Chapter 20

The chapter we are about to study is the last millennium in history. The outline has four paragraphs.

1. The incarceration of Satan — verses 1-3.

2. The first resurrection — verses 4-6.

3. The last revolution — verses 7-10.

4. The last judgment — verses 11-15.

This is a chapter of judgment. There are two general categories of divine judgment: direct and indirect. Indirect judgment are the divine judgments of history where God is not seen and God is not present. Direct judgments can be classified as those judgments when God is on the scene. That means that the indirect judgments are the ones we have been studying: the divine judgments related to time, to human history, to the function of the grace of God. So indirect judgments are judgments by pain, by death, and finesse judgments. Direct judgments are divine judgments related to the presence of Christ on earth, like the second advent or the end of the Millennium. The judgment of the armies of the last world war which we have just noted in chapter 19 would be classified as a direct judgment. Jesus Christ personally annihilated these armies that led to the banquet of the vultures. Right now in human history we are under indirect judgments, illustrated by judgment by pain, the function of God’s grace in crisis evangelism fulfilling the principle of grace before judgment; illustrated by the bowl judgments, especially the judgment of Revelation 16:10 where judgment by pain is mentioned specifically. The two categories of normal evangelism take cognisance of this judgment. First of all there is normal evangelism which is the function of evangelism under more or less objective circumstances, and secondly there is crisis evangelism which is the presentation of the gospel in times of individual or collective catastrophe in history. Under normal evangelism the unbeliever has the opportunity of objectively considering the issues of Christ and eternal salvation. Normal evangelism is conducted in many ways, generally through witnessing, the gospel message in print or broadcasted through some form of technology, some form of function by an evangelist. When the unbeliever rejects Christ as saviour he goes into the cosmic system again and now becomes subjective, and for evangelism to occur it must include judgment by pain. This is what we call indirect judgment. God is not here personally, He uses the events of history. That is true of the second category of indirect judgment which is judgment by death, the function of God’s grace in the perpetuation of the human race from generation to generation through human history. God has promised that the human race will never be totally destroyed on planet earth until the end of history, and in order to do this the computer of divine decrees occasionally gives a readout of maximum degeneracy and sin which would destroy the human race. Therefore the cancer is removed by judgment by death. The third category, the one which we have noted in some detail, is judgment by finesse in which an evil agent is used to destroy something representing God that has become evil — generally the destruction of a client nation, sometimes a group of believers, it varies from time to time and from place to place. God uses envy and power lust plus evil’s hatred of hypocrisy in another to destroy an evil system. Finesse dramatises the fact that man is simply a product of his own volition when he becomes involved in the cosmic system and its resultant evils. In other words, God uses the wrath of man to, praise Him, as per Psalm 76:10. Therefore Jesus Christ in controlling history uses a great deal of finesse judgment. These are indirect divine judgments.

We are now coming down to direct judgments in the last part of the book of Revelation.

We might say that the judgment at the cross was a direct judgment in that Jesus Christ was present on earth. He was being judged, however. God the Father took the printout of all the sins of human history right out of divine decrees and imputed them all to Christ when He was hanging on the cross and all human sin was judged at the cross. The self-judgment of the believer does not come into this category at all, but after the Rapture and the judgment seat of Christ the Lord Jesus Christ is there to judge personally. That would be categorised as a direct judgment. But beginning with the second advent when Christ is personally on earth the baptism of fire is a judgment by God the Son, the removal of Satan as the ruler of this world and his incarceration for a thousand years is a judgment by God the Son. Therefore these are called direct judgments. The judgment of fallen angels at the end of history is a direct judgment by God the Son. Finally, the lake of fire is a direct judgment by God the Son. The eternal judgments fall under the category of direct judgment.

One other thing we need to understand in a little detail is to review the concept of dispensations since one of the great dispensational issues is found in this particular passage and the recognition of dispensational activity becomes very important.

Ephesians 3:1-5 gives us our mandate for recognition as a part of the introduction to Revelation chapter 20. In verse 1 the apostle Paul says, “For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles —

Verse 2, “if you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God [and you have, 1st class condition] which was given to me for your benefit;

Verse 3, “that by revelation [divine disclosure] the mystery [the historical trends of the Church Age] was revealed to me, just as I have previously written in brief.”

Verse 4, “Face to face with which doctrine of the mystery when you exegete [that is, the pastors] you want to be able to understand my categorical insight into the mystery of Christ [Christ and His royal family],

Verse 5, “which in other dispensations was not revealed to man of other generations, so that now it has been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by means of the Holy Spirit.”

A similar passage is found in Colossians 1:25-29. We begin with a relative pronoun, “Of which,” referring to the Church. “Of which dispensation I have become a minister according to this dispensation from God which has been given to me for your benefit, that I might implement your deficiency of Bible doctrine,” it is always true that people who do not understand dispensations, especially in this Church Age, have a deficiency of Bible doctrine. That deficiency is a handicap that is very difficult to overcome. In fact many portions of the Word of God are closed unless you have some knowledge of dispensations, “that is, the mystery that has been hidden from past ages and other generations; but has now been revealed to his saints [believers of the royal family], to whom God has decreed to make known what is the prosperity [or the riches] of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you [the Shekinah glory], the hope [or confidence] of glory. Which we solemnly proclaim, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we might present every one mature in Christ [at the judgment seat of Christ]. For this purpose I labour to the point of exhaustion, competing according to his game plan [the protocol system], which is effective in me in the divine dynasphere.”

The first dispensation of history was the era of positive volition. It begins at the creation of man and terminates with his fall. It is the era of the Garden of Eden, it is mankind in perfect environment with only one volitional test: he was forbidden to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The dispensation terminates with the fall of man.

The second dispensation is the era of negative volition from the fall of man to the tower of Babel. It is the dispensation of internationalism which dramatises the function of man’s old sin nature, not only in relationship to man but in relationship to fallen angels as well. Internationalism is a total failure and this was demonstrated in the second dispensation. In the dispensation of internationalism or the era of negative volition there was one language, one race, one skin tone, and this did not solve any of man’s problems. None of them were solved in the environment of internationalism. However, man continues to cling to this thread that some form of internationalism will solve his problems. The tower of Babel was a Satanic attack against nationalism in anticipation of the next dispensation. That is the story of Genesis 11:1-9.

The third dispensation is the era of divine establishment and nationalism. It goes from the tower of Babel, which is around 5000 BC, to the establishment of the first client nation in BC 1441. There is some overlap with the next historical era but the key is to distinguish between the Jews and Gentiles at this point. There are three basic races with many subdivisions, many languages, forcing people to divide into tribes and nations. So we have the era of divine establishment as the third dispensation.

The fourth dispensation is the era of the first client nation and/or the dispensation of Israel. In that, of course, the overlap comes and the formation of the Jewish race. Abraham is the father of the Jewish race. For the first 99 years of his life Abraham was a Gentile. He became a Jew in his 99th year; circumcision was the sign. Abraham is the father, then, of the Jewish race and the period of the patriarchs runs roughly from BC 2161 to BC 1441, but the actual dispensation of Israel is the function of the Jewish client nation and Moses is the father of the Jewish nation. So the dispensation of Israel runs from BC 1441 to AD 70. There is an overlap there with the Church Age. The laws of divine establishment were declared in the Mosaic law. The Mosaic law is divided into three parts: Codex #1 was a freedom code, simply a statement of human freedom in ten mandates; Codex #2 is a complete Christology and soteriology; Codex #3 is a detailed development of establishment principles and everything necessary for the correct function of nationalism, including economy, military establishment, law enforcement, jurisprudence and even dietary laws. Israel as the first client nation was responsible as the custodian of the Word of God as it existed, and was responsible for evangelism both at home and among the heathen nations. Thirdly she was responsible for spiritual growth to perpetuate the client nation and for sending out missionaries. There were three administrations of the fifth cycle of discipline: BC 721, administered to the northern kingdom under finesse judgment by the Assyrians; BC 586, administered to the southern kingdom by the Chaldeans under same principle of finesse judgment; AD 70, administered to Judea by the Romans under the same concept. Nevertheless, in spite of the administration of the fifth cycle of discipline Israel has a future guaranteed by the unconditional covenants — the Abrahamic, Palestinian, Davidic and New covenants to Israel, all to be fulfilled at the second advent (That is the key to premillennialism). Any Jew today believing in Christ enters into the royal family of God. He is no longer a Jew just as any Gentile who believes in Christ is no longer a Gentile, he is royal family of God. The Jewish Age was stopped before it was completed, there are seven years to run. The insertion of the Church Age is for the calling out of the royal family of God. When the royal family is completed, only God knows when that is, then we have the resurrection of the royal family, and time begins again for the Age of Israel, the seven years of the Jewish Age sometimes called by Matthew the end of the [Jewish] Age. That is where we get the Tribulation.

But the dispensation of intercalation [Church Age] means that upon the strategic victory of Christ on the cross He was awarded His third royal patent. Therefore the mystery age, mystery meaning that the doctrine concerning the Church Age was not revealed in the past but is now revealed to us. It was prophesied by our Lord but there is no Church Age doctrine in the Old Testament. In His first royal patent Jesus Christ has a royal family. His title is Son of God; His royal family, the Father and the Holy Spirit. In His second royal patent He has a title, Son of David; His royal family is the Davidic dynasty. In His third royal patent, King of kings, Lord of lords, bright morning star. But He has no royal family, therefore the entrance of the Church Age. As a mystery age, then, the Church dispensation is the era of no prophecy: no prophecy in the Church Age, all historical trends are determined by volition with emphasis on the volition of believers, the formation of the pivot in the client nation. Historical trends of prosperity result from good decisions to live in God’s protocol system, the divine dynasphere, while historical trends of disaster are determined by bad decisions of believers to live in the cosmic system. The Church Age is the mystery dispensation, the dispensation of the great parenthesis. No Church Age doctrine is revealed in the Old Testament, there is no prophecy of or any reference to historical trends except the times of the Gentiles mentioned very briefly in Daniel 9:26ff.

The Church Age is divided categorically two ways: the pre canon period and the post canon. The pre canon period is the book of Acts, roughly from AD 30 to AD 96. It is the period where temporary gifts were used such as the gifts of apostleship, tongues, interpretation of tongues, healing, faith. All of these spiritual gifts were designed with a specific purpose; once the canon of scripture was completed they were removed; and so we have the post canon period of scripture, the period of the New Testament epistles, and it goes from 96 AD to the Rapture of the Church whenever that occurs. The overlap is the times of the Gentiles mentioned in Luke 21:24. It begins in AD 70 and goes to the Rapture of the Church. There are no client nations to God in the Tribulation. These categories help us to understand the difference between temporary gifts, also to understand some of the phenomena that existed prior to the completion of the canon in the place of Bible doctrine, now that the canon of scripture is completed. We live in the most thrilling of times, we have everything in writing. We have no gift of healing, we have no legitimate gift of tongues, we have no spiritual gifts related to miracles, we have something far greater, Bible doctrine. The post canon period of the Church Age is the time of permanent gifts and the highest-ranking gift extant is the gift of pastor-teacher. Next come administrative gifts in the local church. The gift of evangelism is not to function in the local church at all, it is the highest gift outside of the local church.

The unique character of the Church Age is very important. First of all, the dispensation of the royal family of God has something that never occurred before and never will occur again after the Rapture. It is called the baptism of the Spirit, the basis for forming at salvation the royal family of God. God the Holy Spirit takes every believer and enters him into union with Christ. That is the doctrine of positional truth. It is absolutely unique. Never before the Church Age began and never after the Rapture will the baptism of the Spirit occur. It is for this dispensation only and it is not an experience, it is something that God the Holy Spirit does instantaneously. We do not feel it, we do not have any rosy glow because of it, it is one of 40 things that occurs simultaneously at salvation. Secondly, this is the only dispensation in which there is no prophecy and no sacred buildings. The third unique characteristic is the universal priesthood of the believer with privacy to live his life as unto God. A priest represents mankind to God, and since every believer is a priest every believer represents himself before God. The fourth unique characteristic is the royal ambassadorship of the believer with a special challenge to one’s life directed toward man and circumstances. Application of doctrine comes from the function of the royal ambassadorship. The fifth characteristic: the only dispensation which provides the divine dynasphere is the Church Age. This is the dispensation of protocol and God’s protocol system is fully developed for this dispensation only. This is the only dispensation in which there will ever be a divine dynasphere. The sixth characteristic is the completed canon of scripture. All divine revelation and all doctrine is reduced to writing and is contained in the canon. Therefore, there is no doctrine taught through dreams, visions, trances, angels, or alleged voices from God. Number seven is the intensification of the angelic conflict which results from our Lord’s strategic victory of the cross. We live in the only dispensation that has the intensification of the angelic conflict without any angels being seen. This is the dispensation of doctrine, conflict in the soul, but the angelic conflict is intensified because the enemy is not seen and because those angels who help us, the guardian angels, are not seen. The eighth characteristic is that the Church Age is the only dispensation to have the indwelling of Christ and the first dispensation in which Jesus Christ controls history from His hypostatic union.

It should be pointed out that in every one of these dispensations salvation is always the same: personal faith in Jesus Christ. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” is just as pertinent in the dispensation of Israel as it is right now. “Abraham believed in the Lord and it was credited to his account for righteousness.” No one has ever been saved by keeping the law or by any other system of human works.

The sixth dispensation is the “doomsday era,” the Tribulation.

Number seven is the era of our Lord’s rulership of the world, the Millennium. This is the dispensation of one thousand years of perfect environment, beginning at the second advent and terminating with the Gog and Magog revolution. Salvation through faith in Christ and spirituality is related to the filling of the Spirit in that dispensation. The Millennium begins with believers only, those believers who survived the baptism of fire which is a direct judgment. There will be a tremendous population explosion because of perfect environment in the Millennium and unbelievers will be the children and the grandchildren of the original believing families. Perfect environment includes the incarceration of Satan, the removal of demons, and the abolition of religion — Revelation 20:1-3. Optimum spirituality will result from the filling of the Spirit, according to Isaiah 65:24; Joel 2:28,29. Israel will be restored as a client nation to God. All unconditional covenants to Israel will be fulfilled. Perfect environment will include no more war. It is a time of universal prosperity, perfect world government under Christ, and national rulership delegated to Church Age believers and Old Testament saints. There will be a universal knowledge of God, according to Isaiah 11:9, and longevity in the human race, Isaiah 65:20. The Millennium is also a time of perfect environment in nature, creation is released from the bondage of man’s sin, and plant life will abound. Animals will lose their ferocity, the child will be able to put his hand in the cobra’s den. The perfect environment of the Millennium will terminate with the Gog revolution. Satan is released from jail after serving his 1000 years of sentence and will stir up discontent among certain unbelievers, Revelation 20:1-7. In the meantime the lesson is obvious. Perfect environment or ideal environment is not the solution to man’s problems.

We begin chapter 20 with the incarceration of Satan. Satan’s jailer is mentioned in verse 1. We have a sequential kai, translated “The,” with the aorist active indicative of the verb o(raw which indicates another of the many visions of Revelation. The aorist tense is a constative aorist contemplating the action of the verb in its entirety, the arrest of Satan. There is no one on the earth at the present time who has such power. This power belongs to God and in the protocol system He has delegated that authority to the angelic college of heralds. The active voice: John, the human author, produces the action of the verb, seeing this eschatological event. The indicative mood is declarative for the accuracy of the eschatological sequence. The object of the verb in the accusative case is a)ggeloj, “an angel.” Satan is an angel; Satan is arrested by an angel. The absence of the definite article emphasises the qualitative aspect of the noun. The angel is identified as the officer of arms from the angelic college of heralds. Satan, being the greatest and most powerful creature ever to come from the hand of God, and being more powerful than any angel in eternity past, this indicates quite a reverse. Application: No matter how great you become, no matter how powerful, how successful, or how much approbation you receive, all you need to add to it is a little arrogance and you will fall flat on your face.

“Then I saw an angel descending from heaven.” The officer of arms comes directly from the throne room of God, as he did in Revelation 14:15. He is commanded by God now to arrest Satan. He is to remove him from office as the ruler of the world in preparation for the perfect environment of the Millennial reign of Christ. At the present time Satan is the ruler of this world, Luke 4:5-7; John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2. As long as Satan is the ruler of this world there cannot be the perfect environment enjoyed by Adam and the woman before the fall. Human history began with perfect environment in the garden of Eden and human history will terminate with perfect environment, the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ. There is a difference, however, since the perfect environment at the beginning of history found man in innocence while the perfect environment of the Millennial reign of Christ finds man living on this earth under the control of his old sin nature. Perfect environment on the earth for 1000 years does not solve man’s problems in that the old sin nature in perfect environment is never improved. You cannot improve the old sin nature. Furthermore, environment improved or perfect is never the solution to man’s problems. The solution begins with regeneration at the point of personal faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and the first step in providing the perfect environment of the last millennium of history is the arrest of Satan and his removal from the rulership of this world. His replacement as the ruler of the world is our Lord Jesus Christ and therefore the arrest and imprisonment of Satan becomes the most important coup de tat in history. Note that God uses an elect angel to arrest a fallen angel. God usually uses that which is of the same kind for any indirect judgment.

The equipment of the arresting officer is also very interesting. He is said to have the key to the abyss. The word for “have” is the present active participle of the verb e)xw which means to have or to have and to hold. The pictorial present conveys to the mind the event in the process of occurrence. The active voice: the officer of arms from the angelic college of heralds produces the action of the verb as the arresting officer. The participle is circumstantial. The accusative singular direct object from kleij is the word for “key.” The descriptive genitive singular of a)bussoj is used, “the key to the abyss.” The abyss is the fourth compartment of sheol or Hades, it is synonymous with Tartarus in 2 Peter 2:4, the prison of certain fallen angels. He also is carrying what is called “a great chain.” The word for chain is a(lusij and it could also be translated today “handcuffs.” This angel holds the key to the abyss and a pair of giant handcuffs. He doesn’t need anything beyond this because of the inherent power provided by God. He can overcome Satan at any time even though it wasn’t that way in the original creation. We can learn something from that. A lot of people who appear as though they are not going to make it have a tremendous tenacity in life and develop a wisdom which often surpasses the smart ones, the talented ones, the beautiful ones, the ones who are always voted the most likely to succeed.

Translation: “Then I saw an angel [the officer of arms, college of heralds] descending from heaven, he had the key to the abyss and was holding a pair of giant handcuffs.”

The chain is used to control Satan after his apprehension and arrest so that he can be imprisoned for 1000 years in the abyss. This is the longest prison sentence in history. Translating the last phrase, “holding a pair of giant handcuffs,” is attempting to convey the concept of the Greek text. As the arresting officer the officer of arms is equipped to bring Satan into custody. He has the key to his jail and a large chain to control him after his arrest. Note that an angel is used to arrest an angel. God follows protocol in judgment just as He follows protocol in blessing. Protocol is the name of the game. The fact that God has a protocol system is extremely important because there will never be any happiness, any blessing, or any capacity for life, until the protocol system is learned. That is the key to everything.

