And the sea gave up those dead in it, and death and Haʹdes gave up those dead in them, and they were judged individually according to their deeds.

34. (a) Does the resurrection there pictured include those sharing in the “first resurrection”? (b) Of what do the “scrolls” then opened not contain a record, and why?

³⁴ This symbolic picture does not involve those who share in the “first resurrection,” and who were already spoken about in Revelation 20:4-6 as being in no danger of the “second death.” This picture refers to those who share in a resurrection to existence on earth, and who will be adjudged worthy of everlasting life only at the end of the thousand years, when they will be able to show their fully acquired righteousness in human perfection. The “scrolls” that are opened and according to the things written in which they are judged favorably or adversely are not scrolls containing the record of all their past imperfect, sinful deeds in this present life under this system of things. The heavenly judges do not need to spend a thousand years in going through the records of past human lives in order to determine the guiltiness or innocence of each individual resurrected. They are not so ignorant or ill-informed about mankind’s past. What the judges are looking to is, not mankind’s past, but mankind’s future. Mankind needs guidance for the future!

35, 36. (a) What, then, do those “scrolls” picture, and who will know the contents of them? (b) Why will there be no excuse for anyone on earth not to know?

³⁵ So those “scrolls” that are opened are the new set of instructions, directions and orders that will be given out by the judges acting for God to mankind. Thus all mankind will be informed of the contents of those opened “scrolls,” in order to know the standards by which they are to be judged and what is to be expected of them as to their future conduct and work. Mankind will not be left in ignorance, and everybody will be obliged to know what is the law according to the judgment scrolls.

37. (a) How will the heavenly judges communicate to mankind the contents of those “scrolls”? (b) How will mankind know when God’s laws and rulings are being executed?

³⁷ How the invisible heavenly judges will communicate the contents of the opened “scrolls” to earth’s inhabitants is not specifically stated to us in the Bible. But there will be direct representatives of the heavenly kingdom of God on the earth. Their presence among mankind will be an official evidence that a “new earth” has come into existence with its new human society.