THE CRY OF THE MARTYRS

  

In Revelation 6:9-11 is the account of the souls who were killed for their testimony.  The question here is are these martyrs alive or dead.  Many believe these are disembodied spirits are conscious and alive due their crying out.  If this section of scripture is literal then previously in Revelation 5:6 it is literally a slaughtered lamb that opens the fifth seal in Revelation 6:1  And there is literally a white horse whose rider held a bow and a crown was given to him a great sword , then he went out to conquer.  This is followed by three more literal horses of various colors with their riders who in sequence take peace from the earth, cause famine and killing with sword, famine, plague and beasts of the earth.  Then we come to the verses in question, the literal crying our of dead people who want their blood avenged and each receives a white robe but they have no body to put it on because they are disembodied spirits and they are told they must wait until the full number of their fellow saints would be killed as they were.  So then if we assume verses 9 to 11 are literal and not symbolic then we must also assume all the other seals are literal too. 

Revelation is a book that heavily employs symbolism and most people know this but the challenge is to separate the symbolism from reality and this is where for many people it proves to be impossible.  The same can be said of the parable of Lazarus and the rich man that also uses symbolism that is found in the false beliefs of the Pharisees that Jesus was speaking this parable to.  Jesus used their belief of what they considered to be the afterlife against them by giving the reward to Lazarus rather than the rich man. Another example is the transfiguration that Jesus plainly told his disciples was a vision and therefore not real. Did the kingdom of GOD arrive during this event ?  Was Christ glorified before his time as well as Moses and Elijah because Jesus was glorified at his ascension and Moses and Elijah will be at the last day when Jesus returns.

When the spiritually ignorant read scriptures in the Bible that seem to indicate immediate life after death they fall for them and are very willing to abandon the truth of GOD about resurrections from the dead in order to believe in their lie.  They will throw out the plain declarations of the prophets, Jesus and the Apostles about the resurrection of the dead at the return of Jesus in order to cling to their Satan inspired lie.  

Without the Holy Spirit they cannot understand these things so they invent whatever they want that pleases them.