Prophecy and Apocalyptic Literature

Apocalyptic literature is a style of prophetical writing that began during the time of the Babylonian Exile and continued during Persian, Greek and Roman domination. Apocalyptic prophecies use symbolic language to focus on both past and present events and their significance and in particular on the end times. Later posts will deal with more reasons for the use of symbolism. For this post we will just focus on the fact that it was important to reveal the prophecies to those who understood God's Word while concealing it from those who do not. Since one of the main focuses of the prophecies was God's control and the ultimate judgment coming against all opposition (both from within God's people and from those outside), the meaning is hidden from "outsiders" by the use of symbolic language. It is important to realize that the symbolism apocalyptic prophecies used are essentially the same as the symbolism used in other prophecies.

There are a lot of similarities in prophetic themes from both the Old and New Testaments. Below I categorized some of these. This listing is not to suggest that these are the only themes, just to emphasize the fact that God is consistent in His Word: 

Prophetic Themes Summarized
Old Testament	New Testament
Temporal Judgment   1.      God will judge His people (Israel) when they fall away from His Word.   2.      God will judge the nations around Israel who are sinning.	Temporal Judgment   1.      God will judge those who pervert the gospel and turn His people astray from within the church.   2.      God will act in judgment against those who persecute the church, His people.
God Is In Control   1.      Affirms that God is in control and will watch over and fulfill His Word and His Will.   2.      When His people are suffering persecution or divine discipline, God still is in control and is working toward His purposes.	God Is In Control   1.      Affirms that God is in control and will watch over and fulfill His Word and His Will.   2.      God will watch over and perform His Word and deliver His saints. Christians can have confidence in God's promises to judge the ungodly and redeem the faithful.
Messianic   1.      Promises that God will set up a kingdom of eternal nature.   2.      God's Messiah is coming and when He is here He will deliver God's people into the eternal kingdom.	Messianic   1.      Affirms that God has set up His eternal kingdom.   2.      Christ is coming again to judge the world and to bring the saints home to live with Him forever.

Temporal Judgment

God is active in temporal judgment against His people (Israel on the Old Testament and spiritual Israel in the New Testament) when they fall away from His Word. Among other possibilities such as famine or illness, God often uses Gentile nations to judge Israel and to punish their sins. God will also judge and punish nations other than Israel for their sins.

Babylon is one key example of this and as such is used as a symbol of an oppressor of God's people that in turn incurs judgment for this oppression (Revelation 18:1-10, 20-24).

To see an example of these principles of judgment, review the following Scriptures:

Jer. 1:11-16; Jer. 5:12-18 - God is calling up the nations of the north for judgment.

Jer. 21:1-10 - God declares Babylon to be the agent of the judgment on Judah.

Jer. 25:8-14 - The reasons for Babylonian punishment reiterated, along with a promise that Babylon in turn will be judged (vs. 12-14).

Jer. 50:1-3, 8-20, 35-43 - Certainty of Babylon's utter doom and destruction. As the Bible says, "It will never again be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation. As I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah along with their neighboring towns, declares the Lord, so no one will live there; no people will dwell in it." The prophecy was true…even the ruins of Babylon could not be found for several centuries. (Also: Isaiah 13:1, 17-22).

It is also important to realize that the MAGNITUDE of threatened destruction does NOT imply immediate or instantaneous fulfillment:

Daniel 5:17-31 - The beginning of the prophesied judgment. The destruction of Babylon was not instantaneous but the Lord spread it over a period of centuries. Babylon still existed as a city as late as the time of Alexander the Great. The fall of Babylon occurred about 539 B.C. when the Medes and the Persians conquered the Babylonian Empire, but the utter destruction of Babylon did not occur until 330 B.C. under Alexander the Great when he conquered the city. Alexander intended to rebuild the city, but he died in 323 B.C. and Babylon was never rebuilt.

The point that the magnitude of threatened destruction does not imply immediate or instantaneous fulfillment is important to remember when looking at prophecies of Revelation and determining time frames.

God will also act in judgment against those who persecute the church, His people. See II Thess. 2:1-12 (the lawless one within the church), Revelation 6:9-11 (the persecuted saints cry out for judgment) and Revelation 6:12-17 (God's judgment on worldly opposition begins).

