Dean Alford on 1st & 2nd Resurrections

"4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years." (Rev. 20: 4-6 kjv)

When I first settled my mind on the nature of the first and second resurrections of this text years ago as a novice in studies of eschatology, I read the following words from Greek scholar and Bible teacher Henry "Dean" Alford (1810-1871) of England, and I knew he spoke the truth as I was being enlightened on it by the Spirit. It is against the idea that the first resurrection is to be seen as spiritual, alluding to the regeneration or birth of the Spirit in conversion, while the second resurrection is physical. It is clear that both resurrections are of the same kind, i.e. a physical resurrection of corporeal bodies. "The dead" in this text cannot possibly be made to signify "the spiritual dead in trespasses and sins" but to dead physical bodies.  

The following is taken from Alford's Greek Testament, the Prolegomena [book of Revelation], Volume IV, Part 1, p. 252 (as cited here; emphasis mine)

"On one point I have ventured to speak strongly, because my conviction on it is strong, founded on the rules of fair and consistent interpretation. I mean, the necessity of accepting literally the first resurrection, and the millennial reign. It seems to me that if in a sentence where two resurrections are spoken of with no mark of distinction between them (it is otherwise in John 5:28, which is commonly alleged for the view which I am combating),--in a sentence where, one resurrection having been related, "the rest of the dead" are afterwards mentioned, --we are at liberty to understand the former one figuratively and spiritually, and the latter literally and materially, then there is an end of all definite meaning in plain words, and the Apocalypse, or any other book, may mean any thing we please. 

 

It is a curious fact that those who maintain this, studious as they generally are to uphold the primitive interpretation, are obliged, not only to wrest the plain sense of words, but to desert the unanimous consensus of the primitive Fathers, some of whom lived early enough to have retained apostolic tradition on this point. Not till chiliastic views had run into unspiritual excesses, was this interpretation departed from 

[Alford's footnote: The student will find a good account of the history of opinions on this subject in Herzog's Encyclopadie, the article entitled, "Chiliasmus."]"

The following is taken from Alford's Greek Testament, Volume IV, Part II, his note under Revelation 20:5 ("This is the first resurrection"):

"It will have been long ago anticipated by the readers of this Commentary, that I cannot consent to distort words from their plain sense and chronological place in the prophecy, on account of any considerations of difficulty, or any risk of abuses which the doctrine of the millennium may bring with it. Those who lived next to the Apostles, and the whole Church for 300 years, understood them in the plain literal sense: and it is a strange sight in these days to see expositors who are among the first in reverence of antiquity, complacently casting aside the most cogent instance of consensus which primitive antiquity presents.  

 

As regards the text itself, no legitimate treatment of it will extort what is known as the spiritual interpretation now in fashion. If, in a passage where two resurrections are mentioned, where certain "souls lived" at the first, and the rest of the "dead lived" only at the end of a specified period after that first,--if in such a passage the first resurrection may be understood to mean spiritual rising with Christ, while the second means literal rising from the grave; --then there is an end of all significance in language, and Scripture is wiped out as a definite testimony to any thing. If the first resurrection is spiritual, then so is the second, which I suppose none will be hardly enough to maintain: but if the second is literal, then so is the first, which in common with the whole primitive Church and many of the best modern expositors, I do maintain, and receive as an article of faith and hope."