Chapter 1

The “Thousand Years”​—Not a False Hope

1. What must be said on whether a man-made kingdom can endure for a thousand years?

TO ENDURE for a thousand years, a kingdom would really have to be good​—strong. Such a royal government could not be planned, installed and maintained by a mere man or succession of men. No man-made kingdom in the hands of kings of a certain family line has ever lasted for even near a thousand years.

2. Why is royal rule by a single human monarch out of the question?

² What, then, about a kingdom in the hands of a single continuing monarch for ten centuries? An impossibility! No man has ever lived that long. According to the oldest genealogical records, the man Methuselah in southwestern Asia lived the longest of any human creature on earth. But even he came short of a millennium by thirty-one years.a In our own modern times the life expectancy of a man has been set far from that extraordinary age. In the most advanced lands of the day it has been brought to a life-span of less than seventy years by the aid of medical science. Woman has been given an edge of around six years over man. So royal rule for a thousand years by just one man or woman, no matter how good the subjects might think their ruler to be, is out of the question.

3. What did the most recent “Thousand-Year Plan” envision for mankind?

³ Logically, then, we are not talking of a millennial kingdom from that human standpoint. We, as well as many millions of others yet alive, are able, as personal observers, to remember the most recent effort for a government a thousand years long. This “Thousand-Year Plan” was that of Adolf Hitler, Nazi dictator of Germany 1933-1945 C.E. Shortly after the United States was plunged into World War II, information on this Nazi plan was gleaned from seized Nazi documents and from German agents who had been taken into custody and from various other sources. This plan aimed at a Nazi world order that Hitler, if successful in World War II, would mercilessly enforce upon the world of mankind. It envisioned a virtual slave program, the workers for which would be recruited from non-German countries. This plan covered the thousand years to come.

4. What earlier empire did Hitler evidently have in mind, and how did a priest testify thereto?

⁴ The Nazi leader Hitler, who came from the land of the Hapsburg family of kings, Austria, evidently had in mind the Germanic Holy Roman Empire, which lasted from the year 962 to 1806. In fact, we have the words of a Roman Catholic priest to that effect. Speaking on the night of February 16, 1940, to a capacity audience in the Memorial Continental Hall in Washington, D.C., Dr. Edmund A. Walsh, the regent of the Foreign Service School of Georgetown University, outlined the German war aims as a “re-establishment of the Holy Roman Empire.” “Dr. Walsh said that he had heard Adolf Hitler say that the Holy Roman Empire, which was a Germanic empire, must be re-established.”​—New York Times, February 17, 1940.

5. What did Hitler boast concerning the Nazi Reich, but how did his plan fare?

⁵ Boastfully the Nazi Fuehrer Hitler had said: “The National Socialist Reich [Empire] will endure a thousand years.” But his police chief, Heinrich Himmler, was even more confident and responded: “Ten thousand!” Once embarked on his egocentric plan, Hitler would be satisfied with nothing less than world rule or world ruin. In the book The Last Days of Hitler, the author, H. R. Trevor-Roper, says: “It was always understood that Hitler would remain true to his original programme Weltmacht oder Niedergang,​—world-power or ruin. If world-power was unattainable, then (it was agreed by all who knew him) he would make the ruin as great as he could.” At this​—and with good reason—​some will be inclined to exclaim: “How like the Devil!” At any rate, there was no reestablishment of the Holy Roman Empire, as many people of Hitler’s religion had hoped​—and the Nazi “Thousand-Year Plan” failed inside twelve years.

6. What earlier non-Germanic ruler learned a lesson that Hitler may not have, and who interpreted this ruler’s dream correctly?

⁶ The would-be world ruler Hitler may not have learned the lesson, but he ran smack up against the hard irremovable fact that a much earlier world ruler had to learn in the hard way. This was a non-German, non-Aryan man who ruled longer than Hitler, that is, for forty-three years (624-581 B.C.E.). He was the king of Babylon, and his name was a long one, Nebuchadnezzar. We may recognize him as the Semitic world conqueror who destroyed the Jewish city of Jerusalem in the year 607 B.C.E. and who deported whole populations just as Hitler did, dragging the surviving Jews, for the most part, into exile in distant Babylonian territories. Among the deported people was the Semitic prophet Daniel of the Jewish tribe of Judah. King Nebuchadnezzar had a strange dream, to which he attached great importance, and the slave, the prophet Daniel, was the only one able to interpret it. Daniel’s interpretation came true.

7. On what occasion did the dream begin to come true, and what lesson was the ruler to learn from his debasement?

⁷ A year after the dream, Nebuchadnezzar as head of the Babylonian World Power began to brag, glorying over his capital city Babylon on the Euphrates River. Hardly had he finished his boast, when he heard a voice out of the invisible​—out of heaven—​saying words that he had heard in his dream. In Nebuchadnezzar’s own account of this, which was preserved by the prophet Daniel, he writes: “To you it is being said, O Nebuchadnezzar the king, ‘The kingdom itself has gone away from you, and from mankind they are driving even you away, and with the beasts of the field your dwelling will be. Vegetation they will give even to you to eat just like bulls, and seven times themselves will pass over you, until you know that the Most High is Ruler in the kingdom of mankind, and that to the one whom he wants to he gives it.’”​—Daniel 4:29-32.

8. Who was the one that smote the boastful king, and who healed him?

⁸ What followed immediately? It is understandable why what now happened was not preserved for us in the Babylonian historical records, or why any record thereof by a Babylonian chronicler was removed or destroyed. But the honest, true-to-fact prophet Daniel, who was personally implicated in the matter, was inspired to make a record of it, for our consultation more than two and a half millenniums later. The proud King Nebuchadnezzar was instantly smitten with madness​—and it was not his most revered god, Marduk (or, Merodach), who smote him. It was the Almighty God who foretold this madness that smote the boastful king, the king who had destroyed the sacred temple at Jerusalem in 607 B.C.E. And, just as predicted and ordained, “seven times” literally did pass over King Nebuchadnezzar while he was insanely chewing at grass like a bull out there in a nearby field. The mad king did not commit suicide, as Adolf Hitler did in 1945 just as his capital city Berlin was falling into the hands of the Red Communist armies of Russia. At the end of Nebuchadnezzar’s seven years of madness, the Divine Smiter of him healed him and restored his sanity.

9, 10. How does the account preserved by Daniel (4:34-37) show whether the king of Babylon learned his lesson well concerning God’s absolute rulership?

⁹ Did the king of Babylon learn his lesson? We can determine this from his own account, as preserved for us by the prophet Daniel. The account, given in the first person, reads:

¹⁰ “And at the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up to the heavens my eyes, and my own understanding began to return to me; and I blessed the Most High himself, and the One living to time indefinite I praised and glorified, because his rulership is a rulership to time indefinite and his kingdom is for generation after generation. And all the inhabitants of the earth are being considered as merely nothing, and he is doing according to his own will among the army of the heavens and the inhabitants of the earth. And there exists no one that can check his hand or that can say to him, ‘What have you been doing?’ . . . Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, am praising and exalting and glorifying the King of the heavens, because all his works are truth and his ways are justice, and because those who are walking in pride he is able to humiliate.”​—Daniel 4:34-37.

11. Little did the king of Babylon know what with regard to those “seven times” during which he proved his unfitness to rule?

¹¹ Nebuchadnezzar himself tells us that he was restored to the throne of the Babylonian World Power, the Third World Power in a succession of seven world powers spoken of in the Holy Bible. (Daniel 4:36) Little did he know that that period of “seven times” in which he proved his unfitness to rule were prophetic of a greater period of “seven times” of larger duration, “the times of the Gentiles.” Little did he know that during those larger “seven times” five world powers would dominate the earth​—the Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, the Grecian, the Roman and the modern-time British-American. Little did Nebuchadnezzar know that those “seven times,” comprising all together 2,520 years, began in the year of his desolating of Jerusalem and its temple and would end in the year that would see the world of mankind embroiled in the first world war​—1914 C.E. (Luke 21:24, AV; Daniel 4:16, 23, 25, 32) Yes, little did Nebuchadnezzar know that at the end of those “seven times” of Gentile domination in 1914 the “King of the heavens” would give the “kingdom of mankind” to the one whom he wanted to​—His Messiah!​—Daniel 9:25.

PREVIEW GIVEN BY DIVINE INSPIRATION

12. What do worldly politicians still think regarding the “kingdom of mankind,” but whose hand have they been unable to check as to human affairs?

¹² The politicians of all the nations still think that the “kingdom of mankind” is their proper concern and is the proper field for their activity. Long ago King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon thought so. Quite recently Adolf Hitler, with his dream of a thousand-years-long political system, thought so. But the One concerning whom Nebuchadnezzar was finally obliged to admit, “His rulership is a rulership to time indefinite and his kingdom is for generation after generation,” this One still proves to be the “Ruler in the kingdom of mankind.” This kingdom over human affairs is still His rightful field of interest and operation. The worldly politicians, backed by the clergymen of Christendom, have been unable to “check his hand,” nor do they have the authority to say to him: “What have you been doing?” (Daniel 4:34, 35) He did not consult those politicians and their religious backers regarding the one to whom He should give the “kingdom of mankind” at the end of the “times of the Gentiles” in 1914 C.E. The politicians and their religious allies are not of that importance as consultants, whereas He is “the Most High himself, and the One living to time indefinite.”

13, 14. Upon the basis of whose word can any prediction for a thousand years to come be made confidently? And why?

¹³ Reasonably, then, upon the basis of whose word can any prediction be made regarding a thousand years to come? Man cannot foretell even what will be tomorrow. “You do not know what your life will be tomorrow,” said an observer of more than nineteen centuries ago. (James 4:14) But with “the Most High himself, and the One living to time indefinite,” this is different. What is time to Him?

¹⁴ To this One it was well said by a man who lived for just one hundred and twenty years: “A thousand years are in your eyes but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch [an ancient Jewish watch of four hours] during the night.” (Psalm 90:4 and superscription) By a mere dream of the night and by the prophet Daniel’s interpretation thereof to King Nebuchadnezzar, He was able to foretell what would happen in world history after a period of 2,520 years, ending in 1914 C.E. Could he not just as easily foretell with accuracy what will happen during a thousand years beginning with some point of time after 1914 C.E.? Most reasonably so! And what if He has already given us a description of such a thousand-year period? Then with that word as our basis, we can confidently speak of a thousand years to come.

15. What are the thousand years called by users of Latin or Greek root words, and what are believers therein called?

¹⁵ Those who use words drawn from the old Latin language would call that period of a thousand years a millennium, because the two roots of the word are the Latin mille, meaning “thousand,” and annus, meaning “year.” Over in Greece people would speak of it as a chiliastic period, because the Greek word chilia means “thousand.” So the believers in this particular period of a thousand years would be called chiliasts, as well as millennialists or millenarians. People of Christendom use those terms in a reproachful way.

16, 17. (a) What human experience with regard to 1000 C.E. shows we are not interested in the millennium because we are approaching 2000 C.E.? (b) Why is it well that man’s seventh millennium of existence should begin many years before 2000 C.E.?

¹⁶ Despite the reproach to which one exposes oneself from those who do not understand, there should be real interest in this approaching period of a thousand years. Information concerning it is recorded in the written word of “the Most High himself, and the One living to time indefinite.” Our own growing interest therein is not because we are approaching the year 2000 C.E., the end of the second millennium of our Common Era. That is not the significant thing. We remember what happened when mankind approached the year 1000 C.E., the end of the first millennium of our Common Era. Concerning this the New Catholic Encyclopedia says, under the subject “Millenarianism,” page 853: “As the year 1000 neared, millenarianism became more prevalent because many eschatologists believed that the 7th day of creation was to be realized in human history in A.D. 1000 and that there would follow a glorious 10-century reign of the Christ.”​—Copyright 1967.

¹⁷ For one thing, the end of six thousand years of human existence on earth and the beginning of mankind’s seventh millennium of existence may come many years sooner than the year 2000 C.E. It is well that this is so. Today, with the world of mankind in such a deplorable condition and being threatened with destruction from so many angles, there are many students and investigators of these threats to human existence who express substantial doubts that mankind will be able to survive till the year 2000 C.E. They do not base their gloomy outlook for our future on any timetable in that most widespread sacred book, the Holy Bible. They base their outlook upon the hard facts of today and upon the now irreversible trend of things that involve all of us. These men who speak with authority give our human race far less than a thousand years to live on into the future. What reason have you, the reader, for not believing them?

18, 19. (a) Why is this information not confined to some secret eschatological society of initiates? (b) Over whose name is the Book of information written, and why?

