is Satan's power broken; he is bound and shut up in the abyss (xx. 1–3). But in that way is room made for the rule of Christ on the earth; and since the promise has been made to His true disciples, that they shall rule with Him (iii. 21, ii. 26, v. 10; comp. § 97, d), it must be now decided who have proved themselves true, and those of them who have died, whether as martyrs or by a natural death, must be raised. And thus before the earthly consummation there is a judgment and a first resurrection (xx. 4-6).1 Connected with the Jewish idea of a thousand years' continuance of the (earthly) Messianic kingdom is now the earthly consummation, which, as such, can naturally have but a limited duration, fixed for a thousand years, only that this number may have possibly another signification, as all the numbers according to the plan of the Apocalypse.2 In this kingdom of Christ for a thousand years is now fulfilled the promised completion of the Old Testament theocracy, in which, not the literal Israel, to be sure, but the true Israel (§ 130, c), has reached the goal proposed to itself

1 It is the sifting of believers promised at Christ's second coming (§ 33, c) which is here described with the colours of Dan. vii. 9. It is hence quite inadmissible to substitute, with Gebhardt, p. 292 [E. T. 278], ruling for judging. It no doubt remains indeterminate from the words who is to hold the judgment; but since the martyrs are found approved as such, it seems ever to be most natural to regard them as those who determine which of the other Christians, who have in the meantime died, as also which of the survivors, has like them been found approved. Then, also, in the relative clause not only are meant those who have died with a true testimony (comp. second edition, and Gebhardt, p. 294 [E. T. 280]), but along with them survivors, and hence also near, with its double meaning, follows. But the change of the survivors is not by any means to be considered included in the first resurrection (Gebhardt, p. 295 [E. T. 281]), since the consummation is an earthly one, and the resurrection to it can restore but to an earthly life (comp. Heb. xi. 35). Gess, p. 584, appears to transport the risen to Christ in heaven.

2 It is, moreover, by no means clear that Christ coming again will Himself dwell on the earth; conformably to the prophecy (Ps. cx. 1), after He has made at His return all His enemies His footstool, He rules on the earth through His believing people. In an earlier vision, after Israel's conversion (xi. 13), at the conclusion of the time of the great tribulation (ver. 2; comp. with xiii. 5), the everlasting kingdom of God and His Anointed is immediately introduced (xi. 15; comp. § 103, b). Here, just as in the earlier Pauline Epistles (§ 99, c), the kingdom of Messiah is distinguished from the perfected kingdom of God (xix. 6); only that with Paul immediately on the subjugation of all enemies there follows the giving up of the kingdom to the Father, while here the rule of Christ is perfected in the earthly present, and has a definite period of continuance.

as its ideal, and has become a royal priesthood (xx. 6; comp. 1 Pet. ii. 9, and therewith § 45, c), whose ideal centre is yet ever the beloved city (Jerusalem) (ver. 9). And as, according to the ancient prophetic idea, only at the time of the consummation of Israel's theocracy, the Gentile nations throughout, attracted by the contemplation of the salvation realized in Israel, will connect themselves with Israel (comp. § 43, a); so the nations of the earth still continue, so far as they have not fought in the army of the worldly power against believers, the object for the priestly and kingly activity of believers (ver. 6; comp. v. 10), by whom salvation is brought to them. Only the contemplation of the perfected salvation will lead them to repentance. Likewise, indeed, the most distant of those nations (Gog and Magog), who are the least affected by this influence, continue to be the subjects of seduction, when Satan has been unbound after the thousand years (xx. 7, 8). Their last assault on the kingdom of Christ, as it is looked at on the ground of prophetic imagery (comp. Ezek. xxxviii. 8-16), is defeated by the direct interposition of God; fire falls from heaven (comp. Ezek. xxxix. 6) and devours them (ver. 9); their leader is now delivered up to everlasting destruction, ver. 10.

