---
title: Revelation 20:6
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/revelation-20-6/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/revelation-20-6.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Revelation 20:6
testament: NT
section: Prophecy
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Revelation 20:6

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection! The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and will reign with Him for a thousand years.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "Happy and holy is anyone having part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no authority, but they will be priests of God and of the Christ, and they will rule as kings with him for the 1,000 years"

## JW Usage

Watchtower commentary takes Revelation 20:6 as referring exclusively to the 144,000 anointed Christians. Only they have part in the first resurrection (a heavenly resurrection at the parousia); only they are priests of God and Christ; only they rule as kings with Christ during the millennium. The "great crowd" of other faithful sheep are resurrected later to live on a paradise earth as subjects of this 144,000-only priest-kingship.

## Protestant Usage

Pair this verse with Revelation 5:9-10: "you bought people of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and you made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God, and they will rule as kings over the earth." The very phrase "every tribe and tongue and people and nation" is the Watchtower's own definition of the great crowd in Revelation 7:9. So the same group called "great crowd" in chapter 7 is called "kings and priests" in chapter 5. The 144,000-restriction in Revelation 20:6 cannot be sustained against Revelation 5's explicit naming of the priests as "every tribe and tongue." Reformed and Catholic readings alike treat the first resurrection broadly, applying to all who belong to Christ.

The verse also says something about Christ himself: these are "priests of God and of the Christ" (NWT). Revelation 1:6 has the same people made "priests to his God and Father," and here the Christ is joined to God in the same phrase. In Scripture a priest belongs to the deity he serves (Exodus 28:1, "that he may serve as priest to me"); there are no priests of an angel or of any creature. Revelation places Christ where only God stands: he has his own "slaves" (2:20), and on the one "throne of God and of the Lamb" his slaves "offer him sacred service" (22:3).

## NWT Issue

The NWT renders basileusousin as "rule as kings" rather than "reign" (consensus ESV/NASB/NIV/KJV). The expansion is defensible — basileuō means "to be king, to reign" — but the rendering interacts with the Watchtower's doctrine of an exclusive kingly class limited to 144,000. "Happy" for makarios is a recurring NWT preference that flattens the standard biblical "blessed."

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Jesus Receives Worship](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/worship-of-jesus.md) — Hebrews 1:6 / Revelation 5:13–14 / Daniel 7:13–14 [Deity of Christ]
- [A Royal Priesthood — Every Believer is a Priest](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/universal-priesthood-1peter29.md) — 1 Peter 2:9 / Revelation 1:6 / 5:10 — The end of mediating classes [Authority]