The “First” Resurrection of Revelation 20:5-6

Some people have misunderstood the πρωτη/“first” resurrection of Revelation 20:5-6. As a result, they have missed the mark about when, and why, the saints will be resurrected from the dead in the End Times.

Here is that passage in its context. These events follow the Battle of Armageddon – at which Christ fully defeats his earthly enemies and secures his earthly reign – and mark the commencement of the Millennium.

Revelation 20:1 Then I saw an angel… 2 [who] laid hold of the Dragon…the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, 3 and cast him into the Abyss…until the thousand years [Millennium] should be fulfilled. 4 … And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness of Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped the Beast nor his image… And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. 5 But the rest of the dead do not live again until the thousand years shall be completed. This is the πρωτη/prōtē resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is the one having part in the πρωτη resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him for a thousand years. 7 Now when the thousand years are completed… 15 …anyone found not having been written in the Book of Life [will be] cast into the lake of fire. 14 … This is the second death.

In the context of Revelation 20, the Greek word πρωτη primarily means FIRST (FOREMOST) IN PREEMINENCE, NOT ORDER. This word can be used both ways, so context must determine its meaning. Some people presume it can only mean first in order; and therefore, that these souls shall be the first ones to be raised from the dead. This is incorrect. For earlier in Revelation, verse 1:5, we find that Jesus is called “the πρωτοτοκος/first-born of the dead.” Jesus was the first among all men to be resurrected from the dead with an immortalized body: no one else of the dead was immortalized on that same day or before. Others will also have been resurrected from the dead prior to the raising of these Revelation 20:4 saints, including those of the dead who will have been “caught up in clouds” to Jesus long before the Battle of Armageddon; as also will be the killed and quickly-resurrected
Two Witnesses. 1 Thes. 4:14-17; Rev. 11:3ff.

So the primary meaning here of πρωτη is that Jesus, along with the 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17 saints, the Two Witnesses, and the Revelation 20:4 saints, are preeminent in the sense of all together being foremost in status of those who will be resurrected from the dead prior to the Millennial reign of Christ. Because in addition to these, non-believers will also be resurrected from the dead prior to the Millennium. But these will arise unto a very non-preeminent “resurrection of condemnation.” John 5:29; Dan. 12:2; Is. 66:24

Secondarily, those of the pre-Millennial, πρωτη resurrection will also, taken together as a class of people, be first in the sense of preceding everyone to be raised from the dead after the end of the Millennium. All of the immortalized and glorified pre-Millennial group will be those over whom “the second death [will have] no power.” Whereas some of the post-Millennial group will be those over whom “the second death,” “the lake of fire,” will have power. Others from the Millennium, of the ones having been born during it, will undoubtedly become saints and receive glorifies bodies.

A Third Group

The Book of Enoch, along with a number of biblical passages, prophesies that there will be a third group of souls in this order of preeminence, these to be ranked between the first and last of those described above:

Enoch 49:1 In those days [after the Parousia of Christ], the saints and the elect shall undergo a change. The light of day shall rest upon them; and the splendor and glory of the saints shall be changed. [Enoch speaks here first of those saints who are to be immortalized.] 2 In the day of trouble, evil shall be heaped up upon sinners, but the righteous shall triumph in the name of the Lord of Spirits. 3 Others shall be made to see that they must repent, and forsake the works of their hands; and that glory awaits them not in the presence of the Lord of spirits; yet that by His name they may be saved. The Lord of Spirits will have compassion on them, for great is His mercy, and righteosness is in His judgment, and in the presence of His glory; nor in His judgment shall iniquity stand. [But] he who repents not before Him shall perish. 4 Henceforth I will not have mercy on them, saith the Lord of spirits.

Included in this third group will be many formerly blinded, Christ-rejecting Jews who will repent after they “look upon Me whom they pierced,” and see Him “sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven”: “even so these also…may obtain mercy.” Zech. 12:10; Rev. 1:7; Matt. 26:64; Rom. 11:26-31