The king of arms is the second highest ranking angel in the college of heralds, therefore one of the highest ranking elect angels of all time. And the protocol system is followed: an angel is used to arrest an angel. Prior to the fall of Satan Lucifer himself was the highest ranking angel in creation. In fact Satan was the anointed cherub which means the king of arms was lower in rank by creation. There were no seraphs when God originally created the angelic creatures. However, all of that is changed since the arrogance and fall of Satan. If there is any one thing that will destroy faster and lead down the path to destruction in a hurry it is entertaining arrogance in the life. None of us can afford arrogance. During the ensuing prehistoric angelic conflict the king of arms chose for God, the officer of arms chose for God. They became elect angels of the highest rank and God created a new aristocracy as a result of the prehistorical angelic conflict. While Satan revolted against God, and at this time lost his power, we find elect angels going through whatever system of salvation was to become elect angels and rising to the top. So it isn’t how you start life that counts, it is how you end up. That is one of the great applications that we can learn from this eschatological event.

The officer of arms is an elect angel and he ends up being the second highest aristocrat in the college of heralds while Satan ends up in the abyss for the longest prison sentence of any creature in all of history. The principle: No one ever loses by choosing the plan of God; no one ever loses by learning the protocol system of God and following it. Satan in revolt gained more power and approbation than any creature, but he lost it all. One of the manifestations of arrogance is greed, and greed is one of the great enemies of the human race. Arrogance is the greatest enemy to the creature whether angelic of human. With arrogance is motivational evil. Evil was created from Satan’s arrogance. God despises evil; God has nothing to do with evil; God is not the author of evil; evil started with a motivation called arrogance in the greatest of all creatures, Satan himself. The one who rules the world and has ruled the world since the fall of man is now the source of all evil.

One thing about evil: Evil is always restless. There is no tranquillity in evil. People who are gossips and maligners and judgers are restless people, they never have any tranquillity. They are always on the move. Evil is never satisfied with approbation and in arrogance demands more and more power, more and more approbation. In his lust for power Satan wanted to displace God, but he discovered instead that God replaced him. Now there is an entire order of angels called seraphs.

Note another principle: God never sends a boy to do a man’s job. So if you want to be used by God — which is a legitimate ambition in life, you must continue momentum in the protocol system. In other words, you have to grow up spiritually. Your spiritual growth is the basis of your usefulness to God, not your talent, not your personality.

Verse 2, Satan’s arrest. We do not know if Satan put up a fight but if he did he got whipped by someone he could have whipped by natural creation. The supernatural always supersedes the natural. Whatever you have naturally all you need to neutralise it is a little arrogance, but what you have spiritually requires the tenacity of day-by-day perspicacity, learning the protocol system and functioning under it.

We have a verb at the beginning of the verse, an aorist active indicative of kratew which means to seize with violence, to use force, to arrest by using force. So force was used, which indicates some resistance on the part of the most powerful of all creatures. An interesting thing is, Satan doesn’t have his bodyguard any more, he doesn’t have any of his angelic creatures, they have all been processed out. He stands alone and he gets whipped. The active voice: the officer of arms from the angelic college of heralds does the job. The indicative mood is declarative representing the reality of Satan’s arrest. The officer of arms, once inferior, has stayed in God’s protocol system, has risen to the top in God’s protocol system, and now arrests Satan. Satan is called, this time, drakwn, “the dragon.” It has the connotation of beauty. This is the most sensational arrest in history. Public enemy of all time is taken into custody. Perfect environment would be absolutely impossible with Satan roaming around the universe unrestrained and unfettered.

Concept: Criminals have no rights. A criminal is a criminal because he has rejected establishment, he has rejected freedom, he has rejected privacy, he has rejected the sacredness of property and life. Anyone who rejects the sacredness of freedom, property and life has no rights whatever. Criminals should be removed from society and normal living. Imprisonment means the absence of normal living. Perfect environment would be impossible without the greatest criminal of all time being imprisoned for a thousand years.

Next we see that Satan is called “the ancient serpent.” That means that Satan was the original source of temptation plus the inventor of cosmic one. He is called “the Devil,” Satan as the accuser of the believer in the court of heaven. Then we have “even Satan.” Satan means enemy, enemy of both God and man, plus the inventor of cosmic two. So we have a number of his aliases. Note that Satan is not called by his original name when he is arrested. His original name, as stated in the King James version, was Lucifer the son of the morning. Actually, that is not the correct translation. What is wrong with it? First of all, Lucifer is not Lucifer. Lucifer means the morning star, and that is his real name: The morning star, the son of the dawn. The morning star is the decoration which all of the great believers, the winners, will wear. It is a title that later was given to our Lord Jesus Christ in relationship with His hypostatic union. But Satan was the original morning star, the son of the dawn.

Isaiah 14:12, “How you are fallen,” a reference to the fall of the Devil — from heaven, O morning star, o son of the dawn!” Thisis the one who is called the dragon, the serpent, the Devil, even Satan, in the arrest passage, Revelation 20:2. “You have been cast down to the earth, you who weakened the nations!”

Verse 13, “You thought in your right lobe,” arrogance always begins with a thought. There is no such thing as an arrogant act without thought, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars [angelic creatures] of God” — in other words, Satan decided he was going to rule the angels since he was the highest ranking of all creatures. The stars of God are angelic creatures, “I will sit enthroned on the mount of the assembly,” the heavenly location for the angelic for the angelic convocation, “ in the uttermost extremity of the north.’

Verse 14, “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High God [I will be God].”

Verse 15, “Nevertheless you will be cast down into Sheol, to the recesses of the abyss.”

Ezekiel 28:12, “Thus saith the Lord God, ‘You had the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect beauty’.”

Verse 13, “You were in Eden, the garden of God,” not the garden of Eden where man existed, that came later. This is another Eden, garden of God, “… On the day that you [Satan] were created,” he was in Eden, the garden of God. Not the garden of Eden of Genesis 2.

Verse 14, “You were the anointed who guards the throne room, and I [God] placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God; you walked in the midst of the stones of fire.”

Verse 15, Satan was created perfect, just as Adam and the woman were created perfect. “You were blameless in your ways from the day your were created, until unrighteousness was found in you,” his original sin.

Verse 16, “… you were internally filled with violence,” arrogant people always try to solve their problems with violence or its equivalent, putting down someone else. Arrogance cannot stand competition, “And you sinned; therefore I have cast you as profane from the mountain of God.” Profane means lack of protocol. He rejected the protocol of heaven in the original creation. “Furthermore I have destroyed you, O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.”

Verse 17, “Because of your beauty your right lobe was lifted up; you distorted your wisdom because of your glamour.”

Verse 18, “By the multitude of your iniquities and dishonest trade,” he traded his relationship to God in protocol by creation for arrogant, inordinate ambition. He multiplied his evil which started with arrogance, “you have desecrated your sanctuaries,” his responsibilities in the castle of heaven.

This is the one who has aliases. Notice in Revelation 20:2 there is no morning star, no son of the dawn mentioned any longer. Notice the aliases: “the ancient serpent,” Satan as the original source of temptation of man, the inventor of cosmic one; “the Devil,” Satan as the maligner; “Satan” [or enemy], Satan is both the enemy of God and man plus the inventor of cosmic two.

Translation: “And he [the officer of arms] seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil, even Satan, and bound him a thousand years.”

Since Satan means enemy the Devil is the enemy of the following:

1. He is the enemy of mankind in general, illustrated by the fact that he is the original murderer, John 8:44.

2. he is the enemy of Bible doctrine, Matthew 13:9, 39.

3. He is the enemy of the unbeliever, Luke 8:12; 2 Corinthians 4:3,4; 2 Thessalonians 2:7-10; Colossians 2:8.

4. He is the enemy of the Church, Revelation 2:9, 13, 24.

5. He is the enemy of Christ, Revelation 12:4.

6. He is the enemy of Israel, Revelation 12:13,15.

As far as human history is concerned Satan has two advents. Both advents find Satan entering the world in a time of perfect environment. The first time Satan came it was to the perfect environment of the garden of Eden — Genesis 3:1-21. The result: Satan took over the rulership of the world from man. The second time Satan enters perfect environment is at the end of the Millennium. The result is the Gog and Magog revolution which results in Satan being cast into the lake of fire. Satan also has strategy to control the world which he rules. His control of the nations is mentioned in Revelation 12:9; 20:3. He also has control of the human race, but only by consent of the human race. You must of your own free will do something to enter the cosmic system. Satan controls the human race through cosmic involvement and/or demon influence. And, of course, he has control of believers in that cosmic system, 2 Corinthians 2:11; 11:3.

Advice for believers: James 4:6-10, our protection is grace as the policy of the plan of God. “He gives greater grace [greater than He has ever given before: the protocol system]. Therefore it says, ‘God makes war against the arrogant, but he gives grace to the humble’. Therefore submit to God,” submission has to do with the protocol system, “Resist the devil [avoidance or recovery from the cosmic system] and he will flee from you,” the protocol system God has given us is greater than the power of Satan, “Draw near to God [momentum in the divine dynasphere] and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinning ones [rebound]; and purify your right lobes [momentum at gate four of the divine dynasphere], you double-minded,” a believer living in cosmic one and cosmic two, “Be miserable, both mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your happiness into gloom,” result of living in the cosmic system. The believer becomes the product of his own bad decisions. He loses control of his own life, he has no personal sense of destiny, “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God,” the believer learning and using the divine protocol system, “and he will exalt you [the advance in the protocol system].”

The prison term of Satan: we have the aorist active indicative of dew which refers to incarceration, “and he bound him [incarcerated him] for a thousand years. The constative aorist contemplates Satan’s prison sentence in its entirety. He didn’t escape, he was bound for a thousand years. The active voice: the officer of arms produced the action. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of Satan’s imprisonment during the entire Millennial reign of Christ. “Him,” the accusative singular direct object of a)utoj, refers to Satan. This phrase occurs six times in our context, verses 2,3,4,5,6,7. The Latin word for a thousand years is millennium. In the Greek it is xilioi e)toj. It is both a dispensation and a civilisation.

Verse 3, we have the aorist active indicative of the verb ballw, which means to throw. Here it means to throw with vigour and therefore to throw with violence. The subject is the officer of arms from the angelic college of heralds, the second ranking seraph in the elect system of aristocracy among angels. The object of the verb is Satan who in prehistoric times was the guardian cherub, at that time being the highest ranking of all angelic creatures by creation. Hence, Satan was higher in rank than the one who now throws him into prison. The principle has application to us, even though it deals with the prehistoric angelic conflict: Those who make decisions against God wind up as losers. Satan is overpowered by an angel who was once inferior to him both in power and in beauty. The principle is: No one wins in rebellion against God. This is demonstrated by the dramatic arrest in verse 2.

The abyss is a part of Tartarus, the fourth compartment of Sheol or Hades, the prison of certain categories of fallen angels. The abyss is synonymous with Tartarus, according to 2 Peter 2:4 where the fallen angels of Genesis 6 are imprisoned. “Then he [the officer of arms] threw him [Satan] into the abyss [the fourth compartment of Sheol or Hades], he both locked and sealed it over him.” The word for “locked” is the aorist active indicative of the verb kleiw. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The prison door of the abyss was locked, and that is a very impressive thing because when we get to the end of this chapter we will see something of that prison door. The active voice: the officer of arms produces the action of the verb. By the way, this rank was achieved during the angelic conflict, and the principle: Those who are faithful to God surpass losers both in time and in eternity. The indicative mood is for the reality of Satan’s future imprisonment during the Millennial reign of Christ.

The second verb used here is the aorist active indicative of sfragizw. The culminative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results, 1000 years of incarceration for the most powerful creature that ever came from the hand of God. Satan has neither power nor influence during the Millennial reign of Christ and this is a part of the perfect environment of the Millennial dispensation and civilisation. The active voice: the officer of arms produces the action of the verb. By creation this officer of arms was lower in rank than Satan but as a result of Satan’s fall in the prehistoric angelic conflict a higher rank was created by God, namely the seraph rank, and the officer of arms is the second highest in that particular rank. Therefore he is a very high angelic aristocrat as a result of his faithfulness to the person, to the plan, to the protocol, and to the policy of God in the prehistoric angelic conflict. “And sealed it over him,” this is a maximum security system.

The purpose for maximum security is also given in this verse. A purpose clause always begins with the conjunction i(na. We have i(na plus the subjunctive mood. This also has the negative mh in it, so it is a negative purpose clause, “that he should not.” The verb is the aorist active subjunctive of planaw which means to deceive, “that he should not deceive.” The culminative aorist tense views the action of the verb in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. During the Millennial reign of Christ the nations of the world for the first time in human history will not be deceived by Satan. The active voice: Satan as the ruler of the world today is the deceiver of nations and as long as Satan rules this world there will be wars because Satan deceives nations. War and many other problems cannot be abolished without the incarceration of Satan. The accusative plural direct object from e)qnoj is the word for nations. In the plural it often refers to Gentiles as a race, but it also has national connotations as well. The adverb e)pi means “any longer”; “that he should not deceive the nations any longer” is the literal translation, but we translate it in better English, “that he should no longer deceive the nations.” This implies that Satan as the ruler of the world deceives nations as his perpetual policy in human history. However, the nations cannot be deceived apart from their own arrogance and culpability. Nations are protected from Satanic deceit by a pivot of mature believers. Satan uses demonism related to idolatry, dope pedaling, drug abuse, to deceive nations as well as individuals, Revelation 18:3. Satan uses religion to deceive the nations, Revelation 19:20. The results of Satan’s deception are given in 2 Timothy 3:13, “But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived,” deceiving with false doctrine and demonism, being deceived by their own involvement in the cosmic system. Arrogance is the major form of self-deception.

Then we have a final phrase, the term of the imprisonment, “until,” an Attic adverb. All of a sudden, in the middle of Koine Greek we have a)xri. This is not a Koine word at all. It is a temporal conjunction introducing a temporal clause of future purpose, “until.” One again we have the phrase, “until the thousand years are completed.” The thousand years are literal, the last dispensation of human history. The aorist passive of telew is the phrase for completed. The aorist tense is constative, contemplating the action of the verb in its entirety. The passive voice: the Millennium or thousand years receives the action of the verb. The subjunctive mood is potential implying a future reference, future to the time of Satan’s imprisonment. The prophecy of the devil’s release from prison is also mentioned at this time, “after these things he must be released for a short time.”

The longest prison sentence in history goes to Satan himself. After serving his prison sentence of a thousand years, during which we have the Millennial reign of Christ on earth and perfect environment, Satan is released to once again enter perfect environment and try to do something about it.

There is an important lesson here. Very few ever profit from incarceration. It is generally true that you cannot profit from any form of punishment or any form of rebuke or any form of being censored, unless you have humility. Humility is teachablility. Arrogance cannot stand rebuke, to be put down, and arrogance destroys any possibility of profiting from any of these things. Imprisonment is generally useless as far as rehabilitation is concerned. There are some wonderful exceptions.

Satan did not learn all of the time he was in prison and he burned with arrogance. When he comes out after his release he will once again stir up trouble. Interestingly enough, after one thousand years of perfect environment on the earth he will find a lot of people who will join his revolution. Putting people in perfect environment means nothing because arrogance has no capacity for love or life or happiness or blessing or any anything that approaches good environment. This literal thousand-year prison term did not help Satan a bat all. When you do not learn humility the hard way there is no way that you will ever learn this basic virtue. Learning the hard way is, of course, enforced humility; genuine humility is the basic virtue of life. Without the basic virtue of genuine humility there can never be true happiness in life and you do not carry built into your own soul any capacity for life or happiness.

Christ reigns in perfect environment for a literal 1000 years of history; the last 1000 years of history. The release of Satan from his prison at the end of the Millennial reign of Christ and the subsequent revolution merely demonstrate the fact that perfect environment is not the solution to man’s problems. We live in a time when there is no such thing as perfect environment on the earth but protocol from heaven has provided perfect environment. It has provided a perfect inner happiness for each one of us through the perception of Bible doctrine, through the modus vivendi of the divine dynasphere, through function in the protocol system. Man’s problems can only be solved spiritually from within, not environmentally from without.

Verses four, five, and six in this chapter deal with the general subject of the first and second resurrections. By way of introduction to the next two verses we note that there are two ways in which people in the Bible have returned from the dead. One is called resurrection, the other is called resuscitation. Resuscitation is when a person returns from the dead in his body of corruption and therefore subsequently he dies again. This was true of Lazarus. Resurrection is when a believer or, as we will note, an unbeliever is resurrected from the dead. A person returns from the dead as far as the believer is concerned in a body of incorruption and he is never again subject to any form of death. Therefore resurrection is rising again from the dead, the soul and the spirit joining the body and being in a permanent body forever and ever in the eternal state. More than that, resurrection is the beginning of the eternal state for the persons involved. Resurrection, therefore, is one of the basic doctrines which all believers must understand for spiritual growth, as stated in Hebrews 6:1,2. Resurrection is also a part of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, 1 Corinthians 15:1-4. The resurrection also emphasises the difference between a theophany and a Christophany. A theophany is an appearance of Jesus Christ prior to His incarnation: He appeared as an angel, as a man in Abraham’s tent, as a man who wrestled with Jacob, and in other forms as well. A Christophany is an appearance of Jesus Christ after His resurrection from the dead. There are 23 different appearances which are recorded in the Word of God.

The resurrection of Christ is also a part of His strategic victory, 1 Corinthians 15:20-25. In verse 23, “But each one [category] in his own order [tacij, battalion]: Christ the firstfruits,” Christ is a part of the first resurrection. We actually have four companies. The firstfruits refers to Christ who has already been resurrected. The second in line is going to be the Church, the royal family of God who will be resurrected at the Rapture. Then we have the Old Testament believers plus Tribulational martyrs who will be resurrected at the second advent. Finally, there are those Tribulational believers who survived the Tribulation and they will be resurrected after the end of the Millennium.

The second phase of resurrection is necessary for the perpetuation of the line of David and the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant, Romans 1:3, “Concerning his Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh.” Jesus Christ came as the seed of David. The reason is because David was promised that he would have a Son who would reign forever. The Davidic dynasty is gone but the Son who would reign forever is descended from David and Bathsheba. Mary was descended through the fourth son, Nathan. The line of Solomon goes down through Joseph who was the legal but not the real father of our Lord’s humanity. However, the Son dies on the cross. How can He reign forever? Through resurrection, and when the Son returns He will fulfill the Davidic covenant. Romans 1:4, “Having been established the Son of God in the sphere of inherent power [the deity of Christ], according to the standard of the Spirit of sanctification [ministry of the Holy Spirit] from the source of resurrection from the dead.” So this will be fulfilled through resurrection from the dead. And 2 Timothy 2:8 says, “Keep in mind Jesus Christ has been resurrected from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel.”

There are two agents in resurrection. God the Father is said to be the agent of resurrection in Colossians 2:12; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 1 Peter 1:21. There is also a reference or two to God the Holy Spirit raising the humanity of Christ, Acts 2:24; Romans 1:4; 8:11; 1 Peter 3:18. But the Lord is also said to raise Himself, so the resurrection is the function of the entire Trinity. The resurrection is necessary for the advance of the plan of the Father, Isaiah 53:10, “He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days [resurrection], therefore the plan of the Lord will advance in his hand [of our Lord Jesus Christ].” The resurrection of Christ is the basis for the believer’s confidence in the future, 1 Peter 1:3-5.