God will judge those who pervert the gospel and turn His people astray from within the church, just as Israel was judged for its apostasy (II Peter 2:1-10; Jude 3-8; Revelation 18:1-8, 21-24; 19:20-21. All of these are examples of the symbols of Babylon and false prophet who support the false or apostate church.

God Is In Control

God is in control and will watch over and fulfill His Word and His Will. Even when His people are suffering persecution or divine discipline, God still controls the world. In the Old Testament, here are some selected passages:

Psalms 94:12-15; Heb. 12:5-11 - Discipline and persecution are explained. God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. God is treating us as his children and what children are not disciplined by their father? We are His people and the Lord will not reject his people; he will never forsake his inheritance.

Isaiah 40:8; 55:10-11 - The word of God endures forever. Any word that goes out from God will not return empty, but will accomplish what He desires and achieve the purpose for which He sent it.

Jer. 1:12 - God is watching and will see to it that His word is fulfilled.

In the New Testament, God further affirms that He is in control, that He will watch over and perform His Word and that He will deliver His saints (II Peter 3:1-13; Heb. 12:18-25).

Christians can have confidence in God's promises to judge the ungodly and redeem the faithful just as was true in the Old Testament (I John 2:28-29; 3:1-3; 4:17-18). If we are made to be like God and Christ, then on the Day of Judgment we can have perfect confidence.

Messianic Elements

In the Old Testament we see many promises that the Messianic kingdom will be established. The Old Testament is replete with promises that God will set up a kingdom of eternal nature. Old Testament prophecy is strongly oriented to the theme of the coming of God's Messiah and this type of prophecy is termed Messianic prophecy. 

This is true in general for Old Testament prophecy, and is particularly true of prophecy that is apocalyptic in nature. For example, see Dan. 2:36-45 where God promises that He will set up a kingdom that will endure forever and never be destroyed. In Isaiah 11:1-9 God promises that for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. There are many other Old Testament Scriptures – these two are examples of apocalyptic and non-apocalyptic prophecies, respectively.

In New Testament prophecy (especially Revelation) we have "Messianic" type prophecies as well. Just as the kingdom was established, it will be delivered at the Second Coming. For example in I Cor. 15:23-28 we see that all enemies (including death itself) will be put under Jesus' feet.

Just as the Old Testament was Messianic in stating that Jesus was coming to save the world, the New Testament is "Christian Messianic" - that is, Christ is coming again but this time to judge the world and to bring the saints home to live with Him forever (Acts 1:10-11; Matt 24:29-31; I Thess. 4:13-5:4; Revelation 20:11-21:8).

Both Old Testament and New Testament have similar themes. However the New Testament is written for Christians who know the Messiah and thus differs in thematic emphasis from Old Testament.

Prophecy Validation

How can we know if a prophecy is from God? The specific test in God's Word is that the prophecy will come to pass. However, we can see there is more to it than just that it will be realized. The tests of whether a prophet speaking God's Word also include whether what is said corresponds to the rest of Scripture. Examples of tests include:

Deut. 13:1-5 - If a prophet announces a prophecy that does come to pass but the prophet encourages you to follow other gods and worship them, you must not listen to the words of that prophet.

II Peter 1:20-2:3 - No prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things but prophets spoke God's Word through the Holy Spirit. But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among Christians. They will introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them.

Matt. 7:15-20; 24:24-28 - False prophets come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. You will recognize them by their fruit. They will try to deceive you. If they tell you the Lord has returned do not believe them because everyone will know when that happens.

Deut. 18:15-22 - If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. Also, if a prophet presumes to speak in God's name and tries to teach anything He has not commanded, or if that prophet speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet is condemned before God.

Revelation Interpretation Principles (Continued)

The problems in understanding Revelation are unique among all the books of the New Testament because of the apocalyptic imagery it contains. This is not familiar to most people and they tend to try to formulate explanations for the symbols instead or realizing that God has already given them a key (the Old Testament).