¹⁸ To the very contrary of these gloomy prophets who speak from the purely human standpoint, “the Most High himself, and the One living to time indefinite,” cheeringly speaks of a thousand years yet ahead of mankind and then some, the grandest years in all human history. This hope-inspiring information is not the private possession of some secret eschatological society of special initiated ones who are in the “know.” The sources of this valuable information are openly accessible to hundreds of millions of people speaking 1,500 languages and dialects all around this globe. Wherever a person has a copy of the Holy Bible, this life-brightening information is available to him.

¹⁹ Although the Bible was written by men, mere imperfect men, as secretaries or amanuenses, that sacred Book does not in its own pages claim to be the word of man. It is the work of divine inspiration, and so it is written over the name of “the Most High himself, and the One living to time indefinite.” To this modern day of ours He takes the responsibility for what it says about the past and of the future before us. It is the Book of books!

20. In what Bible book do we find this information on the millennium, and who wrote it?

²⁰ Where, then, in it do we find this information about those thousand years to come and the ages of eternity to follow? We find it in what is quite appropriately listed as the last book in the Holy Bible. It proves to be just what its name means, Revelation. Or, Unveiling, Apocalypse. O yes, it was written by a man, a man whom the Roman Empire branded as a criminal and put upon the penal island, Patmos, over there in the Aegean Sea and near the coast of Asia Minor, today Turkey. It is a real place, nothing mythical about it. As a young man this exiled prisoner had been a fisher at the Sea of Galilee in the then Roman Province of Galilee. He was John the son of Zebedee, and his fisherman brother was James. John tells us right at the start that he wrote Revelation, but under inspiration. But of what was it to be a revelation or an unveiling? As we read the answer, which should interest us of today, let us note to whom John assigns the responsibility for this book:

21. To whom does John at the start assign the responsibility for the Revelation?

²¹ “This is the revelation given by God to Jesus Christ. It was given to him so that he might show his servants what must shortly happen. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who, in telling all that he saw, has borne witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ. Happy is the man who reads, and happy those who listen to the words of this prophecy and heed what is written in it. For the hour of fulfillment is near.”​—Revelation 1:1-3, New English Bible (1970).

22. For us today, why is there a thrill in the words “For the hour of fulfillment is near”?

²² In those words, “For the hour of fulfillment is near,” written almost nineteen centuries ago, is there a thrill for us today in this twentieth century C.E.? Certainly, measured in terms of time, “what must shortly happen” would by now, after nearly nineteen hundred years, not be too soon in happening, especially the beginning of the foretold “thousand years.” We can fix better on the time when we read John’s account of the thousand years and what immediately leads up to them. Let us read from Revelation 19:11 on:

23. What features distinguish the rider of the white horse?

²³ “Then I saw heaven wide open, and there before me was a white horse; and its rider’s name was Faithful and True, for he is just in judgement and just in war. His eyes flamed like fire, and on his head were many diadems. Written upon him was a name known to none but himself, and he was robed in a garment drenched in blood. He was called the Word of God, and the armies of heaven followed him on white horses, clothed in fine linen, clean and shining. From his mouth there went a sharp sword with which to smite the nations; for he it is who shall rule them with an iron rod, and tread the winepress of the wrath and retribution of God the sovereign Lord. And on his robe and on his thigh there was written the name: ‘King of kings and Lord of lords.’

24. (a) What invitation was given to the birds flying in midheaven? (b) What happened to those taking part in the battle?

²⁴ “Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried aloud to all the birds flying in midheaven: ‘Come and gather for God’s great supper, to eat the flesh of kings and commanders and fighting men, the flesh of horses and their riders, the flesh of all men, slave and free, great and small!’ Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies mustered to do battle with the Rider and his army. The beast was taken prisoner, and so was the false prophet who had worked miracles in its presence and deluded those that had received the mark of the beast and worshipped its image. The two of them were thrown alive into the lake of fire with its sulphurous flames. The rest were killed by the sword which went out of the Rider’s mouth; and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh.

25. What is then done to Satan the Devil, to last for how long?

²⁵ “Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven with the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hands. He seized the dragon, that serpent of old, the Devil or Satan, and chained him up for a thousand years; he threw him into the abyss, shutting and sealing it over him, so that he might seduce the nations no more till the thousand years were over. After that he must be let loose for a short while.

26. Who sit upon the thrones seen in heaven, and what do they do?

²⁶ “Then I saw thrones, and upon them sat those to whom judgement was committed. I could see the souls of those who had been beheaded for the sake of God’s word and their testimony to Jesus, those who had not worshipped the beast and its image or received its mark on forehead or hand. These came to life again and reigned with Christ for a thousand years, though the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were over. This is the first resurrection. Happy indeed, and one of God’s own people, is the man who shares in this first resurrection! Upon such the second death has no claim; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him for the thousand years.

27. On earth, what followed the loosing of Satan, and what happened to him?

²⁷ “When the thousand years are over, Satan will be let loose from his dungeon; and he will come out to seduce the nations in the four quarters of the earth and to muster them for battle, yes, the hosts of Gog and Magog, countless as the sands of the sea. So they marched over the breadth of the land and laid siege to the camp of God’s people and the city that he loves. But fire came down on them from heaven and consumed them; and the Devil, their seducer, was flung into the lake of fire and sulphur, where the beast and the false prophet had been flung, there to be tormented day and night for ever.”​—Revelation 19:11 through 20:10, New English Bible.

28. (a) So after what events do the thousand years begin? (b) Why, then, have those thousand years manifestly yet to begin?

²⁸ We notice the use of the expression “thousand years” six times in that account. We notice also that those thousand years begin after a battle between the “King of kings” and the “kings of the earth” along with the “beast” and the “false prophet,” and then the chaining of Satan the Devil and flinging of him into the abyss. Those events are part of “what must shortly happen.” Up till now the world has had nothing to compare with such events. Quite manifestly, then, those “thousand years” have yet to begin. They do not mean some indefinitely long time period, a period that we cannot accurately measure. They are a literal thousand years.

29. What time length for those thousand years fits harmoniously with the proved timetable of God?

²⁹ Students who argue that those thousand years stand for an indefinite time length say that they began on the festival day of Pentecost of 33 C.E., when God poured out his holy spirit upon his newly formed Christian congregation at Jerusalem. But this argument leads into difficulties and to attempted explanations that are contrary to what actually happened to spirit-begotten Christians all during the more than one thousand nine hundred and forty years since that day of Pentecost when the Christian congregation came to life spiritually until now. A literal millennium fits in harmoniously with the proved timetable of God.

30. Why should we not be able to refrain from examining in detail the prophetic picture of those thousand years?

³⁰ What those thousand years usher in upon our earth is something vitally necessary to the endless life and happiness of the world of mankind. How, then, can we reasonably hold back from at once examining closely the prophetic picture of the marvelous millennium that the apostle John so beautifully drew for us?

[Footnotes]

Chapter 2

War Between Heaven and Earth Precedes the Thousand Years

1. (a) According to the Revelation, what conflict must precede the coming of The Millennium? (b) Why must that battle be evidently yet ahead of us, and what should be our attitude toward it?

WE HAVE just read the description given us by the apostle John of the preview that he had of the thousand years. Such wonderful things are foretold for it that it is called The Millennium. Ah, but what did John describe as taking place immediately ahead of that glorious Millennium? It was a battle between heavenly forces and earthly human forces. Down till now such a fight has not taken place since the day of Pentecost of 33 C.E., the festival day when the Christian congregation came to life spiritually by being begotten of God’s life-giving spirit. True, Jesus Christ was in heaven and at God’s right hand at that festival time, more than sixty years before John got the Revelation of “what must shortly happen.” (Revelation 1:1, 2, NE) But even after John got the Revelation, no such battle occurred back there between the “King of kings” and the “kings of the earth.” That battle is yet ahead of us, and we ought to be interested in the advance account of it, because we are approaching it on a straight course.

2, 3. (a) What kind of battle will that be as regards the participants therein? (b) How does the glorified Jesus Christ contrast with the earthly Jesus as to carrying on war?

² This approaching battle is not any dreaded third world war, in which the political superpowers, armed with an overload of nuclear and chemical weapons, will madly seek to annihilate one another. This is the coming battle in which all the “kings of the earth,” no matter of what political ideologies, unite their forces against their common Opponent, a king and lord who is superior to them all and who is therefore called “King of kings and Lord of lords.” He is not God, but, to quote Revelation 19:13, “the name he is called is The Word of God.” This is the title that was given to the only-begotten Son of God in his prehuman existence in heaven with his heavenly Father, Jehovah God.​—John 1:1-3, 18.

³ During his human existence on earth as the man Jesus Christ, he did not lead any armies of fighting men on white horses, nor did he even choose to call twelve legions of heavenly angels to his aid. (Matthew 26:52-54) But now, since his glorification in heaven and since the end of the “times of the Gentiles” in 1914 C.E., he is authorized to act as the executional officer of the Supreme Judge, Jehovah God, and to do executional work upon earthly enemies just as that angel did, who, in the year 732 B.C.E., in one night killed off 185,000 soldiers of the Assyrian King Sennacherib, who had invaded the land of the people of Jehovah God, and this without the use of a nuclear bomb. (2 Kings 19:32-36; Isaiah 37:33-37) This explains why John was inspired to write concerning the heavenly Warrior Jesus Christ: “The one seated upon [the white horse] is called Faithful and True, and he judges and carries on war in righteousness.”​—Revelation 19:11.

4. What will it mean for the nations that out of the mouth of their common opponent a sharp long sword protrudes?

⁴ This is far more than a third world war between the nations of earth now armed with nuclear and chemical weapons. This time the nations are fighting, not against blood and flesh, but against the one seated upon the symbolic white horse and against his heavenly angelic armies. And when he uses his tongue to speak and order an execution of his enemies, it is as if a long sword of an officer with authority were being applied. This is the meaning of the inspired words: “And out of his mouth there protrudes a sharp long sword, that he may strike the nations with it, and he will shepherd them with a rod of iron. He treads too the winepress of the anger of the wrath of God the Almighty. And upon his outer garment, even upon his thigh, he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.”​—Revelation 19:15, 16.

5, 6. (a) At what location will the nations meet the King of kings in battle, and what crushing and breaking will take place? (b) What angelic invitation to the “great evening meal of God” shows whether the ones slain on earth will be buried with military honors?

⁵ Instead of being a third world war between irreligious radical humans on one side and irreligious radical humans on the other side, this is “the war of the great day of God the Almighty.” The nations, having by then disposed violently of the international religious “harlot,” Babylon the Great, will then find themselves at that stage of world developments called Har–Magedon; just as it is written: “And they gathered them together to the place that is called in Hebrew Har–Magedon.” (Revelation 16:14-16) It is at this world situation that the King of kings and the Lord of lords crushes the defiant nations, like grapes in a winepress, thus treading the “winepress of the anger of the wrath of God the Almighty.” They will be like helpless sheep to him, upon whom he uses a “rod of iron” to break them to pieces like earthenware vessels of a potter. (Revelation 14:18-20; 2:26, 27; 12:5; Psalm 2:8, 9) There will be no dignified burial with military honors for those slain on earth in the “war of the great day of God the Almighty.” That is why God’s angel speaks of it as “the great evening meal of God” spread for the carrion birds:

⁶ “Come here,” cries out a sunlit angel to all the birds that fly in midheaven, “be gathered together to the great evening meal of God, that you may eat the fleshy parts of kings and the fleshy parts of military commanders and the fleshy parts of strong men and the fleshy parts of horses and of those seated upon them, and the fleshy parts of all, of freemen as well as of slaves and of small ones and great.” And the account of this “war of the great day of God the Almighty” closes with the remark: “And all the birds were filled from the fleshy parts of them.” (Revelation 19:17, 18, 21) From this description of the ones whose corpses the carrion birds are to devour, it appears that there is a total mobilization and regimentation of the peoples of the nations for this War of all wars.

7. What is the “wild beast” that is found in the battle lineup of the kings of the earth at Har–Magedon?

⁷ Concerning the battle lineup at Har–Magedon the apostle John writes: “And I saw the wild beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage the war with the one seated on the horse and with his army.” (Revelation 19:19) Is this “wild beast” a mere mascot, an animal supposed to bring good luck, for the armies of these “kings of the earth”? Of what value would a literal wild beast be to the fighting forces at Har–Magedon? Of no value at all! And a literal wild beast is not to be understood here. It is a symbolic wild beast. It is really a world figure of historical importance. How so? Because it is the symbolic wild beast described in Revelation, chapter thirteen, verses one to eight, concerning which Re 13 verse two says: “And the dragon gave to the beast its power and its throne and great authority.” It is the worldwide political system that the “dragon,” that is, Satan the Devil, established long ago as his visible instrument for governing all the people of the world. It has carried on its beastly practices throughout the earth for more than a thousand years, yes, for more than four thousand one hundred years, since the twenty-second century B.C.E.