Resurrection has always been a source of great application to believers in time of discouragement. In Hebrews 11 we have some illustrations of this principle. In verse 9 we read about Abraham: “By means of faith [doctrine] he lived as a temporary resident with reference to the land, as a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, joint heirs of the promise.” Abraham was an extremely wealthy man but he chose to live in a tent until God chose to provide him with a home. Abraham was claiming a promise and therefore living in a tent didn’t make any difference to him. Verse 10, “for he himself kept waiting with anticipation for a city having foundations whose builder and designer is God.” Verse 13, All of these were still living by faith when they died,” Abraham died in a tent. He was still waiting for the promise, he wouldn’t move out of the tent and into a permanent shelter, “not having received the promise, but having seen the same from a distance, they saluted and embraced it.” By faith, even in dying, they recognised that God would keep His word and that the promise would still be fulfilled. How did they know it? Why did they salute it? Why did they embrace the promise? They are going to receive it in resurrection. In his resurrection body Abraham will enjoy that city coming down out of heaven. Abraham constantly applied the doctrine of resurrection and as a result of that application he was never discouraged, he lived a marvelous life, and he always lived in a tent. And he made other applications of resurrection as well. Isaac on the alter, verses 17,18, “By means of faith Abraham, when he was being tested, offered Isaac as a sacrifice; and he who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his only son [the only one who was recognised in the line]; even though God had said to him, ‘In Isaac your seed shall be designated’.”

There is an even more dramatic verse, verse 22, “By means of faith, Joseph, while he was in the process of dying, recalled to mind about the exodus of the people of Israel, so he gave an order concerning his bones.” He knew that by the time the Jews left Egypt his body would be gone, all except the bones. So he gave an order concerning his bones. Why? Because he was an heir of the promise with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he wanted to be resurrected on the very spot that belonged to him for all eternity. So in Genesis 50:24-26 we have an amplification of what it means “concerning his bones.” “Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am about to die, but God will definitely come to your aid, and take you out of this land to the land he has promised you with an oath’.” The land was promised to Abraham in Genesis 13:14,15; 15:18,19; to Isaac in Genesis 26:3,4; to Jacob in 35:12. It was an unconditional promise, there were no strings attached of any kind. For the next 400 years, after Joseph was buried, the coffin of Joseph remained outside, above ground. When the Jews went into slavery this was the source of their hope. Though he had been the Prime Minister of Egypt he was not buried, he had no funeral. For 400 years the bones of Joseph remained unburied as a testimony both to God’s faithfulness and to the doctrine of resurrection. Every generation in slavery saw the unburied coffin and they learned the story, the learned about God’s plan plus the fact of the doctrine of resurrection. Joseph was not to be buried until the Jews as a free people could enter the land of promise and be buried in the land that belonged to him forever. That is exactly what happened. In Exodus 13:19 Moses, understanding the issue, took the bones of Joseph with him when he left Egypt, “for he had made the sons of Israel solemnly promise, saying, ‘God will definitely deliver you; and then you must carry my bones from this place’.” Sothe coffin was at the head of the column all of the march through the desert for forty years. When the Jews finally came into the land Joseph was finally buried after more than 400 years. So when the resurrection occurs at the second advent Joseph will stand beside Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he will survey for the first time the land that has been promised to him. In Joshua 24:32 — “And Joseph’s bones which the Jews had brought up from Egypt were buried at Shechem, on a track of land that Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor for one hundred pieces of silver.” This became the inheritance of Joseph’s descendants.

So we come to Revelation 20:4 and we see two rewards given to the Tribulational martyrs. The first is, they act as judges, and in other cases they actually rule nations. The judges of the Millennium are mentioned first, John sees all this as a vision, the aorist active indicative of the verb o(raw. “And I saw thrones, and they that sat upon them,” the aorist active indicative of kaqizw is for sitting on these thrones of judgment. The aorist tense is a constative aorist, it gathers into one entirety this vision. The active voice: Tribulational martyrs who were willing to die for the Word of God, who made application of Bible doctrine in their martyrdom, who recognised that life on earth is not nearly as important as life in eternity, and were willing to die rather than to compromise Bible doctrine. They refused to accept the Satanic ecumenical religious system that will exist in the Tribulation. Therefore, to them life is not nearly as important as Bible doctrine. Principle: If doctrine is not everything to you, doctrine is nothing to you.

An aorist passive indicative follows, the aorist passive of didomi which means to give, “and judgment was given to them.” The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, in resurrection bodies they are judges throughout the earth, but it regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. Tribulational martyrs resurrected at the second advent as a part of the third phase of the first resurrection are rewarded with judgment responsibilities in the Millennium. The passive voice: Tribulational martyrs, mature believers, winners in time, receive the action of the verb as a part of their reward for their victory in the Tribulation. The indicative mood is declarative for the eschatological reality, many of the judges of the Millennium are going to be those Tribulational martyrs to whom doctrine was much more important than life itself.

Then the dative plural indirect object, also the dative of advantage, “it was given to them,” a)utoj. It is to their advantage to have these wonderful blessings. The dative of indirect object also indicates the ones in whose interest the act is performed. It is to their advantage and in their interest that they were rewarded with judgeships in the Millennium. This is the second vision of John regarding the Millennial reign of Christ and each vision is introduced by the aorist active indicative of o(raw, “I saw.” The phrase occurs three times in this chapter, in verses 1,4,11.

Next we have the identification of the judges. We have the accusative plural direct object of yuxh , “the souls.” With this an articular perfect passive participle from pelekizw which means to be beheaded with an axe. “Furthermore I saw the souls of those who have been decapitated.” The definite article is used as a relative pronoun, “who.” The perfect tense is dramatic, a rhetorical application of the perfect tense. This perfect tense indicates a completed action with emphasis on the results of the action, and that is the existing state of martyrdom. But if they had been immature they could very easily have chosen to say: “Well, I can’t lose my salvation, I’ll just go ahead and become one of the converts to ecumenical religion.” But they didn’t say that. Doctrine was more important than compromise. The passive voice: believers who are winners in the Tribulation receive the action of the verb. Then he says, “because of the testimony for [or about] Jesus.”

Translation of verse 4 so far, “The I saw the thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them: furthermore I saw the souls of those who had been decapitated because of the witness for Jesus.”

Then he adds a connective conjunction kai, but it is used as an emphatic conjunction and is translated, “really.” This is really why they were willing to accept death rather than compromise. Then we have a prepositional phrase, dia plus the accusative of logoj, “because of doctrine from God.” Doctrine made the difference, doctrine was the source of their happiness, “and these [winners] who are such a category as do not worship the beast dictator, nor his image, and did not receive the mark on the forehead, and in their hands.”

Then we have a specific reference to their resurrection. Just as today in the Church Age, so also in the future in the Tribulation, all spiritual momentum in the plan of God is accomplished through doctrine, “really because of doctrine from God.” This emphasises the importance of Bible doctrine and, of course, it must be the number one priority in the life. It says “they lived,” the aorist active indicative of zaw, this is their resurrection. They took the side of doctrine and now they see its wonderful benefits on earth, “they both came to life.” This is an ingressive aorist, it denotes entrance into a state or condition, therefore into a resurrection status. The active voice: Tribulational martyrs produce the action. The indicative mood is declarative for a dogmatic statement of doctrine, the resurrection of Tribulational martyrs as a part of the first resurrection. This is the concept of Isaiah 26:19,20 and Daniel 12:13.

The entire verse in corrected translation: “Then I saw the thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them: furthermore I saw the souls of those who had been decapitated because of the witness for Jesus, really because of doctrine from God, and these winners who are of such a category as do not worship the beast dictator, not his image, and do not receive the mark on their foreheads or on their hands; they both came to life and ruled with Christ for a thousand years.”

Verse5 — we have reached a parenthesis. The next sentence, “But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished” is a parenthesis, and the sentence of verse 4 is concluded at the end of verse 5. So without the parenthesis it would read: “and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years; this is the first resurrection.” The sentence is completed after the parenthesis. So we note in verse 5 that we have a parenthesis regarding the second resurrection. There are two sentences in this verse. The first sentence is a parenthesis to bring out a contrast between the first and second resurrections. After the parenthetical sentence the subject of verse 4 is continued regarding the first resurrection.

The first word of the sentence, “But,” does not occur in the original. It simply refers in the nominative plural from loipoj specifically to unbelievers now in the Tribulation. With have a contrast to the believers in verse 4 set up here without the use of the conjunction. Loipoj, “The rest,” means the unbelievers. A descriptive genitive follows, “The rest of the dead,” nekroj, referring to Tribulational unbelievers who died prior to the second advent. These unbelievers survived the Tribulation but they were removed by the baptism of fire. Actually, this is the second resurrection which includes all the unbelievers of history.

Then we have the aorist active indicative of zaw, and it means “came to life.” It is an ingressive aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb at its beginning, hence it denotes entrance into a state or condition, in this case the unbelievers in the second resurrection. As we will see at the end of this chapter the second resurrection is simply a means of bringing all unbelievers of the human race together for the last judgment, after which time they are cast into the lake of fire. “The rest of the dead [the unbelievers of the Tribulation plus all the unbelievers of history] did not come to life until the thousand years had been completed.” We have the negative plus zaw. The ingressive aorist contemplates the action of the verb at its beginning, the entrance into the state of the second resurrection. The active voice: all unbelievers are judged at this time. Why are they judged? Because they have rejected Jesus Christ as saviour. “He that believeth not on him is condemned already because he has not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God.” But when they are indicted on the cross the evidence is based not on the fact that they have rejected Christ but on the fact that they are standing there on the basis of their human good. No sin will be mentioned at the last judgment because every sin in the history of the human race went to court at the cross, and God the Father from His justice imputed all of these sins to Christ on the cross. He programmed them right out of the computer of divine decrees and He judged those sins. So at the last judgment what is left for the indictment? The people who stand there are unbelievers and only one thing is left, their good deeds. “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us.” So they will be judged on the basis of their good deeds and cast into the lake of fire forever. But to get them there, to court, they have to be resurrected.

“The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years had been completed,” the aorist passive subjunctive of the verb telew. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist contemplating the action of the verb in its entirety, the resurrection of all unbelievers at the end of the Millennium, but regarding it from the viewpoint of existing results, the last judgment. Hebrews 9:27, “It is appointed unto man once to die, but after that the judgment.” “Once to die” is physical death, the soul leaving the body and in the case of the unbeliever goes into Hades. In the second resurrection the soul leaves Hades, returns to the body and then stands before the great white throne for the last judgment. This is at the end of the Millennium; it is called the second death. “After that the judgment” is the second death, being cast into the lake of fire forever and ever.

“Until the thousand years have been completed” is the end of the parenthesis. Now we pick up the sentence which was begun in verse four: “This is the first resurrection.” That is the completion of the sentence.

Verse 6, the characteristics of the first resurrection. We start out with the nominative singular subject makarioj, a word for happiness. This is what is called a beatitude, simply a provision of happiness. This is the fifth beatitude in the book of Revelation. The first was in chapter one, verse three, the blessing which comes from mastering the content of the book of Revelation. The second beatitude is related to dying. People are afraid of dying; the fear death. So the second beatitude, Revelation 14:13, says, “Happy are the dead who die in the Lord,” a reference to dying grace and also to any believer who dies. Any believer who dies is going to be with the Lord, so any believer is going to be happy immediately after he dies. The believer living in the divine dynasphere has happiness in dying just as in living. Furthermore, there will be no regrets. The third beatitude is the blessing of application of doctrine found in Revelation 16:15. All of us face situations where we can only handle them through the proper application of doctrine. Many of the doctrines that we learn are simply to give us a personal love and appreciation of the Lord Jesus Christ. This expresses itself in our confidence in Him, our worship of Him, our love of Him, and being motivated by that love for him. There are situations where certain doctrines are applied. Here is a situation, the Armageddon campaign: “Be alert, I will come suddenly as a thief,” surprise element, “happy is he [the Tribulational believer who is a winner] who stays alert, guards his uniform equipment so that he may not march naked and they see his shame.” The fourth of the beatitudes has to do with being invited to a party, the blessing of being invited to a special party at the second advent. It follows the coronation of Jesus Christ. It is found in Revelation 19:9. The fifth of the beatitudes is the blessing of being part of the first resurrection. Ultimate sanctification is in view there. The sixth of the beatitudes is found in Revelation 22:7, the blessing of positive volition toward doctrine: “Behold, I am coming quickly: happy is he who heeds the doctrines of the prophecy of this book.” So there is always great happiness related to doctrine, both in its perception and application. The final beatitude of the book of Revelation is the blessing of being a winner in the plan of God: 22:14, “Happy are they who wash their robes, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gate of the city.”

Here we have the fifth beatitude, the blessing of being a part in the first resurrection. It also says more than happiness here. There is a second subject, a(gioj, which is translated “holy,” a good translation but sometimes rather abstruse. There are three categories of sanctification and this is really what it connotes here. First of all, the moment we accept Christ as saviour we enter into union with Christ through the baptism of the Spirit, and that is called phase one sanctification. Secondly, certain believers advance from gate four to gate eight inside the divine dynasphere, the advanced to maturity, and that is called temporal sanctification. Phase three sanctification comes at the end of the Church Age with the resurrection or the Rapture of the Church. That is called ultimate sanctification. Ultimate sanctification belongs to all believers as does positional sanctification. The sanctification that is always in doubt is the one that deals with the protocol system, and that has to do with whether you are a winner or a loser. Only winners have the second sanctification. So we have “Happy and holy is he,” the reference to the believer in a resurrection body. All believers, therefore, are going to have happiness in the eternal state.

We have something here that adds to the happiness, the articular present active participle of the verb e)xw which means to have or to have and to hold. The definite article is used as a personal plus a relative pronoun. The static present refers to a condition which will exist in the eternal state. We will always be happy in the eternal state. The active voice: the believer produces the action. It is a circumstantial participle. Then we have an independent nominative from meroj, meaning a part, a part of the whole. One would expect here the accusative direct object of the participle but instead we have an independent nominative. Why? It is technical in the Greek language, but when an idea is conceived independent of any particular verbal relationship the expression may be left standing alone in the nominative case with descriptive or explanatory phrase added. Therefore it takes the happiness all of us will ultimately have and isolates it from everything that we are experiencing today. We may be miserable but ultimately God is going to work it out no matter how many bad decisions you make, no matter how miserable you make yourself, ultimately all of us are going to be happy. That is grace. Grace can overrule and take care of every failure we can ever have. “Happy and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection,” because the believer is going to be happy under a state of ultimate sanctification and it is going to be that way forever and ever.

The second half of the verse says, “the second death does not have jurisdiction over you.” All of the unhappy people in the eternal state are going to be unbelievers. And they will be unhappy forever because the lake of fire is a place of second resurrection, a place of consciousness, a place of intense pain, a place where the pain never ceases. Ultimately in the eternal state God who has worked all of this out in His grace is going to provide for us perfect happiness but He can’t provide it for those who rejected Him as saviour.

“but they shall be priests,” there is a Millennial priesthood, “of God and of Christ, in fact they shall rule with him a thousand years.” This priesthood is a different priesthood. Today every believer is a priest, in the past they had specialised priesthoods, the Levitical priesthood of Israel, the family priesthood of the patriarchs, but in the future there is going to be one of great strength and that is the one dealing with the Tribulational martyrs. The Tribulational martyrs were mature believers, they thought more of doctrine than they did of death and they would not renounce the Lord and thy died. Therefore, some of them are going to be judges in the Millennium, some are going to rule, but all of these martyrs are going to form a specialised priesthood.

The first thing we note in verses 7-10 is the release of Satan from prison. Verse 7 begins with the sequential use of the conjunction kai, translated “Now.” The conjunction o(tan introduces an indefinite future temporal clause. We can translate it “when” or “whenever.” It is looking forward to the completion of the thousand-year sentence, “Now when the thousand years had been completed.” We have the aorist passive subjunctive of the verb telew. The culminative aorist tense contemplates the last Millennium as history in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results. When the last dispensation is completed it coincides exactly with the release of Satan from prison. Satan has been in prison for a thousand years and during that thousand years on earth perfect environment has existed. The passive voice: the Millennial reign of Christ receives the action of the verb. The subjunctive mood is used to indicate the indefinite temporal clause where the time involved is a future event in history. We are looking at something prophetically.

Then we have the subject, satanaj. When we have a transliteration of Satan it is taken from shatan, so you would think this came from that, but it came from the Aramaic rather than the Hebrew. Therefore, in the Greek it is satanoj. The proper noun is simply translated “Satan,” it is not a transliteration. It would only be a transliteration if it had been taken from the Hebrew. What is the difference? People expected a new person to come out of jail, so instead of calling him shatan, the same old criminal, he is actually called satanaj. That is taken from the Aramaic which is very similar. So Satan is now released: future passive indicative of luw. It is a predictive future anticipating his release at the end of the Millennium. The passive voice: Satan receives the action of the verb. He is released from his jail. Neither Satan nor fallen angels will function during the Millennial reign of Christ. The removal of fallen angels and Satan from the earth is a part of the perfect environment of the Millennium. While human volition is no longer influenced by Satan many of the people of the Millennium will reject Christ as their personal saviour and they will continue to produce evil from the function of their own volition. It is a rather subdued evil because any evil that is involved in criminality means instant death: capital punishment. We need to remember that Satan is the arch criminal of all history. In fact he is the arch criminal of the prehistorical angelic conflict. Satan, then, as the inventor of the cosmic system, and as the inventor of criminality, has now been released from prison. The leopard does not change his spots and he is now ready to start a revolution.

Verse 8, the Gog and Magog revolution. Gog is Satan as the leader of the last international conspiracy. This is the code name for Satan. We start out with the future active indicative of e)xerxomai, “He will appear.” As soon as Satan gets out of jail he goes back to planet earth, his old haunts. This is a reference to Satan’s return to the earth from his prison in Hades and therefore we might call this the second advent of Satan. The first advent of Satan, Genesis 3:1-5, was where Satan came to perfect environment and destroyed it; the second advent, Revelation 20:7,8, the same thing is true. In both advents of Satan he found perfect environment on the earth and conspired to destroy it. In his first advent he was successful; in his second advent the conspiracy and the revolution will fail. In both advents Satan alleges to improve perfect environment. To do that he has to lie a lot, so he lies, he distorts, and he uses a system of flattery in order to appeal to the arrogance of individuals.

Part of Satan’s philosophy includes the idea that by improving man’s environment, by eliminating the weak and unfit from society. Environment is not the solution to man’s problems, only a personal relationship to God will solve it. Satan also likes to promote education, he also likes to promote reformation and better social understanding; and one of his greatest systems of flattery is that gimmick: better social understanding. So man by man’s efforts cannot produce a golden age, but Satan comes along with a lie and says, “O yes, you can. All you have to do is to eliminate the weak; all you have to do is to improve the environment by reformation, by better social understanding.” There’s always a gimmick, and the principle is: The end of history, like the beginning of history, will demonstrate man’s need for relationship with God through faith in Christ, and then the blessing of the protocol system which follows.