Some problems in understanding the book are due to the following root causes:

1.   Some individuals or groups have manipulated the symbols of Revelation to create systems of interpretation which are foreign to anything else in Scripture and that may even contradict Scripture. Many Bible students encounter these systems and, since they seem to have some sense, they do not look further or deeply. 

2.   Another error is twisting the meaning of related symbols in other prophecies to match their systems rather than letting the prophecies speak for themselves. This is often satirized with the phrase "Don't try to convince me with the facts. My mind is already made up." This was a major error of the Jewish leadership in Jesus' day and it continues to the present time. 

3.   There is a profusion of conflicting opinions over the meaning of the book, leading many to believe they can never understand the book despite the blessings promised to those who read. The promise is: Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near. If we cannot understand then how can this blessing be true? Fortunately, most if not all of the confusion dissolves when confronted with a Scriptural analysis of the book.  

4.   A diligent study of Revelation requires a holistic approach (one that interprets Scripture in the light of all other Scriptural teaching). Many people simply do not want to devote the time and effort required for this. 

A Study of the Mountain Symbol in Revelation

One critical failure is that many modern Bible students do not realize that the Scripture available to the earliest Christians was what we now consider to be the Old Testament. What we consider to be the New Testament canon was not available to the first generation of the church. While the Gospel was preached beginning during the third decade of the first century, most of the letters were not written until 20 or 30 years later and the Gospels not until later than that. See here or here for example. While there were some of the letters or the gospels available, during the first and most of the second centuries (and to some extent the early third) Bible study for Christians meant studying the Scriptures available to the Jewish people. The Berean converts (both Jews and Gentiles) in Acts 17:10-12 are a good example – the Scripture they studied obviously could not be the New Testament. However, many Christians (to their detriment) do not study the Old Testament in anything like the way it would have been studied during and immediately after the time of the apostles.

Another common error is to fail to relate the symbols to the rest of Scripture. In this context, we must look to Old Testament as much as the New Testament. In doing so, we will find that many (if not most) of what we consider to be strange images are actually quite commonly used in prophecy with clear meanings. We must let the Word speak to us.

 A good example is the use of the word "mountain" in Revelation: 

Rev. 6:12-17: I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?" 

Rev. 16:20: Every island fled away and the mountains could not be found. 

This sounds like God is bringing a natural disaster and in Revelation 6 even the end of the world. While we cannot rule either out in Revelation 16 strictly from the information internal to the passage, it is obvious in Revelation 6 that if the mountains are physically removed from their place, then how could people find them and try to hide. Also we can see that Revelation 6 cannot be the end of the world…this is only the sixth seal and the Lamb has yet to open the seventh and reveal the events associated with that seal…there is too much left to occur in Revelation. This argues for a different interpretation. We need to look at other examples in the Bible for help Some OT parallels include: 

Ezekiel 6:1-10: The word of the Lord came to me: "Son of man, set your face against the mountains of Israel; prophesy against them and say: ‘You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Sovereign Lord. This is what the Sovereign Lord says to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys: I am about to bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places. Your altars will be demolished and your incense altars will be smashed; and I will slay your people in front of your idols. I will lay the dead bodies of the Israelites in front of their idols, and I will scatter your bones around your altars. Wherever you live, the towns will be laid waste and the high places demolished, so that your altars will be laid waste and devastated, your idols smashed and ruined, your incense altars broken down, and what you have made wiped out. Your people will fall slain among you, and you will know that I am the Lord. But I will spare some, for some of you will escape the sword when you are scattered among the lands and nations. Then in the nations where they have been carried captive, those who escape will remember me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts, which have turned away from me, and by their eyes, which have lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their detestable practices. And they will know that I am the Lord; I did not threaten in vain to bring this calamity on them. 

In Ezekiel, is God literally talking to the mountains? Or is he talking to the leaders of Israel? Note also that there is a strong parallel with Revelation 6 – both relate to judgment against those who oppose the will of God. In the case of Ezekiel, it is the Jewish leadership. In the case of Revelation, it is the Roman persecution that the martyrs have cried to God asking for His judgment (see the fifth seal in Rev. 6:9-11).
 

Isaiah uses mountain symbolism as well. Below we can see the original prophecy:  

Isaiah 40:3-5: A voice of one calling: "In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken." 