8. When did that symbolic wild beast begin its activities, to spread its authority to what extent?

⁸ This symbolic wild beast began ravaging the earth’s inhabitants in the days of Nimrod, a hunter of literal wild beasts. It was about the year 2189 B.C.E. that this Nimrod began engineering the building of the Tower of Babel in the land of Shinar, in the valley of Mesopotamia. Becoming world famous, he came to be called “Nimrod a mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah.” He established the old or original Babylonian empire, and about this Genesis 10:10-12 tells us: “The beginning of his kingdom came to be Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land he went forth into Assyria and set himself to building Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah and Resen between Nineveh and Calah: this is the great city.” (Genesis 10:8-12; 11:1-9) From that small beginning this symbolic wild beast continued extending its power and authority over more and more people until finally it has its political throne established over all the earth.

9. (a) What do the seven heads of the symbolic wild beast picture? (b) Against whom has it used its “ten horns”?

⁹ Throughout the past millenniums this symbolic wild beast has had various members of its political system act as the dominant world power. That is why Revelation, chapter thirteen, pictures this symbolic wild beast as having seven heads, to represent seven world powers in succession, namely, (1) Egypt, (2) Assyria, (3) Neo-Babylonia, (4) Medo-Persia, (5) Greece, (6) Rome, and (7) the dual world power of Britain and America. With its symbolic “ten horns,” this seven-headed wild beast has horned, gored and pushed around the worshipers of Jehovah God, including the genuine followers of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, since the days of the enslavement of the sons of Israel in Egypt until now. No wonder, then, that Revelation 19:19 pictures the “kings of the earth and their armies” as lined up with the “wild beast” in battle array against the heavenly angelic army of the “one seated on the horse,” Jesus Christ!

10. (a) What is the “false prophet” in the battle lineup of the kings of the earth, and what does it prophesy? (b) What is the “image of the wild beast” the making of which it proposes?

¹⁰ Revelation 19:20 mentions also as being with the “kings of the earth and their armies” what is called “the false prophet that performed in front of [the wild beast] the signs with which he misled those who received the mark of the wild beast and those who render worship to its image.” This is not a religious prophet belonging to religious Babylon the Great, but is a political prophet. It is the same political organization that is pictured in Revelation 13:11-17. There it appears as the two-horned wild beast that proposed the making of the image of the wild beast and then gave breath to that image so that it spoke authoritatively. That two-horned wild beast is the dual world power of Britain and America, or the Seventh World Power, and the political “image” of the seven-headed wild beast is today the organization for world peace and security, the United Nations. The whole world knows today that this Seventh World Power of Britain and the United States of America endeavors to dictate to the world of mankind and makes impressive prophecies concerning the future of mankind. But it is not the prophet of Jehovah God, inspired by Him. It is “false.”

11, 12. (a) What spirit moves the kings and their armies to the war at Har–Magedon? (b) Why must the tide of battle go only one way, and what outcome of it does John show in his preview?

¹¹ The symbolic wild beast has reached its full state of development, having had its seventh head since the year 1763 C.E. By now we have also had more than a quarter of a century of the United Nations (not to speak of its predecessor, the League of Nations). Under the driving force of pursuing their own national goals and preserving their own national sovereignties in defiance of God’s kingdom as rightful government for the earth, the “kings of the entire inhabited earth” are irresistibly being gathered to the “war of the great day of God the Almighty.” The time for the unparalleled battle at Har–Magedon, which the apostle John saw in pictorial preview, should be quite near, nearer than the self-occupied people of the world think! With God the Almighty and his King of kings being the ones against whom the “kings of the earth and their armies” are drawn up in total warfare, the tide of battle can go only one way, from its very start. We can have confidence, therefore, that the apostle John is correct in his prophetic description of the battle, as follows:

THE BATTLE AT HAR–MAGEDON

¹² “And I saw the wild beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage the war with the one seated on the horse and with his army. And the wild beast was caught, and along with it the false prophet that performed in front of it the signs with which he misled those who received the mark of the wild beast and those who render worship to its image. While still alive, they both were hurled into the fiery lake that burns with sulphur. But the rest were killed off with the long sword of the one seated on the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth. And all the birds were filled from the fleshy parts of them.”​—Revelation 19:19-21.

13. (a) How much of the enemy organization does Almighty God take on as his battle opponent? (b) While doing what is the “wild beast” caught, and who runs it down?

¹³ This battle account makes it certain that God the Almighty takes on as his opponent the entire visible organization of the symbolic dragon, “the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan.” In support of that visible worldwide organization, symbolized by the seven-headed wild beast, go all its component parts, namely, the “kings of the earth and their armies,” the military commanders, the strong men, the horse riders, the freemen and the slaves, the small ones and the great. The “false prophet” is also a part of that visible planetary system, for it is the dual world power of Britain and America, the dominant part of the whole visible organization of this world. The whole world system is not wily enough to elude the execution of divine judgment for all its ungodly deeds and the way it has preyed upon the people. The symbolic wild beast, along with its false prophet, is “caught,” yes, caught while committing its last misdeeds against the faithful worshipers of Jehovah God. The King of kings, Jesus Christ, is the one who runs down this ferocious wild beast. Like a maneater, it is destroyed.

14. What does the hurling of the “wild beast” and the “false prophet” signify for them?

¹⁴ Never again will this beastly world system of political rule, along with its political “false prophet,” victimize mankind. Not as dead, nonfunctioning political institutions, but, as Revelation 19:20 states, “while still alive, they both were hurled into the fiery lake that burns with sulphur.” Never will they come out of this “fiery lake” alive, for their death in battle is not due to the death that the sinner Adam brought upon all his human offspring. The “fiery lake” symbolizes another kind of death, an endless death from which there is no resurrection. Revelation itself (Re 20:14) explains it, saying: “This means the second death, the lake of fire.” All human efforts in patriotically fighting to perpetuate this political system for running human affairs will fail!

15. What shows whether there will be a resurrection of the dead for the rulers and the ruled people slain at Har–Magedon?

¹⁵ Will there, then, be a resurrection for the others, who as rulers or as ruled people fight for the symbolic wild beast and false prophet against God’s kingdom in the hands of his King of kings? There is a total extermination of them. The tongue of the militant King of kings, which proceeds out of his mouth like a sharp long sword, orders the execution of them all, and the angelic armies of heaven carry out his royal orders. So those willful opposers of God’s Messianic kingdom are all killed off. They are not counted as having suffered an honorable death, making the “supreme sacrifice” for country and government. They are not buried in memorial tombs, in nationally maintained military cemeteries to be visited annually on a Memorial Day or Decoration Day. As undeserving of a resurrection, they are pictured as having their corpses left lying exposed on the battlefield of Har–Magedon, their stinking bodies attracting all the birds that live on carrion flesh. It is foretold: “All the birds were filled from the fleshy parts of them.” They gorge themselves to bursting on the “great evening meal of God.”​—Revelation 19:17-21.

16. What must be said of survival of the war at Har–Magedon, as to (a) the earth, (b) the birds, and (c) exceptions to the worshipers of the wild beast?

¹⁶ It is to be noted that the account does not say that the literal earth over which the “kings” have reigned is burned up. No, but the earth survives the “war of the great day of God the Almighty” at Har–Magedon. Also, “all the birds that fly in midheaven” survive, to feast upon the fleshy parts of the bodies strewn over the earth. But there are also human survivors on earth after the “war of the great day of God the Almighty.” This is not shown here directly in this battle account. Yet this must be so! Why? Because not all the inhabitants of the earth at the time of the battle will be misled by the “false prophet.” There will be exceptions, though comparatively few, to “those who received the mark of the wild beast and those who render worship to its image.” (Revelation 19:20) What about the “great crowd,” whom the apostle John saw earlier in the vision and who were seen standing before God’s throne and before the Lamb Jesus Christ? They are not among those fighting against God’s Messianic kingdom at Har–Magedon.

17. What does Revelation, chapter seven, show regarding the attitude of the “great crowd” toward God and his Messianic kingdom?

¹⁷ Telling about these, John says: “They keep on crying with a loud voice, saying: ‘Salvation we owe to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb.’” After making inquiry about these, one of the twenty-four heavenly elders tells John: “These are the ones that come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (Revelation 7:9-14) This “great crowd” that comes “out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues” was definitely not against the Messianic kingdom of God. It refused to receive the “mark of the wild beast” and to “render worship to its image.”

18. Why will the earth not be found empty of human life when Christ’s thousand-year reign begins?

¹⁸ So the “great crowd” will not fall slain with people executed at Har–Magedon, but will “come out of the great tribulation,” the grand climax of which will be the “war of the great day of God the Almighty.” Surviving that “great tribulation” and hailing victorious Jehovah God and the Lamb Jesus Christ, the “great crowd” will, as with palm branches, look forward joyfully to the thousand years ahead. So the earth will not be found empty of human life as the glorious thousand years of Christ’s reign begins.

Chapter 3

Enjoying the Visionary Preview of the Thousand Years

1, 2. (a) Will our earth be burned up in the war at Har–Magedon? (b) How is this shown by what is done to Satan and his demons thereafter?

OUR earthly globe will not be reduced to ashes and smoke by being burned up in the “war of the great day of God the Almighty” at Har–Magedon. This is shown by what happens to Satan the Devil right after that war. How so? Because he and his demon angels are found still alive at the earth, to which they were cast down in defeat after a war broke out in heaven after the birth of God’s Messianic kingdom in the heavens. Down Satan and his demons plunged to earth’s vicinity, to be retained there for a “short period of time.” (Revelation 12:7-13) Because they are restrained to the earth clear through the “war of the great day of God the Almighty,” God’s angel needs to come down to the earth to take further action against them. Respecting this we read in John’s account of his vision:

² “And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven with the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he seized the dragon, the original serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. And he hurled him into the abyss and shut it and sealed it over him, that he might not mislead the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After these things he must be let loose for a little while.”​—Revelation 20:1-3.

3. Is Satan the Devil the only one abyssed, and to what warfare on his part does this put an end?

³ At the time that Satan the Devil was cast out of heaven, his demon angels were cast out with him and confined to the neighborhood of the earth. So what is done to their ruler applies also to them. They are seized, chained and abyssed with Satan the Devil for the thousand years. Not only does this put a stop to their further misleading the worldly nations, but it puts an end to their waging warfare against the remnant yet on earth of the Christian heirs of God’s Messianic kingdom. Concerning this, Revelation 12:13, 17 tells us: “Now when the dragon saw that it was hurled down to the earth, it persecuted the woman that gave birth to the male child [symbolizing God’s Messianic kingdom in the heavens]. And the dragon grew wrathful at the woman, and went off to wage war with the remaining ones of her seed, who observe the commandments of God and have the work of bearing witness to Jesus.”

4, 5. (a) Does that warfare kill off all the Kingdom remnant and the “great crowd,” and what testimony on this do we have? (b) Of whose presence, then, does Satan’s abyssing relieve the earth?

⁴ This devilish warfare fails to kill off all the remnant of Kingdom heirs who keep God’s commandments and bear witness to His Son, Jesus Christ. It also fails to kill off the “great crowd” who accept this witness to the Messiah Jesus and who come from all nations of the earth and join the Kingdom remnant in worshiping Jehovah God at his spiritual temple. Testifying to their survival, Revelation 7:9-15 says concerning this “great crowd” out of all races, nations and tribes: “These are the ones that come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. That is why they are before the throne of God; and they are rendering him sacred service day and night in his temple; and the One seated on the throne will spread his tent over them.”

⁵ Thus the confining of Satan and his demon angels in the abyss does not leave the earth desolate of all human inhabitants. The abyssing relieves the earth, not of the presence of the Kingdom remnant and of the “great crowd,” but, rather, of the presence of Satan the Devil and his demon angels. During their thousand years of imprisonment in the abyss they will be as if they ‘were not.’​—Compare Revelation 17:8.

EARTH’S RULERS FOR A THOUSAND YEARS

6. Satan’s abyssing raises what question as to the rulership of the earth?

⁶ No longer will Satan the Devil be the ruler of the world of mankind or the “god” of the system of things. (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 2 Corinthians 4:4) Who, then, will rule the inhabited earth during the thousand years that Satan the Devil is abyssed and “is not”?

7. What did John see in vision that answers this question?

⁷ In the vision the apostle John saw by whom the rulership of the earth was to be administered. He says: “And I saw thrones, and there were those who sat down on them, and power of judging was given them. Yes, I saw the souls of those executed with the ax for the witness they bore to Jesus and for speaking about God, and those who had worshiped neither the wild beast nor its image and who had not received the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand. And they came to life and ruled as kings with the Christ for a thousand years. (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. Happy and holy is anyone having part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no authority, but they will be priests of God and of the Christ, and will rule as kings with him for the thousand years.”​—Revelation 20:4-6.

8, 9. (a) Where were the thrones seen located, and how many of them actually were there? (b) So John was seeing the beginning of what “day,” and how did Paul speak of it at Athens?