“He will appear.” The future tense indicates that the second advent of Satan is a future event of eschatological doctrine. Hence, the predictive future anticipates the return of Satan to planet earth after his release from prison after serving his 1000 years. The active voice: Satan produces the action of the verb in returning to planet earth, the only option left. In fact, Satan is running out of options. He cannot return to heaven, he does not desire to remain in that section of Hades after he gets out. The principle is: Evil always closes down one’s options in life. The more decisions anyone makes for evil the more they limit their options in life until their options are choked off. For the unbeliever or fallen angels the options are also destroyed for eternity. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality. Why did he come back? The aorist active infinitive of planaw, to deceive. If ever there was a word to describe revolution, the Russian revolution, the French revolution, the Cuban revolution, etc., this is it: a few smart people have deceived a whole lot of idiots who are the pawns in the game of revolution. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, the last Satanic conspiracy in history. It regards it from the viewpoint of its existing results, the revolution against the rule of Jesus Christ, the perfect environment of the Millennium. Because of the perfect environment of the Millennial reign of Christ Satan must use his greatest genius, deception, lies, to awaken dissatisfaction. Where no dissatisfaction could legitimately exist he manages to do it. There is no organisation, there is no church, there is no business, there is no profession, there is no group of people in a social relationship, no matter how perfect or sublime, that cannot be destroyed by the entrance of some person with that in mind. That is demonstrated by the perfect environment of the Millennium. The trouble maker this time is Satan, he has the great genius and ability to do this. He will open his mouth, use his personality, and he will gain thousands and perhaps even millions of revolutionaries to join his group. All of this, of course, is deception. People are easily deceived unless their soul is loaded up with truth, with doctrine. The only thing that frees us from deception is doctrine: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” The active voice: Satan produces the action of the verb through dishonesty, through deceit, through misrepresentation, collusion, treachery, fabrication, hypocrisy, sham, subterfuge. The infinitive of purpose: it is Satan’s purpose to use his genius, to use his personality, to use his beauty, to regain control of planet earth. One thousand years of imprisonment have not changed Satan a bit, and while Satan is a genius he has not learned the simplest lesson of society: the power of God is infinitely greater than the power of man or the power of any angelic creature.

The culminative aorist tense of the verb planaw contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety, the last Satanic conspiracy against Christ, and it regards it from the viewpoint of existing results, a revolution against the rule of Christ, the perfect environment of the Millennium. Because of the perfect environment of our Lord’s Millennial reign and all that goes with it Satan must use tremendous deception in order to pick up revolutionaries. He does. The fact that he is able with his genius to lie, one of the concepts of criminality, and to deceive, and to gain influence over people, is very important. It all goes to prove a very interesting principle and the inference is quite obvious. Here is a period of a thousand years after the second advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, a period of perfect environment. The only thing that isn’t perfect is the fact that man still has an old sin nature. Life is extended, the only reason anyone ever dies in the Millennium is simply because of capital punishment, and the lion and the lamb lie down side by side so there is no violence in the animal life. Swords are turned into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks, man will learn war no more. All of this adds up to the fact that you would think that people would be very happy and very satisfied. But there is a kind of person who if he can’t find something to complain about is not happy. And there is nothing to complain about. If there is anything that is frustrating it is for a gripey person not to have a gripe. So when Satan is released from his thousand years of incarceration, the first thing he does is to try to use his genius to establish a few things to complain about. That is exactly how deception begins.

The principle that goes with this, and the one that we can apply though we are not in the Millennial dispensation, is this: The only happiness that the believer, or anyone for that matter, can ever have is the happiness that is manufactured inside the divine dynasphere. The divine dynasphere is a factory for manufacturing happiness. Happiness therefore comes from a system, whereas unhappiness also comes from a system, Satan’s cosmic system. When the believer is in the divine dynasphere we call him the protocol believer; when he is in the cosmic system we call him a cosmic believer. So using that nomenclature the protocol believer has happiness; the cosmic believer has unhappiness. The other way of looking at the absolute category of the spiritual life is to recognise the principle that when God the Holy Spirit controls the soul the believer is said to be spiritual; when the old sin nature gains control of the soul then the believer is said to be carnal. The fruit of the Spirit, when the Holy Spirit controls the soul, is happiness, “love, joy”, etc. From the standpoint of who controls the soul you are either carnal or spiritual. The spiritual believer has some degree of happiness, depending on his growth, of course. (There are no degrees of spirituality; there are degrees of growth) A mature believer has more happiness when he is filled with the Spirit than an immature believer. The carnal believer can have a pseudo stimulation but no real happiness. So, once again, a system: spirituality manufactures happiness; carnality manufactures misery. So when we are looking at life from the control of the soul we talk about the carnal believer and the spiritual believer; when we look at life from the standpoint of God’s protocol system, the divine dynasphere, we have the protocol believe and the cosmic believer. The principle is this: When you vest your happiness in a person, in a social life, in a sexual life, in a business life, in a professional life, in some form of success and human security, immediately you have a problem which is not happiness because you are using something that cannot manufacture happiness. If you want to have a relationship with a member of the opposite sex and you depend on that for happiness, you have done a terrible thing to that person. By depending on her for happiness you are not happy, because you are depending on the wrong thing. A woman simply cannot manufacture happiness; stimulation, yes; happiness, no. Personal love is one of two ways that we guarantee a miserable life if in personal love we depend upon our opposite number for our happiness. This is because in personal love if you love someone of the opposite sex or you depend on friends for your happiness then obviously you have surrendered the control of your life to that person. Furthermore you have surrendered your happiness to that person. That person will disappoint you, disenchant you, disillusion you, and distract you. The point is that you are going to be disappointed sooner or later in that person, some how, some way, along the way. Therefore that person has made you miserable because you surrendered your life to them. That is a tragedy because you have done that person a disservice in many ways because you blame that person when anything goes wrong and you blame that person when you are disenchanted, disillusioned, upset. But it is not just personal love where you turn the custodianship of your life over to someone else, you do it also with personal hatred — anything that is personal.

The reason that Satan can pick up so many people in the Millennium for his revolution is because in perfect environment it is personal, and people are still depending on people for happiness. People are seeking happiness by trying to extrapolate it from people, from pleasant circumstances. There are pleasant circumstances and lovely people.

We could learn something from this revolution, then. Don’t get personal until you have your very own happiness. Take it wherever you go. Once you carry your very own happiness around with you then you become personal and you interact in groups or traffic, or wherever your interaction is involved, you bring happiness into the picture because you have been functioning in God’s protocol system. In the divine dynasphere you have developed virtue. Virtue must precede happiness. And at gate six you have developed impersonal love which is the capacity for personal love. No one can succeed in human relationships without impersonal love, without virtue. This becomes a major issue because from impersonal love you have an attitude toward the entire human race, toward all. Impersonal love toward all means you can concentrate on one person and bring happiness into the picture and you are not surrendering your happiness to them or the custodianship of your life to them, you are bringing to that one person your happiness, therefore blessing by association. Where there would be formerly antagonism toward a stranger or toward someone you have loved and they have disappointed you, and where you would bring to them this antagonism now you bring to them impersonal love, and you bring into their life happiness by the very fact of your toleration, by the function. So don’t get personal until you have the virtue to do it.

Now Satan comes back, and there are two kinds of people on the earth in the Millennium. There are believers and there are unbelievers. There are believers who have functioned in God’s protocol system that will exist in the Millennium, a system that is different from ours but it produces happiness. There are unbelievers and since there is no cosmic system there are believers who are frustrated but the old sin nature has nowhere to go. But they are waiting, they are biding their time. They will be irritated and stay irritated. The point is: Satan has not been rehabilitated and after his release from prison he comes back to find a potential for revolution and terrorism. (Terrorism is a splinter of a revolution; the whole log is the revolution itself). The infinitive of purpose indicates that Satan’s purpose is to use his genius to regain control of planet earth. One thousand years of imprisonment have not changed criminality in the father of criminality. While Satan is a genius he has not learned the simplest lesson that the power of God is infinitely greater than creature power, and so he goes about to deceive, the accusative plural direct object of e)qnoj, “the nations.”

We have so far, then, in this verse: “Then he [Satan] will appear on earth to deceive the nations,” and then we have the phrase, “those in the four hemispheres of the earth.”

The revolution, then, is universal and international. This means the human beings with one thousand years of perfect enjoyment throughout the entire earth have their malcontents who are ready to join. This proves that man can be given every category of blessing, the best possible environment in which to enjoy it, and cannot be satisfied apart from a personal relationship with God. That begins with regeneration, and that introduces the subject of protocol whereby all of the freedoms and blessings are channeled into a system of capacity and therefore become a part of enjoyment of life. So the whole principle is that man can be given everything that he associates with happiness and blessing but he can’t be satisfied unless he has a relationship with protocol. The most shocking principle here is the total depravity of man still existing in the Millennium. While restrained by the ruler of this world, our Lord Jesus Christ, it is still ready to break out just as soon as a leader shows up. One thousand years of perfect environment which can only produce happiness find millions who are discontented and ready for a change.

How can Satan deceive so many Millennial citizens? Mankind apart from absolute truth, Bible doctrine, and apart from the protocol system of God can be very easily deceived. Discernment comes from doctrine and the ability to recognise the situation as it is, and the solution, comes from the protocol system. In spite of the perfect environment, the fantastic prosperity of the human race, the dynamic spiritual life of many of the believers, and everything associated with human happiness, there are actually millions of people on the earth at that time ready to follow anyone who would overthrow the perfect reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. The reason is obvious. Millions of people in perfect environment still have no capacity for this blessing, no capacity for life, no capacity for happiness or success, because they have rejected the three categories of Bible doctrine, category #1, the laws of divine establishment for all the human race; category #2, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ for the unbeliever; category #3, Bible doctrine for the believer. Negative volition toward absolute truth and/or Bible doctrine destroys capacity for life, capacity for blessing, capacity for prosperity, and capacity for happiness. Only the believer living in the protocol system and perpetuating momentum in the plan and policy of God has the necessary capacity to enjoy blessing and perfect happiness in the Millennial reign of Christ. Happiness is the status of the soul with maximum doctrine, not the possession of things, not approbation from people, success, prosperity or achievement. Life is meaningless, then, without Bible doctrine and the resources of arrogance can only produce unhappiness and self-induced misery.

This brings us to the code name of the conspiracy. It is given under the first word, “Gog.” The accusative singular definite article goes with it. So we have “Gog and Magog,” from all nations there will be those who will join the conspiracy. They will follow Satan in the last revolution. There are only four other references to Gog and Magog and they are all found in the Old Testament. All of them distinguish between Gog as the leader and Magog as the people, Genesis 10:2; 1 Chronicles 1:5; 5:4; Ezekiel 38:2. In each of those four references we have phrases like Ezekiel 38:2, “Son of man, set your face toward Gog of the land of Magog.” So the four Old Testament references always recognise Gog as the leader and, for example, Magog as the people or the land involved. So it is always Gog of Magog as in Ezekiel 38 and 39. Gog is the ruler of a great empire in the Tribulation; Magog are the people that he rules. If the Rapture occurs soon it is quite obvious that Gog is the dictator of the Russian communist empire of the king of the north; Magog is used to describe the people of that empire because they represent many different races.

This is a code name here for the conspiracy and it is taken vocabulary-wise from what we have in the Old Testament. It is Gog and Magog. God is, again however, Satan; Magog are the people who follow him. He goes forth “to deceive the nations, those from the four hemispheres of the earth, Gog and Magog.” What is the meaning of the code name Gog and Magog? Gog is the code name for Satan as the leader of the last revolution in history; Magog is the code name for those who join the revolution. Since they join the revolution from all races and nations of the earth, and since they are anti-God they are under the code name Magog. While Gog and Magog is not the same as Gog of Magog, the king of the north in the Old Testament, the code name is taken from Ezekiel 38 and 39 because of a similarity in pattern. Gog is used to designate the antichrist leader, the king of the north in Ezekiel 38 and 39 and, of course, Satan released from prison at the end of the Millennium. Magog is used to designate the antichrist followers from all of the nations and races. The army of the king of the north was the eschatological reference in Ezekiel. So the code name Gog and Magog explains the structure of this verse. First we are introduced to Gog, who is Satan, as the leader and the arch conspirator of the last revolution in history. In the last half of this verse we meet Magog, the international revolutionary army who concentrate to overthrow the rule of Christ on earth. So that once again the code name follows the pattern just as it was in Ezekiel 38 and 39.

One of the most phenomenal demonstrations in all of history of God’s grace toward the unbeliever is found in the Millennium. Instead of judgment by pain it is warning by perfect environment. The unbeliever in the Millennium shares the perfect environment that God provides. Jesus Christ rules the earth and He rules the believer and the unbeliever, and the unbeliever is the beneficiary of the most phenomenal things in the Millennium. Yet he rejects the gospel, and he refuses to believe in Jesus Christ who is not only ruling the world at that time but in the first advent went to the cross and was judged for his sins. People who are thrown into the lake of fire who lived in perfect environment will probably, once they are in the lake of fire forever, have a comprehension of grace that few people ever had.

Our next phrase begins with the aorist active infinitive of sunagw, and it means to assemble. Here it is a military word, “to concentrate.” So the people of the revolution are concentrated, “to concentrate them.” The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. Satan’s revolution gains momentum and it suddenly has a tremendous mob. Satan as the leader in the active voice produces the action under the code name Gog. The direct object refers to Magog, the antichrist revolutionary army. Note a principle here. There hasn’t been any warfare for a thousand years but revolution must resort to violence to fulfill its purpose. That is why we have Islamic and Marxist terrorist groups throughout the world. The infinitive of intended result means when the result is indicated as fulfilling a deliberate objective, a blending of purpose and result. Note that they have come to fight, they have come to kill, they have come to use terrorism.

We have a prepositional phrase, e)ij plus the accusative of polemoj which means battle. Satan seeks to overthrow the rule of Christ by violence because he cannot meet the wonderful administration of our Lord’s rulership of the world. There is no argument that he can present so the time for argument is gone, we have now come to violence. Revolution ignores and rejects virtue, therefore it cannot succeed by peaceful means. Virtue is always pro-establishment and anti-revolutionary. Revolutions are born in violence and they die in violence.

The next phrase is Magog’s numerical advantage. The phrase is a very simple one: “whose number is like the sand of the sea.” Whether this refers to the sand on beaches or the sand under the ocean the analogy is the same, the revolutionary army numbers in the millions. Millions of people rejected Christ as saviour under evangelism in perfect environment. During the Millennium there is no military establishment, Isaiah 2:4; Hosea 2:18; Micah 4:3; Psalm 46:9; there is no army to fight against the revolution. So in our Lord’s rule there is no army. This is parallel to the danger which threatened Israel when they became the first client nation to God and they were leaving Egypt, when they were threatened at the Red Sea. They had no military establishment. There is a direct parallel between Israel at the Red Sea and the world at the end of the Millennium. The threat to Israel was the best organised armoured force of the day, Pharaoh’s chariot army. At the end of the Millennium the whole world is facing disaster because suddenly a great revolutionary army appears and there is no army for establishment. So we have a similar situation. At the Red Sea Moses said, “Stand still and watch the deliverance of the Lord. The Lord will fight for you this day.” So in the situation of Israel the Lord did the fighting, and that is exactly what is going to happen here. Superior numbers are inconsequential against God’s plan and God’s people. Here is a final demonstration that the majority is not right. The majority are in the revolution. Absolute truth and/or Bible doctrine is right whether one person believes it or a million.

Translation: “Then he [Satan] will appear on earth [second advent of Satan] to deceive the nations, those in the four hemispheres of the earth, Gog and Magog, to concentrate them for battle: whose number is as the sand of the sea.”

In verse 9 we have the end of the antichrist revolution which goes under the code name of the Gog and Magog revolution. The advance of the revolutionary army is the first item in the verse. We have the aorist active indicative of a)nabainw which is a very aggressive verb in the Greek, and it means to ascend. Here it has the classical connotation of Xenophon which means to march, to advance. The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of he verb in its entirety, the tremendous organisational ability of Satan’s genius in getting together a revolutionary army where weapons have ceased to exist. Nevertheless, weaponry is available or produced very suddenly and at the same time an army is organised for the coup de tat, the takeover of the rulership of the world. The active voice: the revolutionary army under the code name Magog and under the leadership of Satan whose code name is Gog, produce the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the aggressiveness of the revolutionary army. They became the aggressors and this aggression confirms the negative volition of the revolution.

Then we have e)pi plus the accusative of the adjective platoj which means wide. With this we have the word gh referring to the land rather than planet earth. “Then they marched over the wide terrain of the land,” the high desert country of southern Israel. Even though the world has been disarmed during this thousand years of our Lord’s reign Satan, on his release from prison, organises all of the negative volition into a very large revolutionary army. There is a principle that emerges from this: World peace and international disarmament do not prevent war. International disarmament has never been a prevention of war, it has been an encouragement to war. World peace movements always bring on bigger and greater wars to the extent that they are successful. The secret, of course, is the military establishment. In this case there is no military establishment, except our Lord Jesus Christ and we will see what He does to the revolution. While the world has been without weapons for a thousand years the evil genius of Satan is quick to arm and to organise this revolutionary army. Well-armed and possessing overwhelming numbers the revolutionary army has great confidence in Satan and the fact that they outnumber the believers of the Millennium. This is an army made up of millions of people.

So it would appear from the context in the Greek that the concentration point of the revolutionary army is the great valley of Esdraelon which is associated with Armageddon prior to the Millennium. Millions of unbelievers who have enjoyed the benefit of prosperity, perfect environment and have enjoyed perfect government are looking for a leader like Satan around whom they can rally and express their discontent, their rejection of the whole thing. Again the principle: the power of arrogance is always greater than the power of prosperity. Both the doctrine and the prosperity provided by our Lord Jesus Christ in His thousand-year reign is rejected by the arrogance of power lust. Again, the principle is: arrogance demands power. Arrogance is never satisfied with perfect environment.

The objective of the revolutionary army is given in the next phrase in the Greek where we have the aorist active indicative of kuklow which means to surround or envelop, “and they surrounded.” They surrounded “the bivouac of the saints.” The culminative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety but it regards it from the viewpoint of existing results, the use of aggression to gain a tactical advantage. An aggressor army generally gains such tactical advantage. The culminative aorist signifies the effort or process. The aorist denotes the attainment of the end of such effort or process. Aggression gives tactical advantage. The active voice: the revolutionary army under the code name Magog produces the action of the verb though logistics and tactics, the genius of Satan’s leadership. The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of eschatological doctrine. Remember that this time Satan is doing it alone, he has no angelic force to back him up. The fallen angelic force is incarcerated and will not be seen again until their last judgment.

The next word is the object of the verb, the accusative singular direct object of the noun parembolh, which means bivouac or fortified camp or barracks. In addition is a second accusative direct object from the noun polij, meaning city, plus the perfect passive participle of the verb a)gapaw meaning to love, but is used here as an adjective and therefore correctly translated “the beloved city.” The beloved city refers to Jerusalem, both the capital of Israel as Millennial client nation to God, and the capital of the world during the reign of Christ. But it is not the capital of the world in the eternal state. The target or the objective is twofold: first, to annihilate the army protecting the holy city; secondly, to destroy Jerusalem as the capital of the world during the Millennial reign of Christ.

The divine judgment then follows: a sequential use of the conjunction kai, “then,” plus the nominative singular from the noun pur which is generally translated “fire” or something approximating fire. The absence of the definite article emphasises the quality of our Lord’s weapon. Whatever it is it is associated with fire and it is supernatural. Once again our Lord personally administers the judgment just as He did at the second advent. The army of the saints outside Jerusalem do absolutely no fighting. The only armies that could be in existence is one of the three armies that came back with our Lord, and since it says “saints” it would refer to a human army. Two human armies returned with Christ: the royal family of God and the Old Testament saints and Tribulational martyrs. The tactical disadvantage of being surrounded by superior numbers is offset, then, by the function of our Lord’s weaponry.

So the passage says, “and fire came down,” katabainw; They came up, the advance was called a)nabainw. Here is the humour of it all: “Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.”

