Revelation 20:6

Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: over these the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection ... This beatitude pertains to all who are "in Christ." Such persons already enjoy eternal life in the sense of possessing the promise of it, having the earnest of it, and participating in some of the joys of it.

They shall be priests of God and of Christ ... Preeminently, throughout the whole New Testament, this status of Christians is established as their status at the present time, and in this dispensation, now! Therefore, the priesthood and the reigning of these saints is exactly the same as that of the Christians of all ages, showing that no special period of any kind whatever is meant by this "thousand years" in this passage. See my comment on 1 Peter 2:5, and also in my Commentary on James, pp. 191-199. "All the evidence we have is against the theory of the first resurrection being understood otherwise than as a spiritual resurrection that takes place when any sinner is converted to Christ."[39]

And shall reign with him a thousand years ... "This living and reigning must not be limited to the time after the death of those mentioned."[40] All Christians are now living and reigning with Christ. Plummer paraphrased the thought here thus:

You Christians sit upon thrones and reign with Christ; yea, even those who suffered shameful death share that perfect safety and exaltation, though, in the eyes of the world, they were afflicted and degraded.[41]

A thousand years ... This is the whole period of the Christian dispensation, the same as the time and times and half a time, the same as the forty-two months, the same as the one thousand two hundred and threescore days. All these time-periods are exactly the same and refer to the entire period between the two Advents of Christ.

[39] G. B. Caird, The Revelation of St. John the Divine (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), p. 254.

[40] A. Plummer, op. cit., p. 472.

[41] Ibid.