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| What the Reign of the Saints with Christ for a Thousand Years Is, and How It Differs from the Eternal Kingdom.
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Chapter 9.—What the Reign of the
Saints with Christ for a Thousand Years Is, and How It Differs from
the Eternal Kingdom.
But while the devil is bound, the
saints reign with Christ during the same thousand years, understood
in the same way, that is, of the time of His first coming.1354
| 1354 Between His first and second
coming. | For,
leaving out of account that kingdom concerning which He shall say
in the end, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, take possession of
the kingdom prepared for you,”1355
the Church could not now be called
His kingdom or the kingdom of heaven unless His saints were even
now reigning with Him, though in another and far different way; for
to His saints He says, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end
of the world.”1356
Certainly it is in this present
time that the scribe well instructed in the kingdom of God, and of
whom we have already spoken, brings forth from his
treasure
things new and old. And from the Church those reapers shall
gather out the tares which He suffered to grow with the wheat till
the harvest, as He explains in the words “The harvest is the end
of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the
tares are gathered together and burned with fire, so shall it be in
the end of the world. The Son of man shall send His angels, and
they shall gather out of His kingdom all offenses.”1357
Can He
mean out of that kingdom in which are no offenses? Then it must
be out of His present kingdom, the Church, that they are
gathered. So He says, “He that breaketh one of the least of
these commandments, and teacheth men so, shall be called least in
the kingdom of heaven: but he that doeth and teacheth thus shall
be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”1358
He speaks of both as being in
the kingdom of heaven, both the man who does not perform the
commandments which He teaches,—for “to break” means not to
keep, not to perform,—and the man who does and teaches as He did;
but the one He calls least, the other great. And He immediately
adds, “For I say unto you, that except your righteousness exceed
that of the scribes and Pharisees,”—that is, the righteousness
of those who break what they teach; for of the scribes and
Pharisees He elsewhere says, “For they say and do not;”1359
—unless
therefore, your righteousness exceed theirs that is, so that you do
not break but rather do what you teach, “ye shall not enter the
kingdom of heaven.”1360
We must understand in one sense
the kingdom of heaven in which exist together both he who breaks
what he teaches and he who does it, the one being least, the other
great, and in another sense the kingdom of heaven into which only
he who does what he teaches shall enter. Consequently, where both
classes exist, it is the Church as it now is, but where only the
one shall exist, it is the Church as it is destined to be when no
wicked person shall be in her. Therefore the Church even now is
the kingdom of Christ, and the kingdom of heaven. Accordingly,
even now His saints reign with Him, though otherwise than as they
shall reign hereafter; and yet, though the tares grow in the Church
along with the wheat, they do not reign with Him. For they reign
with Him who do what the apostle says, “If ye be risen with
Christ, mind the things which are above, where Christ sitteth at
the right hand of God. Seek those things which are above, not the
things which are on the earth.”1361
Of such persons he also says
that their conversation is in heaven.1362
In fine, they reign with Him who
are so in His kingdom that they themselves are His kingdom. But
in what sense are those the kingdom of Christ who, to say no more,
though they are in it until all offenses are gathered out of it at
the end of the world, yet seek their own things in it, and not the
things that are Christ’s?1363
It is then of this kingdom
militant, in which conflict with the enemy is still maintained, and
war carried on with warring lusts, or government laid upon them as
they yield, until we come to that most peaceful kingdom in which we
shall reign without an enemy, and it is of this first resurrection
in the present life, that the Apocalypse speaks in the words just
quoted. For, after saying that the devil is bound a thousand
years and is afterwards loosed for a short season, it goes on to
give a sketch of what the Church does or of what is done in the
Church in those days, in the words, “And I saw seats and them
that sat upon them, and judgment was given.” It is not to be
supposed that this refers to the last judgment, but to the seats of
the rulers and to the rulers themselves by whom the Church is now
governed. And no better interpretation of judgment being given
can be produced than that which we have in the words, “What ye
bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what ye loose on earth
shall be loosed in heaven.”1364
Whence the apostle says, “What
have I to do with judging them that are without? do not ye judge
them that are within?”1365
“And the souls,” says John,
“of those who were slain for the testimony of Jesus and for the
word of God,”—understanding what he afterwards says, “reigned
with Christ a thousand years,”1366
—that is, the souls of the
martyrs not yet restored to their bodies. For the souls of the
pious dead are not separated from the Church, which even now is the
kingdom of Christ; otherwise there would be no remembrance made of
them at the altar of God in the partaking of the body of Christ,
nor would it do any good in danger to run to His baptism, that we
might not pass from this life without it; nor to reconciliation, if
by penitence or a bad conscience any one may be severed from His
body. For why are these things practised, if not because the
faithful, even though dead, are His members? Therefore, while
these thousand years run on, their souls reign with Him, though not
as yet in conjunction with
their bodies. And therefore
in another part of this same book we read, “Blessed are the dead
who die in the Lord from henceforth and now, saith the Spirit, that
they may rest from their labors; for their works do follow
them.”1367
The
Church, then, begins its reign with Christ now in the living and in
the dead. For, as the apostle says, “Christ died that He might
be Lord both of the living and of the dead.”1368
But he mentioned the souls of
the martyrs only, because they who have contended even to death for
the truth, themselves principally reign after death; but, taking
the part for the whole, we understand the words of all others who
belong to the Church, which is the kingdom of Christ.
As to the words following, “And
if any have not worshipped the beast nor his image, nor have
received his inscription on their forehead, or on their hand,” we
must take them of both the living and the dead. And what this
beast is, though it requires a more careful investigation, yet it
is not inconsistent with the true faith to understand it of the
ungodly city itself, and the community of unbelievers set in
opposition to the faithful people and the city of God. “His
image” seems to me to mean his simulation, to wit, in those men
who profess to believe, but live as unbelievers. For they pretend
to be what they are not, and are called Christians, not from a true
likeness but from a deceitful image. For to this beast belong not
only the avowed enemies of the name of Christ and His most glorious
city, but also the tares which are to be gathered out of His
kingdom, the Church, in the end of the world. And who are they
who do not worship the beast and his image, if not those who do
what the apostle says, “Be not yoked with unbelievers?”1369
For such
do not worship, i.e., do not consent, are not subjected;
neither do they receive the inscription, the brand of crime, on
their forehead by their profession, on their hand by their
practice. They, then, who are free from these pollutions, whether
they still live in this mortal flesh, or are dead, reign with
Christ even now, through this whole interval which is indicated by
the thousand years, in a fashion suited to this time.
“The rest of them,” he says,
“did not live.” For now is the hour when the dead shall hear
the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live; and the
rest of them shall not live. The words added, “until the
thousand years are finished,” mean that they did not live in the
time in which they ought to have lived by passing from death to
life. And therefore, when the day of the bodily resurrection
arrives, they shall come out of their graves, not to life, but to
judgment, namely, to damnation, which is called the second death.
For whosoever has not lived until the thousand years be finished,
i.e., during this whole time in which the first resurrection
is going on,—whosoever has not heard the voice of the Son of God,
and passed from death to life,—that man shall certainly in the
second resurrection, the resurrection of the flesh, pass with his
flesh into the second death. For he goes to say “This is the
first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the
first resurrection,” or who experiences it. Now he experiences
it who not only revives from the death of sin, but continues in
this renewed life. “In these the second death hath no
power.” Therefore it has power in the rest, of whom he said
above, “The rest of them did not live until the thousand years
were finished;” for in this whole intervening time called a
thousand years, however lustily they lived in the body, they were
not quickened to life out of that death in which their wickedness
held them, so that by this revived life they should become
partakers of the first resurrection, and so the second death should
have no power over them. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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