Third, we cannot reject God’s judgment of punishment for sin because Jesus died to provide a MEANS of reconciliation. If eternal punishment is not real, if what we are talking about in this lesson that we read in Revelation, that we read in Matthew 25 and elsewhere, if that’s not real, why on earth did Jesus die?!? You see, anyone who is lost is lost because he has not appropriated the means that Jesus has provided for his salvation. It is, therefore, not necessary for men to suffer and come to that end. But there are those who will ignore it, those who will refuse it, those who will just not accept it.

“And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire,” [verse 15]. Well, there you have it. That “Book of Life” that we alluded to previously…once again, whether it’s a literal book that will be opened there in the heavenly realm, there before “the great white throne,” or whether this is something that is in the mind of God, nevertheless, those names of anyone who do not appear in that book will be cast into that lake of fire. The lake of fire is not something that God prepared for man. God prepared the lake of fire, the Scriptures tell us, for Satan and his cohorts. However, it will be shared, it will be populated, by those whose names do not appear in the Lambs Book of Life.

Answering A Question: What is the “first resurrection” Mentioned in Revelation 20:5?

The question is: “What is the “first resurrection.” And there are two primary schools of thought, or points of view, in this regard.

The first point of view, as I had stated previously, is that what John has in view here as the “first resurrection” are those saints, those who have died physically, who have gone on, but they are “raised,” if you will, from the low ranks of Hades, the place of the dead. They are raised up to reign and are, even at this time, in effect, reigning with Christ. Of course, we have to look back and link this to what John had previously seen in verse 4. That is where he says, “And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the Word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.”

Well, again, these are the ones, then, I think that John has in view, and when he speaks here about the “first resurrection” he is not, of course, speaking about a resurrection of the body—a literal resurrection—but his vision portrays the victory of the martyrs underneath the altar, whose “little time” is finished, whose cry has been answered, whose victory is symbolized as a “resurrection” and as being seated on thrones. That’s what he sees there in verse 4.

Now, this made sense because Christ’s victory was manifested and exemplified in His resurrection and His being seated on His throne, which stands as a symbol of His total triumph. By the way, the way this figure, the way it is being used in this case, is not new. The Old Testament prophets, for example, pictured Judah’s and Israel’s triumph over idolatry and over Assyrian and Babylonian captivity as a “resurrection,” a return from the dead. And this can be seen in Isaiah 26, verse 19; Hosea 13, and verse 14; and Ezekiel 37, verses 1 through 14.

Then, the other point of view regarding this “first resurrection” is one that sees it as one’s baptism. Of course, as Paul depicts our baptism, Romans, chapter 6, he describes us as “rising to walk in newness of life,” and we go through what we commonly refer to as a symbolic “death, burial and resurrection” in our baptism.

We see, in Colossians, chapter 2, verses 12 and 13, a definition of sorts of this “first resurrection.” That section of Scripture states, “Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, Who hath raised Him from the dead. 13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses” (KJV). [NKJV: “…buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, Who raised Him from the dead. 13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses….”]

Yes, Christ died for our sins; He was buried; He was raised from the dead by God. We are dead in our sins outside of Christ, and through baptism, we are buried with Him. We are also “quickened,” or “made alive”—we are resurrected with Him. As Paul says in Colossians 3, verse 1, “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.”

A Christian is one who has become “dead to sin” and has been raised, or resurrected, to walk in a new life, as I previously stated, Romans 6, verses 3 through 11 [“Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”].

According to Romans 6, and verse 11, we are “dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in [through] Christ Jesus our Lord.” Therefore, the “first resurrection” is the resurrection of the soul from the grave of sin. It is a spiritual resurrection. Colossians, chapter 1, verse 18, says that Christ was “the firstborn from the dead.” And Romans 6, verses 5 through 6, says that we have had a part in, or that we have partaken, that resurrection by baptism, which is a likeness of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. Because of this, we are to “walk in newness of life,” Romans 6, verse 4, or we “reign with Christ,” during the thousand years, as we see here in Revelation 20, verse 4.

Those who are not obedient to our Lord through baptism will not live—that is, spiritually live—during this Gospel Age, or the thousand years reign, as is stated in Revelation 20:4. They are dead in their sins.