So the beloved city is the target, and the army, whichever one it is, and the fact of its superiority of numbers is offset by katabainw. Again, it is our Lord’s marvelous sense of humour. Satan made the first move, an aggressive move, and that was a)nabainw, he advanced; our Lord counters with katabainw and that destroys the revolution. The constative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. Against this weapon all superior tactics and numbers are absolutely useless. The active voice: the divine weapon, simply called here pur or fire, produces the action. So the declarative mood is for the eschatological reality of the fact that once again our Lord in His perfection, in His infinite righteousness, uses violence to stop violence forever. Violence and evil can only be stemmed by the violence of virtue.

Translation: “Then they marched [advanced] over the wide terrain of the land, and surrounded the bivouac of the saints, and the beloved city: then fire came down from heaven, and devoured them.”

This is the category of judgment by death from heaven. Being from heaven it is being administered in two ways: either through the protocol system of the angelic college of heralds or directly by God. In this case, the latter, directly by God. Not again, the Lord does the fighting, not army of the saints who are surrounded. The bivouac of the saints are merely spectators to this judgment function of the grace of God. The revolutionary army comes to nothing. This last evil function of Satan is defeated. Notice again that the numerical superiority and tactical advantage is meaningless when the battle is the Lord’s.

Verse 10, the divine judgment of Gog, the code name for the revolutionary leader. Note that the revolutionary leader here is called by a slightly different name: diaboloj, which means enemy. As Satan he is the deceiver; as Devil he is the enemy of God. It says, “And the diaboloj [enemy] who had deceived,” this is the present active participle from planaw because it was a continuous thing. It is a retroactive progressive present, which denotes what was begun in the past and continues into the present time. It is called the present tense of duration. However long it took, apparently a very short time, it resulted in a great revolution. The idiom is best translated by the English perfect tense, therefore “the devil who had deceived them.” The active voice: Satan produces the action of the verb. It is a circumstantial participle translated as a relative clause.

And what happens to him? The aorist passive indicative of ballw, which means to throw, “was thrown.” The aorist tense is a culminative aorist contemplating the action of the verb in its entirety but regarding it from the viewpoint of existing results: the judgment of Satan who has already been tried and found guilty before human history began, and he will be judged before all fallen angels. The lake of fire was created for the devil and his angels, Matthew 25:41. The fact that unbelievers also share in the eternal lake of fire is the subject coming up at the end of the chapter. The passive voice: the devil receives the action of the verb and gets preferential treatment. He goes into the lake of fire before any of the fallen angels. They are still incarcerated in Hades. But two members of the human race precede him which must have been very humiliating: the beast and the false prophet. The passive voice: the devil receives the action of the verb at the end of the revolution. The declarative indicative mood represents the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality. Once again, it is called “the lake of fire and sulphur.”

The lake of fire is literal and eternal, it is said to be a place “where the worm dieth not” and “fire is not quenched,” the description of Mark 9:44,46,48. So it is a literal lake of fire, unquenchable, eternal, where the worm dieth not. The lake of fire is the final destination and the eternal abode of both fallen angels and unbelievers in the human race. All unbelievers of history will occupy the lake of fire because they have rejected Christ as saviour, John 3:18. As far as unbelievers are concerned Hebrews 9:27 applies.

Some of the categories of unbelievers who are thrown into the lake of fire are actually mentioned in Revelation 21:8 and we will study them when we arrive at the eternal state. The two great dictators of the Tribulation, the beast dictator and ruler of the revived Roman empire and the dictator of Israel known as the false prophet, are the first occupants of the lake of fire, even though Satan and all fallen angels were sentenced to the lake of fire before man was created. The sentence was not carried out because of Satan’s appeal and the resultant angelic conflict, this time in human history.

In the human race it takes two witnesses to establish the reality of the situation. In the case of the angelic creatures it takes one. So we have a strange trio, the unholy trinity: Satan, the beast, and the false prophet, two members of the human race and the highest created angel of all time.

So it says, “thrown into the lake of fire and burning sulphur where the beast [the dictator of the revived Roman empire] and the false prophet [false messiah and dictator of Israel] are located.”

Then we have the eternal punishment mentioned in a very specific way. A lot of people try to rationalise Hell or say that there is going to be some point at which you can get out of Hell. But this is not true. We have the future passive indicative of the verb bassanizw which means to torment, “and they will be tormented.” The progressive future tense is linear aktionsart in future time. It goes on forever. The passive voice plus the third person plural suffix refers to the unholy trinity who receive the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for a dogmatic statement of doctrine, “and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” Note that Satan is the greatest deceiver of human history, the greatest liar, having begun with Eve in the garden and going all the way to the end of history. The protection against the deception of Satan is the perception of Bible doctrine plus the marvelous protocol system that God has given to us. We should note that the unholy trinity are in a state of being alive in the lake of fire. To be tormented forever one must live, to be tortured one must be alive. The torture is over when you die, but notice that they are tortured forever and ever. Hence, physical death is not the end for the unbeliever, as per Hebrews 9:27.

The doctrine of revolution

Revolution generally starts with some form of arrogance, some major function inside the cosmic system, some major contact with evil on the part of those involved. When we talk about evil here we are not talking about obvious degeneracy, we are talking about self-righteous arrogance. Most revolutions are started by self-righteous people. Self-righteous arrogance hooks up with criminal arrogance, criminal arrogance hooks up with crusader arrogance and the combination produces revolution. There is great power in public opinion when the public loses authority orientation and becomes arrogant and emotional. Hence, public opinion becomes a power without facts and without reason, a tool to be used by revolutionaries. Revolutions are not started by the majority, they are started by a small well-organised group of people. They never have the majority on their side but they use as a tool public opinion where public opinion is without facts or without reason. Public opinion arrogance is created into a revolutionary weapon, and that revolutionary weapon in the hands of a good organisation means an effective revolution. Then public opinion which becomes power for revolution is a weapon formed from strong delusion. Satan deceives, he is the author of strong delusion. Truth is the only protection the public has against revolution. So in effect crusader arrogance plus criminal arrogance equals revolution. Behind crusader arrogance is self-righteousness, so self-righteousness is the motivational evil behind it all.

Revolution has to be understood as the overthrow by violence of duly constituted authority resulting in fundamental changes in political organisation, constitution or government. revolution is a form of conspiracy to overthrow establishment, to remove authority of establishment by means of violence. Conspiracy is a combination of persons whose objective is evil and to overthrow establishment. The carefully devised and secret plan of the conspirators is called a plot, while the means of carrying out the plot is called intrigue. Machination emphasises the crafty and tortuous process often used in doing so. So revolution has its own vocabulary and has had for many centuries. Revolution is the antagonism of evil for the laws of divine establishment designed by God to guarantee the freedom of the human race and to give every opportunity for a person to be evangelised.

Evil is the concept behind all revolution, as in Proverbs 17:11, “A revolutionary man seeks only evil.” Hence, revolution has to be related to evil, Psalm 64:4,5, “They shoot from concealment at the blameless; suddenly they shoot at him, and do not fear. They hold fast to themselves an evil purpose; they conspire to lay snares secretly; they rationalise, ‘Who can see them?’ ” So since evil is the plan and the policy of Satan as the ruler of this world evil is related to the whole cosmic system: sin + arrogance = evil. The evil motivation for evil involves many of the categories of the cosmic system we have studied. Revolution involves the overthrow of laws of divine establishment, Romans 13:1-7. Revolution involves lawless mobs of people who cannot think nor achieve, therefore the mob is manipulated by the criminal element, but generally the self-righteous criminal element. The mob is the weapon of the revolution, exploited by the crusader, exploited by criminal arrogance, as well as political arrogance. The Bible condemns revolution — Numbers 16 where we have the rejection of the first revolution in Israel; the family of Aaron was challenged as being the family of the priesthood.

The source of revolution is always reversionism, according to Jeremiah 5:23; Isaiah 1:2-5. When a mob of people have rejected Bible doctrine they are a weapon to be forged by a revolutionary organisation. They are stupid and blind. There are three categories of people involved in a revolution: the hard core conspirators, the general public, who will never join a revolution unless they become stupid, and once they do they become the sheep who follow the propaganda machine; they have to be malcontent from arrogance plus the recipients of strong delusion, the propaganda of Satan; then they are motivated to join the revolution and are manipulated by the hard core revolutionist, and category three are the incorruptibles, the people in the client nation whose establishment norms and perception of doctrine combine with their honour and integrity to reject all revolutionary overtures. These are the people who live and die by their convictions. They have accepted some category of truth so that they are insulated against strong delusion. Furthermore, the incorruptibles are free from the cosmic system.

No revolution can gain momentum m apart from the function of the cosmic system. Both arrogance and strong delusion are the necessary ingredients for a revolution. Most revolutions lead to a civil war. They become a struggle for power and violence. If revolution does gain enough converts from the general public and the common people civil war is inevitable. When revolution starts a civil war there are two opposing forces seeking to gain control of power, and everyone is caught in between them. When revolution starts a civil war the issue is always truth, but somehow truth gets lost in the violence. Violence always submerges truth and the facts of an issue at hand.

When politics starts a civil war the issue is freedom; when revolution starts a civil war the issue is truth: both get lost. Revolution is inevitable where no distinction is made between authoritarian government and totalitarian government. This is one point that we must understand: Many forms of government, including monarchy, oligarchy, republic, and even dictatorships, can function under the laws of divine establishment which provide the umbrella for the modus operandi of freedom. Revolution is antiestablishment, therefore anti-authoritarian. Revolution generally starts in a totalitarian government that is a highly centralised form of government under the control of one political group. It is imperative that we distinguish between authoritarian government and totalitarian government. An authoritarian government provides the balance between authority and freedom and is compatible with the laws of divine establishment. A totalitarian government destroys freedom with the total ascendancy of authority producing tyranny.

Two categories of human freedom exist in life: temporal freedom and spiritual freedom. Temporal freedom results from the imputation of human life at birth and the function of an establishment organisation. Spirit freedom results from the imputation of divine righteousness at the moment of faith in Christ and provides under the protocol system freedom in either totalitarian or authoritarian nations. In other words, the possibility of blessing for a believer in any part of the world is there once, of course, he accepts Christ as saviour.

In studying the last judgment we come first of all in verse 11 to the courtroom. We have to remember that this is a second courtroom as far as eternal judgment is concerned. The first courtroom is the cross where 1 Peter 2:24 “He [Christ] bore our sins in his own body on the tree.” Our sins were judged at the cross. That resolved the problem of sin and that opens the door to salvation for anyone who will believe in Christ. The second courtroom occurs at the end of the Millennial reign of Christ. After the Gog and Magog revolution there is a second resurrection called the great white throne judgment, the last judgment, and all the unbelievers, all of those who rejected Christ as saviour, will be brought up into court. So courtroom number one is the cross; courtroom number two is the last judgment, the great white throne judgment at the end of human history.

In verse 11 the judge’s bench is mentioned first. We have the sequential use of the conjunction kai, “Then.” The words “I saw” is simply a means of expressing the eschatological vision which would be the content of the next few verses. The constative aorist of o(raw means that the entire action of the verb is contemplated in its entirety, this is a vision of the courtroom of the last judgment of human history. The active voice of the verb: the apostle John observes eschatologically a future judgment. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the fact that there will be a judgment of all unbelievers once human history is terminated. The combination is based on John 3:18 — “He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” Condemnation comes from failure to believe in Christ. Unbelief, rejection of Christ, is the basis for being indicted in the courtroom at the last judgment. Those who have personally believed in the Lord Jesus Christ will not be there, Romans 8:1.

We note the name of the courtroom in the accusative singular direct object of the verb. It takes three words: megaj, the adjective for “great”; leukoj, the adjective for “white”; and the noun qronoj, “the great white throne”, the name of the courtroom. The first adjective, “great,” emphasises the importance of the judge, our Lord Jesus Christ in hypostatic union. The second adjective, “white,” emphasises the integrity of the judge, His infinite and eternal holiness. The judges bench emphasises the fact that none of the culprits, all unbelievers of history, possess the perfect righteousness of God. The perfect righteousness of God, however, is imputed to all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The judge is mentioned in the next phrase, “and he who was sitting on it.” We have the present active participle of the verb kaqhmai to indicate that the judge is now in the court. The present tense is a futuristic present noting an event which has not yet occurred but is regarded as so certain in thought that it may be contemplated as already coming to pass. The active voice: Jesus Christ produces the action of the verb, He is the Judge occupying the bench and presiding over the court of the last judgment. The participle is circumstantial. It is fitting that Jesus Christ as the only saviour should occupy the judge’s bench. Those who rejected His saving work face Him at the judgment bar. By refusing to believe on Him in time the unbeliever will find that our Lord is a reality when they are on the edge of eternity. They refused to face the fact that Christ is the saviour in time; now they will face the fact that Christ is the judge for all eternity.

The destruction of the universe is mentioned next to indicate that this courtroom finds that there is no longer a universe for those who have failed to make the right decision in time. So we have the phrase, “from whose presence the earth and heaven have vanished.” So just before this judgment occurs both earth and heaven have vanished. We have two nouns as a dual subject. The first is the noun gh referring to planet earth and also there is o)uranoj referring to the rest of the universe. They are said to have fled. This is the aorist active indicative of the verb feugw, and it actually means here to vanish. The old universe has disappeared.

The culminative aorist tense contemplates the destruction of the universe at the end of the Millennium after the Gog revolution in its entirety, but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results, namely the last judgment and the creation of the new earth to follow. The active voice: heaven and earth produce the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the destruction of the universe which is the last item on the agenda before all unbelievers are resurrected and judged. The last judgment, known as great white throne, immediately follows the destruction of the universe. Actually, it is not the objective of this verse to discuss how the universe is destroyed, that will be in the next chapter, but merely to show where in the sequence of events this judgment occurs. So the last judgment follows the termination of the Millennium, the release of Satan from his one thousand years incarceration, and following the Gog revolution and the destruction of the universe.

The fact of the destruction of the present universe is mentioned by way of contrast with Bible doctrine in Matthew 24:35; Mark 13:31; Luke 21:33, which essentially all say the same thing, but it is so important it is repeated by all three of the synoptic writers. The universe as we now know it will be completely destroyed: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my doctrines will never pass away.” The Word of God lives and abides forever. We have that in writing which can never be destroyed even though the universe is destroyed. So in contrast Bible doctrine as absolute truth and a future fact of history which is true are brought into focus. It is true that the present universe will be destroyed at the end of the Millennium. It is a fact that absolute truth and Bible doctrine cannot be destroyed, they are indestructible.

We should notice the distinction between two words: Truth and true. Truth is a noun and true is an adjective, therefore an obvious distinction exists grammatically. But there is more to it as these two words are found in the Bible. True is an adjective describing the facts of history as they are printed out on the computer of divine decrees; truth is a noun referring to both the attributes of God and Bible doctrine. The attribute of God especially in view is His veracity. Bible doctrine is absolute truth while the facts of history are true but not necessarily truth. The facts of history at any given time may be the function of sin, evil, deception, lies, but their occurrence is true. Lies are told, deception occurs, so while that is true it is not truth. The doctrine of the Word of God is absolute truth while the facts of history, both good and bad, are simply true facts. Therefore true describes the accuracy of the historical events as they come from the computer of divine decrees while truth is both an attribute of eternal and infinite God and the content of the Word of God/Bible doctrine. The source of truth is Bible doctrine; the source of what is true is history as it reads out from the computer of divine decrees. The believer who rightly divides the Word of truth will always distinguish between true and truth.

For a brief resume of the destruction of the historical universe in a little more detail we look to 2 Peter

3:5, “For they are willfully ignorant of this fact, that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water.”

Verse 6, “Through which the world at that time [the antediluvian planet earth] was destroyed being flooded with water.”

Verse 7, “But the present heavens and earth [post-diluvian universe and earth] by his word are being reserved for fire [nuclear destruction], kept for the day of judgment [end of the Millennium] and destruction of ungodly [all unbelievers] men.”

Verse 8, “But do not let this one doctrine escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

Verse 9, “The Lord is not slow about his promises, as some men conclude slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing than anyone should perish [referring to the last judgment] but for all to come to repentance [a technical word for a change of mind about Christ].”

Verses 10-12 gives us the story of the destruction of the universe which occurs at the end of the Millennium.

Verse 10, “But the day of the Lord [a portion of the day of the Lord dealing with the destruction of the present universe and the last judgment of all unbelievers] will come like a thief,” “like a thief” must be understood in the time on which the Bible was written. The thief in the ancient world came suddenly, he had to take the household by surprise. So suddenly, not stealthily, is the connotation of coming like a thief. The Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written: the thief in the ancient world had to take his victims by surprise, “in which the heavens [the present universe] will vanish with a sudden roar, and the elements will be dissolved with intense heat, both the earth and the works [reference to the book of works, the basis for indictment at the last judgment] in it will be investigated,” the future passive indicative of e(uriskw and it is a reference to the last judgment which follows the destruction of the universe. Note that both the destruction of the present universe and the last judgment are both related and sequential. The destruction of the present universe is followed by the last judgment in which the unbeliever is indicted by his good works found in the “books according to their works.” Then, of course, the books are destroyed.

Verse 11, “Since all these things are in the process of being dissolved in this manner, what kind of people ought you to be [directed to the believer] in holy manner of life and godliness [a reference to the protocol system],

Verse 12, “anticipating and earnestly desiring the coming day of God,” the day of Christ is the Rapture of the Church; the day of the Lord is the Tribulation, second advent, and Millennium; the day of God is the eternal state. Notice that “day” is not used in any of these connotations as a 24-hour day, “because of which the burning heavens will be dissolved and the elements will melt with intense heat!”

Verse13, “But according to his announced promise,” which occurs twice in Isaiah: 65:17; 66:22, and once in Revelation 20:1, “we are anticipating new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness [virtue and integrity] is at home.” In other words, in the eternal state the believer in his resurrection body will enjoy ultimate sanctification and he will have perfect righteousness and integrity forever. At that point the modus operandi and the behaviour pattern of every believer in the resurrection body will be equivalent to the imputed righteousness he now enjoys.

Verse 14, “Therefore, beloved, since you anticipate these things, be zealous that you may be observed by him [or investigated by Him as a winner] in prosperity, spotless [living in the divine dynasphere] and blameless [the fulfillment of the divine mandate, virtue first].”

Revelation 20:11 so far, “Then I saw a great white throne [the courtroom of the last judgment], and he [our Lord Jesus Christ] who was sitting on it, from whose presence the earth and heaven have vanished.”

The basis for the last judgment is now given. We have an inferential use of the conjunction kai, “consequently.” Then we have a subject in the nominative singular, topoj, which means place, a room, and we will translate it “an inhabited place.” But we have to stop for a moment because we have the negative conjunction o)uk, and it says “no room” or “inhabited place.” Then we have the verb, the aorist passive indicative of e(uriskw, “was found.” Translation: “no inhabited space was found.” The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it views the destruction of the universe in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results, no place in God’s universe for the unbeliever of human history. In eternity they are consigned to the lake of fire. There is no place for the unbeliever because the universe because the universe in which they made wrong decisions has now been destroyed. The passive voice: no room or place receives the action of the verb. We have a dative plural indirect object from a)utoj, “for them.”

Translation of verse 11: “Then I saw a great white throne, and he who was sitting on it, from whose presence the earth and heaven have vanished; consequently no inhabited space was found for them.”

At the end of verse 12 and the end of verse 13 we have repetitive statements: “then the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their works.” This same sentence ends both verse twelve and verse thirteen. So before we get into these two verses it is better that we approach with some concept of the doctrine of human good.

Human good is then production of mankind living inside Satan’s cosmic system, consequently human good is not valid as far as God is concerned, except in one case. Human good production of the believer in the cosmic system is classified as “wood, hay, and stubble” at the judgment seat of Christ. We begin, then, the study of human in 1 Corinthians 3:11-16.