⁸ The thrones that John saw were up in heaven, not on earth, for these are the thrones of those who are to rule as kings with the Christ for a thousand years. The number of thrones was therefore not indefinite. The number was 144,000, to correspond with the 144,000 spiritual Israelites who are sealed with the “seal of the living God” and who follow the Lamb Jesus Christ “no matter where he goes.” (Revelation 7:1-8; 14:1-5) During the past thousands of years that Satan the Devil has been the “ruler of this world” there has been such an absence of justice or miscarriage of justice that it will be an excellent thing when the power of judging mankind is committed to these 144,000 associate judges of the Lord Jesus Christ. So when the apostle John saw those 144,000 thrones and those who sat down on them, he was seeing the beginning of the glorious judicial day that was spoken of to the Court of Areopagus, Athens, nineteen centuries ago, in these words:

⁹ “God . . . has fixed the day on which he will have the world judged, and justly judged, by a man of his choosing; of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”​—Acts 17:22-31, New English Bible, of 1970.

10, 11. What kind of “souls” were they that John saw, and for what work were they equipped?

¹⁰ The apostle John further identifies the occupants of the judicial thrones as being the 144,000 Kingdom joint heirs of the Lord Jesus Christ by going on to say: “Yes, I saw the souls of those executed with the ax for the witness they bore to Jesus and for speaking about God, and those who had worshiped neither the wild beast nor its image and who had not received the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand.”​—Revelation 20:4.

¹¹ The apostle John did not see headless “souls.” By using the descriptive word “souls” he was not talking like spiritistic mediums about “disembodied spirits.” He was using the word “souls” in the way that the inspired Holy Scriptures use the word, and he meant live, conscious beings in bodies, through which bodies they expressed their personalities. Only, in order to occupy judicial thrones in the invisible heavens, their bodies would have to be spirit bodies. In the discussion of the resurrection of the dead, we are told in 1 Corinthians 15:44: “It is sown [in death] a physical body, it is raised up a spiritual body.” Hence the apostle John saw live, conscious heavenly bodies, persons equipped with mental abilities for judgment work, and these John identified as being those “executed with the ax” for the witness of Jesus and God’s Word.

“EXECUTED WITH THE AX”

12. (a) Have all Kingdom joint heirs of Christ been executed with the ax literally? (b) Does God figuratively do the executing with the ax, or who does so, and for what?

¹² However, not all the 144,000 Kingdom joint heirs of Jesus Christ were executed with the ax or beheaded for the witness they bore to Jesus and for speaking about God. Not in a literal way! The apostle James, the natural brother of John, was killed by the sword, possibly beheaded, by King Herod Agrippa I. (Acts 12:1, 2) According to tradition, the apostle Paul was beheaded at Rome, Italy. (2 Timothy 4:6-8) But not all the 144,000 suffer a martyr’s death by having their heads chopped off. Certainly it is not God who does the executing of them with the ax, either literally or figuratively, inasmuch as it was for speaking about Him that they are all executed with the ax. It is the political state that executes them. In the case of the Roman Empire, of which the apostle John was a prisoner on the penal island of Patmos, this power of execution was symbolized by the ax wrapped within a bundle of rods with which criminals were scourged and beheaded. This symbol was called the fasces, and was carried in procession by lictors before the highest Roman magistrate. Benito Mussolini the Duce of the Fascist Party popularized this symbol during his regime in Italy.

13. According to Revelation 20:4, why does the political state world wide figuratively execute the 144,000 Kingdom heirs with the ax?

¹³ In effect the political state of this world executes the 144,000 Kingdom heirs by judging them as unworthy to live under its authority. It sentences them to death, as it were. The reason for this is made plain by the apostle John. In what way? In that, as John says, they “had worshiped neither the wild beast nor its image” and “had not received the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand.” In other words, these 144,000 Kingdom heirs had not worshiped the political state in any of its varied expressions throughout the earth. Neither had the remnant of these Kingdom heirs in this twentieth century worshiped that international organization for world peace and security now known as the United Nations, but known previously as the League of Nations. The symbolic “wild beast,” the worldwide political state, is the one that is hurled into the destruction symbolized by the “fiery lake that burns with sulphur” in the “war of the great day of God the Almighty” at Har–Magedon.​—Revelation 13:1-17; 14:9-11; 19:19, 20; 20:4.

14. In what way do the 144,000 Kingdom heirs not worship the wild beast or receive its mark on forehead or hand?

¹⁴ The 144,000 Kingdom heirs do not worship the symbolic “wild beast,” meddling in its politics, running for political offices, sharing in its sanguinary warfare. Thus they do not receive a mark on their foreheads nor on their hands, to symbolize that they are slaves of the state and are lending it an active hand in carrying on its worldly activities, often beastly. Neither do the 144,000 worship the “image to the wild beast,” ascribing salvation to a man-made international organization for world peace and security. They worship only the God about whom they speak and give their allegiance to Him as the Universal Sovereign. They do not magnify the earthly political state, but bear witness to Jesus, the Son of God, as being the Christ, the Messiah, whom the Most High God has appointed to rule the world of mankind for a thousand years. Little wonder that the “wild beast” executes the 144,000 as with the ax!

15. What do all the 144,000 experience finally on earth, and how is it that they can sit down on judicial thrones in heaven?

¹⁵ Whether finishing their earthly course by a violent martyr’s death or not, all the 144,000 Kingdom heirs do at last die in a physical way. How is it, then, that they can enter into the kingdom of the heavens and sit down on those judicial thrones up there? It is not by any immortality of the human soul, but is by a resurrection from the dead. Says John concerning “those executed with the ax for the witness they bore to Jesus and for speaking about God”: “And they came to life and ruled as kings with the Christ for a thousand years.”​—Revelation 20:4.

16. In their coming to life again, it is as what kind of creatures, and what now is the measure of their life?

¹⁶ They “came to life” again, not on earth as human creatures or human souls, but up in heaven as spiritual sons of God. It is as such that they are seen by the apostle John in vision. They have a span of life longer than that of mankind today. They can live longer than Methuselah did, who lived 969 years. (Genesis 5:25-27) They can live for the thousand years of their reigning with Christ and then on into endless eternity, for they are clothed upon with immortality at their resurrection from the dead. (1 Corinthians 15:50-57) At the instant of their being resurrected they are at the fullness of life, without weakness, without corruption, without any of the imperfection that had previously attached to their dying physical bodies that they had inherited from sinful Adam and Eve. They are perfectly alive, justified by Almighty God to everlasting life in the spirit.​—1 Corinthians 15:42-55.

17. (a) Will the “great crowd” of survivors of the “great tribulation” be made instantaneously perfect after the abyssing of Satan? (b) When will they be able to keep God’s law flawlessly, and why?

¹⁷ In order to emphasize this difference between their instantaneous state at resurrection and the state of the rest of the world of mankind at the start of the thousand years, the apostle John proceeds to say: “These came to life again and reigned with Christ for a thousand years, though the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were over.” (Revelation 20:4, 5, New English Bible) This proves that even the “great crowd” of worshipers at God’s spiritual temple, who survive the “great tribulation,” will not instantaneously be made perfect in their flesh and pronounced worthy of everlasting life on earth immediately after the binding and abyssing of Satan the Devil and his demons. By the uplifting aids and blessings of the thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ, they will progress gradually to human perfection and to ability to live sinlessly in the flesh and to keep God’s laws flawlessly. But what about those billions of humans asleep in earthly memorial tombs and watery graves?

18. (a) Those coming forth from Haʹdes during the millennium will include what human sympathizer of Jesus? (b) When will such resurrected human dead come to human perfection, and how?

¹⁸ As regards these, John’s preview of the thousand years shows us what happens to them, saying: “And the sea gave up those dead in it, and death and Haʹdes gave up those dead in them, and they were judged individually according to their deeds.” (Revelation 20:13) Among those thus coming forth from Haʹdes or the common grave of dead mankind will be that evildoer hung on an execution stake alongside Jesus, to whom Jesus said: “Verily I say unto thee this day: With me shalt thou be in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43, Rotherham’s translation; New World Translation) This evildoer will come forth from Haʹdes into the earthly Paradise reestablished for mankind by the kingdom of Jesus Christ. In that Paradise the evildoer will share the opportunity along with all the other resurrected human dead to correct his life course and be cured of human imperfection and sinfulness. In this way, by the end of the thousand years of Christ’s reign, he will be able to reach the goal of human perfection in God’s image and likeness. All those attaining to human perfection and sinlessness on earth by the end of the thousand years must, however, undergo a final test of their loyalty to God’s universal sovereign rule, in order to keep their perfect life.

19. (a) So, then, how is it that “the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended”? (b) What is done to those who do not pass the test of loyalty to God’s sovereignty?

¹⁹ Those perfected humans on earth who maintain their integrity and prove faithful to God’s rightful rule will be declared righteous by the Supreme Judge, Jehovah God. These innocent ones He will declare to be worthy of eternal life, and He will assign to them the right to endless life in happiness in the earthly Paradise. Free of all condemnation, these obedient ones now really live from God’s perfect standpoint. In this manner it is, then, that “the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.” (Revelation 20:5) Those perfected humans who do not faithfully pass that test of godly loyalty after the thousand years are ended will be everlastingly destroyed, just as John in his preview presents the matter, saying: “And death and Hades were hurled into the lake of fire. This means the second death, the lake of fire. Furthermore, whoever was not found written in the book of life was hurled into the lake of fire.” (Revelation 20:14, 15) So these disloyal ones do not attain to life eternal.

“THE FIRST RESURRECTION”

20-22. (a) When John returns to discussing “the first resurrection,” why does a question come up regarding Ephesians 2:1-6? (b) Similarly with regard to Colossians 2:11-13, where Paul discusses Christian circumcision?

²⁰ After interjecting that statement about the “rest of the dead,” the apostle John refers back to the coming to life again on the part of those who were “executed with the ax for the witness they bore to Jesus and for speaking about God” and proceeds to say: “This is the first resurrection. Happy and holy is anyone having part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no authority, but they will be priests of God and of the Christ, and will rule as kings with him for the thousand years.”​—Revelation 20:5, 6.

²¹ Can it be that this “first resurrection” of these 144,000 Kingdom joint heirs of the Christ is what the apostle Paul speaks of at Ephesians 2:1-6? There the apostle writes to the first-century Christians in the city of Ephesus, Asia Minor, and says: “And you were dead, through the crimes and the sins in which you used to live when you were following the way of this world, obeying the ruler who governs the air, the spirit who is at work in the rebellious. . . . But God loved us with so much love that he was generous with his mercy: when we were dead through our sins, he brought us to life with Christ​—it is through grace that you have been saved—​and raised us up with him and gave us a place with him in heaven, in Christ Jesus.”​—The Jerusalem Bible, Roman Catholic, of 1966.

²² Similarly, when discussing Christian circumcision with Christians in Colossae, Asia Minor, the apostle Paul wrote: “This is circumcision according to Christ. You have been buried with him, when you were baptised; and by baptism, too, you have been raised up with him through your belief in the power of God who raised him from the dead. You were dead, because you were sinners and had not been circumcised: he has brought you to life with him, he has forgiven us all our sins.”​—Colossians 2:11-13, Je.

23. (a) Because the foregoing scriptures refer to one of the “first” experiences in a Christian’s life, what does the New Catholic Encyclopedia say about the “first resurrection”? (b) Hence, about Satan’s binding for a thousand years?

²³ We do have to admit that this passing from death to life in a figurative way, or in a spiritual sense, is one of the “first” experiences in a Christian’s course. So, taking this experience to be the “first resurrection” mentioned in Revelation 20:5, 6, the New Catholic Encyclopedia (copyrighted 1967) goes on to say under the title “Millenarianism”:

. . . The “first resurrection” symbolizes Baptism, . . . by which one shares in Christ’s resurrection. . . . All the faithful, both those on earth and those in heaven, share in the 1,000 year reign of Jesus, a symbol for the entire life span of the Church considered in its glorious aspect from the Resurrection of Christ until the Last Judgment, . . . The chaining of Satan during this same period signifies that the influence of Satan has been notably reduced, not completely removed. The lessening of Satan’s influence is the result of the effectiveness of Christ’s Redemption. After a final struggle near the end of time . . . Satan will be completely conquered by Christ. . . .

24, 25. How long has been the Church’s life-span since Pentecost of 33 C.E., and what does Paul say about ruling as kings in the Christian congregation during his time?

²⁴ Does such an explanation of the “first resurrection” harmonize with what John writes in Revelation 20:1-6? Well, since the day of the Festival of Weeks in the year 33 C.E., when the Christian congregation at Jerusalem began to be baptized with God’s holy spirit, until now, the “life span of the Church” has proved to be, not just one thousand years, but nearly double that. During all these nearly two millenniums has any member of the true Christian congregation “reigned,” even in the midst of the congregation itself?

