St. John’s
choice of this particular term. The Greek verb
(pelekizo – ) is not used anywhere else in the Bible, but the
act of beheading is mentioned, under a synonym
(apokephalizo – ), in Matthew 14:10, Mark 6:16,27, and
Luke 9:9. The subject of the beheading, of course, was
John the Baptizer, the last of the Old Covenant
prophets and the Forerunner of Jesus Christ. As the
latter-day Elijah (Mal. 4:5; Matt. 11:14; 17:10-13; Luke
1:17), he summed up the message of all the preceding
witnesses: “For all the prophets and the Law prophesied
until John” (Matt. 11:13). It seems likely, therefore,
that St. John is here drawing our attention to the fact
that the Old Covenant witnesses, symbolized by John
the Forerunner, are to be counted among the faithful
martyrs who “live and reign with Christ.”
A question immediately arises: Did the Old Covenant
faithful really bear the Testimony of Jesus? It is striking
that St. John uncharacteristically emphasizes the name
of Jesus, as if to highlight the specifically Christian
standing of these “beheaded” witnesses. And the New
Testament rings clear that, like John, all the Old
Covenant witnesses were Forerunners of Jesus Christ,
testifying of Him:
And He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart
to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not
necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter
into His glory?” And beginning with Moses and from all the
prophets, He explained to them the things concerning
Himself in all the Scriptures. (Luke 24:25-27)
Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the
one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your
hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he
wrote of Me. (John 5:45-46)
Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His
name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of
sins. (Acts 10:43)
Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called as an apostle,
set apart for the Gospel of God, which He promised
beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures
concerning His Son . . . . (Rom. 1:1-3)
But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has
been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the
Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in
Jesus Christ to all and on all those who believe. (Rom. 3:21-
22)
The ranks of those who reign with Christ are also filled
by the New Covenant faithful, the overcomers of St.
John’s day who also bore the Testimony of Jesus: those
who had not worshiped the Beast or his image, and
had not received the mark upon their forehead and
upon their hand (cf. 1:2, 9; 2:13; 12:9-11, 17; 15:2;
19:10). All these lived and reigned with Christ for a
thousand years. Man’s life has always fallen short of a
thousand years: Adam lived 930 years (Gen. 5:5), and
Methuselah, whose life was the longest recorded in the
Bible, lived only 969 years before he died in the Great
Flood (Gen. 5:27). 27 If his heirs had been faithful,
David’s kingdom should have endured “forever” –
meaning that it should have lasted a thousand years,
until the Coming of Christ (2 Sam. 7:8-29; 1 Chron.
17:7-27; 2 Chron. 13:5; 21:7; Ps. 89:19-37; Isa. 9:7;
16:5; Jer. 30:9; Ezek. 34:23-24; Hos. 3:5; Luke 1:32-33);
but, again, man fell short. No one was able to bring in
“the Millennium” – the Thousand-Year Kingdom –
until the Son of God appeared as the Son of Man (the
Second Adam) and Son of David. He obtained the
Kingdom for all His people.
Does this reign of the saints take place in heaven or on
25. James B. Jordan, “Rebellion, Tyranny, and Dominion in the Book of
Genesis,” in Gary North, ed., Tactics of Christian Resistance, Christianity and
Civilization No. 3 (Tyler, TX: Geneva Ministries, 1983), pp. 38-80.
26. Ibid., p. 74. In this connection, Jordan’s remarks on the so-called “patriotic”
tax-resistance movement are also worth repeating: “We must keep in mind
that the pagan is primarily interested in power. This means that the
maintenance of force (the draft) and the seizure of money (excessive
taxation) are of absolute primary interest to him. If we think these are the
most important things, then we will make them the point of resistance
(becoming ‘tax patriots’ or some such thing). To think this way is to think
like pagans. For the Christian, the primary things are righteousness (priestly
guarding) and diligent work (kingly dominion). Generally speaking, the
pagans don’t care how righteous we are, or how hard we work, so long as they
get their tax money. This is why the Bible everywhere teaches to go along
with oppressive taxation, and nowhere hints at the propriety of tax
resistance” (p. 79).
27. Based on a strict chronology, this seems to be a reasonable conclusion, since
Methuselah died in the Flood year (Methuselah was 187 when his son
Laxnech was born, 369 when his grandson Noah was born, and hence 969
when the Flood came; see Gen. 5:25, 28; 7:6). More than a century before
the Flood, God declared the entire human race (except for Noah) to be
worthy of destruction (Gen. 6:1-8; 7:1); there is no apparent reason to
exclude Methuselah from this sweeping condemnation.
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