And its fulfillment: 

Luke 3:1-6: In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene—during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:  "A voice of one calling in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all people will see God's salvation.'" Also, John 1:22-23: Finally they said, "Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?" 23 John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, "I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way for the Lord.'" 

John the Baptist uses remez teaching style (allegoric, hidden or symbolic meaning beyond just the literal sense). Between these two passages, we can see that the Lord is really talking about making all humanity, from the greatest to the least, equal before him and then revealing His glory through the Messiah. The mountains then through symbolism are shown to be human rulers. 

After the end of the Babylonian Captivity, the Jewish people returned to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple. However, the local people opposed them and tried to turn the Persian rulers against them. Note the prophecy given on behalf of their leader Zerubbabel: 

Zechariah 4:7-10 : "What are you, mighty mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become level ground. Then he will bring out the capstone to shouts of 'God bless it! God bless it!'" Then the word of the Lord came to me: "The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple; his hands will also complete it. Then you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you. Who dares despise the day of small things, since the seven eyes of the Lord that range throughout the earth will rejoice when they see the chosen capstone in the hand of Zerubbabel?" 

Micah 4:2: Many nations will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths." The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 

Here the allegory or symbolism of the mountain is conjoined with the temple. Both are symbolic of the spiritual leadership that God has over His people. The idea again is one of leadership and rulership, although this time it is divine rather than human. 

Jesus Curses a Fig Tree and Teaches About Faith

 Matthew 21:18-22: Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, "May you never bear fruit again!" Immediately the tree withered. When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. "How did the fig tree wither so quickly?" they asked. Jesus replied, "Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." 

Mark 11:22-26: "Have faith in God," Jesus answered. "Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 

Why did Jesus curse a fig tree, especially when it was not the season for figs at the time? That has puzzled many bible students who do not know the Old Testament and who do not understand the remez teaching style. It seems needless and even capricious and arbitrary. But Jesus was making a point of trying to bring what Jeremiah prophesied to attention of the disciples and to the Jewish leadership as well. Remember where He was at the time trying to work with Jerusalem and the Jewish leaders during the last week before His crucifixion. The fig tree lesson we will examine below, and the conjunction of "moving mountains" was to tell the disciples that God would remove the Jewish leadership by casting it into the sea (another symbol study will show that the sea in prophecy is symbolic of the general mass of humanity or the nations). 

Jeremiah 8:4-13: "Say to them, 'This is what the Lord says: "'When people fall down, do they not get up? When someone turns away, do they not return? Why then have these people turned away? Why does Jerusalem always turn away? They cling to deceit; they refuse to return. I have listened attentively, but they do not say what is right. None of them repent of their wickedness, saying, "What have I done?"Each pursues their own course like a horse charging into battle. Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration. But my people do not know the requirements of the Lord. 

"'How can you say, "We are wise, for we have the law of the Lord," when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely? The wise will be put to shame; they will be dismayed and trapped. Since they have rejected the word of the Lord, what kind of wisdom do they have? Therefore I will give their wives to other men and their fields to new owners. From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit. They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. 

"Peace, peace," they say, when there is no peace. Are they ashamed of their detestable conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; they will be brought down when they are punished, says the Lord. 

"'I will take away their harvest, declares the Lord. There will be no grapes on the vine. There will be no figs on the tree, and their leaves will wither. What I have given them will be taken from them.'" 

While there are many other Old Testament passages we could examine, we will conclude by looking at the symbolism contained in Nebuchadnezzar's dream recorded in Daniel. Remember that God gave the dream and the symbols and the interpretation. 

Daniel 2:27-49: Daniel replied, "No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come. Your dream and the visions that passed through your mind as you were lying in bed are these:

 "As Your Majesty was lying there, your mind turned to things to come, and the revealer of mysteries showed you what is going to happen. As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have greater wisdom than anyone else alive, but so that Your Majesty may know the interpretation and that you may understand what went through your mind. 

"Your Majesty looked, and there before you stood a large statue—an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth. 

"This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the king. Your Majesty, you are the king of kings. The God of heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory; in your hands he has placed all mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds in the sky. Wherever they live, he has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold. 