²⁵ Who of the apostles thus “reigned”? Not the apostle Paul! For he wrote to certain ambitious members of the congregation in Corinth: “You have begun ruling as kings WITHOUT us, have you? And I wish indeed that you had begun ruling as kings, that we also might rule with you as kings. For it seems to me that God has put us the apostles last on exhibition as men appointed to death, because we have become a theatrical spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men.” (1 Corinthians 4:8, 9) To his missionary companion Timothy, he presented the matter of reigning as coming after the Christian’s physical death, saying: “Faithful is the saying: Certainly if we died together, we shall also live together; if we go on enduring, we shall also rule together as kings; if we deny, he also will deny us.”​—2 Timothy 2:11, 12.

26. According to Jesus’ words to the Laodiceans, what is shown as regards a Christian’s reigning on earth from the day of his baptism?

²⁶ And what about the apostle John? While on the Roman penal isle of Patmos as an exile, he quoted the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ as saying to the Christians in Laodicea: “To the one that conquers I will grant to sit down with me on my throne, even as I conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.” (Revelation 3:21) All the reigning was future, after the physical death of the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. There was to be no reigning on this earth, from the day of the Christian’s baptism in water.

27, 28. (a) Does Revelation 20:4 picture them as coming to life from a figurative death by a willing water baptism? (b) By what means is the death pictured as coming, and for what, and so from what kind of death must the “first resurrection” be?

²⁷ By what kind of resurrection is it that “they came to life and ruled as kings with the Christ for a thousand years”? By a figurative resurrection or by a literal resurrection from actual death and the grave? Revelation 20:4 does not speak of their coming to life from the figurative death that they willingly experience when they are baptized in water as Jesus himself was. No, but it is the death that they experience when they are “executed with an ax for the witness they bore to Jesus and for speaking about God.”

²⁸ This ‘execution with an ax’ comes upon them not by their will, but by the will of the enemies of God and of Christ, and it occurs after their baptism in water and because they bear witness to Jesus as the Christ and speak about God as the rightful Ruler of the universe (including our earth). This ‘execution with the ax’ results eventually in a real physical death. Consequently, their ‘coming to life again’ to rule as kings is from a literal, physical death, and not from a figurative one that takes place at water baptism. Likewise, the ruling as kings does not begin on earth after a spiritual resurrection that follows their baptism in water. The resurrection meant in Revelation 20:4-6 is the real, literal resurrection from the sleep of death in Sheol or the common grave of mankind.

29, 30. (a) Is it true of those who have had merely a figurative resurrection that “over these the second death has no authority”? (b) What does Paul say on this in Hebrews 10:26-31?

²⁹ Another point in proof of this must not be overlooked: Revelation 20:6 says: “Happy and holy is anyone having part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no authority.” That second death is symbolized by the “fiery lake that burns with sulphur.” (Revelation 19:20; 20:14) Is this true of those who have merely been baptized with water and who have spiritually been made alive from death in trespasses and sins and who have been raised up together spiritually and been “seated . . . in the heavenly places in union with Christ Jesus”? (Ephesians 2:1, 5, 6) No, it is still possible for these baptized ones to prove unfaithful while on earth under test and to come under the penalty of the “second death,” total annihilation. That is why the apostle Paul warned the baptized, anointed Christians in Corinth, Greece: “Let him that thinks he is standing beware that he does not fall.” (1 Corinthians 10:12) Also, Hebrews 10:26-31 warns the baptized, anointed Christians:

³⁰ “If we practice sin willfully after having received the accurate knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice for sins left, but there is a certain fearful expectation of judgment and there is a fiery jealousy that is going to consume those in opposition. Any man that has disregarded the law of Moses dies without compassion, upon the testimony of two or three. Of how much more severe a punishment, do you think, will the man be counted worthy who has trampled upon the Son of God and who has esteemed as of ordinary value the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and who has outraged the spirit of undeserved kindness with contempt? For we know him that said: ‘Vengeance is mine; I will recompense’; and again: ‘Jehovah will judge his people.’ It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

31. What does Hebrews 6:4-8 say on this?

³¹ Also, in Hebrews 6:4-8 we read: “It is impossible as regards those who have once for all been enlightened, and who have tasted the heavenly free gift, and who have become partakers of holy spirit, and who have tasted the fine word of God and powers of the coming system of things, but who have fallen away, to revive them again to repentance, because they impale the Son of God afresh for themselves and expose him to public shame. For example, the ground that drinks in the rain which often comes upon it, and that then brings forth vegetation suitable to those for whom it is also cultivated, receives in return a blessing from God. But if it produces thorns and thistles, it is rejected and is near to being cursed; and it ends up with being burned.”

32. Only those Christians who experience what kind of resurrection are not subject to the “authority” of the “second death” or harmed by it?

³² In view of this, the “first resurrection” is not that figurative resurrection that follows baptism in water and that leaves the baptized one still exposed to the possibility of the “second death,” liable to its “authority.” It is the real, literal resurrection from Sheol to life as a spirit son of God in the invisible heavens to which Jesus Christ himself ascended. To these the promise of Jesus applies: “Prove yourself faithful even to death, and I will give you the crown of life. Let the one who has an ear hear what the spirit says to the congregations: He that conquers will by no means be harmed by the second death.” (Revelation 2:10, 11) Those having part in the “first resurrection” cannot be harmed by the “second death” and are not subject to its “authority” because in this resurrection they have been clothed upon with immortality and incorruption.​—1 Corinthians 15:53, 54.

33. In what two ways can it be called “the first resurrection”?

³³ We can now appreciate the reason why this is called “the first resurrection.” It is because it is the same kind of resurrection that Jesus Christ experienced on the third day of his death, a resurrection to instantaneous fullness of life, so that the resurrected Jesus Christ became “the firstborn from the dead.” (Revelation 1:5; Colossians 1:18) It precedes in time the ‘coming to life’ of the “rest of the dead.” It is not only first in time, but also “first” in being the best resurrection that the dead could experience. It is a resurrection to incorruptible, immortal life as a spirit son of God in God’s own heavens.

34. How are those having part in the “first resurrection” holy?

³⁴ Indeed, then, it can be exclaimed: “Happy and holy is anyone having part in the first resurrection.” (Revelation 20:6) They are truly “holy” in that no unfaithfulness on their part that would deserve “the second death” is possible for them. Also, by this resurrection it is made possible for them to be heavenly “priests of God and of the Christ” and to “rule as kings with him for the thousand years.” Satan the Devil will not be the world’s ruler then.

A REAL, DEFINITE “THOUSAND YEARS”

35, 36. (a) Have Christians, since baptism, experienced a lessening of Satan’s influence due to the “effectiveness of Christ’s Redemption”? (b) What do the advices of Peter and Paul indicate would be the case?

³⁵ So the chaining and abyssing of Satan the Devil and his demon angels does not signify what the New Catholic Encyclopedia says, namely, the notable reducing of Satan’s influence during this present system of things, such a lessening of Satan’s influence resulting from the “effectiveness of Christ’s Redemption.” Certainly true Christians on earth have not felt such a lessening of Satan’s influence, any notable reduction of it, since their baptism in water. Rather, the apostle Peter found it necessary toward the end of his earthly life to write this warning to the Christians: “Keep your senses, be watchful. Your adversary, the Devil, walks about like a roaring lion, seeking to devour someone.” (1 Peter 5:8) For the same reason the apostle Paul gave them this advice:

³⁶ “Put on the complete suit of armor from God that you may be able to stand firm against the machinations of the Devil; because we have a wrestling, not against blood and flesh, but against the governments, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the wicked spirit forces in the heavenly places. On this account take up the complete suit of armor from God, that you may be able to resist in the wicked day and, after you have done all things thoroughly, to stand firm.”​—Ephesians 6:11-13.

37. What does Revelation 12:17 indicate as to whether Satan has been figuratively chained since Christ’s act of redemption?

³⁷ Furthermore, in Revelation 12:1-17, the apostle John describes with symbols the birth of God’s Messianic kingdom and the operations of the “great dragon,” “the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan,” after this one has been cast out of heaven and down to our earth. Then, as a special warning to true Christians in this twentieth century when these things occur, John adds these words: “And the dragon grew wrathful at the woman, and went off to wage war with the remaining ones of her seed, who observe the commandments of God and have the work of bearing witness to Jesus.” (Revelation 12:17) Does all this sound like any notable reducing of the power and influence of Satan toward Christians after their baptism in water? Is this a chaining of Satan?

38. Satan is bound and abyssed to keep from further misleading whom?

³⁸ However, according to what the apostle John actually says, why is it that Satan the Devil is seized, chained and hurled into the abyss? It is “that he might not mislead the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended.” (Revelation 20:1-3) By the word “nations” John means, not the baptized, anointed 144,000 Kingdom heirs, but people who are not true, genuine followers and imitators of the Lord Jesus Christ. At the time of the Devil’s being cast out of heaven he is spoken of as “Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth.” (Revelation 12:9) The faithful 144,000 Kingdom heirs are not part of those “nations” of the inhabited earth who are being misled. So, not the 144,000 partakers of the “first resurrection,” but the “nations” are the ones whose further misleading is to be stopped by the binding and abyssing of Satan the Devil and his demon angels.

39. Has there been a reduction in Satan’s misleading of the nations since Pentecost of 33 C.E., and what does Revelation 12:12 foretell?

³⁹ Well, then, has the misleading of such nations by Satan the Devil been decreased, reduced, lessened, during these more than one thousand nine hundred years since the baptism of the Christian congregation with God’s holy spirit on the day of the Festival of Weeks at Jerusalem in 33 C.E.? To this question, who is there so blind and so unacquainted with human history as to answer Yes? The opposite has been true. Today, in this age of the greatest enlightenment of mankind in a scientific way, the worldly “nations” are being misled to an extent never before known, and with more serious consequences. Why? Because this international deception by Satan and his demons means the destruction of all these misled nations in the very near future. With good reason the “loud voice in heaven” said at the ousting of Satan the Devil: “Woe for the earth and for the sea, because the Devil has come down to you, having great anger, knowing he has a short period of time.”​—Revelation 12:10-12.

40, 41. (a) What argument of religionists regarding the thousand years of Satan’s binding is thus proved false? (b) What does mankind need to take place in a real way, and who now are putting their hopes in Christ’s millennial reign?

⁴⁰ So this argument by religionists of Christendom that the “thousand years” of the abyssing of Satan the Devil does not mean a literal thousand years but applies to the “entire life span of the Church” on earth (already more than 1,900 years long) is proved to be false!

⁴¹ According to the Bible’s timetable, the beginning of the seventh millennium of mankind’s existence on earth is near at hand, within this generation. Now as at no time in the past the inhabitants of earth need the binding and abyssing of Satan the Devil in a real way. The world events immediately ahead of this are about to take place, and mankind’s great adversary and oppressor will be sealed up in the abyss for ten centuries of time. The royal rule of Christ and his resurrected congregation for a thousand years of peace and blessing to the human family is before us with all its glorious possibilities! A “great crowd” of dedicated Bible believers who are now putting their hopes in the millennial reign of Christ have divine assurance of being preserved from death and being ushered into that brightest period of all human history. What a blessed prospect for them!

42. What questions arise as to the attitude of the “great crowd” toward their millennial rulers, and so what is it timely for us to consider?

⁴² Will not that “great crowd” get tired of having the same rulers over them for a thousand years? Will they not, long before the end of that time period, want a change of government and clamor for a popular election of a different set of rulers? Or will they not, rather, learn to love these heavenly priests and kings over them more and more and be thankful to have them remain in office for all of God’s appointed time? These are serious questions, for under this millennial kingdom this “great crowd” will have the opportunity to live as long as that heavenly government endures​—a thousand years, and thereafter to time without end. In now considering these interesting questions, it becomes timely for us to examine more fully what kind of kings and priests there will be and how precious their services will be to all mankind, the living survivors and the dead. (2 Timothy 4:1) This calls for us to look into their background of the past and what the Most High God has required of them in order to count them worthy to serve as millennial kings and priests.

[Picture on page 32]

Fasces

Chapter 4

Kings for a Thousand Years Without Successors

1. From whose time onward have man-made kingdoms proved unsatisfying?

MAN-MADE kingdoms have not turned out to be satisfying to human needs. From at least the twenty-second century before our Common Era, or more than 4,150 years ago, the human family began to have man-made kingdoms. The name of the first human king on record is Nimrod, the great-grandson of the ark-builder Noah, and Nimrod appears to have been a self-made king, according to the record of Genesis 10:8-12.

2. (a) What was Noah’s attitude toward kingdom? (b) For what type of government do the majority of people have a decided preference today?