Verse 11, we have a foundation for the Christian way of life: personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation, then, is the base on which the believer builds his life. “For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

Verse 12, “Now if any man builds on the foundation [the function of the believer in the protocol system] with gold, silver, precious stones,” that is one category, protocol believer’s production from the divine dynasphere, “wood, hay, straw,” the cosmic believer’s production doing the same things: witnessing, giving, and so on; Christian service of all categories.

Verse 13, “each man’s work [Christian works or production] will become evident; for the day will show it,” the day refers to the judgment seat of Christ immediately after the Rapture, “because it is revealed by fire; in fact the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work.”

Verse 14, “If any man’s work which he has built upon it remains, he shall receive a reward.”

Verse 15, “If any man’s work which he has built on it [on the foundation of time, phase two: plan of God] is burned up, he shall suffer loss [loss of reward]; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire.”

Verse 16, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” That is the beginning of the protocol system which has God has ordained.

God has a plan for your life and that plan is related to the protocol system. Human good, of course, is the production of mankind apart from the plan of God. Human good is motivated by arrogance and has absolutely no credit with God whatsoever. Because human good originates inside the cosmic system and is totally divorced from God’s protocol system, it is dead to God. Hence, it is called dead works, Hebrews 6:1. Christian service inside of the divine dynasphere is classified as divine good but Christian service inside the cosmic system is called human good. Only inside the protocol system, the divine dynasphere, is divine good manufactured. Human good is characterised by many things. One of its more obvious characteristics is fanaticism- zeal without knowledge; Christian service, human good outside of the divine dynasphere. Fanaticism is good works from arrogance, Christian service inside the cosmic system. Fanaticism is excessive enthusiasm without motivational virtue. This means enthusiasm without motivational virtue. This means enthusiasm plus the three categories of virtue for legitimate enthusiasm. Fanaticism is irresponsible arrogance without functional virtue, without motivational virtue, without basic virtue from the protocol system. Fanaticism is arrogant concentration without doctrinal inculcation. It is misguided zeal, inordinate ambition, humourless bigotry, the distortion and misapplication of Bible doctrine. Fanaticism produces human good — Christian service in the cosmic system.

There are three classification of human good. Number 1 is what we have just been noting: human good of the believer living in the cosmic system. Number 2 is the human good of establishment orientation in the client nation to God. This is an exception. It is not really human good, it is establishment good. Number 3 is the human good of the unbeliever registered in the book of works, the basis for the indictment of all unbelievers at the last judgment. The sins of the unbeliever were judged at the cross, along with all of the sins of the believer, but human good was not judged at the cross. Therefore, human good becomes the basis for the indictment of the last judgment. At the end of Revelation 20:12, “then the dead were judged from the things which had been written in the books, according to their works”; at the end of verse 13, “then the dead were judged from the things which had been written in the books, according to their works.” So the principle that we now note is the fact that this trial has no reference to sin. There is no such thing as the last judgment somehow related to sin. Those who are arraigned before the throne of God are unbelievers only and these unbelievers cannot be judged for their sins because their sins already went to courtroom number one, the cross.

Courtroom number two, however, is a different story. There we have the great white throne and there the unbeliever will be arraigned and indicted. The indictment is not based upon his sin but on his human good.

Verse 12, “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written into the books, according to their works.”

We have the sequential use of the conjunction kai, “Then,” followed by the aorist active indicative of o(raw which introduces another view of the last judgment. We have the accusative plural direct object from nekroj, translated “dead.” All believers have been resurrected by this time and are in resurrection bodies, the first resurrection has been concluded. This is a reference to dead said to be great and small. However, they are all unbelievers. We have two adjectives here: megaj and mikroj, “great,” unbelievers in history who were famous or great, or who performed an unusual number of good deeds during their lifetime; “small,” which means small in importance, small in influence and power, a reference to all unbelievers who were losers in life.

These are said to be standing, therefore we now come to the second resurrection: the perfect active participle i(stemi, which means to stand and is used here to designate the second resurrection, the arraignment of all unbelievers before the bar of God. The unbelievers are resurrected to answer to the indictment before the divine judge. The intensive perfect emphasises the results of the second resurrection of all unbelievers. When special attention is directed to the results of the action stress upon existing results is intensified. Therefore it is called the intensive perfect. It is the Greek way of saying a thing is, and since the intensive perfect is a Greek idiom there is no exact translation on the English. The closest we can come is to use the English present tense, therefore translated “standing” instead of “having stood.” The active voice: all unbelievers of history produce the action of the verb. They are arraigned into the final court for the last judgment. The participle is circumstantial. There is no word for “God” here in the original text. It simply is a prepositional phrase which says, “before the throne.”

It is important to notice the principle of books. We will call this library the evidence for the prosecution. We have the nominative plural subject from biblion, and it refers to a tremendous gathering of evidence, evidence gathered into books. The absence of the definite article with biblion emphasises the quality of the evidence. There is no hearsay. Nothing but facts have been accumulated as evidence, “and the books were opened,” the aorist passive indicative of the verb a)noigw. It is a culminative aorist contemplating the presentation of the evidence in its entirety, but regarding it from the viewpoint of its existing results, all unbelievers condemned on the basis of their good works, their human good. The passive voice: two categories of books receive the action of the verb. First there is the book of life. Originally it contained the names of everyone ever born into the human race, since Christ died for all when He was on the cross. The doctrine of unlimited atonement is taught in 1 Corinthians 5:14,15,19; 1 Timothy 2:6; 4:10; Titus 2:11; 2 Peter 2:1; 1 John 2:2. At the time of the last judgment the book of life does not contain the names of all the human race, for once a person dies without believing in Christ his name is blotted out of the book of life. So at the last judgment the book of life contains only the names of believers. No unbelievers are listed and therefore the first evidence against those who have been arraigned is the fact that their name is not found in the book of life. They have not personally accepted Christ as saviour. So the first point of evidence at the last judgment is the fact that there is no registry in the book of life of these people. That is evidence of the fact that they did not personally believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, they did not receive Him as personal saviour during their life on this earth. The second book to receive the action of the verb in this verse is the book of works. It contains the names of all unbelievers.

So we have two types of evidence. First of all we have negative evidence. In the book of life no unbeliever is there. Their name has been blotted out. Then there is the book of works and their name is in this book. So the book of life is the registry of believers only, however the book of works is a registry of unbelievers only. Each unbeliever has a section in the book of works, depending on how many good deeds. In the book of works are recorded the good deeds of every unbeliever since the beginning of time. Every person who rejects Christ as saviour is recorded in the book of works and such rejection is tantamount to accepting one’s own good works in place of the work of Christ on the cross for salvation. The salvation issue is the work of Christ on the cross versus the works of mankind. Hence the unbeliever chooses to stand on his own works and on his own human merit rather than the merit and the work of Christ on the cross. Therefore the unbeliever is judged from the book of works and condemned because his works are not adequate for salvation. Note, once again, that the unbeliever is not judged for his sins, his sins have already been judged on the cross. All the sins of human history were taken out of the computer of divine decrees by God the Father, imputed to Christ on the cross, and judged. Therefore, under the law of double jeopardy all sins have been judged once on the cross and cannot be judged again in the arraignment of the supreme court of heaven at the second resurrection. Because all sins have been judged at the cross anyone can believe in Christ and have eternal life.

There are several implications from the judgment of all human sins on the cross. a. Human sins cannot be the basis for the indictment of the last judgment. b. The mechanics of the rebound technique for the believer recognises the judgment of our sins and cites those things which have been judged. We rebound by simply naming our sins to God. Why? Because by naming those sins no works are involved. All of the work was in sinning but there is no work in simply citing them or naming them. So we name them to God and we are instantly forgiven because those sins were judged on the cross.

The indicative mood is declarative representing the verbal action from the viewpoint of reality. Two sets of books are used to indict the unbeliever in the last judgment. The evidence from the book of life: the unbeliever’s name is blotted out of the book of life when he dies without believing in Christ. The second part of the evidence is the book of works. The unbeliever’s works recorded in the book of works demonstrate the fact that minus R cannot have fellowship with plus R. To live with God forever one must have the life of God, eternal life; and be as good as God is good and therefore possess His righteousness. The only way we can possess His righteousness is to personally believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Guilt is proved with two witnesses, and that is why it says in the middle of verse 12. “then the books (plural) were opened.” First, “another book was opened which is the book of life.” There is the first witness, the roster of all believers in history. Then, “the dead were judged” but their name was not found in the book of life, so then the dead were judged from the “things which had been written in the books (plural), according to their works.” So first we have the book of life which originally contained the names of all members of the human race, since when Christ died on the cross He was judged for the sins of the world — the doctrine of unlimited atonement, 1 Corinthians 5:14, 15, 19; 1 Timothy 2:6; 4:10; Titus 2:11; 2 Peter 2:1; 1 John 2:2. Christ died for the sins of the world. He did not die for the elect, He died for all, believer and unbeliever. However at the time of the last judgment the names of all unbelievers have been blotted out of the book of life since they rejected this so great salvation in time. Hence, the first part of evidence at the last judgment is the fact that the unbeliever does not have his name written in the book of life. This is the principle of John 3:18. The opposite side of the picture is very clear. No believer will be found at the last judgment, “There is therefore now no judgment to them who are in Christ Jesus.” The second book to receive the action of the verb is the book of works containing the names of all unbelievers since the beginning of human history. In the books of works are recorded the good deeds of every believer since the beginning of time. Every person who rejects Christ as saviour is recorded in the book of works. Such rejection, of course, is tantamount to accepting one’s good works in place of the saving work of Christ on the cross. The salvation issue, therefore, is the work of Christ versus human works, human good. Hence the unbeliever chooses to stand on his own merits rather than on the merit of the work of Christ on the cross which is described in many ways: redemption, reconciliation, propitiation, unlimited atonement. Therefore the unbeliever is judged from the book of works and condemned. This is the second witness against him. He is condemned because his works are not adequate for salvation, and we note that the unbeliever is not judged for his sins, which are not even mentioned, because they were judged at the cross. Therefore two courtrooms are involved: the cross and the great white throne, the last judgment at the end of the Millennium and the Gog revolution.

We have noted that even the believer produces human good but that human good is never found in the books of works because that human good is burned at the judgment seat of Christ. It is the wood, hay, and stubble of 1 Corinthians 3:11 which is burned in 1 Corinthians 3:15.

Verse 13, the mechanics of arraignment and indictment. This is the second resurrection and, strangely enough, it begins with the sea. This is not talking about people who drown in the sea, nor is it talking about people who were buried in the sea. It is talking about the sea as the most powerful set of gates ever used for a prison.

The verse begins with the sequential use of the conjunction kai, “Then.” followed by the nominative singular subject qalassa, “the sea.” It refers here to the flood waters generally of the universal flood. That is one way in which it is used. So it can refer to all the waters which cover planet earth.

At the time of Noah he and his family were not only living believers on planet earth but they were the only true human beings left after the flood. The rest of the human race had been contaminated, Genesis 6:1-13. Verses 12, 13, “And God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. Then God said to Noah, ‘The end of all flesh is at hand’.” all flesh being those members of the human race who were half human and half angelic, “ ‘for the earth is filled with violence because of them’,” these angelic creatures were very violent and unrestrained because they had not been judged in the judgment of fallen angels before human history began, at the time of Matthew 25:15 where Satan and all fallen angels were indicted and their judgment was the lake of fire, and judgment not carried out because it was appealed, “ ‘now behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth’.”

Many believers and unbelievers have died at sea. This does not refer to human beings. This has nothing to do with burial at sea. Human beings, whether buried on land, or sea; whether their bodies were blown up and disappeared, whether their physical bodies were burned or used for the advance of medical science, they are resurrected from Hades as unbelievers and resurrection from heaven as believers. Notice that it says the sea gave up the dead, not Hades. That is coming up next under the mistranslation “Hell.” So actually what we have here is something very different, we are not talking about the normal human unbelievers whose souls are in Hades. This is something very unique. We have the nominative singular subject of qalassa which refers to the location of the Nephalim, those who are not with the fallen angels in a compartment of Hades called the abyss or Tartarus. Neither are they with unbelievers in that compartment of Hades called torments. The souls of all unbelievers are located in torments until the second resurrection but they are not mentioned under “the sea gave up its dead,” they are mentioned when it says “death and Hades gave up its dead.” Tartarus, which also has another name, the abyss, is where the fallen angels are. They will be brought out of the abyss and brought up for their judgment at the end of time and they will be cast into the lake of fire. But this is not a reference to Tartarus, a reference to torments; this is a place that deals with unbelievers. All angelic unbelievers during the Millennium are in Tartarus. It does not say Tartarus gave up the dead, it doesn’t say the abyss gave up the dead, it doesn’t even say Hades gave up the dead, it says the sea gave up its dead. There is another category at the gates of Tartarus. The gates of Tartarus are called the sea and the reason they are not in Hades is because they are one half angel, they are one half human being. Therefore they are not even permitted in Tartarus, they are in the gate to Hades.

Being half human and half angelic, after their death, Genesis 6, they did not go to Hades. The dead Nephalim are not with the fallen angels in the compartment known as Tartarus or the abyss, neither are they will human unbelievers in the compartment of Hades known as Torments. They were all drowned in the flood. That is the way the super race died, and they all are located on the bottom of the sea. It is possible that the sea or qalassa refers to the very gates of Hades, Luke 8:31 which says, “And they [the demons known as legion] were entreating him [Jesus] not to command them to depart to the abyss.” In the King James the word “sea” or “deep” is used, which is inaccurate. The abyss is the jail for demons, fallen angels, and they begged Him not to go to jail. The same word a)bussoj is used in Revelation 20:3 where Satan goes for his 1000-year sentence. In the Septuagint of Genesis 1:2 uses the word a)bussoj which is synonymous with water. The gates of Hades are water gates, and the Nephalim couldn’t go through the gates into the prison. They have to stay at the gates because they are not human and they are not angelic, they are half human and half angelic. Job 38:8 says, “Or who closed the sea with doors?” There it is, the water gates, the gates to the prison of fallen angels. This phrase tells us that the abyss or Tartarus has sea doors and the reason the sea has to give up its dead is because when they came to the sea doors after Noah’s flood they couldn’t go in. There was no place for them. So since the flood the Nephalim have been cooling it at the water gate. From the water gate they join the second resurrection to be judged with human unbelievers. They are judged with human unbelievers because they rejected Christ as saviour in human history. They did not reject God in the angelic conflict, they were not there.

We come to the verb now, the verb to give up: the aorist active indicative of didomi which means to give. The constative aorist contemplates the action of the Nephalim in its entirety. While half human and half angelic creatures they rejected Christ as saviour during human history before the flood. Noah constantly evangelised them, they had every opportunity to believe and they rejected Christ as saviour in human history. Therefore they are judged with human unbelievers of history. The active voice: the sea or the water gates of Tartarus produce the action of the verb at the second resurrection. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the second resurrection including the Nephalim. Since all Nephalim are unbelievers they are included in the second resurrection. Mechanically the human soul of the Nephalim leaves the water gates of the abyss

or Tartarus, rejoins its super body at the point of its death and is arraigned before the great white throne court.

When this verse says, “the sea gave up the dead,” it refers to the resurrection of the Nephilim of Genesis 6:4, and since all the Nephilim were unbelievers they are included in the second resurrection. Mechanically, the human soul of the Nephilim leaves the water gates or the abyss, rejoins its super body at the point of its death and is arraigned before the great white throne with human beings. The Nephilim are classified as the older heroes in Greek history. In discussing the first heroic age, Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 2, part 1, quotes the distinction between the first heroic age and the second.

“those in it.” That is, those located at the sea gates. So the second resurrection actually has two stages. The first stage has to do with the Nephilim who being half angelic and half human, but having lived in human history, having rejected Christ as saviour, and having not been judged with fallen angels before human history — the Nephilim are brought up to be judged. Since they are half human they have a resurrection. The second stage is the unbeliever Homo sapien who is also resurrected. All are judged in the same way.

Next we have the arraignment of human unbelievers. We have the adjunctive use of the conjunction kai, “also.” Then we have two words for the subject, both are in the nominative singular: qanatoj, translated “death,” referring to the fact that no matter where the body of the unbeliever is located and no matter how it was destroyed the unbeliever will participate in the second resurrection in the last judgment; and a(dhj, referring to the location of the unbeliever’s soul until the second resurrection. Then we have the aorist active indicative of the verb didomi which means to give, and here it means to give up, “also death and Hades gave up the dead, those in them.” The dead this time refers to all unbelievers in human history. These unbelievers in their life time had every opportunity to accept Christ as saviour. There is no such thing as an unbeliever who didn’t have a chance for salvation. The first chance is at the point of God-consciousness. Then there is the point of gospel hearing under two categories: normal evangelism and crisis evangelism. So in principle there are three possible exposures and no one ever departs from this life without having a chance one way or another.

Next we have the word “then” which introduces the third sentence in this verse: the sequential conjunction kai, and the aorist passive indicative of krinw which means to be judged, “then they were judged.” The constative aorist contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety. The passive voice: every unbeliever in the history of the human race receives the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the dogmatic statement of fact and of doctrine: all unbelievers are judged at the end of human history.

Then we have a very strange appositional nominative which is very important, e(kastoj, “each one.”

There is no mass judgment, no mass indictment. Obviously there is a mass arraignment but each one has his turn at the judgment bar. Then that very important prepositional phrase, kata plus the accusative plural from e)rgon, “according to their works.” Every unbeliever is personally judged from his own records. Evidence is found in two records: the book of life where his name is blotted out, and the book of works. Note again, the unbeliever is not judged for his sins, and this is because his sins were all judged at courtroom number one, the cross. Hence, the indictment is based on human works which were not judged at the cross. This is the application of the law of double jeopardy: human sins can only be judged once, at the cross. No sin will ever be mentioned at the last judgment.

Translation: “Then the sea gave up the dead, those in it; also death and Hades gave up the dead, those in them: then they were judged each one according to their works.”

Because of the doctrine of unlimited atonement the unbeliever cannot be judged for his sins, therefore the basis for the indictment of all unbelievers is the area of human good. Human works and good deeds add up to minus R. Minus R cannot have fellowship with plus R, you must have perfect righteousness to live with God forever, and when you believe in Christ one of the things that you receive is the righteousness of God. That is the basis of your justification. Every person in human history who believes in Christ, at the moment he believes he receives eternal life. If you are going to live with God you must have his life and you must be as good as He is by the imputation of eternal life and the imputation of God’s righteousness. All of that is fulfilled.

The Old Testament believers received the imputed righteousness of God, Genesis 15:6; Romans 4:3. They were not saved by keeping the law, they were saved by faith in Christ. Church Age believers received the imputed righteousness of God, 2 Corinthians 5:21. The Tribulational believers receive the imputed righteousness of God, Revelation 7:14. And we can infer from the fact that Old Testament believers are said to have imputed righteousness at the point of faith, Genesis 15:6, Church Age believers are said to have it at the point of faith in Christ, 2 Corinthians 5:21, and Tribulational believers are said to have it, Revelation 7:14, that believers in every dispensation have received God’s righteousness at the moment of salvation. The fact of unlimited atonement means that the sins of the unbelievers cannot be used as the basis of their indictment, therefore they are judged according to their works, Romans 2:5,6.