"After you, another kingdom will arise, inferior to yours. Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth. Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron—for iron breaks and smashes everything—and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others. Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay. 

"In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands—a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces. 

"The great God has shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy." 

Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell prostrate before Daniel and paid him honor and ordered that an offering and incense be presented to him. The king said to Daniel, "Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery." 

The mountain symbol here is clearly and unambiguously shown to be representative of a kingdom…the one God established through Jesus the Messiah, the Christ, His Anointed One during the fourth kingdom (Rome). 

So what can we learn from the above? God uses the mountain symbol quite clearly as an allegory for kingdoms or rulers. So any system that would divorce the meaning in Revelation from that of the rest of His Word is clearly erroneous. It also shows how much we need to understand and study the entirety of God's Word is we want to truly understand Revelation.

 

Revelation Interpretation Principles

In this post, I try to enumerate some general principles of interpretation. These are not the only ones we could give, but they do provide a road map to understanding prophecy and particularly apocalyptic literature like Revelation: 

1.    The writing of a given passage must be interpreted in harmony with any explanations given within the text of Revelation. One example is that it is clear from the very beginning of Revela­tion that John considers the Kingdom of God to be present and active at the time he wrote Revelation. Further, he considers both himself and the members of the churches to be a part of the Kingdom.
 

Example:         Revelation 1:9 - John is brother of Christians (see Revelation 1:1 - "show to his servants", 1:4 "to the churches in Asia", 1:6 - "who made us a king­dom"). John is also sharing the kingdom with believers (present tense).
 

Therefore, any system which states that the kingdom is yet to come contradicts the internal text of Revelation.
 

2.    The interpretation of a given passage must be in harmony with the rest of Scripture. In the example of Revelation 1:9, the other Scriptures which teach that the church and kingdom are identical must be considered. (Examples: Acts 19:8-10; 28:23-31; Heb. 12:28- After Christ's resurrection and ascen­sion and subsequent to the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the kingdom and the church are always presented as synonymous and spoken of in present fulfill­ment).
 

3.    The historical context of the book must be considered. The symbols and statements must be interpreted in the context of their meaning to the Christians in John's own time, not by what can be forced on them by events In later centuries (Example - A star falling from heaven Revelation 8:8-10 would have had a specific significance to first century Christians. It would do violence to Scripture to say that this was talking about a missile or any other modern invention if it meant something different to Christians of an earlier era).
 

4.    An obscure passage or symbol must be interpreted in the light of a clear passage.
 

5.    Symbols and passages that have parallels elsewhere in Scripture should be compared and the meanings abstracted and applied to the writing of Revelation. Simultaneously, a student of Revelation must consider whether the symbols may have somewhat different meanings or any changes in emphasis due to (1) the reasons for writing the book, (2) the events transpiring that were affecting the early church, and (3) the time frame of the writing (i.e., Christian dispensa­tion versus Mosaic dispen­sation).
 

6.    Any attempt to interpret figurative language in a manner which contradicts clear and plain statements of Jesus or the inspired New Testament writers is contrary to God's will.
 

7.    Bear in mind that Revelation is meant to be understood (Revelation 1:3), but only by a Bible student who handles God's word correctly. Revelation was specifically written to keep the meaning from anyone who did not have a thorough Scriptural background, but also to make the meaning plain to one who had studied the Scriptures. Remember that the early church used the Old Testament as its primary source of material, that the canon of the New Testament was not yet complete, and that the New Testament books that were being circulated were only available as fragments of our current canon.
 

8.    The entirety of Scripture teaches that each person has the ability, freedom, and responsibility to act. The actions one chooses can be in accord with God's will or opposed to it in sin. Revela­tion 20:11-15 – the description of the final judgment affirms these facts as principles of judgment. Compare also the following: Matt. 25:31-46; Rom. 14:10-12, 1 Thess. 4:13-18. Thus, any theory of the millennium (Revelation 20:4-6) that states either that there will be a resurrection prior to the actual judgment when the saints will reign 1000 years or that there will be a sinless period of millennial kingship prior to the judgment must be false.