(b) By the hope of an earthly consummation which here again emerges, is the idea of a great day of the Lord split into its different parts. The judgment of this day, as it results at the second coming of Christ, has brought victory only to the kingdom of God on earth. But the universal judgment, as the definite decision on the fate of all men, as it is likewise thought of as connected with the day of the Lord (comp. § 131, d, footnote 8), is now introduced only at the end of the thousand years' kingdom, and doubtless, as § 126, 6, 129, b, in immediate connection with that destruction of the world (xx. 11; comp. xxi. 1), which in the first place carries aloft all those who survive, as well as those members of the thousand years' kingdom who have been raised again for the earthly kingdom. Hence there arises the idea of a second resurrection, as, to be sure, it is only indirectly, xx. 5, 6, hinted at, and this a general one; for all the dead must stand before God's judgment-seat (vv. 12, 13). Naturally those only who attain to the final heavenly consummation experience a resurrection in the proper sense (ie. a quickening in a heavenly

body), as § 99, 6, 126, d, footnote 7; the others only appear at God's judgment-seat in order to be handed over to death and Hades, ver. 14, as it were to a potentialized death (ó deÚTepos Oávaтos: ver. 15; comp. ii. 11, xx. 6). But this is described as a portion in the lake of fire (xxi. 8; comp. xx. 14), which burns with brimstone (xix. 20), and brings with it an endless misery (xiv. 10, 11; comp. xix. 3, xx. 10), by which image (borrowed from Gen. xix. 24) is to be designated not in any way an eternal annihilation (as § 126, b), but a miserable exclusion from blessedness (xxi. 27, xxii. 3, 15), in which is found the unblessedness of an abiding state of death (§ 34, d). With this is introduced definite retribution, which decides men's fate according to their works, which stand recorded in the books of the heavenly Judge (xx. 12, 13; comp. 1 Pet. i. 17; 2 Cor. v. 10).3

(c) The scene of the final consummation is the new world, which God calls into being on the destruction of the old world (xxi. 1, 5; comp. § 129, d). As in the Epistle to the Hebrews (§ 126, d), the perfected kingdom of God appears (i. 9) as the holy city (xxii. 19; comp. iii. 12: TOMS TOÛ cov), the new Jerusalem (xxi. 2, 10); and if the seer beholds it come down from heaven, it is implied in this only, that ideally the final consummation is already prepared with God, long before it is realized at the end of the times (§ 117, d). Therewith also is the Church of the last times of consumma

• This retribution is also sometimes directly connected with the second coming of Christ (ii. 23, xxii. 12), because the earthly and heavenly consummation are not regarded as separated, or, as Matt. x. 32, Christ is named as He who announces the names of those before God's judgment throne (xx. 11) who are worthy of the reward (iii. 5). His works must always follow the dying one in order to go with him before the judgment-seat, and work out his justification (xiv. 13); as justification here self-evidently, as with James (§ 53, c), results on the ground of actual fact. Here also, as generally, this retribution is represented as an equivalent (comp. § 32, b). The true servants receive the corresponding reward (xi. 18, xxii. 12), as even the preservation from the last plagues is traced back to this, that they had kept the word of Christ (iii. 10). Destruction, on the other hand, overtakes the destroyers (xi. 18), as even in the preliminary judgments of God it is measured according to this standard (xiii. 10, xvi. 6), only that the measure of punishment may be even double the amount of sin (xviii. 6), and that for sinful indulgence the corresponding measure of torment is allotted (ver. 7). There is nevertheless even in this judgment in the end only an either-or (§ 32, c, d). One either obtains eternal life or eternal destruction (xvii. 8, 11).

tion designated as the ideal Jerusalem. This point of view rules the whole picture of that city of God, on whose doors stand the names of the twelve patriarchs (xxi. 12), as those of the twelve apostles stand upon its foundation-stones (ver. 14), and whose measure is reckoned according to twelve times a thousand and twelve times twelve (vv. 16, 17). But the believing Israel are not its only citizens, but the Gentiles also walk in its light (xxi. 24), and their glory, as also that of their kings, must minister to the perfected kingdom of God (vv. 24, 26). They are there healed from the deadly sickness of hopelessness in which they once walked (xxii. 2), while believing Israel there beholds what it has always believed. The Church, which bears the name of the New Jerusalem (iii. 12), is now the bride of Messiah (xxi. 9), with whom, at the final consummation, He celebrates His marriage, i.e. His perfect union (xix. 7; comp. § 105, a, footnote 2), at which the great marriage-feast is not awanting (ver. 9). It is very noteworthy that in the earthly completion of the kingdom of Christ this highest union does not take place.