The doctrine of the last judgment

1. The last judgment is also known as the great white throne judgment. It is the divine administration of permanent judgment to all unbelievers. It is an eternal sentence. The last judgment is the alternative to eternal salvation through faith in Christ, therefore the last judgment is for all unbelievers in history. Like all judgments the last judgment is the expression of the integrity or holiness of God toward those who reject Christ as saviour. The holiness or integrity of God is composed of two attributes: justice and righteousness. To those who believe in Christ God imputes one half of His integrity and/or divine righteousness at the moment of salvation. This means that the unbeliever does not have this righteousness because he has not believed in Christ. If you don’t believe in Christ you do not receive this perfect righteousness of God by imputation. The last judgment is a demonstration that human righteousness and good deeds will not qualify mankind for salvation. The very good deeds on which the unbeliever depends are used to indict him at the last judgment. Hence, the great white throne is the culminating judgment of history in which all unbelievers are arraigned, the second resurrection, and indicted on the basis of the evidence and sentenced to the lake of fire forever. This is also called the second death or living in the lake of fire forever. There is no second chance beyond the grave. When a person dies physically without believing in Christ as saviour he will be arraigned and judged at the last judgment, Hebrews 9:27.

2. There are two categories of the human race: believers and unbelievers. Those who do not reach accountability are always on the believer’s side; they are included with believers, they are automatically saved.

3. At the last judgment the unbeliever’s indictment is John 3:18. The ministry of the Holy Spirit of God in common grace or convicting the world is related to one sin, John 16:9, “Concerning sin because they believe not on me.” Revelation 20:15, “Everyone who was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” The book of life at the last judgment is a registry of believers only. Since Christ died for all, all names were entered into the book of life when God imputed human life after birth. However, when anyone dies without accepting Christ as saviour his name is blotted out of the book of life. Therefore the unbeliever is said to have two appointments, Hebrews 9:27, physical death and judgment. The arraignment of the unbeliever is accomplished through the second resurrection, Daniel 12:2, “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake [analogous to resurrection], those to eternal life [first resurrection], but the others to disgrace and eternal rejection [the unbeliever at the second resurrection].”

There are a number of different kinds of death mentioned in the scripture. For example, the most prominent death and the one that people seem to understand is physical death. Out of the seven types of death used in the scripture physical death is probably the most obvious. It is defined as the separation of the soul from the body so that the person involved no longer lives on planet earth. Such death cannot separate the believer from God according to Romans 8:38,39. Physical death, then, is a matter of the sovereign decision of God based on His perfect knowledge of all the facts, Psalm 68:19,20. God does, and God can, prolong physical life under certain conditions that are specified in the 102nd Psalm, verses 19, 20, 23, 24, and also in Psalm 118:18. God also delivers the believer from death under many circumstances, Job 5:20; Psalm 33:19; 56:13; 116:8. The believer who advances to maturity departs from life under the principle of dying grace, Psalm 23:4; 116:15. Resurrection is the victory over death, 1 Corinthians 15:54-57. Physical death is also defined in terms of the believer’s victory in life because of faith in Christ. Death means no appointment with judgment, Hebrews 9:27. Death means face to face with the Lord, 2 Corinthians 5:8; the end of any kind of pain or suffering, Revelation 21:4. Death means an inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled, 1 Peter 1:4,5. Death for the believer means a new home, as per John 14:1-6; the full realisation of eternal life in John 11:25; 10:28; 20:31. Physical death means waiting for the resurrection in an interim body, John 11:25; 1 Thessalonians 4; Job 19. For the believer whose momentum carries him to gate eight of the divine dynasphere death is said to be profit forever and ever, Philippians 1:20,21. For the believer who spends his life inside the cosmic system death is a horrible thing, he dies under discipline called the sin unto death, 1 John 5:16; Psalm 118:17,18; Revelation 3:16; Acts 5.

Sometimes death is referring to spiritual death, not physical death at all. The reality of spiritual death is the fact that the penalty of sin is death. God told our first parents in the garden that the day they disobeyed His mandate about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and ate of the fruit, dying they would die. When they ate the fruit they did not die, therefore it was not a physical death, it was a spiritual death. They died instantly, but they died spiritually. They were still very much alive physically. The penalty was imposed, then, at the fall of man and is perpetuated in the human race through the imputation of Adam’s original sin to the genetically-formed old sin nature at birth, Romans 5:12. In effect, the entire human race sinned when Adam sinned. Being the federal head of the human race, the entire human race was “in Adam” seminally. That is another reason why at the point of physical birth, when we receive physical life, we also receive the imputation of Adam’s sin. Mankind is not condemned by the imputation of personal sin. Our personal sins have never been imputed to us, they were imputed to Christ. Mankind is not condemned by the imputation of his personal sins but by the imputation of Adam’s sin which is imputed to the genetically-formed old sin nature. The solution to spiritual death is stated in Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is [spiritual] death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The third category of death in the Bible is positional death of the believer. Positional death occurs as a result on one of the 37 things we receive at the point of salvation, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit takes every believer at the moment of salvation and enters him into union with Christ. Through baptism of the Spirit at salvation the believer is identified with Christ in his death burial and resurrection. Positional death, also called retroactive positional truth. It is the believer’s identification with Christ in His death. Just as Christ rejected human good and evil on the cross, so we have done so positionally. Human good, evil, and sin are three of the issues from the cosmic system. When Christ was on the cross He received the imputation of our sins but He rejected human good and evil because they continue to be an issue for the believer. He can choose human good as over against divine good; he can choose evil in the cosmic system as over against God’s protocol plan for his life in the divine dynasphere. So we have the concept that positional rejection of human good and evil is the basis for experiential rejection. Colossians 2:11-12, “In fact, in him [union with Christ] you have been circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, by the renunciation of the body of the flesh [the old sin nature] by the circumcision of Christ [reference to retroactive positional truth]; having been buried with him by means of the baptism [of the Spirit].” Retroactive positional truth or positional death, then, is identification with Christ in His death when He was judged for our sins when at the same time He rejected human good and evil as the policy of Satan as the ruler of this world. Therefore we can only sin outside of the divine dynasphere. We can only produce human good and evil in the cosmic system, therefore all personal sin places us immediately outside of the divine dynasphere and inside of Satan’s cosmic system.

That becomes the issue for the fourth death which is cosmic death of the believer. Cosmic death is what we call carnality. There are two ways of looking at the believer who is a loser. One is to look at it from the standpoint of the body of the believer. The body of the believer is said to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. It is also the location of the old sin nature. The issue is who controls the soul. Volition guards the gate of the soul. The old sin nature tries to gain control of the soul through temptation. All you have to do is say no to temptation to keep the old sin nature from controlling the soul. When the old sin nature is not controlling the soul the Holy Spirit is, and that is the filling of the Spirit. So from this standpoint every time you sin — the source of all sin is human volition — temptation is converted into sin and then the believer is said to be carnal. It means the old sin nature controls the soul. When the Holy Spirit controls the soul then the believer is said to be spiritual. So at any given time you are either spiritual or carnal. Therefore spirituality is an absolute and carnality is an absolute.

The fifth category of death is the production mortality of the believer. This category combines the arrogance of Christian service with the function of human good. It also can include the function of crusader arrogance with the modus operandi of functional evil, the motivational evil being arrogance itself. Arrogance plus self-righteousness plus crusader arrogance equals the total function of evil. In other words, the production of Christian service, good works, legitimate things, become wood hay and straw. They are called dead works in Hebrews 6:1.

Number six is sexual death, Hebrews 11:11,12; Romans 4:17-21. Abraham is the one person who was said to have sexual death in the Bible.

The seventh death in the Bible is the second death when the unbeliever is judged. He has rejected Christ as saviour. He is not judged according to his sins but he is judged according to his works.

The eighth death found in the scripture is the sin unto death: maximum punishment of the believer in time, a horrible death as a maximum discipline.

Hades is the Hebrew word sheol, and the Greek word a(idhj. Both words are talking about the same place, the vast suffering place of the departed dead of the human race and the abode of certain categories of fallen angels. The dying are said to go to Sheol in Numbers 16:30; Ezekiel 31:15,17. Those who were saved in the Old Testament went to Sheol, according to Hosea 13:14; Psalm 49:16. The reason for that, called Paradise or Abraham’s bosom, is because all of the born-again believers went there until the resurrection of Christ when they were transferred to the third heaven. The unbeliever is also there and said to be in torments, a different compartment. By the way, wherever Sheol is used the Septuagint always used Hades. There is also another compartment called Tartarus which is the location of certain fallen angels. This is called the abyss.

Verse 14, the sentence of the court. We have a sequential use of the conjunction kai, “Then,” followed by the nominative subject qanatoj, used for death number seven, the second death. With this is the appositional nominative a(idhj, “Hades” is the location of all unbelievers until the second resurrection. Then we have the aorist passive indicative of the verb ballw which means to throw. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist, it contemplates the execution of the sentence in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of its existing results. The unbeliever resides in the lake of fire forever. The passive voice: the unbeliever receives the action of the verb at the last judgment. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the unbeliever living in the lake of fire. Then we have the phrase, “into the lake of fire.” Translation: “Then death even Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.” Every human being is the product of his own decisions, the function of his own volition. The lake of fire is the eternal residence of the unbeliever because he has made the worst of all decisions under three categories: God-consciousness, the point at which he became aware of the existence of God; gospel hearing, normal evangelism and crisis evangelism. So he is the product of his own decisions. There is no excuse, Romans 1:18-25.

What about the heathen? Heathenism is the apostasy of the unbeliever in three stages of negative volition. Consequently heathenism is simply a way of describing the rejection of God’s plan of salvation.

Romans 1:18, “For the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and anti-justice of those who suppress the truth through unrighteousness.”

The unbeliever suppresses the truth by its rejection. That means that salvation maladjustment occurs at either God-consciousness or the two categories of gospel hearing. The word “heathen”, by the way, is a Gothic word. The Gothic word means “open country”, hence the word originally meant heath or the open country. It is equivalent to the Latin paganus, from which we get the word “pagan.” Heathenism is defined as one of a nation or a race or a people who do not acknowledge the God of the Bible, and we call them simply heathen or pagan.

Wherever a place in this earth is described as heathenistic it is a place where the truth has been at some time in the past. Many doctrines of the Word of God resolve the problems of heathenism, such as the doctrine of divine essence applied, the doctrine of unlimited atonement applied, the doctrine of God-consciousness applied, the application of the doctrine of the justice of God.

The biblical documentation is very important. It tells us that there never has been a generation that has not been evangelised or has not reached the point of God-consciousness.

Acts 17:6, “And when they did not find them, they began dragging Jason and some of the brethren before the city authorities, shouting, ‘These men who have upset the world have come here also.”

Colossians 1:6, “The gospel which has come to you, just as in all the world and is constantly bearing fruit and spreading.”

1 Timothy 3:16, “And by consent of all great is the mystery of doctrine with reference to godliness:

The unique one [Christ as eternal God] became visible by means of the flesh, the same one was vindicated by means of the Holy Spirit, was observed by angels, was proclaimed to all the nations, became the object of faith in the world, was taken into his place of glory.”

We also have documents by people who wrote in the ancient world:

Justin Martyr, who lived in the second century, said: “There is no people, Greek or Barbarian, or any other race by whatsoever appellation or manner by which they may be distinguished, however ignorant of art and agriculture, whether they dwell in tents or wander about in covered wagons, among whom prayers and thanksgiving are not offered in the name of the crucified Christ to God the Father.” In other words, all over the world the Lord was known.

Tertullian, who also wrote in the second century: “We are but yesterday and yet we already fill your cities, your islands, your camps, your palaces, your senate and forum. We have left you only your empty temples.”

Origen, who goes into the third century, said: “In all Greece and in all barbarous races within our world there are tens of thousands who have left their national laws and customary gods for the law of Moses and the word of our Lord Jesus Christ, though to adhere to the Word of God is to incur the hatred of idolaters, and to embrace that word is to incur the risk of death as well; and considering how in a few years, and with no great store of teachers, in spite of the attacks which have cost us life and property, the preaching of that word has found its way into every part of the world so that the Greeks and barbarians, wise and unwise, adhere to faith in Jesus Christ.

Eusebius, the fourth century historian: “There flourished at that time many successors to the apostles who reared to edifice on the foundations that were laid, continuing the work of preaching the gospel, and scattering abundantly over the entire earth the wholesome seed of the heavenly kingdom. For a very large number of disciples carried away by fervent love of doctrine which the divine Word had revealed to them, fulfilled the command of our saviour, leaving their country they fulfilled the office of evangelist to carry the gospel to those who had never heard the word of faith.”

Missionary documentation regarding the dissemination of the gospel goes all of the way up to the present time.

God’s perfect righteousness and perfect justice prohibit Him from being unfair. God is the epitome of all involved in perfect integrity — perfect, eternal, infinite integrity. Therefore, since it is impossible for God to be unfair there never was, and there never will be, a person who didn’t have a chance to hear. Since God cannot be unfair or compromise His justice, positive volition at the point of God-consciousness is always met with missionary and evangelistic activity. In other words, there is no such thing as a human being who does not have the chance to be saved. It is God’s will that all members of the human race be saved, 2 Peter 3:9. Only negative volition to the gospel, either under normal or crisis evangelism, frustrates the will and desire of God.
God does not violate or coerce human volition. Such a course of action violates the principle of the angelic conflict and its extension into human history. God has provided salvation for the entire human race. Each person must make his own decision. God cannot force you to make a decision, you must make your own. Furthermore, to avoid any works it must be made in privacy, and therefore, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” Unlimited atonement indicates God’s desire for everyone to believe but He can’t force you to do it.

God-consciousness is the point at which mankind becomes aware of the existence of God through the function of his own mentality. Every human being has at least three chances. First, God consciousness; secondly, gospel hearing or normal evangelism; thirdly, gospel hearing under crisis evangelism. The major issue is your own mentality because by your own thinking you can become aware of the existence of God. Man has the ability to arrive at God-consciousness through the function of his mentality, and when a member of the human race has reached God-consciousness that is called the point of accountability. Such accountability varies with culture, languages, environment and circumstances. Those members of the human race who are morons and do not reach accountability are automatically saved at the point of death. Babies and others who die before reaching accountability are also saved according to 2 Samuel 2:22. The issue of God-consciousness is the subject of Romans 1:20-21. Jeremiah 29:13, “And you will seek me [positive volition at God-consciousness] and find me [positive volition at gospel hearing], when you search for me with all your heart.” John 7:17, “If any man is willing to do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it is from God or I speak of myself.” Acts 17:27, “That they should seek God, if perhaps they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each of us,” relating God-consciousness to the principle.

There are five ways in which God-consciousness may be arrived at through a system of thought. These are different categories of thinking and the ability is one of IQ. But no matter how low the IQ, as long as it does not drop below the level of accountability, then there are there are five different ways that by thinking, apart from any information outside of your own mentality, you can reach God-consciousness.

1. Theological. The principle is very simple. God must exist because men universally believe in His existence. The creature does not crave what does not exist. “Men seek after God,” says Psalm 42:1,2.

2. Anthropological. To a greater or lesser degree man’s soul possession, both volition and conscience, are an urge to choose right rather than wrong. When anyone has a desire to choose right over wrong, not even being able to define them but saying, “This is wrong, and this is right,” then you have the principle of awareness of a higher standard. The structure of society is based on human recognition of virtue and truth. This phenomenon has no explanation apart from the existence of God. A material, ungoverned universe can know nothing of moral values and distinctions apart from the absolute righteousness of a supreme being.

3. Ontological. Since the human mind possesses the idea of perfection or perfect and absolute being, such a being must exist, and apart from religious or moral tendencies previously considered the existence of God is a necessary ideal tendency of the human mind. Beyond the relative with which man measures there is the absolute which gives character or value to the relative. The relative must have an absolute to provide its value.

4. Teleological. This is the structure of the universe. Once you examine the structure of the universe it demands a designer no matter how you examine it. Scientifically you can be either telescopic or microscopic. Telescopic phenomena or microscopic phenomena possesses order, design, arrangement, purpose, and adaptation, all of which suggest a Designer. Whether we are looking at the structure of the atom or the design of the galaxies their order can no more be accidental than the shuffling of 26 letters of the English alphabet into a beautiful poem. Behind the design is a Designer.

5. Cosmological. The intuitive law of cause and effect demands the existence of God. In no sense can the universe be its own cause. Order and arrangement in the universe demand a creator as well as a sustainer, as per Colossians 1:16,17. If God is left out design, arrangement, order, function and operation of the universe become an unsolvable problem of infinite proportions.

The question arises: Which came first, the gospel or the heathen? The gospel came first. The origin of heathenism is very simple then: heathen are heathen not because they have never heard the gospel but because they have and rejected the gospel, as per Romans 1:18-23. Heathenism is related to liberalism and various forms of cosmic reversionism. Salvation is personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; negative volition toward the gospel is rejection of Christ. Rejection of Christ produces a vacuum in the soul into which all of the cosmic system of Satan — all of the propaganda — is developed. Evil [cosmic doctrines in the soul] produces reversionistic liberalism. The mechanics of this liberalism and evil are found in Romans 1:24,25. Both theological and political liberalism exploit the ignorance of man by catering to his emotional revolt of the soul, and sometimes his lust. Liberals, whether theological or political, seek to satisfy their arrogance on the one hand or a guilt complex on the other by trying to play God. As was once said, “When someone is running toward you to do you a favour, run in the opposite direction as fast as you can.” Liberalsseek to establish a perfect world order without God. It is always the same pattern and tradition of operation fig leaves: man by man’s efforts seeking to establish a perfect environment and world order apart from God. Liberalism, then, is another manifestation of heathenism with a veneer of human good added. Heathenism rejects truth and there is not truth is the premise of heathenism. Therefore the conclusion can be no stronger than the premise. If you start without truth you end up without truth no matter what system of logic and no matter how illogical you may be. No matter how logical or rational you are in between a false premise inevitably leads to a false conclusion. Truth is designed to free man from both heathenism and liberalism, and therefore heathenism must find a substitute for the truth it has rejected. That is the story of Romans 1:22-24. In starting without truth heathenism seeks to establish a society without God, and the false premise of this society leads to the false conclusion of this society and the inevitable judgment from God. So heathenism is the story of the unbeliever rejecting the gospel.

Translation of verse 14: “Then death even Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death.”

The judgment of our Lord at the great white throne is a just and fair sentence. The work of Christ on the cross demands nothing less than the administration of eternal punishment at the last judgment, Romans 1:20, “So they are without excuse.”

Verse 15, the punishment fits the crime. We start out with the protasis of a first class condition, a supposition from the viewpoint of reality, and it is introduced by the Greek conjunction e)i. The first class condition is formed with e)i plus any tense and the indicative mood in the verb. The nominative singular subject is the indefinite pronoun tij, and the indefinite pronoun is used to express a category. In this case the category is the unbeliever, “And if anyone was not found,” the aorist passive indicative of the verb e(uriskw plus the negative o)ux. The culminative aorist tense contemplates the action of the verb in its entirety but regards it from the viewpoint of existing results given in the apodasis, “thrown into the lake of fire.” The passive voice: the unbelievers of history receive the action of the verb. The indicative mood is declarative for the reality of the fact that all unbelievers are blotted out of the book of life by the end of the Millennium and therefore they end up in the lake of fire.

