The millennium is the period in the future of this world’s history, when the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, shall take into His own hands the rule and government of the world.
The despised and rejected Jesus of Nazareth has been cast out, but “God has highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow....and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil. 2:9-11).
The Lord Jesus shall reign with His heavenly saints over the earth. At the present time the whole creation groans (Rom. 8:22), but in that day it shall be “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Satan shall be bound by an angel, in the bottomless pit for the thousand years and shall no longer be able to make this world the sphere of his wiles and delusions, leading men captive in their sins. At the beginning of the reign of Christ there shall be the erection of a magnificent temple. “Behold the man whose name is The Branch....He shall build the temple of the Lord.” (Zech. 6:12). Connected with this shall be the restoration of the Jewish sacrifices and worship according to the ordinance of God. “In those days.... David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel; neither shall the priests, the Levites, want a man before Me to offer burnt offerings and to kindle meat offerings and to do sacrifice continually.” (Jer. 33:161.8). These shall point back to the Lamb of God, once offered as those of old had pointed forward. There shall be no ark in the temple (see Jer. 3:16-17). “At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord.” “In those days it shall come to pass that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, ‘We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’” (Zech. 8:23).
As to the brute creation, “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf, the young lion and the falling together, a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” (Isa. 11:6-9).
Instead of the present short span of life—three score and ten—the days of the Lord’s people shall be compared to the days of a tree. “Neither shall there be any more a child that dies untimely or an old man that shall not complete his time, for the youth shall be a hundred years old, and the sinner who dies at a hundred years also is accursed.” (Septuagint version of Isa. 65:20).
After the thousand years Satan shall be loosed for a little season. This time he diligently employs in seducing the nations in a last attempt against Christ and His saints. He shall know well that his time is short, God shall come upon the scene, in quick, unsparing judgment when all the living wicked shall be destroyed by fire. (Rev. 20:7-9).
VII—The Everlasting State
The judgment of Satan and of the living nations at the end of the little season brings us to the end of time and the dissolution of the present conditions of the heavens and earth. “The heavens shall pass away with a rushing noise and the elements burning with heat shall be dissolved and the earth and the works in it burnt up.” (2 Peter 3:10. N. T.)
There shall be a great white throne and one shall sit on it, before whose face the earth and the heavens shall flee away. This person shall be none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, once the despised “Nazarene,” the “Man of Sorrows,” “the Saviour;” then a righteous judge.
The wicked dead shall be raised to stand before the throne. (Rev. 20:12). They have not eternal life—nothing but dead works. Books will be opened, probably the record of their works. Another book, the book of life, shall be opened to show that their names are not there. The Bible shall be there (John 12:48). The sea, death and hades shall give up their dead. Though the ashes of the infidel may be scattered to the four winds, “There shall be a resurrection.” (Acts 24:15). Death and hades, no longer needed, shall be cast into the lake of fire, and “Whosoever was not found written in the book of like was cast into the lake of fire.” (Rev. 20:15). “The fearful, and unbelieving, the abominable, murderers, whoremongers, sorcerers, idolaters and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” (Rev. 21:8).
In Revelation 21:1-8 is given a description of the everlasting state. It does not so much describe what it shall be, as it does what it shall not be. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away.”
The church, the bride of Christ, symbolized by the holy city, “New Jerusalem,” is seen by the Apostle John in his vision, coming out of heaven “prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband,” having reigned with Christ through the thousand years. How blessed to see her still maintaining her bridal affection and youthful beauty, her attire unspotted, entering the everlasting state in the full strength and fervor of bridal days, in the most intimate relationship.
There shall be no more sea. Israel and the nations shall have no more place as such; everything that shall recall to mind the present world shall pass away forever.
God’s purposes shall be fully realized though opposed by Satan and man from the beginning. “God shall dwell with men.” “They shall be His people and God Himself shall be with them and be their God.” All that hinders the full outflow of the heart of God to His creatures shall be removed.
(Continued from page 305).
(Concluded)