² Noah, who outlived the beginning of Nimrod’s kingdom, did not make him the king of Babel (or Babylon). Noah did not make even himself a king, but continued merely as the patriarchal head of the expanding human family. (Genesis 9:28, 29; 10:32 to 11:9) Today, for the most part, the peoples have tired of having kings with their hereditary successors in their natural families. There is a decided preference for people’s governments, such as republics and democracies with popularly elected presidents. Under these democracies the people soon tire of one set of rulers provided mostly by one political party and seek for a change by electing to office candidates provided by another political party.

3. Who has had his fill of man-made kingdoms, and what did he have declared in the location of the first man-made kingdom?

³ Humans are not the only ones tired of man-made kingdoms with their hereditary successors. God is also. In fact, God is tired of all the man-made governments on earth today.a If the people have not yet had their fill of them, He has. In fact, it is on His property (the earth) that these man-made governments have carried on their misrule or unsatisfying rule, inadequate rule. That is why He had it declared in the place where the first man-made king came to power, in Babylon itself, that in His own chosen time he would destroy all these man-made governments to make way for the thousand-year reign of his Son, Jesus Christ. Through his prophet Daniel he said to Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon: “In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be brought to ruin. And the kingdom itself will not be passed on to any other people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it itself will stand to times indefinite.”​—Daniel 2:44.

4, 5. (a) Who are the rulers over mankind whom God loves? (b) According to the apostle John, the love of such rulers for God ensures their love also of whom else?

⁴ According to this purpose of His, the Most High God of heaven does not love those kings and other political rulers on earth. They do not love Him either, even though many of them may be kings and political rulers of what is called Christendom. If they did love Him, they would be doing what Jesus Christ, the Son of God, said to his disciples: “Keep on, then, seeking first the kingdom and his righteousness,” and they would not be holding political office in some man-made government today. (Matthew 6:33) It is very important for mankind to have as king over them a person whom the God of heaven loves. That holds true for the associates of such a king: for mankind’s good they should be persons whom God loves. That is why he will keep them in office. That is why he puts them in office, in the first place. They are and will be lovers of the one living and true God. This means, necessarily, that they will be lovers of the people on earth also. On this very point the apostle John wrote:

⁵ “If anyone makes the statement: ‘I love God,’ and yet is hating his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot be loving God, whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, that the one who loves God should be loving his brother also.”​—1 John 4:20, 21.

6. How has the insistence of rulers on keeping their boundaries and sovereignties affected mankind?

⁶ Human kings and other political rulers have been very jealous of their national or state boundaries, which act as dividers between nations and peoples. Each political ruler seeks to hold control within his own territory, and he expects the people therein to be loyal to him. Under this system of things, the earth has been cut up into many national and state territories in each of which national sovereignty is insisted upon, and this has not worked for the unifying of all mankind. National rivalries have developed. So now an intriguing question arises.

7. What is God’s purpose concerning heavenly rulership of the earth, and how does Revelation 14:1-5 indicate this?

⁷ The divine purpose is not to have Jesus Christ rule as king alone for the thousand years. The beloved Son of God is not to stand up alone as King on the heavenly Mount Zion, the seat of government. But, as the apostle John tells us: “I saw, and, look! the Lamb standing upon the Mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand having his name and the name of his Father written on their foreheads. . . . And they are singing as if a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders; and no one was able to master that song but the hundred and forty-four thousand, who have been bought from the earth. . . . These are the ones that keep following the Lamb no matter where he goes. These were bought from among mankind as firstfruits to God and to the Lamb, and no falsehood was found in their mouths; they are without blemish.”​—Revelation 14:1-5.

8. What questions arise as to the territorial assignments to members of the 144,000 Kingdom heirs, and also language considerations?

⁸ Since there will thus be 144,001 royal rulers over the earth, does this mean that the earth will be divided up into 144,000 territories, with one of the 144,000 over each individual territory, and with the people therein being responsible to that particular one as king under Jesus Christ the Head King? Would not such a parceling out of the inhabitants of the earth result in boundaries, even though invisible, and would not this create some measure of difference between earth’s inhabitants on different sides of the boundaries? Also, would a former Chinese-speaking Kingdom heir be appointed over an area inhabited by Chinese-speaking people, a Russian-speaking Kingdom heir over a Russian-speaking population, an English-speaking Kingdom heir over English-speaking, and so on according to the distinct language groups? Will divisive language barriers continue to exist, hindering mutual understanding?

9. (a) From among whom have the 144,000 Kingdom heirs been taken out, in accord with what command of Jesus? (b) What question comes up as to their language differences?

⁹ These are natural questions, proper questions. But in this regard it must be said that the Bible does not indicate what assignments of kingly responsibility will be given out through the Head King Jesus Christ to the individuals making up the 144,000 joint heirs of Christ. Over the past nineteen centuries since the founding of the Christian congregation in 33 C.E., these 144,000 joint heirs of Christ have been taken out from nations, peoples and tribes of many languages. Said the resurrected Jesus Christ to his disciples who were gathered together in Galilee some days before he ascended back to heaven: “Go therefore and make disciples of people of all the nations, baptizing them.” (Matthew 28:19) Are we to imagine that up in heaven, in Kingdom glory, the 144,000 associate kings will be divided by language differences and need interpreters? The apostle Paul wrote about the “tongues of men and of angels.”​—1 Corinthians 13:1.

10. What will be the language of the 144,000 in heaven, and what becomes of their former earthly languages?

¹⁰ Unquestionably, the resurrected glorified 144,000 will all speak but one heavenly language, the gift of this language being conferred upon them in their new spirit bodies at their resurrection from the dead. This does not mean that their former earthly language will be erased from their minds. No, for it will be by identifying themselves by their former human language that they will be able to recognize themselves as being the same persons. But at their heavenly resurrection they will speak the language of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he will speak the language of his heavenly Father, Jehovah God.

ONE RACE, ONE LANGUAGE

11. Under the millennial kingdom, what will be done about present-day language barriers on earth, and how, and why?

¹¹ Likewise, the present-day language barrier on earth will be removed from mankind under the thousand-year reign of Christ and his 144,000 associate kings. God’s original purpose for the earth was that it should be comfortably filled with human creatures speaking one common language, the language of their first earthly father, the perfect man Adam. In the garden of Eden the human race started out with one language. After the planetary flood of Noah’s day, God gave mankind a fresh righteous start with one language, the language of righteous Noah, the tenth man in line of descent from Adam. That one language continued on down till the attempt at building the Tower of Babel.

12. How will God undo the language effects from the action he took at the Tower of Babel?

¹² Then Almighty God broke up the unity of the builders who were combining their efforts in a bad work. How? It was by confusing the language and thus causing them to scatter as language groups to separate parts of the earth. (Genesis 11:1-9) In harmony with His original purpose, God will bring mankind as a whole back to the one family language, the language with which He endowed mankind’s first human father, only with a far larger vocabulary, possibly with embellishments from other languages that God invented at the Tower of Babel.

13. For whom will a temporary language problem thus be produced, but what benefits will result?

¹³ For those who lived prior to the Flood, including the eight human survivors of that Noachian deluge, this will present no great problem at their resurrection from the dead to life on earth under God’s Millennial kingdom. But for the vast majority of the rest of mankind, it will mean learning a new language, the language God purposes for all humankind. In view of good language instructors used by the Kingdom, there should be no great problem on this account. Even resurrected babies can be taught the new language from infancy. In this way they will all be able to communicate with one another directly, with full understanding of one another’s language terms and expressions. What a unifying effect this will have on the human family! Think of their all being able to read the inspired Hebrew Scriptures,b each one for himself, and to observe how all its prophecies have come true and how it also contains an accurate historical account down to the days of the prophet Malachi! Then the honest-hearted ones will be able to say, as did the apostle Paul: “Let God be found true, though every man be found a liar.”​—Romans 3:4.

14. How will present-day interracial, international and intertribal barriers be done away with for those who take part in the first resurrection?

¹⁴ As with the language barrier, so with the present-day barriers due to race, nation and tribe. For the 144,000 Kingdom heirs who share in the “first resurrection,” these latter barriers will all be in the past. Those barriers have all attached to the flesh. Their resurrection will not be with the fleshly body that they formerly had here on earth, for it is written: “This I [the apostle Paul] say, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit God’s kingdom, neither does corruption inherit incorruption.” (1 Corinthians 15:50) “Even if we [Christians] have known Christ according to the flesh, certainly we now know him so no more.” (2 Corinthians 5:16) In the “first resurrection” the 144,000 Kingdom heirs come into the “divine nature,” not human nature with all its present-day interracial, international, intertribal barriers. (2 Peter 1:4) They will all be brothers in a special heavenly family, sons of God: “If, then, we are children, we are also heirs: heirs indeed of God, but joint heirs with Christ.” (Romans 8:17) Thus there will be unity among them according to the “divine nature.”

15, 16. (a) How do the 144,000 Kingdom heirs surmount human, earthly obstacles in order to keep unity? (b) They stick to what request made by Jesus in prayer to God in their behalf?

¹⁵ However, even during the time of their being here in the flesh under test on the earth, these 144,000 Kingdom heirs have not allowed racial, national and tribal barriers of mankind in general to divide. According to the flesh they are “disciples of people of all the nations.” (Matthew 28:19) But they are Christ’s disciples first, and they consider themselves as being of this or that race, nation and tribe only second. Their being Christ’s baptized disciples unifies them on earth and surmounts all fleshly, human obstacles. That is why they declare themselves and maintain themselves strictly neutral toward the interracial, international, intertribal conflicts of this world and do not take part in politics, local, national or international. They stick to what Jesus Christ requested in prayer to God concerning them:

¹⁶ “I make request concerning them; I make request, not concerning the world, but concerning those you have given me; because they are yours . . . I have given your word to them, but the world has hated them, because they are no part of the world, just as I am no part of the world. . . . Also, I have given them the glory that you have given me, in order that they may be one just as we are one. I in union with them and you in union with me, in order that they may be perfected into one, that the world may have the knowledge that you sent me forth and that you loved them just as you loved me.”​—John 17:9-23.

INTERNATIONAL PEACEFULNESS OBSERVED

17. (a) How have the 144,000 not imitated the religionists of Christendom and Jewry as to warfare? (b) What Scriptural rule will they as heavenly kings enforce on earth’s people?

¹⁷ This is why, on earth, the 144,000 Kingdom heirs have not imitated Roman Catholics in fighting with carnal weapons against Roman Catholics, Orthodox Churchmen against Orthodox Churchmen, Protestants against Protestants and natural Jews against natural Jews, because of living under national governments that are engaged in deadly warfare. They have not gone forth disciple-making with the Gospel message or the Holy Bible in one hand and a sword or machine gun in the other hand. Although from many distinct nations, they have carried out the principle stated in the prophecy of Isaiah 2:4: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Authorized or King James Bible Version) And if they have clung to this divine rule when they themselves were on earth, they will enforce it when they are kings over the earth, requiring their subjects on earth to abide by the same peaceful rule.

18. What other international group on earth is abiding by this rule of conduct, as foreseen by the apostle John?

¹⁸ As a happy forerunner of this, there is a great international crowd that is now associated with the remnant of those Kingdom heirs and that is abiding by that same peaceful rule of conduct. It is the remarkable group that was foretold as due to gather together in this time in world history, just as the apostle John describes it, saying: “After these things I saw, and, look! a great crowd, which no man was able to number, out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, dressed in white robes; and there were palm branches in their hands. And they keep on crying with a loud voice, saying: ‘Salvation we owe to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb [Jesus Christ].’ . . . ‘These are the ones that come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. That is why they are before the throne of God; and they are rendering him sacred service day and night in his temple; and the One seated on the throne will spread his tent over them.’”​—Revelation 7:9-15.

19. God’s new system will start off with people on earth already living in what relationship with one another, and what words of Peter to lovers of long life will they heed?

¹⁹ Since Jehovah God spreads his tent of protection over this “great crowd” of today and brings them safely through the approaching “great tribulation,” those who enter alive into God’s new system of things over the earth will be a peaceful international crowd. The war-making nations will then be gone! Human society in God’s new order will start off with a “great crowd” of tribulation survivors all of whom are at peace with one another already. In their love of everlasting life they will continue to act in harmony with the words quoted by the apostle Peter: “He that would love life and see good days, let him restrain his tongue from what is bad and his lips from speaking deception, but let him turn away from what is bad and do what is good; let him seek peace and pursue it.”​—1 Peter 3:10, 11; Psalm 34:12-14.

20. (a) In order to fulfill what Bible prophecy concerning him, will Christ not let that peace be disturbed? (b) How will Christ’s reign be like that of Solomon?