As we have already seen, the book of life is the first category of evidence at the trial and that category says that they are not believers, they did not personally accept Christ in time though they had three categorical opportunities. The tragic fact is that all members of the human race were originally in the book of life but when they died without accepting Christ as saviour their name was blotted out. So the book of life at the end of human history, at the end of the Millennium, is a registry of believers only. The reason the registry at the end of the Millennium is called the book of life is because God has imputed to every member of the human race human life with the opportunity of getting a second imputation: eternal life.

Then we have the apodasis, the punishment. The logical conclusion is based on the premise. The fact that the unbeliever was not registered in the book of life at the end of the Millennium means that they will suffer eternal punishment: the lake of fire.

Indirect Judgments: pain, death, finesse

The book of Revelation is primarily eschatological after chapter five and everything that it presents with regard to the Tribulation, the second advent, the Millennial reign of Christ, and the end of history are interlaced with a great deal of divine judgment. There are three categories of judgment found in the Word of God: indirect divine judgment, the unique divine judgment, and direct divine judgment. All three categories are found extensively in the book of Revelation.

First of all we note the source of all divine judgment as being the same source as the Christian way of life, the same source as the same so great salvation we enjoy. That has to do with the concept of protocol. God has a plan for your life and that plan is summarised in one word: protocol. Protocol is the divine system in the plan of God for every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ in this dispensation. The Church Age believer is classified as royal family of God, and this means that God’s plan is based on protocol rather than milk. Protocol is the expression of God’s power and infinite genius. Protocol is the overlay map of human history. We saw this in the historical trends of Revelation chapters two and three. To fulfill the plan of God the believer must not only understand protocol but he must be inculcated into its procedures. The believer must understand the protocol of the royal priesthood as it relates to one’s attitude toward God. Furthermore, he must understand the protocol of the royal ambassadorship as it relates towards people and circumstances. Therefore the importance of a good definition.

By definition protocol is a rigid long-established code and procedure prescribing complete deference to superior rank, followed by strict adherence to due order and precedence, coupled with precisely correct procedure.

Protocol, then, is a rigid, long-established code and procedure. The code is God’s game plan for the Church Age, the system God has devised to make the believer in Christ the winner during this stage of the angelic conflict. The code defines the modus vivendi living inside of the divine dynasphere. The procedure is the modus operandi of the believer living also in that same protocol system. Therefore procedure connotes residence, function, momentum inside the divine dynasphere. The rigidity of the code is the fact that God has always one way of doing a thing. That is the right way. Under God’s protocol system the end never justifies the means. Both means and end must comply with the divine standard of protocol. Therefore a wrong thing done in a wrong way is wrong, a right thing done in a wrong way is wrong, a wrong thing done in a right way is wrong. God’s protocol system guarantees that we do a right thing in a right way. A right thing must be done in a right way to comply with God’s protocol standards.

The protocol system of God is structured into a plan which we call the divine dynasphere, which is the power system composed of eight gates. This protocol system in the divine dynasphere is actually the Christian way of life. In fact, the divine dynasphere is the only place where the protocol of heaven meets the protocol of earth to provide blessing and happiness for every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. The divine dynasphere is the only place of influence which is designed to do a right thing in a right way. This means that whether God is blessing or punishing from the protocol system it is always a right thing done in a right way.

Protocol is complete deference to superior rank. This is the believer’s authority orientation to the plan of God. Protocol as a system demands a recognition of authority which God has delegated to the system. In the administration of judgment God often delegates punishment to another entity: angels, people, and nations.

The freedom of the Christian life is mentioned in Galatians 5:1. It depends on submission to a system of authority established by divine protocol. Galatians 5:1, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free, therefore keep standing firm [the believer living in the divine dynasphere] and do not become entangled again [subordinate again] in the yoke of slavery.” All teachability, objectivity, and virtue begins with humility produced through several protocol systems: gate three of the divine dynasphere, authority in the home, or some other establishment system of judgment. Submission to authority in any protocol system can be enforced or genuine humility but it cannot, of course, be involved in any form of arrogance. Delegated authority from God resides in the content of the Word of God.

Protocol is strict adherence to due order of precedence. This is the basis for identifying one’s priorities in life and forming a good scale of values. A false set of values destroys motivation for living the Christian life. The believer must have a frame of reference for the protocol system, the possession of a true scale of values.

Protocol is precisely correct procedure. As it relates to the Christian life it is also a correct procedure that relates to divine judgment. Protocol is not only a source of blessing and happiness for the believer but God’s protocol is a source of judgment. The protocol of heaven and the protocol of earth combine to perform systems of judgment and punishment of human beings on this earth. The protocol of heaven includes the function of the divine attributes. All judgment of any kind has its origin from the essence of God. The protocol function of the computer of divine decrees, certain programs in the computer, certain chips, result in periodic historical judgment. The protocol function of the elect angelic aristocracy also means that certain judgments are administered by the angelic college of heralds. With regard to the protocol of earth we have the protocol function of the laws of divine establishment, and the laws of divine establishment are designed to punish crime, terrorism, degeneracy. Many a person has suffered, and rightly so, because they have violated the laws of divine establishment which recognise the sacredness of human life, the sacredness of property, and the sacredness of human freedom. The protocol function of the client nation of God: the five cycles of discipline are administered to a client nation for apostasy, for a shrinking pivot of believers living in the protocol system. The protocol function of the divine dynasphere determines whether you are a winner or a loser as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Under divine discipline there is not only self-induced suffering but there are three systems of discipline from God: warning, intensive and dying. All divine judgment, then, is the result of negative volition and bad decisions. The poor judgment of man results in protocol judgment from God.

There are categories of judgment. The first is indirect judgment in which God uses an agent for the administration of punishment — angels, mankind, some organisation. There are three categories of indirect judgment: judgment by pain, judgment by death, and judgment by finesse. Secondly, there is the unique judgment of history: the cross where God the Father printed out of the computer of divine decrees all the sins of the world. They were imputed to Christ and judged. There is one PROM chip which in eternity past the omniscience of God put into the computer of divine decrees. He programmed into this chip all the sins of the history of the human race. These sins are not imputed to the ones who commit them, they were reserved in this PROM chip. The printout of that chip occurred at the cross. This is the basis of our so great salvation. The Lord Jesus Christ became our substitute and took our place. This is the unique judgment of history: God the Father judging God the Son as the basis of the saving work of Christ and resulting in the principle, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”

There is also direct judgment. This is judgment directly administered by our Lord Jesus Christ after His resurrection. We will note briefly the judgments involved at the Rapture and at the second advent, and at the end of the Millennium, but it all starts with the computer of divine decrees. In eternity past the omniscience of God programmed into the computer of divine decrees the sins of the entire human race, from Adam’s original sin to the last sin of the Millennium. This is on a PROM chip for a printout at the cross. In addition to this there are, of course, other chips relating to sin. There is a category called the saturation of sinfulness and this was programmed into the computer of divine decrees. The saturation of sin, human good and evil in a given generation is on a separate chip. The reason for this is to protect the human race from self-destruction, for in any given generation the saturation of sin, degeneracy, evil, human good, often reaches a peak, and that peak would destroy the human race. But God has promised to preserve the human race from generation to generation, giving every generation the opportunity of believing in Christ. Therefore there is a form of judgment of radical surgery whereby this strong peak is destroyed giving opportunity for the next generation.

So there are several chips involved in the computer of divine decrees with relationship to sin. One is the saturation of sin and the other has to do with all of our personal sins. When we were born into this world, at the moment of physical birth, God imputed human life to the soul of every person involved. Simultaneously He imputed Adam’s original sin to the genetically-formed old sin nature. We are condemned at birth — born physically alive but spiritually dead. In the wisdom of God this fulfills several principles. First, condemnation must precede justification. Secondly, the principle that anyone who does not reach accountability automatically goes to heaven because they have been automatically condemned at birth. There is always in each generation a segment of the human race who do not reach accountability because of some mental problem. They are morons and therefore never reach that accountability. Finally, there are those who because there own sins are not imputed to them are going to have three opportunities for evangelism: God-consciousness, gospel hearing under normal evangelism, and gospel hearing under crisis evangelism. All of our personal sins are collected in that PROM chip. They were programmed in in eternity past: every sin ever committed in the human race. The printout occurs, again, at the cross where those sons were judged by God the Father. Because those sins were judged the scripture says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”

There are three systems of indirect judgment from God. The first of these systems we simply call judgment by pain. Judgment by pain is the function of God’s grace in crisis evangelism. It is the primary system of evangelism in the book of Revelation. It fulfills the doctrinal principle of grace before judgment where the divine policy is always the fact that grace precedes any form of judgment of the human race. God always gives the human race an opportunity to change its mind. Judgment by pain was illustrated to us in the five bowl judgments of Revelation 16:1-11. Pain often produces an objectivity that cannot be produced in any other way. Pain brings one back to reality when nothing else will do it. This is the basis for crisis evangelism.

We should note the fact that normal evangelism always comes first. Normal evangelism occurs in the presentation of the gospel in times of relative tranquillity and prosperity. Under normal evangelism the unbeliever has the opportunity of objectively considering the issue of the Lord Jesus Christ in eternal salvation. John 3:18 tells us, “He who believes in him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already because he has not believed in the name [person] of the uniquely-born Son of God.” Normal evangelism can be conducted in one of several ways: preaching from an evangelist, personal witnessing, the distribution of the gospel message in print, the communication of the gospel through technology — radio, television, tape recorders. When the unbeliever rejects Christ as saviour in his negative volition he enters the cosmic system. Crisis evangelism, then, is the presentation of the gospel in times of individual or collective disaster. It is primarily designed to reach the unbeliever in the cosmic system who has rejected Christ as saviour. Because the unbeliever is very subjective he needs objectivity to consider again the gospel and therefore the administration of judgment by pain. The condition of the unbeliever at this point is described in 2 Corinthians 4:3,4. He has heard the gospel under normal evangelism. “If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world [Satan] has blinded the minds of the unbeliever, so that he might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” So his mind is veiled through subjectivity, preoccupation with self, living inside the cosmic system. Through cosmic involvement the unbeliever becomes disoriented to reality, he becomes subjective in his outlet so that he cannot give proper consideration to the issue of salvation. Therefore God in His matchless grace introduces judgment by pain, some form of personal catastrophe or historical disaster in order to restore objectivity and to bring the unbeliever back to reality, and also to the place of recall. Judgment by pain temporarily negates the influence of the cosmic system. Hence, it is used under the grace policy of God as the last call, the last invitation, to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Direct judgment: the unbeliever faces at the last judgment the judge, our Lord Jesus Christ whom he rejected in time. This principle is stated by the apostle Peter in 2 Peter 2:20-22, where the apostle makes it very clear that they have escaped the cosmic system for a reason. Judgment by pain is to establish reality in the life; to reestablish, therefore, a temporary reality; to give the opportunity to recall what one has heard about the gospel and to believe in Christ, or to hear it again and believe. “For if they have escaped the defilements of the cosmic system [judgment by pain, the restoration of objectivity for a last call for the gospel] by the knowledge of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them [in the cosmic system] and are overcome, the last state [the status of rejecting Christ] has become worse than the first’ — they have lost, in other words, the last opportunity to have eternal life. They have rejected Christ as saviour under crisis evangelism and the passage goes on to point out all of the tragedy that results from making this wrong decision.

The second category of indirect judgment is judgment by death. Judgment by death is the function of God’s grace in the perpetuation of the human race from generation to generation throughout human history. God has promised that the human race will not be totally destroyed on planet earth until the end of history. This means that after the Millennial reign of Christ, after the last judgment, the Gog and Magog revolution, the greatest threat to this premise is the saturation of evil in any generation of history. God has said He will not destroy the human race. This means there is nothing today that could destroy the human race. There is no system of weaponry or any concept ever devised which is destructive to mankind, whether it is the flea which is one of the greatest destroyers of all time and has proved to be very successful in the middle ages where 5-million people died in three years, or the virus which in 1918 wiped out 25-million people in just a few months. Nothing will ever destroy the human race during human history. In every generation the potential for self-destruction, however, continues to exist. When a maximum number of people live in the cosmic system there is always a saturation of evil which is self-destructive. All man’s self-destructive tendencies are controlled by the administration of the judgment death. This is from the protocol of heaven. The saturation of degeneracy plus inventive evil cannot offset the laws that God has provided to protect us. Great segments of the population of the world are often destroyed by the administration of judgment by death, and yet man continues to survive because judgment by death is a system of radical surgery whereby the grace of God removes the cancer of evil from a threatened generation, thus protecting the human race from self-destruction. The removal of certain contaminated parts of the human race in a threatened generation guarantees the perpetuation of mankind on earth and gives the next generation equal opportunity to evangelise and respond by believing in Christ. Judgment by death destroys one portion of the human race to preserve the rest in this historical phase of the angelic conflict. Judgment by death guarantees the evangelism of the human race in every generation, either through normal or crisis evangelism, or both. Therefore judgment by death is a grace blessing from God in every generation of human history. The very existence of the Dead Sea in the Middle East is a memorial to the principle of judgment by death for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra was the removal of a cancer of the generation that would have eventually destroyed the human race.

Perhaps the most subtle of all judgments, however, is the third: judgment by finesse. Under the principle of indirect judgment God often uses evil as His agent to destroy evil without using or involving human volition. No coercion of human volition is involved in judgment by finesse. Either the union or the conflict of two evil entities becomes the basis for finesse judgment in which God uses an evil agent to punish and destroy an evil organisation. With all of his genius Satan has never solved the problem of civil war in his own system. The very nature of evil causes one category of evil to despise another category of evil. This is illustrated by the antagonism which exists between self-righteous arrogance and concupiscence. It is inevitable, therefore, that certain categories of evil may become hostile toward other categories of evil, resulting in zero canceling zero, evil canceling evil. By its very nature of imperfection evil can never be consistent, and since God uses agents in the administration of divine judgment it is not surprising that the agent is often an evil person, an evil organisation, and evil nation or some form of angelic evil like demonism. For example, demons were used to punish evil exorcists in Acts 19:13-16. In Revelation 9:1-11 the first demon assault army tortured for five months unbelievers on the earth. Evil was used as an agent to punish evil. In Revelation 9:13-21 the second demon assault army killed one third of the population of the earth, and this combined finesse judgment with judgment by death. As a result the Tribulation was still liveable and many millions survived the Tribulation. In the first half of the Tribulation the beast dictator of the revived Roman empire actually was the sponsorer and the leader of ecumenical religion of the world, religion as the devil’s ace trump, a Satanic system. However, it was inevitable that the two systems of evil, political and religious, would become antagonistic. In this classical case of finesse judgment the evil agent was the dictator of the revived Roman empire and the victim was the religion. So in this case we have the political power of the dictator of the revived Roman empire as the agent and the victim was the international religious organisation. In Revelation 17:16,17 we see that remarkable case of finesses judgment where we have the dictator of the revived Roman empire turning against the religious system which he organised and developed and becoming the evil agent to destroy the evil system.

Out of this comes a principle. God uses evil to destroy evil. God uses arrogance to destroy arrogance. God uses envy and power lust of an evil agent to destroy an evil system. The political power of the revived Roman empire is the evil agent turned against the religious hypocrisy of ecumenical religion as the evil entity. No human volition is violated. God merely uses the evil motivation of one evil organisation to destroy the function of another evil organisation. Finesse judgment exploits civil war and natural antagonism which exists within the framework of evil. Finesse judgment dramatises the fact that man is simply the product of his own volition, and when he becomes involved in the cosmic system of Satan he becomes involved in its attendant evils and therefore is liable for destruction from evil. Nothing is more embarrassing for believers to be punished by an evil agent. As it says in Psalm 76:10, “God uses the wrath of man to praise him.” Jesus Christ often uses finesse judgment in the control of history.

The result of all of this is that client nations are often destroyed because they become evil. In the administration of the fifth cycle of discipline to the client nation to God finesse judgment was always used and employed. The client nation to God under the fifth cycle of discipline is an evil entity at that point while an evil agent is some foreign power antagonistic to the client nation. For example, there were three Jewish client nations in history. First of all, the northern kingdom, then the southern kingdom, and finally Judea. God used an evil agent, Assyria, to punish the evil of the northern kingdom as a client nation to God in BC 721. In BC 586 the southern kingdom had been functioning as a client nation to God and it was destroyed by an evil agent, the Chaldeans. Then after the return of the Jews to the land there was the third client nation, Judea, and God used an evil agent, Rome, to punish the evil of the kingdom of Judea in AD 70.

There are three categories of indirect judgment which are usually used in the destruction of a client nation. It should be noted that normal evangelism occurred in Judea, for example, between 30-66 AD. But in 66 AD the Jewish wars began and at that particular time it became not the normal evangelism but the crisis evangelism of judgment by pain. Furthermore, at this time there was the legitimate function of the gift of tongues, as in Isaiah 28:11. The Jews were warned that they were about to be destroyed, that they had reached the saturation point of evil, that as a client nation they were no longer acceptable to the protocol of God, and therefore they were warned by the function of the gift of tongues. That was the only purpose for it. It was a purpose so stated in 1 Corinthians 14:21-22, which says, “In the Torah it stands written, ‘By means of foreign languages and from the lips of strangers [Gentiles speaking Gentile languages to evangelise the Jew], I will speak to this people’.” The Jews were responsible for evangelisation but they failed, and so in the period between 30 and 70 AD the gift of tongues was not only a means of evangelising Israel but it was a warning: the fifth cycle of discipline is coming. “So then tongues are for a sign, not for believers, but for unbelievers.” In 70 AD the gift of tongues ceased altogether. Obviously the gift of tongues was a part of normal as well as crisis evangelism in Israel. Judgment by pain means that normal evangelism is changed into crisis evangelism and between 66-70 AD there was judgment by pain.

Our Lord Jesus Christ warned the Jews that this was coming, and He even explained why judgment by finesse would be administered under the system of the fifth cycle of discipline. Luke 13:34 — “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! [Negative volition under the function of normal evangelism] How often I would have gathered your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you did not wish it!” We have here the aorist active indicative of the verb e)qelew which is not Koine Greek, it is Attic Greek, the classical Greek of Athens in contrast to Ionic Greek, the classical Greek of the Athenian colonies. When He used this word instead of the normal Koine word [which is very similar: qelw] it was one of the greatest warnings the Greeks could have had, because instead of using the Koine of the day He turned to something that was far more important, the Attic Greek. When he said that in the Greek it is translated, “You did not desire it, you did not wish it,” and He indicated the problem with that client nation. Negative volition toward the gospel. The administration of the fifth cycle of discipline follows the pattern, then, in Job 12:23, “He makes a nation great, then destroys them; he enlarges the nations, then leads them away.” Historically, this is accomplished by indirect judgment in all three categories. However, the primary destruction of the client nation is the result of human volition making bad decisions from a position of weakness in the cosmic system. Because evil is arrogant, one form of evil like Rome cannot tolerate another form of evil like Israel became. The principle then: Arrogance cannot tolerate arrogance, therefore evil tends to cancel evil. This is the basis for the finesse judgment. Our Lord Jesus Christ prophesied the modus operandi of all three categories of indirect judgment in Luke 21:20-24, “They shall fall by the edge of the sword [judgment by death], and will be led captive into all nations [judgment by pain]; and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles [judgment by finesse] until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” Since 70 AD we have lived in the times of the Gentiles. No Jewish nation can be a client nation to God. In fact there never will be a Jewish nation as a client nation to God again until the second advent. Therefore, whether they are Jews in the land today or not is totally inconsequential as far as prophecy is concerned. There will not be any Jews in the land of significance until after the Church is removed. We live in the times of the Gentiles which means that only a Gentile nation can function as a client nation to God.