(α) The contrast to the δεύτερος θάνατος, the blessedness of the perfected, consists, in the first place, of life in the emphatic sense ((wn simply, as § 40, d; 50, c), for which they

That here, too, any restoration of the Jewish state is not thought of, xxi. 22 shows, according to which the city needs no temple. But here also (as note a) the whole Church consists of God's servants, who serve God as priests (λarpsúsi : vii. 15, xxii. 3; comp. § 123, d), and wear His name (xxii. 4); these are what Israel should have been, but never was, in the fullest sense, His own people and His Son (xxi. 3, 7). The perfected Church sings the song of Moses and the Messiah (xv. 3); for the Old Testament and the New Testament salvation of the people of God is, in its essence, one, only the latter is the completion of the former. 5 It does not follow from this that the Gentiles, even at the time of the consummation, are only Christians of an inferior grade (Baur, p. 212; Schenkel, pp. 104, 311), since, according to xxi. 27, even their names stand in the book of life, and they must therefore have the full right of citizenship in the city of God; and the distinction of christianized nations from the true Israel, consisting of converted individuals (Gebhardt, p. 317 f. [E. T. 300]), is a pure invention that does not in the least help, since, even according to Gebhardt, the nations are converted even in the thousand years' kingdom. Of any conversion of the Gentiles in the future world (comp. Messner, p. 375) there can be no idea after the general judgment and the commencement of absolute completeness; and since one must not, with Lechler, p. 205, change the idea of ovn into that of nations connected with the city of God, so the participation of the Gentiles in the final consummation is only set forth in the colours of Old Testament prophecy (Isa. lx. 3, 11; Ps. lxxii. 10; comp. xv. 4, and even iii. 9).

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stand recorded in the book of life (xxi. 27, after Dan. xii. 1), and which they receive at the same time with the acknowledgment of their spotless purity and holiness, since here, as generally (§ 65, d), life is the correlative of righteousness. In virtue of this perfected holiness, the citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem live in the perfect fellowship of God. They behold God's face (xxii. 4; comp. § 34, b; 99, b; 126, d). God Himself dwells in their midst (xxi. 3, vii. 15, xxii. 3); the city needs no temple, because God and His Messiah dwell directly amongst its citizens (xxi. 22), because the whole city is His temple (vii. 15), in which individuals exist as pillars (iii. 12). There is therefore no longer any opposition to be thought of in the new world between heaven and earth, as in the present world. If, finally, over all there is ascribed to the heavenly consummation a participation in the divine glory (§ 50, c; 126, d), then this latter is represented under the image of the morning star (ii. 28), and of the royal dignity (xxii. 5), which the perfected receive. The whole heavenly Jerusalem has God's dóğa (xxi. 11), which is represented so, that the whole city consists of gold and precious stones and pearls (vv. 18-21). The city needs no sun and no moon, no lamps and no light, because in the splendour of the divine glory there is eternal day there (xxi. 23, 25, xxii. 5). In the possession of this glory they enjoy untroubled blessedness, because no sorrow and no want can ever disturb them more (xxi. 4, vii. 16, 17).?

• Participation in the Swn is figuratively represented by the tree of life, which grows in the New Jerusalem (xxii. 2, xiv. 19) as it once grew in Paradise (ii. 7 ; comp. Gen. ii. 9); by the water of life, which there flows in streams from the throne of God and of the Messiah (xxii. 1; comp. xxi. 6, xxii. 17), and to whose streams Messiah as their Shepherd leads them (vii. 17); by the hidden manna (ii. 17), which imparts the powers of the eternal life; by the crown of life (iii. 11, ii. 10; comp. § 57, d), which they as conquerors (vi. 2) carry off. Their holiness, on the other hand, is represented by the white garments with which the perfected are clothed (comp. xix. 8), because they have not defiled their garments on the earth, and are worthy of this acknowledgment (iii. 4, 5, iv. 4), or because they have come out of the battle of life conquerors (vi. 11, vii. 9), as also by the white stone, which designates them by the name known to them alone, as the perfectly righteous (ii. 17). All these images belong to the plain representation of the final consummation in the vision, without its being regarded on that account as in any way sensuous (comp. Baur, p. 209), as elsewhere in the New Testament.

'In view of this consummation the true Christians are said to be blessed (i. 3,