Revelation 5:10

and madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests; and they reign upon the earth.

This is a disputed text, there being even some question of the translation; but despite this, the meaning comes through with absolute clarity. The saints of Jesus Christ, the Christians of all tribes and nations, are now reigning upon the earth with Jesus Christ. Some people do not wish to believe this, but the dogmatic power of this verse refutes the unbelievers. The Christians in this current dispensation reign with Christ. Their reign is exactly in the same sense as that of the apostles "reigning with Christ" (Matthew 19:28), a reign which Jesus Christ himself affirmed would occur during "the times of the regeneration"; that is, the "times of the new birth," meaning the current gospel age. Now, for some of the problems.

The KJV renders this passage: "And hast made us unto our God kings and priests; and we shall reign on the earth." There are two significant changes in the ASV. "Us" is changed to "they," and "we shall reign" is changed to "they reign." We shall take the first change first.

That the "us" here means Christians of the present times is obvious, and since that is the true meaning of the passage, no matter how it is translated, the KJV should be retained. We do not suppose that modern scholarship is any better qualified to solve this than the KJV translators. Furthermore, their translation (1611) is further corroborated and confirmed by the Sinaiticus manuscript, discovered in 1859. Bruce and Seiss both confirm this;[41] and Seiss elaborated his opinion thus:

Some critics and expositors have rejected this (us), for the reason that it is omitted in Codex Alexandrinus and from the Ethiopic version; though the latter is not much more than a loose paraphrase. The Codex Sinaiticus is of equal value and authority with the Alexandrinus, and it has it. So also do the Codex Basilanus (in the Vatican), the Latin, Coptic (Memphitic), and Armenian, and all other manuscripts and versions. We regard it (the "us") as indubitably genuine.[42]

This writer does not pretend to be able to resolve this question, but certainly there must be some basis for the supposition that the KJV may indeed be correct in this instance.

The other problem regards the tense: "We shall reign" (KJV) vs. "they reign." Here the later translations are obviously correct, because that is what the passage means. Even if "shall reign" is read here, it means, "they shall continue to reign, as at the present time." "The context seems to demand the present tense";[43] but even if the future tense is what John wrote, "it would refer to the future immediately subsequent to the appointment of each king and priest."[44] Wallace also agreed to this thus, "We shall reign, literally rendered is are reigning, referring in the Revelation context to their continuing conquests in the trials that were present."[45] As Caird summed it up:

Any suggestion that the reign of the Christians belongs to an ultimate future is beside the point, since we have now been twice told that they are already kings and priests.[46]

The apostle Peter spoke convincingly of this in the first epistle (1 Peter 2:9), where he called Christians a "royal priesthood," which is exactly what is affirmed here, adding that they are now offering up "spiritual sacrifices" to God, thus also "reigning" with Christ.

THE EARTHLY KINGDOM VIRUS

The first and greatest mistake ancient Israel ever made was rejecting the theocratic government of God and demanding a king like the nations around them (1 Samuel 8); and this mistake was likewise their last, for it blinded them against the coming of their hoped-for Messiah. At the time of the First Advent, the Jewish nation, especially its leaders, wanted nothing either in heaven or upon earth as ardently as they wanted the restoration of their earthly monarchy, obliviously ignorant of the fact that a secular kingdom was contrary to God's will from the first. By the times of Jesus, their hopes of a Messiah had degenerated into a carnal malignant patriotism; and when they knew that Christ had no intention of organizing an army and chasing the Romans, they crucified him!

People of our own times who long for some earthly, secular appearance of Christ to establish some kind of a literal kingdom on this earth are guilty of the same mistake as that of ancient Israel. Christ's kingdom is not of this world. It is a reign over the passions and appetites of the body, a reign over the lusts and vanities of the flesh, a spiritual reign of a people who, in a sense, are "called out" of the world with its secular value judgments. The very word "church" means "called out." Every line of the New Testament denies that Christ ever intended or that he ever plans to rule in any temporal sense on this earth. The church age is not to be followed by any so-called "kingdom age." The church is the kingdom; and the thousand years reign refers to the whole time between the First Advent and the Second Advent of Christ. Many people are not satisfied by the type of kingdom established by Christ, resulting in the projection of all kinds of bizarre and unscriptural notions regarding some "future" kingdom. If people can bear to hear it, the "kingdom" has already been in existence since the first Pentecost following the resurrection of Christ. The saints of the New Testament were baptized into that kingdom; and there is none other.

[41] F. F. Bruce, op. cit., p. 643.

[42] J. A. Seiss, The Apocalypse Lectures on Revelation (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1900), pp. 103,104.

[43] J. W. Roberts, The Revelation of John (Austin, Texas: R. B. Sweet Company, 1974), p. 62.

[44] Ibid.

[45] Foy E. Wallace, Jr., op. cit., p. 137.

[46] G. B. Caird, op. cit., p. 77.