²⁰ After the storm of the “great tribulation,” earth-wide peace like a rainbow will be radiant over the cleansed planet. Jehovah’s millennial King, the Lamb Jesus Christ, will not permit that peace to be disturbed. Otherwise, he would not be living up to the prophecy long ago pronounced concerning him: “There has been a child born to us, there has been a son given to us; and the princely rule will come to be upon his shoulder. And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. To the abundance of the princely rule and to peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom in order to establish it firmly and to sustain it by means of justice and by means of righteousness, from now on and to time indefinite. The very zeal of Jehovah of armies will do this.” (Isaiah 9:6, 7) Let us remember that Jesus Christ is “something more than Solomon.” (Matthew 12:42) The forty-year reign of King Solomon, the son of David, was marked by peace, in accordance with the very name Solomon, which means “Peaceable.” Jesus Christ, though, will maintain a peace of a thousand years.

“UPON THE THRONE OF DAVID AND UPON HIS KINGDOM”

21. From whose throne and kingdom can the princely rule of the Prince of Peace not be disconnected, neither its peace?

²¹ If we read Isaiah 9:6, 7 again, we notice that the “princely rule” of the Prince of Peace is to be “upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom.” We cannot disconnect this promised endless peace from the throne and kingdom of David, who ruled as king in Jerusalem during the years 1070-1037 B.C.E. It is not made dependent upon any president of the United States of America or upon the United Nations as a man-made organization for world peace and security. Why is this so?

22. (a) On what basis would Jehovah’s zeal fulfill that prophecy? (b) As regards religion, what kind of man was David?

²² It is because of an unbreakable covenant or divine promise that “Jehovah of armies” made respecting King David at Jerusalem early in his reign there. On what basis? Well, David was no atheist, no agnostic. He was a very religious man, but not like the idol worshipers or polytheists of the non-Israelite nations of his time. Read for yourself the many psalms or lyrical poems composed by David and as contained in the Book of Psalms, and you will find that David was a wholehearted worshiper of Jehovah, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. In one of his best-known psalms, Psalm 23, David said: “Jehovah is my Shepherd. I shall lack nothing. Surely goodness and loving-kindness themselves will pursue me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of Jehovah to the length of days.” (Psalm 23:1, 6) Also, in Psalm 40:8, 9 he said: “To do your will, O my God, I have delighted, and your law is within my inward parts. I have told the good news of righteousness in the big congregation. Look! My lips I do not restrain. O Jehovah, you yourself know that well.”

23, 24. (a) After bringing the Ark of God’s covenant to Jerusalem, what did David desire to do about its housing? (b) What did Jehovah tell David about building?

²³ Some months after King David had made Jerusalem his capital city, he had the sacred Ark of the Covenant, “the ark of the true God,” brought up to Jerusalem and placed in a tent that was pitched near the royal palace. David felt keenly the difference between his palatial residence, “a house of cedars,” and that of Jehovah’s Ark of the Covenant. Finally he suggested to the prophet Nathan the building of a worthy temple for Jehovah’s ark. (2 Samuel 7:1-3) But God sent to David this word:

²⁴ “Blood in great quantity you have spilled, and great wars you have waged. You will not build a house to my name, for a great deal of blood you have spilled on the earth before me. Look! There is a son being born to you. He himself will prove to be a restful man, and I shall certainly give him rest from all his enemies all around; for Solomon is what his name will become, and peace and quietness I shall bestow upon Israel in his days. It is he that will build a house to my name.”​—1 Chronicles 22:8-10.

25. In appreciation, what house did Jehovah promise to build for David?

²⁵ This did not mean that Jehovah did not appreciate David’s loving desire to build a house of worship in honor of God’s name. Jehovah did, and to show his appreciation he made a covenant or made a solemn promise to build a house for David, not a literal house of residence but a house of a line of kings in David’s family. By the prophet Nathan this word was sent to King David: “Jehovah has told you that a house is what Jehovah will make for you. . . . And your house and your kingdom will certainly be steadfast to time indefinite before you; your very throne will become one firmly established to time indefinite.”​—2 Samuel 7:11-16.

26. In grateful acknowledgment, what did David say in prayer concerning Jehovah’s name and His purpose concerning the “house”?

²⁶ In gratefully acknowledging this divine covenant, David said in prayer: “And now, Jehovah God, the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house carry out to time indefinite and do just as you have spoken. And let your own name become great to time indefinite, saying, ‘Jehovah of armies is God over Israel,’ and let the very house of your servant David become firmly established before you. For you, Jehovah of armies the God of Israel, have made a revelation to your servant’s ear, saying, ‘A house I shall build for you.’ That is why your servant has taken heart to pray to you with this prayer. And now, O Sovereign Lord Jehovah, you are the true God; and as for your words, let them prove to be truth, since you promise to your servant this goodness. And now take it upon yourself and bless the house of your servant for it to continue to time indefinite before you; for you yourself, O Sovereign Lord Jehovah, have promised, and due to your blessing let the house of your servant be blessed to time indefinite.”​—2 Samuel 7:25-29.

27. To show that he was holding to the Kingdom covenant with David, what did Jehovah say through Isaiah, and later through Ezekiel, to King Zedekiah?

²⁷ The Sovereign Lord Jehovah answered that prayer of David. That is why, over three hundred years later, by his prophet Isaiah, he declared that the zeal of Jehovah of armies would firmly establish the princely rule of the Prince of Peace “upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom” and would sustain it “from now on and to time indefinite.” (Isaiah 9:6, 7) More than a century afterward, when the kingdom of the descendants of David at Jerusalem was about to be destroyed, Jehovah showed that he was holding to his Kingdom covenant with David by declaring that the right to the kingship would not depart from the house of David. Addressing himself to Zedekiah, the last king to sit upon David’s throne at Jerusalem, Jehovah spoke by the prophet Ezekiel and said: “Remove the turban, and lift off the crown. This will not be the same. Put on high even what is low, and bring low even the high one. A ruin, a ruin, a ruin I shall make it. As for this also, it will certainly become no one’s until he comes who has the legal right, and I must give it to him.”​—Ezekiel 21:25-27.

28. (a) When was the kingdom of the house of David overthrown, and what office did Zerubbabel hold over Judah seventy years later? (b) What did Zechariah prophesy concerning cleansing David’s house?

²⁸ The throne of David was overthrown at the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 607 B.C.E., and the surviving Jews were exiled to Babylon. Seventy years later a remnant of God-fearing Jews were released from Babylon to return to the land of Judah and to build another temple on the location of the first temple that had been built by King Solomon at Jerusalem. Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, a descendant of King David, was made the governor of Judah and Jerusalem. Jehovah raised up the prophets Haggai and Zechariah to encourage Governor Zerubbabel in the work of rebuilding the temple. Still showing loyalty to the Kingdom covenant with David, Jehovah inspired the prophet Zechariah to say: “In that day there will come to be a well opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for an abhorrent thing.”​—Zechariah 13:1.

29. When did Jerusalem and Judah get an Edomite king, and what question might there have been about the Kingdom covenant with David?

²⁹ More than four hundred years passed by and the land of Palestine came under the control of the imperialistic Romans. Under appointment by the Roman Senate, a non-Jewish Edomite called Herod the Great came to be king of Jerusalem and the province of Judea. After all those centuries, had not Jehovah God forgotten all about that covenant with David for an everlasting kingdom, the peace of which was to have no end? All together, more than a thousand years had gone by since God made that covenant, and by now had not the covenant become obsolete, out-of-date, no longer showing any signs of life because of seemingly being in a state of lapse? Faithless men might have thought so. But what about God?

BIRTH OF KING DAVID’S EVERLASTING HEIR

30, 31. (a) What line of descent from King David did Jehovah watch? (b) Whose daughter in the line of descent did Jehovah notice, and to whom did she get engaged to marry?

³⁰ The unforgetting God, the divine Maker of the Kingdom covenant, held himself bound to fulfill his covenant promise to David. He kept watching the male descendants of faithful King David for whom he had promised to build a royal house. He saw one of the lines of descent from David passing, not through King Solomon, but through another of David’s sons, Nathan. This particular line runs on down through twenty others and brings forth Zerubbabel, who became governor of Jerusalem in the days of the prophet Zechariah. Zerubbabel had a son named Rhesa, after whom there was a further unbroken line of descent through sixteen others, after which Heli was born as the son of Matthat. (Luke 3:23-31) Then God took note, not of a male descendant, but of a daughter of Heli. She was born in the city of Bethlehem in the Roman province of Judea during the last half of the first century B.C.E. She was called Mary.

³¹ In course of time Mary was taken northward to the city of Nazareth in the Roman province of Galilee. There she became of marriageable age, and she was brought into an engagement to marry a carpenter named Joseph the son of Jacob, a resident of Nazareth.

32. Why was that engagement to marry Joseph appropriate, and what question about David’s heir arose?

³² This marriage engagement was very appropriate. Why so? For the reason that Joseph, although a lowly carpenter in the obscure town of Nazareth, was a descendant of King David, not through Nathan, but through David’s first royal successor, Solomon. Thus Joseph had a legal claim to the throne of his royal ancestor David. Was Joseph now to become the direct, natural father of the long-promised everlasting heir of King David?

33, 34. (a) Why did Jehovah give evidence of being with Mary? (b) What now took place worked for fulfillment of what prophecy of Jacob on his deathbed?

³³ Well, before the wedding took place and Joseph took Mary away from her home to the home he provided for her as his legally wedded wife, a most unusual thing happened, something that the Brain-Age men of this twentieth century refuse to believe. The time was now about the end of the year 3 B.C.E. It was a marked time for God, for which he had long waited. Suddenly the evidence came to light that God was with Mary the daughter of Heli, not only for the kind of Jewish girl that she was but because she was a descendant of the royal family of David of the tribe of Judah. So what took place was working toward the fulfillment of the inspired prophecy pronounced by the patriarch Jacob over his fourth son, Judah. This was away back in the year 1711 B.C.E., and the dying Jacob said over Judah:

³⁴ “A lion cub Judah is . . . like a lion, who dares rouse him? The scepter will not turn aside from Judah, neither the commander’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh [or, The One Whose It Is] comes; and to him the obedience of the peoples will belong.”​—Genesis 49:8-10.

35, 36. (a) What miraculous thing had God done for Elizabeth the aged relative of Mary? (b) What did the angel Gabriel tell Mary of God’s purpose toward David’s throne?

³⁵ How did God show that he was with Mary the virgin girl of the tribe of Judah and of the royal family of David? God did something for Mary that was greater than what he had done for an aged relative of Mary named Elizabeth, the wife of the Levite priest Zechariah. God miraculously revived the reproductive powers of Zechariah and Elizabeth, so that she was now in the sixth month of her pregnancy and was soon to give birth to a son who would come to be called John the Baptist. But what did God do for the virgin Jewess Mary, whose time of betrothal to the carpenter Joseph was not yet full? The medical doctor Luke tells us:

³⁶ “In her sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent forth from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin promised in marriage to a man named Joseph of David’s house; and the name of the virgin was Mary. And when he went in before her he said: ‘Good day, highly favored one, Jehovah is with you.’ But she was deeply disturbed at the saying and began to reason out what sort of greeting this might be. So the angel said to her: ‘Have no fear, Mary, for you have found favor with God; and, look! you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and you are to call his name Jesus. This one will be great and will be called Son of the Most High; and Jehovah God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule as king over the house of Jacob forever, and there will be no end of his kingdom.’”​—Luke 1:26-33.

37. How did Gabriel explain Mary’s bearing a son without a human father?

³⁷ This meant that Mary’s intended husband Joseph was not to be the direct natural father of Jesus! What? A birth of a son without a human father? To explain to her how this miraculous virgin birth would come to be, the angel Gabriel went on to say: “Holy spirit will come upon you, and power of the Most High will overshadow you. For that reason also what is born will be called holy, God’s Son. And, look! Elizabeth your relative has also herself conceived a son, in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her, the so-called barren woman; because with God no declaration will be an impossibility.”​—Luke 1:34-37.

38. What now took place with Mary, and of whom was her child to be the Son?

³⁸ Did Mary consent to become in this way the earthly mother of the one who was to be the everlasting and permanent heir of King David? Luke 1:38 tells us: “Then Mary said: ‘Look! Jehovah’s slave girl! May it take place with me according to your declaration.’ At that the angel departed from her.” Thereafter holy spirit did come upon Mary, and power of the Most High God did overshadow her. So she became pregnant miraculously, not by her intended husband Joseph. This meant that Jehovah God the Most High was the Father of the child Jesus now conceived in her. Other inspired scriptures explain that Jehovah God transferred the life of His beloved heavenly only-begotten Son to an egg cell in Mary and made her fruitful. (John 3:16; Philippians 2:5-11) There was nothing unholy about this. That is why “what is born will be called holy, God’s Son.” This all occurred at God’s fixed time, just as it is written: “When the full limit of the time arrived, God sent forth his Son, who came to be out of a woman and who came to be under law [the Mosaic law].”​—Galatians 4:4.

