We would like here to return to Brother Doran’s earlier argument against the future-plague scenario as it relates to the following text and to whom it is who gains the victory over the beast and the image, viz.,

“And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.” (Rev 20:4)

Brother Doran states:

“Most of us agree that this verse has a date implied. It speaks of the time (1878 A.D., and following) when the sleeping saints are raised – they “come to life” (NAS) and reign. It is clear to the utmost that this verse is NOT speaking only of the harvest saints. Yet, observe what is said of them: they “had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands”. This qualification clearly applies to 1878 and previous saints and cannot, therefore be used to identify feet members of the body.”

Now it may be that we have simply misconstrued something here, however our difficulty is with the idea that this overcoming of the beast and his image appears to be confined only to the saints up until and around 1878, that this is not likewise a qualification applicable to all the saints to the end of the age, and would naturally include the feet members.

Why not the feet members?

Don’t the saints living after 1878 likewise have to over-come the beast and his image even as those who lived before this date had?

Who are the feet members?

The Pastor showed us that John the Baptist represents a class, the Church in the flesh at the end of the age. The feet members are that antitypical class of John the Baptist.

“While John the Baptist was “the voice” at the First Advent, his work was only a miniature picture or fulfillment of what the feet members will do at the Second Advent. The John the Baptist class—i.e., the feet members—are to prepare the way of God.”

The following excerpt comes from Brother Shallieu’s comments on our subject text.

“The question arises:

Why did the risen Lord give this scene, in such fashion, to the Apostle John for review by the saints down here?

The clue is found in a further scrutiny of the circumstances recorded in Rev 6:9–11, there John saw “under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and… they cried… How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?”

Rev 20:4 speaks of this same class as being “beheaded” (Greek pelekizo, cut with an ax). Figurative beheading implies not merely a consecration to do the Lord’s will even unto death but (possibly) death by execution or violence.

Furthermore, not only did the Apostle John recognize that the beheaded souls in Revelation 20 correspond to the souls seen slain in Rev 6:9–11, but also, he perceived that some among the enthroned saints were those prophesied to be slain in Rev 13:15, which portrays an event (yet future) terminating the earthly career of the feet members of the body of Christ.

In Rev 6:9–11 the ones slain or beheaded were told that they should rest “for a little season” until 1878, at which time they would receive white robes held in trust for them; but as far as being avenged of their blood, they must wait “until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed AS THEY WERE, was completed”—a still later event.

In the throne scene of Revelation 20, the saints who were martyred five centuries earlier are singled out and seen as associates of the risen feet members of The Christ, who likewise do not bow the knee to Baal (the Beast or his image). This is a prophetic indication that the feet members will share a fate in the present life similar to that endured by the souls under the altar. The blood of this former Abel class cannot be requited and their prayer answered until the completion of the Very Elect and the establishment of Messiah’s Kingdom shortly to follow. Then “judgment” will be turned over to those who were thus persecuted in the days of their flesh.

The “souls” of those seen seated on thrones indicates that the ruler-ship of saints over mankind will be not with corporeal bodies or human substance but as spirit beings. At present “the whole world lies in wickedness [the Wicked One],” and Satan is the “god of this [evil] world” (1 John 5:19; 2 Cor. 4:4). Worldlings are likened to “children of disobedience” and are of their father the devil (Eph. 2:2; John 8:44). Just as the Adversary, a strong invisible spirit being, has effectively influenced earth’s inhabitants in wrongdoing, so the invisible Messiah, imbued with power from on high, will, during his reign, influence mankind for good.” (Page 514)

It is apparent that all of the saints must overcome the beast and or his image, and this especially includes the feet members who will experience the added test or trial of the “false prophet” when the image of the beast is vitalized during the hour of power or temptation. Nevertheless, it is apparent that those mentioned in both Rev 15:2 and 20:4 are those resurrected saints beyond the Vail who have already overcome the beast and his image.

We return to Brother Doran’s discussion on the future-plague argument in our next post.