THE PERMANENT HEIR OF THE KINGDOM COVENANT

39. (a) Who was to make Mary’s son Jesus king over the house of Jacob? (b) What kind of right did Jesus inherit through Mary?

³⁹ What the angel Gabriel told Mary made certain that her son Jesus was to be the Permanent Heir of King David: “Jehovah God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule as king over the house of Jacob forever, and there will be no end of his kingdom.” (Luke 1:32, 33) Not the Jews of nineteen centuries ago nor the natural Jews of today were to give this Jesus the throne of his forefather David. The heavenly Father, Jehovah God, was to give him that throne of the Kingdom, which, in David’s case, was only “over the house of Jacob,” the patriarchal father of the twelve tribes of Israel. So by means of the virgin Jewess Mary her firstborn son was born into the royal family of David, and by her Jesus had a fleshly natural right to David’s kingdom. In proof of this fact the apostle Paul was inspired to write about the good news from God: “Concerning his Son, who sprang from the seed of David according to the flesh, but who with power was declared God’s Son according to the spirit of holiness by means of resurrection from the dead​—yes, Jesus Christ our Lord.”​—Romans 1:1-4.

40. (a) What did Joseph feel obligated toward God to do respecting Mary’s son Jesus, thus conferring what upon Jesus? (b) Whose son does Luke call Joseph, and why?

⁴⁰ After Mary’s pregnancy was discovered, her intended husband was given an explanation and told to take Mary as his wife to his home for her. Joseph did so, there at Nazareth. He realized his obligation toward God to adopt God’s Son by Mary as his own firstborn son and thereby give Jesus the legal right to David’s throne, forasmuch as Joseph was a descendant of David through King Solomon.c (2 Samuel 7:13-16) This is what Joseph did by having Jesus circumcised on the eighth day of his birth and calling his name Jesus and also by presenting the babe Jesus on the fortieth day of his birth in purification rites for himself and Mary at the temple in Jerusalem. (Matthew 1:17-25; Luke 2:21-24) This is why he was called “the son of Joseph.” (John 1:45; 6:42) This is why, too, in Doctor Luke’s genealogy of Jesus Christ he says: “Furthermore, Jesus himself, when he commenced his work, was about thirty years old, being the son, as the opinion was, of Joseph, son of Heli.” (Luke 3:23) Joseph, who was really the son of Jacob, was also called the “son of Heli” because he had married Heli’s daughter Mary and so was Heli’s son-in-law.

41. Where was the one called “Jesus of Nazareth” born in 2 B.C.E.?

⁴¹ Jesus Christ was later called “Jesus of Nazareth” and “Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.” (John 19:19, AV; Matthew 21:11) Does this mean that Jesus was born in Nazareth? No, for before his birth his mother Mary and her husband Joseph, because of both of them being born in Bethlehem of Judah, were obliged to move down to Bethlehem in the year 2 B.C.E. for registration purposes under the decree of the Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus. Jesus thus came to be born in Bethlehem, which was called “the city of David,” because David the son of Jesse himself had been born there.​—Luke 2:1-7, AV.

42, 43. What angelic testimony besides that of Gabriel do we have to the effect that Mary’s son was to be God’s Messiah?

⁴² We have more than the testimony of the angel Gabriel that this Jesus the son of Mary was to be the Messiah or Christ, the Anointed One who was to be the permanent inheritor of the throne and kingdom of David. We have the testimony of another heavenly angel on the night of Jesus’ birth about the beginning of October, 2 B.C.E. This glorious angel appeared to shepherds who still had their flocks out in the fields near Bethlehem at that time of the year.

⁴³ To the frightened shepherds the angel said: “Have no fear, for, look! I am declaring to you good news of a great joy that all the people will have, because there was born to you today a Savior, who is Christ the Lord, in David’s city. And this is a sign for you: you will find an infant bound in cloth bands and lying in a manger.” That this was no ordinary birth was shown by what then happened: “And suddenly there came to be with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God and saying: ‘Glory in the heights above to God, and upon earth peace among men of goodwill.’”​—Luke 2:8-14.

44. Why was the child Jesus taken down to Egypt, and how is it that he became a carpenter in Nazareth?

⁴⁴ Satan the Devil became aware of the birth of this Son of God who was to become “Christ the Lord.” Jealous over his own rulership of this world, Satan the Devil tried to have the young child Jesus killed sometime after his being presented at the temple in Jerusalem, and this by the hand of suspicious King Herod the Great. So God’s angel told Joseph to flee with the mother and child down to Egypt until further notice. After King Herod’s death God’s angel told Joseph to return to the land of his people. But, because King Herod’s son Archelaus was ruling over the Roman province of Judea, including Bethlehem, Joseph bypassed Bethlehem and returned to Nazareth in the province of Galilee. There Jesus was brought up and came to be called a Nazarene. There this future King worked as a carpenter.​—Matthew 2:1-23; 13:55; Mark 6:1-3.

45. To become really the Messiah or Christ, what did Jesus, like David, need to have? (b) When and why did Jesus go to the Jordan River to be baptized?

⁴⁵ However, the word Christ or Messiah, meaning Anointed One, could not really apply to Jesus until he actually became anointed. His ancestor, the shepherd David of Bethlehem, had been anointed by God’s prophet Samuel many years before he actually was enthroned as king in Israel. (1 Samuel 16:1-13; 2 Samuel 2:1-4; 5:1-3) It went similarly with Jesus. In his thirtieth year as a perfect human being, his relative, John the Baptist, began his baptismal work because he then started announcing God’s kingdom, saying: “Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.” (Matthew 3:1, 2) From this announcement Jesus knew that the time had come for him to apply himself exclusively to the interests of God’s Messianic kingdom. As he neared the end of his thirtieth year of human life he left Nazareth and made his way to John, who was baptizing people in the Jordan River. Why? Not to be baptized as a symbol of repentance over sins, of which he had none, but to symbolize his presenting of himself completely to Jehovah God in order to do the divine will in connection with the “kingdom of the heavens,” the kingdom of God. John did not understand this. Hence we read:

46. (a) How did Jesus there at his baptism become the Messiah or Christ? (b) Why did God there call the baptized Jesus his Son?

⁴⁶ “Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, in order to be baptized by him. But the latter tried to prevent him, saying: ‘I am the one needing to be baptized by you, and are you coming to me?’ In reply Jesus said to him: ‘Let it be, this time, for in that way it is suitable for us to carry out all that is righteous.’ Then he quit preventing him. After being baptized Jesus immediately came up from the water; and, look! the heavens were opened up, and he saw descending like a dove God’s spirit coming upon him. Look! Also, there was a voice from the heavens that said: ‘This is my Son, the beloved, whom I have approved.’” (Matthew 3:13-17) By that descent of God’s spirit upon the baptized Jesus he was anointed, anointed not by John the Baptist, but by God. In this way he became the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One. This was in early autumn of the year 29 C.E. God also pronounced him then his Son, because now by His spirit he had begotten Jesus to be his spiritual Son. (John 1:32-34) He was now a spiritual Messiah or Christ, higher than a human Messiah.

47. What opportunities to become a mere human Messiah did Jesus refuse, and what work did he take up in accord with his anointing?

⁴⁷ Did Jesus Christ now try to make himself an earthly king “over the house of Jacob,” at Jerusalem? No! In the wilderness of temptation, he refused an offer by Satan the Devil to make him the king, not merely over the house of Jacob, but over all the kingdoms of this world. (Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13) Later, after performing a marvelous miracle of feeding a multitude, he withdrew from an attempt by thousands of well-fed Jews to make him their earthly king. (John 6:1-15) He knew that his kingdom was to come from the One who had anointed him to be Messianic King, Jehovah God. Appreciating the preliminary work that his being anointed with God’s spirit entailed upon him, Jesus Christ took up the peaceful work of teaching and preaching God’s kingdom throughout the land of the “house of Jacob.” Especially so after the imprisonment of John the Baptist in the year 30 C.E.

48. In the synagogue of Nazareth, what prophecy of Isaiah did he read to the Nazarenes, and what did he endeavor to do for the rest of his earthly life?

⁴⁸ In the synagogue at Nazareth he read to the Nazarenes the prophecy of Isaiah 61:1, 2, saying: “Jehovah’s spirit is upon me, because he anointed me to declare good news to the poor, he sent me forth to preach a release to the captives and a recovery of sight to the blind, to send the crushed ones away with a release, to preach Jehovah’s acceptable year.” With that as the theme for his sermon, the baptized Jesus began by saying: “Today this scripture that you just heard is fulfilled.” (Luke 4:16-21) By this he was giving his former townspeople to understand that he was Jehovah’s Anointed One, the Messiah, the Christ. During all the rest of his earthly life he made it his endeavor to fulfill what his anointing with Jehovah’s spirit authorized, commissioned him to do.

49, 50. (a) Did Jesus form an army to reestablish the kingdom of Israel? (b) What explanation did Jesus give to Pilate for being a king and yet not fighting for a kingdom?

⁴⁹ Consequently, he did not meddle in the politics of this world or form an army like the Maccabees and drive out the Romans from the land and reestablish the kingdom of David at Jerusalem. Why not?

⁵⁰ The reason for not doing so he explained to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, to whom he had been handed over by his religious enemies to be executed as a seditionist against the Roman Empire. In answer to the governor’s question, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus finally said: “My kingdom is no part of this world. If my kingdom were part of this world, my attendants would have fought that I should not be delivered up to the Jews. But, as it is, my kingdom is not from this source.” At this Pilate said: “Well, then, are you a king?” Bearing witness to the truth, Jesus answered: “You yourself are saying that I am a king.” Yes, king of a kingdom that is no part of the world to which the Roman Empire was then the world power.​—John 18:33-37.

51, 52. (a) What did Jesus instruct his “attendants” to do? (b) Did Jesus tell the twelve apostles and then the seventy evangelizers to carry on political activities or evangelical work, and how?

⁵¹ Jesus’ words, “my attendants,” meant whom? Why, his unarmed disciples, including his twelve apostles (“sent-forth ones”). These too he instructed to refrain from the politics of this world and its violent combats and to specialize on teaching and preaching peaceably the good news of the promised kingdom of God.

⁵² When he sent forth the twelve apostles on one occasion, he did not tell them to organize an underground political movement and stir up insurrection among the Jews; but he said: “As you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.’ Cure sick people, raise up dead persons, make lepers clean, expel demons. You received free, give free.” (Matthew 10:1-8) When Jesus later sent out seventy other evangelizers he gave them similar instructions and told them what to preach, saying: “Also, wherever you enter into a city and they receive you, eat the things set before you, and cure the sick ones in it, and go on telling them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’”​—Luke 10:1-9.

53, 54. (a) In his prophecy on his presence and the conclusion of this system, what preaching did Jesus foretell? (b) Carrying on this preaching allows for no meddling in what, as they know that the government they preach is of what source?

⁵³ On Nisan 11 of the year 33 C.E., just before his death on Passover Day, Jesus gave his remarkable prophecy concerning his future presence and the conclusion of the system of things. In this prophecy he did not fail to foretell the outstanding work that his attendants, his disciples, should do, for he said: “This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:3-14) Before the complete end of this system of things this Kingdom-preaching world wide must be done by his disciples: “Also, in all the nations the good news has to be preached first.” (Mark 13:10) Their doing this Kingdom-preaching peacefully among all nations did not allow for them to meddle in worldly politics and take sides in international conflicts.

⁵⁴ Like their Leader Jesus Christ, they were merely to preach the good news of God’s Messianic kingdom. They were not authorized and empowered to set up that kingdom over the earth. It was not to be an earthly government; it was “not from this source.” It was a heavenly government with superhuman power over all mankind. Naturally, then, only the Most High God of heaven could set up that Messianic government over all the inhabitants of the earth.

55. As far as concerns carrying out his anointing and fulfilling Bible prophecies, can objections be raised as to Jesus’ being qualified to rule all mankind?

⁵⁵ Who, then, in heaven or on earth, can find fault with the earthly life of the Messiah, the Christ, the one anointed to rule as king over all mankind for a thousand years? Who can rightfully object to his becoming the Millennial King as if he were not worthy or qualified? No one can. Pointing to the faultless life of Jesus Christ on earth, the apostle Peter said to the Roman centurion Cornelius and his Gentile friends: “You know the subject that was talked about throughout the whole of Judea, starting from Galilee after the baptism that John preached, namely, Jesus who was from Nazareth, how God anointed him with holy spirit and power, and he went through the land doing good and healing all those oppressed by the Devil; because God was with him. And we are witnesses of all the things he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.” (Acts 10:37-39) All the testimony is to the effect that Jesus Christ on earth fulfilled all that he was commissioned by his anointing to do. He fulfilled all the Bible prophecies concerning him, even down to a martyr’s death.

[Footnotes]